Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

jimoase wrote:

Faith, Persistence, Community....

 

This technician is not properly employed and needs to find a position that better fits his skill set.

jimoase, agree with your advise.

But in fact, that technician is exactly following Aplle's policy, doing what they're trained for.

Follow the rules as strickt as possible and try to find every possible way to get under a free repair.

Like moisture indicators that can indicate moisture from even only keeping it in your bedroom.

He's following them to strickt probably ;-).

I brought mine in yesterday, the guy was very kind, I asked if they gonna replace the main board with another one and he said so, I told him that I started to notice malfunction when I used to "play" the flight simulator a while ago which used to crash the machine but no artifacts or whatsoever, just high fan speed and system hung, he told me that I better get "a real computer" to do those things like a flight simulator and use the MacBookPro just for normal apps (this sounds so weird to me, a machine worth over 2.000$ which can't run a graphic intensive app), at this point if I wanna "play" the sim with a Mac I need a MacPro cos the iMac is even worse than the MBPro graphic wise with the cooling space inside there...

By the way, I asked if the new board gonna have a new serial number and the guy said they will re-program the firmware to get the same serial my machine has now, I added a few pen marks on the board just for the sake of checking, now it'a a matter of waiting about 10 days to see what happens.

Best everybody

p.s. I didn't see which keystrokes were used to get the machine serial number at the boot, maybe command+N and then he run some tests probably over the network, there was a graphic interface showing the passed/failed tests and the two failed ones were the GPU and the RAM (which I upgraded to 2 x 8GB each and that he said they will leave in cos not affecting the machine stability).

It all depends on hidden management. I wouldn't know that AppleCare's "Advisors" have "Sr. Advisors" above them if my case wasn't escalated due to frustration. I wouldn't know that Sr. Advisors have "Tier 2 Team Managers" if I hadn't contacted a second Sr. Advisor after getting the runaround "no" treatment from a first Sr. Advisor. Within minutes, the second Sr. Advisor had permission to send me redemption code for Mountain Lion installer and a 1TB LaCie portable external HD. I asked for email address for his supervisor so I could send thanks to them both for doing what I'd been told for 5 weeks couldn't be done. That's when I found out that first Sr Advisor had submitted request for Mountain Lion installer with serial no. of my MacBook Pro instead of new Mac Mini I was forced to buy when my MBP bricked due to GPU failure. Apple's own specs say Mac Mini 2012 comes with ML as does Apple advertising for "the world's most advanced operating system".  Yet it took 5 weeks for Apple to figure out that I was owed ML. Even though I got in contact with a Tier 2 Team Manager decisions are still made by some AppleCare department and there is no way to talk to that person. The firewall is incredibly thick, as a brick. Buyer beware!

Giovanni Aprea2 wrote:

 

he told me that I better get "a real computer" to do those things like a flight simulator and use the MacBookPro just for normal apps (this sounds so weird to me, a machine worth over 2.000$ which can't run a graphic intensive app), at this point if I wanna "play" the sim with a Mac I need a MacPro cos the iMac is even worse than the MBPro graphic wise with the cooling space inside there...e the GPU and the RAM (which I upgraded to 2 x 8GB each and that he said they will leave in cos not affecting the machine stability).

That's my opinion too. Buying a laptop for gaming, video editing, rendering etc...

Not really the best choise as it is ment more for portability than as a workhorse.

Btw, this goes for PC laptops too, but they do seem to have lesser probs with it.

Better cooling design mostly.

Of course, on the sales talk they claim they are suited for all of that.

Should have said that before you bought it, but then he would get sacked probably....

If you buy a computer to run a flight sim or other games on, a good specced pc is a much better choice.

Maybe run H*tosh on it...

Leaves you enough to get a cheaper laptop for portability too.

