Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I think I'm still in denial that this is actually happening... and that the bug can't be fixed with a software patch

*The appleserialnumberinfo.com site lists the wrong graphics card for my serial number (I have the 6750M, not 6490M according to my system report)

Heres's my info:

AMD Radeon HD 6750M (Logic Board Replaced x2 times)

Using Photoshop or Aperture causes the system to crash with the glitches. Playing counterstrike on steam doesn't give any problems at all. It's really strang...

Here's my info:

AMD Radeon HD 6750M, Hi Res graphics display (1680x1050).

Logic Board replaced at Apple Store last month - still working.

My MacBook Pro 15" early 2011 has the problems with the GPU. It also has the higher resolution display (1680x1050) as mentioned by a few others.

How many of us with this issue have the high res screen on the 15"?

I have the 15" high resolution (matte) display too

I also have the 15" Hi-res matte display with GPU failure.

This is the info on my MBP

bga_repairs wrote:

 

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?

I'm not sure how apple does repairs in europe.  But in the U.S. apple sends all flat rate repairs to a contracted authorized third party repair company in Tennessee.  I'm guessing the company "refurbishes" the internals by reballing/reflowing and/or changing out necessary bad components.  They likely have a revolving inventory, so your bad logic board most likely ends up in someone elses computer a week or two later after it has gone through their system.

I've come to a sorta breakthough for myself with this issue and figured out a workaround for my machine that allows me to use the discreet gpu with full power and little to no problems.  Dont know how reliable this breakthough will be for others, but for myself i'm pleased....but it makes me think it just might be a software/firmware problem more than an hardware.

I've had the same problems as everyone else in this post....absolutely nothing different...but what i figured out is that If i go into the display settings in system preferences and change the screen resolution a few times to a few of different settings before reverting it back to the system recommended resolution and then open up any of the programs that would previously cause the system to freeze/crash/bluescreen....i no longer have any problems. I can now edit videos, work on photos, whatever...and my laptop works fine.

Just for the sake of seeing if this really work, i even tried to run the same apps without first going into the display settings and changing the screen resolution and it went back to giving me the same freeze/crash/bluescreen problems immediately. I really hope this helps people as it has helped me so far!

i have also antiglare model

Here's my info:

High resolution graphics display (1680x1050).

Add mine to the list. Early 2011 Macbook 2.2 i7 It started last week with random blue and grey screens, then burned an 8 gig Crucial memory module (I've seen others reporting a broken memory module coinciding with the GPU failure as well.... weird). I was able to run for a day using gfxcard set to integrated.

Now I can't get it to boot at all. Been trying all day, trying removing ram and battery, even removed the hard drive, popped it into an enclosure, and disabled all ATI extensions.....all to now avail. Any ideas for how I can get it to start up? I live it Cambodia, so taking it to the local genius bar is not an option.

Thanks to Apple, I have a $1400 paperweight, barely a year and four months after I bought it. Nice.

The last Apple laptop that I bought was a 2005 iBook. Same story, second verse. I had the logic board replaced once under warranty, and it failed again 1 month after the warranty expired. Again, a handy paperweight. Only lost $900 that time. Cool.

This could be the straw that keeps me from ever buying another Macbook.

I wonder how many of us are actually experiencing SMC problems? It is well known that bad power can cause a GPU to fail or behave erratically (there are many links on the web on this subject).

Perhaps my case is illustrative (again, this may only apply to some of you -- I'm not suggesting this is an issue for all of you).

A day or two before my early 2011 MBP went berserk starting in early August 2013 (i.e. endless bluescreen/blackscreen/grayscreen/etc.) I noticed three things:

• that my Magic trackpad (bluetooth) stopped working properly (i.e. it was totally unusable)
• that some of the USB ports on my 27" monitor appeared to be dead.
• my Thunderbolt/eSata adapter stopped being reliable

I didn't think much of it, feeling initially that the Magic trackpad needed replacing and that the monitor's USB hub was just getting old, and that the Thunderbolt adapter was just junk.

There are various threads implicating SMC as a root cause all the above.

Anyway, after about a month of sheer h@ll, I eventually got AppleCare to replace my logic board. But within a week all the bluescreen/blackscreen/grayscreen madness returned. Naturally, I too was convinced that the replacement logic board was junk. But I did one more thing before throwing in the towel: I did a clean (virgin) install of Maverick onto an external drive just to see if I could replicate the bad GPU behavior. Well the short story is that I couldn't, even after a week of heavy testing. Feeling a bit more confident, I then migrated my users/data/apps from the internall SSD onto my external drive. I also took the opportunity to remove all plugins and unused applications. I also updated all my applications to the latest versions. I now tested this "clean" installation with every program that waa causing problems previously (e.g. Photoshop, DxO Optics Pro, Photomatix Pro, iPhoto, etc.) and I could not get it to screw up. So I did one more clean install of Mavericks, this time onto my erased and newly partitioned SSD. And once again migrated my users/data/apps this time from the bootable external drive.

One last thing: I turned off graphics swtiching in the energy saver

So now I am getting on to close to four weeks with no problems. And I use my laptop like I used to before this past August.

In summary, for my particular case this is what I believe happened:

1. SMC started failing causing all sorts of flakiness in various subsystems
2. GPU soon thereafter started failing with the hated "bluescreen/blackscreen/grayscreen" behavior
3. After nearly 100 crashes/forced restarts, the file system got corrupted (including the restore partition)
4. Replacement logic board + corrupted file system = same bad behavior as before
5. but, replacement logic board + clean/virgin install, migration, cleanup, turning off graphics switching, and updating of all apps has given me my laptop back

So for those of you who have not given up, and have access to a spare external drive, you might want to try what I did. At the worst you will lose an evening. At the best, you might get your laptop back.

YMMV

Michael

P.S. my USB ports on my 27" monitor are fine as is my Magic trackpad!

Okay add me to the list. My problem started occuring in early October 2013. I also have the high-res matte screen

Serial Number:

Model: - MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) (CTO)

Codename:- No codename assigned.

Build Country:- We don't know where this unit was built.

Build Year:- This unit was built in the first half of 2011.

Build Week- Week 9 (February) or week 36 (August)

Production Nr.:- This unit was number 202 to be built that week.

Spent tons of time on this. Work that needs to be done within my business has had to be delayed.

RIDICULOUS!!! Can't beleive how many others are having this issue and still having to fork over a bunch of money, in what is obviously a huge manufacturing flaw.

Andy