Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

jimoase wrote:

 

 

Apple has had this problem before.  The last time its was the iMac.  Apple fix each of those iMacs when the uproar got too loud.  Apple, like you, hinges their decision on costs. MBPs aren't a high volume product and 2011 was a long time ago.  If Apple doesn't nothing eventually the outcry will go away.  Apple will say they learned but to know and not to have done, is not to know yet.

That's incorrect, the iMac video card recall and part replacement was paid for by the manufacturer of the part (Nvidia), they made the faulty part and they paid for it.

Please research a little before posting.

Correction, the part manufacturer for the iMac recall was AMD, not Nvida

Speida wrote:

 

I live in Italy and unfortunately when I said something about the European law they told to write to the legal department by post in France in order to take lack action. I believe this would be more costly than a couple of repairs for this stupid problem!

Does it really cost that much to mail a letter from Italy to France?

Csound1 wrote:

 

Correction, the part manufacturer for the iMac recall was AMD, not Nvida

Curious ... the manufacture, AMD.  My MBP has a AMD Radeon HD 6750M that is exhibiting a problem this time.

What is unknown is the mechanism causing the failure.  Big, high powered chips are designed to relieve heat via their connecting pins.  Heat build up is symptom of this problem.  There could be a stuck state condition or massive connection failure or both.  Stuck state could leave the chip in a high current draw condition.  Massive connection failure could leave the chip with extra ordinary heat build up because heat is not being conducted away to the PC board.

What is the cause? solder or chip pad configuration.  We can all take a guess.  Because we are following this discussion we all recognize the symptoms.  When AMD's chip is selected normal computer operations cease in short order.

From Csound1's finding what is missing from the MBP graphics problem is AMD picking up the cost of replacement, otherwise its apples and apples.

Hi Barry

was wondering if you could help me out as Im having the same problems you had yourself.

I Bought my laptop from a company called currys (it's big in the uk) and I've had in repaired by their tech team twice for  gpu failure,

two wo weeks after the second repair it's broke again, they have offered me another repair or a cash sum of £650, this is no where near enough to cover buying a new 15". Although I bought my laptop from a third party, do you think apple will help me out? This is the 5th time in 3 years that my laptop has broke and I'm not sure what to do anymore

In UK you can get it repaired under warranty up to 6 years.

Search/check out sales of goods act.

It has been mentioned here a few times allready.

Does anyone know how to run GpuTest?

http://www.geeks3d.com/gputest/

I've downloaded from link above, but when I run app, all I get is smaller window with colored triangle, even when I check box for "Full Screen", and regardless of which test I select from drop down menu.

Test must be working, because I hear fans turn on and continue running, but why don't graphic images change and fill the screen per different tests?

I am having the same issues with my Early 2011 MB 8.1. The screen randomly scrambles. Any fix from apple yet? Sorry, I didn't have the patience to read through all 799 pages.

Dan4783 wrote:

 

I am having the same issues with my Early 2011 MB 8.1. The screen randomly scrambles. Any fix from apple yet? Sorry, I didn't have the patience to read through all 799 pages.

There is a Tower of Babel kind of effect to keeping the threads spread about the discussion pages.  Divide and ________

To create a real picture of this issue we need the dots scattered across several pages to be seen on one page.  Then display that picture for the buying public to see, might be quicker to see through clear water than the murky waters of a court case.  We have Facebook, and other large following public billboards.  Any artists in the group?

What I think is needed is a central database where everyone can register by serial no. and report problem, which could then be compared to Apple's production runs which should show number of machines produced compared to number having this issue, to stop all the guessing game.
Apple won't cowboy up to the bar, so all that's available along that line is the law firm bringing class action suit against Apple.

I posted the email address for the person at the lawfirm handling collection of data and contents requested, but it was removed, and demerit points logged against my user that eventually got me banned from the entire Apple Support Communities for a week.
So whoever wants that info will have to find it for themselves online. I started with Zach Clawson's page which Google returns as "2011 Macbook Pro Discrete Graphics Card Failure - Cornell". Search for that and ye shall find.

BTW jimoase - real Texans don't eat Yankee hot sauce, just snow birds who move here from up North.
See - https://encrypted.google.com/#q=pace+picante+sauce+new+york+city

Pace and Tabasco aren't made in NY

"Here come the Democrats, again, you know, just weaker than Canadian hot sauce." — Jim Hightower

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/watch2.html

What do you think Jim would do about this Discrete GPU issue if he could?

Darrell Stall wrote:

 

What I think is needed is a central database where everyone can register by serial no. and report problem, which could then be compared to Apple's production runs which should show number of machines produced compared to number having this issue, to stop all the guessing game. ....

I posted the email address for the person at the lawfirm handling collection of data and contents requested, but it was removed, and demerit points logged against my user that eventually got me banned from the entire Apple Support Communities for a week.....

You know my name.  I have an old account at mac.com and a hot cup of coffee, needed for any fruitful discussion.

Hmmm. There's only 1 person in my Contacts with a Mac.com address, and their initials are S.O.
Sooooo . . .

"The water won't clear up until we get the hogs out of the creek."  — Old Thyme Texas Saying

D3us wrote:

 

In UK you can get it repaired under warranty up to 6 years.

 

Nope, the UK Sale of Goods Act places the responsibility on the retailer not the manufacturer, thus the warranty is not involved at all. A period of Up To 6 years can be considered, but that is a maximum, not an absolute.

Darrell Stall wrote:

 

Hmmm. There's only 1 person in my Contacts with a Mac.com address, and their initials are S.O.
Sooooo . . .

"The water won't clear up until we get the hogs out of the creek."  — Old Thyme Texas Saying

Now you have two...

Your lack of response to the Picante jab is explained.  I was a WinterTexan for a week and half while fixing an ancient bottling machine.

My MBP is coming home via snail mail.

I tried the Graphics Test.  Using a widget called iStat I watched the processors on this iMac get busy, the GPU temps inch their way up and the fans gain speed.

In my flash back memory I remember reading that Apple pulled a trick we did years ago on a 512 bit x 16 stack parallel computer for the weather bureau, we off loaded bits and pieces of the processing to specialized processors and then using look ahead processing, chained the results back together.  Apple is doing something like that with the high speed graphic processor.  So its not necessary for the display to be going nuts for the processor to be really busy.  The display portion is just reflecting a memory pattern on the screen.  The real fun is figuring out what pattern to put into that display memory.