I a not sure but I think I know why your computer passed the test. My experience is that this problem emerged after the Yosemite upgrade in November. I was able to get going after Apple posted an update . This made my computer seem like normal for a month or so. The problems reemerged in  late December. Once again I was able to get going for a few weeks. some time in January I was presented with this issue. For the second time the problem was resolved for another few weeks. Sometime in February the problem was permanent. I could not log off, shut down or put the computer to sleep. If I did this my computer would take up to an hour to restart. I resorted to not shutting the computer down and using the integrated chip through the Gfxcardstatus software and monitoring the temp with SMC fan control .  I did take the computer in to the "geniuses" in November the first time it failed and all we did was to reinstall the operating system. I am sure that the computer would have passed their test had it been available then. I have since had the computer repaired under the program and received it back. The computer started with the bars and failed their test immediately. When the situation is sporadic you could pass their test, when it becomes more permanent like mine was you will have no problems. Has your computer been failing for a while or has it just started. If the latter is the case rest assured it will become chronic. Hope this helps.

D3us wrote:

 

Giovanni Aprea2 wrote:

 

he told me that I better get "a real computer" to do those things like a flight simulator and use the MacBookPro just for normal apps (this sounds so weird to me, a machine worth over 2.000$ which can't run a graphic intensive app), at this point if I wanna "play" the sim with a Mac I need a MacPro cos the iMac is even worse than the MBPro graphic wise with the cooling space inside there...e the GPU and the RAM (which I upgraded to 2 x 8GB each and that he said they will leave in cos not affecting the machine stability).

That's my opinion too. Buying a laptop for gaming, video editing, rendering etc...

Not really the best choise as it is ment more for portability than as a workhorse.

Btw, this goes for PC laptops too, but they do seem to have lesser probs with it.

Better cooling design mostly.

 

Of course, on the sales talk they claim they are suited for all of that.

Should have said that before you bought it, but then he would get sacked probably....

 

If you buy a computer to run a flight sim or other games on, a good specced pc is a much better choice.

Maybe run H*tosh on it...

Leaves you enough to get a cheaper laptop for portability too.

Do a web search for reviews when this version 2011 MBPs first came to market.  At that time the reviewers were amazed to learn that the MBP performance numbers were better or equal the Mac Pro numbers of the same era.

Since then both the machines have been replaced with machines with even better numbers.  Meaning today's MBPs are exceeding Mac Pros of old.  It's all relative.

As we have discovered, once properly built, MBPs are capable of sustained heavy lifting.  No one is suggesting that any computing product built today will out preform future products, that's just not going to happen.  Can today's products, when properly built, perform at max capacity with out detriment?  If properly designed and built, yes.  Many of us with properly repaired machines are learning that.

The electronics in the box has no idea which box they are in, they just perform to specification if properly designed and applied.  The criteria for selecting components for portable operations is slanted towards power consumption.  Component manufactures are constantly learning how to get more performance using less power.  As long the customer is willing to buy, designers and manufactures will learn to supply.  Free enterprise has a centuries long record of educating those involve.  If we can keep the "for your own good" we know best supreme beings out of free enterprise we will continue have better products at improving costs.  As soon as one of these supreme being puts their two cents worth in the system will begin to stumble.  If enough regulations are created we will soon discover the color grey applied to the market.

I don't doubt it was fast specced.

Only using them as a workhose is more of a risc as it might fail faster compared to desktops under heavey load.

Goes for all laptops. Not that it perse happens, but a desktop is imo a better choice for number crunching.

It's getting lesser of a problem with the newer technologies used in portables now, but a desktop will allways outperform it for a cheaper price.

As a Mac Pro owner the reviews were very disengenous comparing the 2011 MBP with the Mac Pro tower.  They were comparing it with the stock GT120 Nvidia card which is extremely slow.  If you see the physical size of the card and it's power consumption it's no surprise.  The larger full length PCIe cards from AMD and Nvidia it's a totally different ballgame.

My current dual socket 12 core 3.46 Mac Pro with Mac EFi flashed Nvidia 2Gb GTX 680 card puts to the sword every single Mac in the current range bar the 8 core Mac Pro 6,1 with twin D500 cards minimum.  It geekbenches in the 29000 mark, and at a rough estimate judging by the time batches of PS CS6 take my Mac Pro it feels about 3 times faster than my 2011MBP.  When I replace the GTX 680 with a GTX 980 later this year I expect to narrow the gap to the Mac Pro 6,1.  I already have a nMP 1tb SSD blade fitted in a PCIe card for awesome disk performance with native trim.  The only thing I lack is single core performance but hey I have another 11 cores, 23 hyperthreaded and 48Gb of RAM ;o)

jimoase wrote:

 

As long the customer is willing to buy, designers and manufactures will learn to supply.  Free enterprise has a centuries long record of educating those involve.  If we can keep the "for your own good" we know best supreme beings out of free enterprise we will continue have better products at improving costs.  As soon as one of these supreme being puts their two cents worth in the system will begin to stumble.  If enough regulations are created we will soon discover the color grey applied to the market.

