Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I brought mine in today (15" early 2011, 6490)

They forced me to pay the $300 flat fee, saying the known problem was the MacBook booting up all black (not Apple logo then gray screen). When I asked if there was anything he could do since it was a manufacture defect and a huge issue and that my logic board already had been replaced once after a year he said I wouldn't even be eligible since I already got a new logic board and it's not the original unit

Ridiculous

Build details of my MBP from http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php

Swampus wrote:

 

You can go to one of these sites and find the build week by entering your serial number:

 

http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php

Here's mine that did have the problems (got logic board swapped).

I bought it in october 2011 so week 30 (july) is more accurate than week 3 (january)

Hello, I have the same problem since the beginning and I thought there wasn't any trouble but 2 months back i had some problems likfe freezes with graphics glitches. I restarted but the day after the screen suddenly turned black and from this moment it won't boot at all. The screens remains white after the apple logo, and blue with lines all over the screen whith bootcamp.
The hardware test says everything is fine, and I can boot with target mode on another Mac. The problem is certainly this logic board.

But Apple don't want to repair it freely 'cause they say they aren't aware of the problem. What should I do ? Pay 80$ just for they analyze it and then say just " no the problem is yours so please pay " ?

Thank you

Chachaud wrote:

 

Hello, I have the same problem since the beginning and I thought there wasn't any trouble but 2 months back i had some problems likfe freezes with graphics glitches. I restarted but the day after the screen suddenly turned black and from this moment it won't boot at all. The screens remains white after the apple logo, and blue with lines all over the screen whith bootcamp.
The hardware test says everything is fine, and I can boot with target mode on another Mac. The problem is certainly this logic board.

 

But Apple don't want to repair it freely 'cause they say they aren't aware of the problem. What should I do ? Pay 80$ just for they analyze it and then say just " no the problem is yours so please pay " ?

 

Thank you

OK, try this:

1. Let you Mac cool down and remove any external display.

2. Boot it and press cmd-s (Command key + S) for single user boot.

3. Wait until the the you can enter a command (the prompt is root#)

4. Type 'exit' and wait until the familiar login screen appears.

5. As soon as your Finder comes up (if you have lots of Apps open, close them all)  download gfxCardStatus, start it and select 'Integrated Only'

This helped me, maybe you have to do it more than one time…

Enjoy your 

Same here in Austria happend to my MBP eraly 2011, 15,4" , hires display, antiglare:

the situation is very tricky: since there is no apple store in austria I would have to go to an apple autorised partner. They charge at least 100 - 150 Euro just for diagnosis. But the only thing thay can do is replacing the motherboard for around 900 EUR. This ist definitly too much.

I finally found a nice litte company in germany which reparierd my MBP für around 120 EUR.

I can recommend this company for anyonein europe, but be prepared - it may take up to 3 weeks to receive the mbp back.

MJ-COMPUTER,  Obere-Sehlhofstr.21a, 42289 Wuppertal

<Personal Information Edited By Host>

Swampus wrote:

 

If you post the results here, omit your serial number.  IIRC, if yours is a BTO or Apple Refurbished, the build week shown will not be correct.

Here are my production infos:

Enjoy your 

I had the exact same experience! I had black/blue screens when running FCPx, ran a hardware test, and found a faulty 8 gig Crucial Ram stick. Got it replaced, but a week later it was back with a vengance. Finally found this thread, and am slightly comforted by the sheer number of fellow Macbook owners commiserating with me.

Right now I'm running integrated with gfxcardstatus like everyone else, except that I'm a video editor and kinda need the card to run FCPX smoothly. I'll be in the US for 3 weeks in December, and I'm planning on taking my Macbook to see what can be done......

So it sounds like a number of people have had the logic boards replaced, but without solving the problem at all. Has anyone had the GPU resoldered with good results? Anyone actually had their 2011 Macbook repaired successfully, with no more GPU glitches?

I tried to read through the last 97 pages of this thread, but then gave up and just read the first 5 and last 10.

And how much noise do we "Macbook-with-Bad-AMD-GPU" owners need to make before Apple will take notice?

