Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Forget your idea, the facts are not secret.

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Just got the call that my macbook pro is ready to be picked up. Crazy fast turnaround as I dropped it off Friday night. Fingers crossed.

Listen to this,

i had my 2011 15" MBP repaired 4 months before they issued the replacement program.

Payed around 600$ for everything but Apple got in touch with me and I got my money back. All good so far.

THEN,

today around 11 months later the EXACT same thing happened. The screen got distorted, turned blue and got stuck. When restarted it loads at first, then turns grey, heats up and fans at max speed. All the symptoms, everything! So I went to the nearest apple workshop, left it there and now they send me a mail sayin the replacement program doesn't cover this, this is even though I got it fixed before the replacement program.

So it took me not even a year and it breaks again. No guarantees, nothing. 

Apple telling me there is nothing I can do but pay if I want it fixed.

So I'm sorry, don't have ur hopes up.

That is disconcerting.. sorry. 90 days is all they guarantee the repair for, after that I guess you're on your own?

I got my machine back last night. I haven't had a chance to put it through its paces yet, but initially everything seems to be operating normal again. Very fast turnaround. They replaced my logic board and MagSafe Board. I never had any problems with the MagSafe. I wonder if they broke it during the logic board repair/replacement.

The machine is 4+ years old, ok, wish it lasted longer but it's gotten me this far. It ***** that it already failed and may fail again though. The worst part of all this to me is because the 2011s have this lemon problem, resale is pretty much out the window. That is the biggest downfall in my book as when I upgrade I take the funds made in selling the old and put it toward a new unit. I'm now left with a zero balance.

Robalicious wrote:

 

Listen to this,

 

i had my 2011 15" MBP repaired 4 months before they issued the replacement program.

Payed around 600$ for everything but Apple got in touch with me and I got my money back. All good so far.

 

THEN,

today around 11 months later the EXACT same thing happened. The screen got distorted, turned blue and got stuck. When restarted it loads at first, then turns grey, heats up and fans at max speed. All the symptoms, everything! So I went to the nearest apple workshop, left it there and now they send me a mail sayin the replacement program doesn't cover this, this is even though I got it fixed before the replacement program.

So it took me not even a year and it breaks again. No guarantees, nothing.

 

Apple telling me there is nothing I can do but pay if I want it fixed.

So I'm sorry, don't have ur hopes up.

I think if you will look back across the pages of this discussion you will find reports by several people who have experienced multiple failures of their 2011 MacBook Pro computers after being repaired by Apple.  In some cases the first repair happened prior to the Extended Warranty program  being implemented.  In other cases multiple failures and repairs were made subsequent to the Extended Warranty program.

If I am reading your comments correctly your first repair was done by Apple and cost you $600, therefore the failure and repair happened prior to the Extended Warranty program being implemented.  Apple acknowledge that repair as the same as covered by the Extended Warranty program and refunded to you the cost of the first repair, $600.  Then your 2011 MacBook Pro failed again with the same symptoms and this time the Apple representative said Apple does not cover the cost of this repair?  Of note... your first failure was after the factory warranty had expired, just as was the case for the second failure.  When Apple sent you a refund check Apple acknowledge your machine as part of the Extended Warranty program.  That program expires in 2016.

Viewers of this discussion have read multiple reports of repeat failures, many ending up with exchanges of the lemon 2011 MacBook Pro for a current production MacBook Pro.  Most often those reporting this resolution of the failing descrete graphic processor problem have experienced three repeat repair failures.  Typically these customers had the repair done, the machine failed in a few weeks or months, the machine failed and was repaired again in repeated cycles until 3 failures occured.

Getting a refund for the first failed repair is not listed as a disclaimer for getting a satisfactory repair under the Extended Warranty program.   Apple representatives have been reported as not being uniform in the application of the Extended Warranty program.  Some people have found satisfaction by going to a different Apple Genius in the same Apple store,   Some people have found satisfaction by going to a different Apple store or by direct contact with Apple.  Your milage may vary.

By paging back through this discussion you may find some hints to getting satisfaction.   Pay attention to those contributors with high points counts, more than likely they are spending their waking hours commenting on just about anything and don't have a horse in the race.  Its your money at risk, take care of yourself.

It just started happening to my late 2011 MacBook Pro

Why not ask the Apple "workshop" (Store? Authorized Service Provider?) to explain how it arrived at that conclusion?  It's senseless to work yourself into a tizzy before you get an answer to that question.  Was it not possible to reproduce the symptoms that you have described to us?  Or, are they not the right symptoms?  What about the tests that are usually performed?  Pass?  Fail?  Logically, claiming that a machine with the symptoms that you described does not qualify for the Repair Extension Program is almost equivalent to claiming that it's not the graphic co-processor that's at fault, but something else.  Well, then, what?