Designers and manufacturers will continue to "supply" products touted (advertised, propagandized) as ever "newer", "better", "improved" as long as customers continue to be deceived by such shill game. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. A sucker is one who *s__s, a vampire that uses others for its suckers, that on which it s__s.

Customers want good, lasting product at affordable price, not continual planned obsolescence taken to the n-th degree as is the case of the high tech industry since its inception - planned obsolescence on steroids, far worse than anything concocted by "engineers" after WWII when such nonsense began. Google Apple + planned obsolescence and see how Apple is leader of the pack in this.

Apple is light years above every other corporation in terms of profits. The 2nd richest corporation below Apple is some gas company that is nowhere near as rich as Apple. So Apple is vastly "bigger" than the wealth of most nations of the world.

Manufacturers, especially Apple, hire designers to create "newer", "better", "improved" in order to entice customers to continue to buy and keep the consumer "merry-go-round" spinning. That is what is meant by the modern term "economics" which didn't exist in a real market economy, not until "modern" times. Today "economics", "free market", "invisible hand" and all such language is just voodoo/magic incantations used to manipulate and deceive. Customers are the guinea pigs of manufacturers and their designers. As long as customers buy, they do nothing but fund manufacturing "research" and "development" (R&D). The 1% knows and has always known how to get rich at expense of the 99%.

Rx - stop buying, and if you must, then buy used.

So I just got my MBP back and it boots ok, which is a plus.

The tech says the replacement logic board is a new part - I don't see any changes (but how can I tell).  The machine is hot to the touch, as always - I've installed SMC Fan Control temporarily to see what's what and the temperature moves between 68 and 75ºc, with the fans running between 3330 and 4400 RPM. Dunno if that's 'normal' or 'safe'. Just want to be sure before I spend more money upgrading the RAM and installing a SSD...

Anyone?

Sorry to learn that your MBP has been rejected for the repair program despite being one of the eligible models and experiencing video problems.  As I said, my late 2011 MBP 17" also did not immediately fail the test when the tech examined it at the Apple Store in Basel, Switzerland.  I told him I had an appointment elsewhere and would leave the machine there.  In an effort to complete the test before I left he began rubbing the hinge of the clamshell above the keyboard and below the MacBook Pro name.  By the time I left -- I estimate that the test had been running for fifteen minutes -- the unit still had not failed, but the tech noted with smug satisfaction that the temperature was indeed rising.  He made out a work order and had me sign it.  When it arrived by e-mail a note next to the description of the problem indicated that it had been verified at the Genius Bar.  I don't know whether the note was on the work order that I signed or was added later, i.e., I cannot say for sure that the until did fail the test, since I did not witness it.

I notice a paucity of useful suggestions, how you should proceed.  I suggest making an appointment at the Genius Bar, preferably for a time when it is not likely to be crowded, and starting all over again.  In the meantime, try to take pictures of the problem.  The tech assigned to your case might be more inclined to give your machine a helping hand in failing the test, as mine did.  If not, and he refuses to accept it under the terms of program, ask him to explain your options for having it repaired.  Be sweet, charming, and burble that you're inclined to accept the offer to have it repaired, then allow him to fill in the work order, BUT DON'T SIGN IT YET.  Ensure that the problem description bears a startling resemblance to symptoms described here (http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/), then ask him whether Apple will refund the cost of repair if it simply exchanges the motherboard.  I think this is a legitimate question.  After all, under the terms of the program Apple is refunding the cost of repairs made to machines which might also not have failed the test applied to yours, and there's certainly something absurd about having to pay for the same solution to the same symptoms that Apple is presently relieving for free, just because your machine is a bit reluctant to flunk a test.  Maybe he'll appreciate the absurdity and accept to repair your MBP for free.  If not, show your willingness to work with Apple towards a mutually acceptable solution.  Emphasize that you just want your dear, beloved MBP repaired.  If it fulfills all the formal conditions for a free repair but somehow doesn't qualify for the free repair program, well, you're just out of luck, and heck, that's life, no?  But be firm about your legitimate expectations:

