Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Brent Shum wrote:

 

I was able to get a refund for a reball done by a guy in Rancho Cucomunga, CA.  Note however, Apple wouldn't pay for my shipping costs to get the computer to the repair shop.  Overall the process wasn't too bad - provide receipts for reball, etc, but I feel a bit put out on the $50 to ship the laptop to repair their problem...

Wow, this is good news for all those who did third party repairs, kind of changes everything!

jimoase wrote:

 

Brent Shum wrote:

 

I was able to get a refund for a reball done by a guy in Rancho Cucomunga, CA.  Note however, Apple wouldn't pay for my shipping costs to get the computer to the repair shop.  Overall the process wasn't too bad - provide receipts for reball, etc, but I feel a bit put out on the $50 to ship the laptop to repair their problem...

 

Brent... can you gives us more information on how you presented your choice of using a third party?  I am one of those who, after seeing the reoccurring failures from motherboard swaps, decided to use a third party.

 

Looking at the clock Dave, my neighbor and mailman, should be at the door in about 20 minutes with my repaired 17" early 2011 MBP.

 

My pocket book would feel a lot better with the repair cost in my pocket.

 

I am sure there are others on this list that would enjoy hearing what you did to get a refund.

 

Thanks

Jim

The door bell rang just as I hit the replay button.

The sound your hear is my fans hitting the high 5000s while my GPU hovers are 146 F and the GPU Diode hits the hight 160s.

My heavy lifting test is looping 11 movies while I watch online programming via WebKit/Safari, while using TechTools is repairing a large drive, while Google Earth is looking around the world, while iPhoto is looping a slide show and email is reminding me you guys are still out there.  gfxCardStatus says "a"

So far .... so good.

Getting a refund for getting this fixed would be a real nice outcome.

XLT77 wrote:

 

ok thanks. I am bringing my computer in tomorrow so lets see what happens when it is returned...

Great, please come back with a report about the logic board (whether it's old or new) and any additional information. Thanks.

[quote]

Re: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Cardin response to Giovanni Aprea2

I just had the logic board replaced in my 2011 15" MBP.  I asked about the new part and the Apple Store employee told me the new part doesn't have the same problem that the old part had.[/quote]

Excuse this post as I do not know how you quote on this.

So, does that mean we can use an extra monitor again? My eyes go crossed looking at stuff on the MBP screen, it's so small. My back aches from bending over to read fine print.

Sure I will do that. They won't have to do much testing to verify my computer is afflicted. I have not shut down this computer in over a week because shutdown or sleep mode restarts with the bars on the screen and the apple in half blue and half white. Then it goes into restart limbo . That is what they will be presented with when I power it on. I have already been to the "genius bar" three times now. The computer failed one of their graphics tests, the computer froze and then wouldn't restart. I think they have created a special diagnostics test for the chips. My computer is 17in late 2011 with the AMD 6770m chip.

ella70 wrote:

 

So, does that mean we can use an extra monitor again? My eyes go crossed looking at stuff on the MBP screen, it's so small. My back aches from bending over to read fine print.

If you have repaired the MBP then you should be able to make use of all the features it comes with as advertised, that includes of course being able to use an external monitor with it.

That's actually one very good way to test the repair, since the MBP will automatically switch to the higher resolution graphics card when connected to a monitor. I will surely be doing this.

XLT77 wrote:

 

Sure I will do that. They won't have to do much testing to verify my computer is afflicted. I have not shut down this computer in over a week because shutdown or sleep mode restarts with the bars on the screen and the apple in half blue and half white. Then it goes into restart limbo . That is what they will be presented with when I power it on. I have already been to the "genius bar" three times now. The computer failed one of their graphics tests, the computer froze and then wouldn't restart. I think they have created a special diagnostics test for the chips. My computer is 17in late 2011 with the AMD 6770m chip.

Cool, most importantly, please find out about what they're going to do/done to repair it. Thanks again.