By the way, there's nothing in the announcement of the Repair Extension Program that says that a machine repaired under that program cannot be re-repaired under it again if it begins to exhibit the same symptoms and otherwise qualifies.  In fact, I believe there are reports in this thread of multiple repairs under the program, culminating in a few cases in Apple's replacing the machine with a newer model.  I interpret especially replacing a machine, but also repairing it under the program more than once,  as a firm commitment by Apple eradicate the problem.  In your shoes, I would hold any representative of the company to that evident and clear commitment -- politely, patiently, respectfully but firmly.

Good luck!

Sorry.  The above reply was of course intended for Robalicious, not anthony286.

Hello,

In my case, the macbook pro started failing once a day or two, very randomly.
The first thing I tried was to clean the fans and check if they were both working, because of the overheating issues when the macbook was subject to stress.

Seeing that it kept overheating and randomly failing with graphic glitches after the cleaning, I've tried over-stressing the video card since I wanted to be sure it was a video-chip problem.

That's when the macbook stopped booting. I mean, not booting at all, I would see the apple in the middle of the screen, hear the booting sound but then it would reboot or stay in a gray screen.

After surfing a lot on the net, I found a way to disable the discrete graphic board and force the internal INTEL3000 device to be used, then the macbook started booting again.

So now I'm left with a working macbook pro 2011 with no OpenGL, which is really odd because I have VERY low frame rates and some web pages make the computer to be slow when there are big images to show in the web-browser canvas.

SO now my problem is that the closest apple care center is 3k km's away!!! >.<

So I hope this is helpful for those who can't get the macbook to boot anymore, just move away the AMD*.* extensions from /System/Library/Extensions and re-build the kext cache to get it to boot again. That way it will be safer taking it to repair without the chance of loosing all the data inside the hdd (which happened to me before, "geniuses" are not that genius some times -_-).

Cheers

The correct way to protect your data is to back it up, you can do what you want but please don't advise others to do the same.

You didn't say exactly where you are, but you can call Apple support and they'll send you the packing material to ship it to the nearest repair center.

Csound1 wrote:

 

 

The correct way to protect your data is to back it up, you can do what you want but please don't advise others to do the same.

Thanks for clarifying, I missed that in the post, and now that the Macbook boots again it is easier to make a backup to an external hdd. (Y).

Richard Liu wrote:

 

You didn't say exactly where you are, but you can call Apple support and they'll send you the packing material to ship it to the nearest repair center.

I'm in Ushuaia, Argentina.

Brief update on my case with my 2011 MBP.

Few weeks ago my machine was replaced with brand new rMBP (2.8Gh (paid additional for processor upgrade), 1TB flash, + Super Drive), after 3rd GPU failure within 1 year. I paid full repair cost on 1st time which happened before EWP but was reimbursed afterwords.

Some people complain about Apple product how crappy thermal past and GPU are used, but I'm pretty sure this is the only company who would replace with brand new machine after 4.5 year of use. I know how you feel for those who are experiencing the issues now, but please do some research yourself and give some respect to Genius Bar and Apple Care staff.

Interesting YouTube video on how reballing repair on GPU will not work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AcEt073Uds

Good luck

jedi&#39;master wrote:

 

Brief update on my case with my 2011 MBP.

Few weeks ago my machine was replaced with brand new rMBP (2.8Gh (paid additional for processor upgrade), 1TB flash, + Super Drive), after 3rd GPU failure within 1 year. I paid full repair cost on 1st time which happened before EWP but was reimbursed afterwords.

 

Some people complain about Apple product how crappy thermal past and GPU are used, but I'm pretty sure this is the only company who would replace with brand new machine after 4.5 year of use. I know how you feel for those who are experiencing the issues now, but please do some research yourself and give some respect to Genius Bar and Apple Care staff.

 

Interesting YouTube video on how reballing repair on GPU will not work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AcEt073Uds

 

Good luck

After doing a lot of research, prior to the Extended Warranty program, I had my 2011 MacBook Pro 17" repaired by the man in the video rather then pay Apple because there were a significant number of reports of repeated failures when Apple did the repair. I chose Rossman because I was told the GPU will be replaced with a new chip. 

They also replaced one fan that was starting to make bearing noise.  The RPM, about 1990...3 rpm during browsing operations, for both fans are about the same as before.  Under heavy gpu and cpu loading the fans will spin up to about 5,100...5,200 rpm with most heavy lifting resulting in fan speeds in the 4,000 rpm range.  My 2011 MBP temps range from low 90s to mid 130s with occasional readings into low 150s which is slightly lower than they had been for years before being repaired.  The machine has performed flawlessly since.

When Apple implemented the Extended Warranty program, Apple reimbursed the cost of that repair.

After watching the video I am doubtful that unless the GPU chip is replaced with a better designed GPU chip that there is any truely reliable long term repair for this problem.

Yeah, you choose the right repair shop for sure.

From listening to how he repairs on YouTube videos Rossman defintely knows what he's doing.

It's very rare now days shops like Rossman who is on customer side and try to provide permanant solution.

Though low 150s sounds bit too high right repair proves the machine is holding up.

Keep up your 17" MBP!