• You do not wish to pay for Apple to repair a problem that others are getting repaired for free.  So, since your machine is exhibiting the same symptoms as theirs, you expect Apple to find out and document what is causing them in your machine.  If the cause turns out to be the same as that for which Apple is fixing other machines for free, you expect a free repair.
• If the cause is different and the motherboard is nevertheless exchanged, ask whether Apple couldn't consider meeting you halfway by only charging the labor.  After all, the new motherboards have already been produced.  Therefore, any that are not used only save the company labor.  By the way,  my pro forma invoice for the repair shows that the motherboard costs CHF 581 and labor only CHF 39.
• And if it should turn out that both cause and fix are different, the cost of repair will probably be lower than the full price of exchanging the motherboard including labor.

I hope this helps.

GavMackem wrote:

 

As a Mac Pro owner the reviews were very disengenous comparing the 2011 MBP with the Mac Pro tower.  They were comparing it with the stock GT120 Nvidia card which is extremely slow.  If you see the physical size of the card and it's power consumption it's no surprise.  The larger full length PCIe cards from AMD and Nvidia it's a totally different ballgame.

 

My current dual socket 12 core 3.46 Mac Pro with Mac EFi flashed Nvidia 2Gb GTX 680 card puts to the sword every single Mac in the current range bar the 8 core Mac Pro 6,1 with twin D500 cards minimum.  It geekbenches in the 29000 mark, and at a rough estimate judging by the time batches of PS CS6 take my Mac Pro it feels about 3 times faster than my 2011MBP.  When I replace the GTX 680 with a GTX 980 later this year I expect to narrow the gap to the Mac Pro 6,1.  I already have a nMP 1tb SSD blade fitted in a PCIe card for awesome disk performance with native trim.  The only thing I lack is single core performance but hey I have another 11 cores, 23 hyperthreaded and 48Gb of RAM ;o)

I agree the free enterprise market heard your request and answered with more bang for the buck.  The same was true when the 2011 MacBook Pro came to market.  The same was true when the 512 surpassed the 256 and the SE surpassed the 512.  The slowest, least capable products today by any manufacture will easily outperform the best of the best from a decade or two in the past and performs those feats of dazzling speed for a fraction of the cost.

In a past life I walked among the Control Data 6600s that were "strapped" together as if a multi core of today grinding out an answer every 600ns.  Today even the lowly 2011 MPB, using the same word size, can outperform those multi-million dollar super computers used to simulate the moon walk and create the computer models for the SST.

In 1967 MBPs were the future dream of some kid riding a tricycle in the driveway with friends.  When the 2011 MBP came to market its design team had thousands of ideas of how to make it even faster, using less power.  They, like the folks in Chippewa Falls, just need some other kids on the west coast to make their dream components.  Neither of these kids knew about the other or what would happen when their dreams were combined and brought to market by other kids with other dreams.  All they knew was their dream.

So is it fair to go back in time and read the actual reports of the folks testing the brand new 2011 and comparing it to a band new Mac Pro of the same day?  Yes   Did the MBP compare favorably?  According to those testers in 2011 the MBP compared favorably and in some cases out performed the Mac Pro of the day.  Is 2011 MBP still capable besting today's products?  Probably not.  Those million dollar 6400, 6500 and 6600 main frames were eclipse by the 7600 that came out a few years later, after we had walked on the moon.  The 2011 MBP has been eclipsed by the 2012 which falls victim to the 2013 and is succeeded by the 2014 etc....

What is true today as was true in the past, the first new product today will eclipse its predecessor and some of the better performers of the previous generation.  That claim of super performance will be short lived as long as we have free enterprise delivering the message that more education is needed by all participants or you will be out of a job.  Someone else will be eating your lunch.