That will be my question. Exactly what are you doing with this computer. I will post the  response, hopefully they will know and not be too general.

ella70 wrote:

 

So, does that mean we can use an extra monitor again? My eyes go crossed looking at stuff on the MBP screen, it's so small. My back aches from bending over to read fine print.

After 3 hours of running 11 movies, google Earth, iPhone slide shows, online broadcasts and doing disk repairs, etc  this is what the widget iStat is reporting

.

XLT77 wrote:

 

That will be my question. Exactly what are you doing with this computer. I will post the  response, hopefully they will know and not be too general.

Demand detailed answers from them, you deserve it!

@jimoase - so are those temps normal? or high? what do the stats mean?

Darrell Stall wrote:

 

@jimoase - so are those temps normal? or high? what do the stats mean?

Those temps are in fahrenheit so I am not concerned with them.  My old rule of thumb use to be OK to touch be not to hang on to.  212 being boiling water.

I am using a widget called iStat Pro.  I have been using it for years.  I got via Apple.

http://istat-pro.onfreedownload.com/?lp=bing&tg=us&os=mac&utm_source=Bing&utm_me dium=CPC&utm_campaign=Search

I just wanted to throw in my experience at the apple store today.  I have an early 2011 17" MBP w/AMD & Intel graphics.  I started having problems about 3 weeks ago and after hearing about the repair program, I decided I'd take it in before it became completely unusable.  So, took it in this morning, they ran the first diagnostics they always run, everything was fine, then he told me they had a new diagnostic program that is supposed to help determine if the machine is suffering the problems the repair program is for, BUT, he also told me that pass or fail, b/c mine is a 2011 model, they will repair, no charge of course.  Since my machine hasn't been having constant issues, and no matter what I did to try to force the issue, I couldn't get it to replicate, I knew it would pass their test, and it did, but since it's a 2011 they took it, will mail it in, and it will be sent back to the store for me to pick up in 4-6 days.  He said it would take just as long, or more, for them to order the part and do it there.  SO, if anyone is getting the run around, if you have a 2011 model  they ARE supposed to repair (not sure if it's specific to 17" 2011's or if it's either size) wether or not you pass their diagnostic tests...and these were 10-15 min tests, I know they can do hardcore, run your machine like mad for 2 days tests, but this wasn't one of them.  And they are replacing the motherboard.  Not sure if it is anything different than what I currently have, but I can report back when I pick it up and see what they tell me.

Got my MBP Late 2011 back today and because i moved my graphics drivers Yosemite is running slow. Any idea how i get the drivers back in there without formatting the hard drive and starting again form scratch? Is there somewhere I can go to get the kext files?

UPDATE #2 after Repair

Like I mentioned earlier I was able to test my newly repaired Macbook Pro early 2011 with 3 version of OSX. 10.6.6, 10.9.5 and 10.10.2. Since it was mentioned before that Apple did provided a specific 10.6.7 update for macbook pro 2011 that was addressing GPU problem and might also reduce its performance to prevent this flaw to happen.

I can confirm that they did change something in the SOFTWARE and NOT the FIRMWARE or HARDWARE. I used Heaven Benchmark and terminal command to stress test GPU and CPU at the same time. On 10.6.6 GPU temp average 85C on load and as soon as I have more then 2 core of my CPU fully loaded the temperature raise quickly to 99C and computer freeze. Since 10.6.7, 10.9.5 and 10.10.2 GPU Average temp is 75C and even when I load all CPU and GPU to their max the temperature never got above 85C for GPU and 95C for CPU. So Apple did change something in the software to make the computer run 10C cooler. It could be the core frequency of the GPU that was lowered (under clocked) so in that case, we could see a 30% performance drop since 10.6.7 and the class-action lawsuit could still go forward on this since the advertised product was not the one we have.

As for the soldering flaw, so far my computer is working fine since the repair 3 days ago but 2 years passed on my previous logic board before I've seen the first problem with the GPU. I don't think Apple changed anything about the manufacturing of the logic board but only time will tell.