Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card
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Apr 11, 2016 11:17 PMby Ian Cheong,Surely if AHT said "check graphics card", it could fail the VST test afterwards.
BTW, mine has aftermarket SSD and RAM. So I swapped the original hard drive and RAM back in for test and repair. Theoretically, I was hoping to boot another machine off my SSD so I could keep working uninterrupted. But couldn't get hold of an old enough mac mini functioning at short notice. Bought a new mac mini which happily migrated all my stuff, except for old programs which wouldn't run (Rosetta). Fortunately, the parts and repair all managed to happen faster than quoted over easter!
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Apr 17, 2016 4:59 PMby rdbrwn,My update.
My 2011 MBP LB replaced under program is still going strong after 1 year and 1 month. I made an thermal paste job right after repair and noticed that dGPU was from a 2015 revision. I made some photos around beginning of march in 2015 and post them in this treat. I use TG Pro app to control my fans and I got always always around 40°C in idle. I also switced to SSD and 16GB RAM and I can say I have a new computer, that boots in seconds and is still a workhorse up to these days. I use Adobe CS6, Autocad most of the time and I am satisfied.
It is really nice to see, after all this rant in this treat, that people are mostly satisfied with exchange program.
I suggest all to do what I did, with thermal grease and fan control.
Kisses, RB
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Apr 20, 2016 6:06 PMby robert.clapp,I had my Mac Book pro late 2011 17" repaired last August and it ran without issues (for the most part) until these past couple of weeks. I have experienced lots of unexpected reboots which were the precursor to the eventual and complete failure of the discrete graphics system. I have an appointment tomorrow and I hope it's something that can be addressed. I'll update if I have any news to share after the appointment.
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Apr 21, 2016 12:31 AMby bojun,I have a retina mbp mid 2012. From Monday it gives no video at all after every restart. But it may start to give video after I keep the lid close for about 20 minutes and It will keep running if I don't shut it down or restart it. However the discrete graphics card does not work any more. the MacBook pro will never switch to the Nvidia GT650m even if I turn the auto switch off or if I play some video games(The fps is much lower than before). The employees from Apple are unable to run VST on it since it gives no video after restart but they are nice enough to decide to replace the logic board for me. i think they probably gonna replace my logic board with another used one and the issue may come back again. Anyone had this issue ?
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Apr 21, 2016 1:28 AMby dealmaker,My late 2011 17" MBP had its first video failure in February - it went to the Apple store and they put a new logic board in.
The machine started to randomly shut down and have crashes two weeks ago - so it went back in - they tested it and said it was fine - I said it always seemed to have these issues when it got hot....so they agreed to stress test it - and it failed again - in a big way I think.
So its now on its second replacement Logic Board - and today it crashed..........I'm hoping it was a one off......
How many times can they keep repairing these logic boards - and is there any empirical evidence to suggest the logic boards they are now installing are somehow WORSE than the original ones that went into the machines when new?? Surely they should be BETTER ..and not WORSE?
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Apr 21, 2016 1:33 AMby Ian Cheong,I presume the logic boards are the *same*, excepting perhaps updated firmware to run the fans more. The presumed solder joint failure is likely a result of thermal stress.
I have had a few kernel panics in the weeks since repair. Have presumed that some are due to OS corruption caused by the repeated crashes caused by the logic board failure. Planning to reapply last combo update and security updates and hope to flush out the bugs....
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Apr 22, 2016 1:14 AMby dealmaker,In my previous repairs the kernel panics were a precursor to either total video failure - or just an increasingly incessant crashing which meant the MacBook very quickly became unusable.
In my opinion they should have re-engineered the Logic Boards so that the replacements were better than those originally fitted to the machines when new. These refurbished boards seem to be failing WAY too frequently - the fall out rate must be massive.
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May 7, 2016 10:37 AMby agranado,Hi guys,
I don't know if you are having this problem a third time. I have MacBook pro 15' 2011-early. In middle of 2014 (Jun-Jul) I had this problem. It was before Apple accept the problem and start the repair program. So I paid for the repair. When Apple started the repair program, they contact me to refund me. It was awesome.
However 1 year and 3 months later (Oct 2015) I had the same problem. In the begin Apple said that they won't repair my MacBook for free because they've already refunded for the previous problem. But after I show them that they used a motherboard + graphic card with same problem. They accepted and repair. Ok, it was great. I thought that all my MacBook pro 15' 2011-early was solved....
But Now my MacBook pro is showing the same symptoms. It's warming a lot (the fan is going to the máx rpm) always when I need some graphic resources. And two days ago it started to distortion my image screen with horizontal lines and reboot my MacBook after that. I'm really worring about that...
Does someone had the same problem for 3 times?
Sorry to write guys... I'm just really disappointed that Apple for not solve it in two repairs... :/
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May 7, 2016 11:26 AMby jimoase,agranado wrote:
Hi guys,
I don't know if you are having this problem a third time. I have MacBook pro 15' 2011-early. In middle of 2014 (Jun-Jul) I had this problem. It was before Apple accept the problem and start the repair program. So I paid for the repair. When Apple started the repair program, they contact me to refund me. It was awesome.
However 1 year and 3 months later (Oct 2015) I had the same problem. In the begin Apple said that they won't repair my MacBook for free because they've already refunded for the previous problem. But after I show them that they used a motherboard + graphic card with same problem. They accepted and repair. Ok, it was great. I thought that all my MacBook pro 15' 2011-early was solved....
But Now my MacBook pro is showing the same symptoms. It's warming a lot (the fan is going to the máx rpm) always when I need some graphic resources. And two days ago it started to distortion my image screen with horizontal lines and reboot my MacBook after that. I'm really worring about that...
Does someone had the same problem for 3 times?
Sorry to write guys... I'm just really disappointed that Apple for not solve it in two repairs... :/
Your experiences are not unique. Apple has both dragged its feet on making warranty repairs and customer have experienced multiple failures of those warranty repairs. I am not sure how to automate a search of previous entries to this discussion for such criteria, however there are responses from many Apple customers commenting on experiencing multiple failures and Apple's resistence to making warranty repairs.
The watch dogs for this discussion have often made it difficult to voice critism of Apple's involvement in this product problem. This response my suffer such censoring.
Good luck getting your problem resolved. Persistence will win the day.
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May 8, 2016 10:04 AMby Nickiwi,I had the same problem, early 2011 15" MacBook Pro, after the 4th replacement logic board Apple was good enough to replace the machine in January 2015 with a new mid-2014 15" MacBook Pro. I was by no means the only one to benefit from this, and it followed a 'phone call to Apple, where an Adviser scheduled a further call with a Senior Advisor with the authority to make such decisions. I elected to pay for an upgrade to the fastest processor and a 1TB SSD and these have proved (so far at least) superb and reliable. As I had not joined Apple Care I had had to pay for the 1st replacement, all others under the guarantee of the repair. Apple have agreed to repay me the 1st repair cost (minus VAT, apparently unrecoverable) (VAT, for non Europeans, is Value Added Tax, more or less equivalent to sales tax elsewhere) under their repair programme.
But I gather Apple may not be replacing machines any more as I believe they may have produced new replacement boards rather than using the old refurbished ones, but best to check!
Good luck!