D3us wrote:

 

I don't doubt it was fast specced.

Only using them as a workhose is more of a risc as it might fail faster compared to desktops under heavey load.

Goes for all laptops. Not that it perse happens, but a desktop is imo a better choice for number crunching.

 

It's getting lesser of a problem with the newer technologies used in portables now, but a desktop will allways outperform it for a cheaper price.

Which is why the Mac Pro 4-5,1 is by far my favourite Macintosh of all time.  You can go from a single/pair of 2.26ghz quad core chips with 3/6Gb of ram to 3.46Ghz six core Xeon's, 12 cores with maximum 96gb ram at full speed.  Upgrade the GPU too, fit the Mac Pro 6,1 PCIe SSD blade, fit add on cards such as USB3.0 etc with the only downside being no Thunderbolt now or for ever.  I have run transcoding jobs which hammer all CPU and GPU cores and the fans barely rev up, no more than about 30% of maximum.  The notebooks and the iMac's make far more noise pushed equally hard, only the Mac Pro 6,1 which is barely audible beats it but costs 2/3 times as my setup.  II prefer having a proper workstation to delegate all the hard tasks to my chessegrater instead of something that will throttle and overheat shortening its life!

The MBP 2011 properly cooled is a great Mac notebook.  The problem was the 45 Watt Sandy bridge chip with huge die to cool and with a hot old architecture 40w AMD GPU generated too much heat for the chassis as it was setup with largely the same guidelines as the earlier unibodies until this repair program was finally launched.

The Sandy Bridge was one of the biggest jumps in performance Intel made over its predecessor I can remember.  The 2011 MBP 15/17 felt easily 20-25% faster than the 2010 equivalent.  Every new Intel design since and in the future it's incremental jumps, say 3-8% with new CPU instructions, much better gains with lower power/less heat and longer battery life.

With my current 17 2011 and 16Gb Ram with 1Tb 840 Evo SSD it doesn't feel much slower than the current retinas in real life usage.  But none of them can hold a candle to my 5 year old upgraded Mac Pro which will be my default OS X/Windows workstation for the next 5 years as it can handle anything I throw at it, at a much faster pace with far less heat unlike all the other notebooks and all in ones.  It's an awesome gaming rig too.  In fact I'd say the Mac Pro models including the current black can are the only Macintosh models that 'Pro' is backed up by substance and not marketing.

jimoase wrote:

In 1967 MBPs were the future dream of some kid riding a tricycle in the driveway with friends.  ...

I was a kid on a bike in 1967 just turned teen, and I can guarantee that no kid on a tricycle then was dreaming of a MBPro! They were dreaming about driving a car and doing whatever they wanted without parental permission. That tricycle stuff is just a bunch of emotional rot, more propaganda to keep people thinking America is saving the world by sending the CIA and US troops into places like South America to overthrow every little dictator or government that doesn't cotton to the tricycle hype about "democracy", which is what has enabled such "economic" planned "obsolence" to go global.

jimoase wrote:

I agree the free enterprise market heard your request and answered with more bang for the buck.  The same was true when the 2011 MacBook Pro came to market.  The same was true when the 512 surpassed the 256 and the SE surpassed the 512.  The slowest, least capable products today by any manufacture will easily outperform the best of the best from a decade or two in the past and performs those feats of dazzling speed for a fraction of the cost.

The "free enterprise market" is an abstraction and doesn't have ears to hear. Neither do legally fictitious corparation "persons". Real people have "ears to hear", which is why they're "real". Pinocchios (aka the "masses") don't have ears to hear which is why they thought it "thundered" 2000 years ago when real people heard a voice from heaven.

jimoase wrote:

What is true today as was true in the past, the first new product today will eclipse its predecessor and some of the better performers of the previous generation.  That claim of super performance will be short lived as long as we have free enterprise delivering the message that more education is needed by all participants or you will be out of a job.  Someone else will be eating your lunch.

And there you have it folks! Planned obsolescence aka "free market enterprise" built upon the atheistic concept of "survival of the fittest", competition not cooperation. Welcome to the "dog eat dog" modern world. "Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly" over and over and over again.