To be completely honest, I think Apple is very well aware of this problem but they just don't care about it. Why else would they ignore us for this long?

They should at least give us an answer to our questions, wheather it means a replacement program or not. If not, well... then at least we know Apple's standpoint and we can all throw our MBP's in the thrash can and forget about it.

Yep, I'm about to give up on this now..

The corner bonds are essentially to reduce mechanical shock and resistance to bending during transportation etc. It was more widely designed for use in mobile phones for shock resistance when dropped. It has little to do with the failures we are seeing I am fairly certain. Nearly all 2006 Macbook Pro's do not have these corner bonds and no major failures have been seen.

However I have seen PCB traces lifted from boards that have no corner bonds and have had excessive flex when removed or fitted  (not seen so much with BGA IC's with corner bonds.

I do not put corner bonds after rework as we are very carefull refitting and ensure the board does not flex. I also prefer the BGA to allow itself to align freely and 'float on the lead solder' before dropping below the melting point.

If we had repairs come back I would of course give it a try. Otherwise I will stay with my methods.

We have seen endoscopic and X rays used but the expense and time involved is not worth it. It is much better in my opinion to leave the gpu on a soak test to check that the GPU BGA placement has been successful.

If a repairerer claims they have 20k + machines they are probably lying as they would never see the money back. I belive there is a Greek website saying they have a 100,000 EURO rework machine.... they must work for foxconn!

Any more Q's just ask and I will try to help if I can... (P.s. just done another 6490M today. What temps are you guys seeing under full GPU load?)

We have seen endoscopic and X rays used but the expense and time involved is not worth it.

I think the question was more: Did you happen to do a Xray before and after the replacement to see the difference in the solder joints.

If a repairerer claims they have 20k + machines they are probably lying as they would never see the money back. I belive there is a Greek website saying they have a 100,000 EURO rework machine.... they must work for foxconn!

That's a really strange statement to make for a pro company. In my former company we had equipment (e.g. reflow machines and semiconductor placement robots) much more expensive than that.

I am saying for a repairer who carries out GPU replacements of this kind these 20k machines are not required. For production or large volume repairs maybe. Did your company carry out GPU replacement on laptops only?

These are just my opinions that I am expressing and not prepared to get in a forum argument about it like many of tthe forum discussions end up. I posted the pictures for educational purposes.

No we have not used X-Ray before and after. It would be interesting but certainly with the 2007/08 Nvidia we already know what the results would be.

With the feedback and results from over 2000 repairs we use a tried and tested approach and will continue using these methods.

It would however be interesting to find someone has access to an X-ray machine to check a failed ATI unit to see if the BGA is failing beneath the Chipset or the chipset itself is faulty.

I am saying for a repairer who carries out GPU replacements of this kind these 20k machines are not required.

I partially agree, but the claim that companies claiming to have such machines are lying is quite a bold statement, no?

For production or large volume repairs maybe. Did your company carry out GPU replacement on laptops only?

Not at all, they used to design and manufacture devices.

I posted the pictures for educational purposes.

Very much appreciated.

No we have not used X-Ray before and after. It would be interesting but certainly with the 2007/08 Nvidia we already know what the results would be.

...

It would however be interesting to find someone has access to an X-ray machine to check a failed ATI unit to see if the BGA is failing beneath the Chipset or the chipset itself is faulty.

I totally agree. Unfortunately I neither have the dead board (I tried to keep it but the shop asked an additional 500€ if I wanted to keep that which is a bit steep...) nor the good connections to Infineon and AMD I used to have a couple of years ago (lots of change there...) anymore.

I am guessing like many others  on this forum that Apple must be using refurb boards.

I guess these boards go back to China, Tested - If they pass, as they well might do (being sometimes intermittent faults) some poor customer will get that board fitted back to their units.

I would happily give people £100+ for their old boards if Apple didnt want them back!

The brand new GPU is sitting at 29C idle and 71C under full load after 10mins of GPUTest - Enclosure 27C

Anyone have temps to compare?