Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Swampus wrote:

 

Did they say head-in-pillow?  If we could get some pictures of that, it would be irrefutable evidence of a manufacturing defect. 

 

It looks like this:

 

 

Or this one (the ball on the left):

 

 

These can often pass quality control and work fine for a little while.  It's not a failed joint, per se.  It's a joint that was never formed properly.

Swampus, is it possible to see (with the naked eye) if either of these defects is present within our own MBPs? Or can/should it only be checked by a professional/certified technician?

If possible to check ourselves, can you provide (or link to) instructions on how to do so (without furthur harming our machines)? Thanks for the helpful info!

The photos in Swampus were probably not working board, x-rayed to check the soldering.

And finally cut trough just besides to show the effect with a real photo.

Visually you could only check it maybe on the outher balls using a zoom camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt8gGJ6XYOQ

Btw, I do this type of repairs.

Sadly, don't have an x-ray machine myself.

It would be possible to get a good look at the outer balls with a 90º prism, mirror, and a good camera or cheap USB microscope.  Visual inspection deeper than that would require a fiber-optic endoscopic camera that can be snaked around underneath.  They're very useful and much cheaper to maintain than an X-Ray machine.  It's much more likely that a small repair shop would have something like this instead of an X-Ray. 

D3us wrote:

 

The photos in Swampus were probably not working board, x-rayed to check the soldering.

And finally cut trough just besides to show the effect with a real photo.

Visually you could only check it maybe on the outher balls using a zoom camera.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt8gGJ6XYOQ

 

Btw, I do this type of repairs.

Sadly, don't have an x-ray machine myself.

Probably discovered with some form of optical inspection.  Head-in-pillow defects are difficult to detect with X-Ray inspection.

You can find it with x-ray, perfectly visible if you know what to search for.

Seen it myself on an electronics manufacturing exhibition where they where demonstrating x-ray technology to check the soldering process.

A trained person doing this kind of instpection will find them using x-ray.

Look at 0:28, read description.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-2DyISn4cE

Repair/Reworking will probably result in lesser risk for head in pillow imo as it is slightly different from mass production soldering.

It's not only macbooks having this problem.

In the future, as everything get's more integrated, more devices using BGA's might experience these problems.

Hi abelliveau,

I have the same model,an early 2011 15" MacBook Pro (2.2 GHz, Intel Core i7, 16GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory running OS X 10.9 (Mavericks).  with 2 Graphics components: AMD Radeon HD 6750M and an Intel HD Graphics 3000,

My problem started a couple of weeks ago when all of a sudden the screen turned bright blue and would freeze. Had to force restart  the computer and I would get a grey screen with the Apple logo and the spinning cog and after a while they would both disappear and be left with a grey screen and the fans going wild but nothing happening. 

Tried to restart in safe mode but nothing.  After about 4 attempts the computer would start.... 

Not for long...  the dreaded bright blue or a grey screen would appear again so back to restarting the machine over and over again.

  Have also done a NVRAM/PRAM reset but nothing seems to solve the problem

I have tried disabling the Automatic graphics switching.  It had worked fine for a day but today I had the bright blue screen 3 times and when I tried to save a document I got the two images as reported by "abelliveau" ,

with the screen split in two with the left side of the screen on the right and viceversa. 

See: http://imageshack.us/a/imag145/9898/screenshot20130201at758.png

Got the dreaded bright blue screen as I was writing this post.

It's about time Apple recognises these models have a problem and the GPU is defective.   There is enough evidence to prove it (although they don't want to admit it)  Not only in this thread but others like mactrast.com, everymac.com, etc.

They have over 130 pages of complaints about the same problem.  How can they say it's an unknown problem??

Maybe we should all avail ourselves of the EU wide consumer law which provide statutory warranty rights in addition to the coverage receive from the one year limited warranty or the optional AppleCare Protection Plan. 

Also in the UK if a product is defective consumers may, in addition to any other rights which they may

have under consumer law in the UK and Ireland, avail themselves of the rights contained the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (in particular Section 12), the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 (in particular Section 2) and the Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002

And it's also very clearly stated in the Apple webpage:     AppleCare Protection Plan

benefits are in addition to a consumer’s right to a free of charge repair or replacement,

by the seller, of goods which do not conform with the contract of sale. Under English law,

consumers have up to six years from the date of delivery to exercise their rights however,

various factors may impact your eligibility to receive these remedies.    

For more details,

http://store.apple.com/uk/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=ME293B/A&step=config

So there Apple, why don't you do a recall like you did with the defective hard drives on the iMac.

These MBP cost enough money and you shouldn't expect the consumer to fork out another £300 or £400 in order to get a useable machine.

I have the same model,an early 2011 15" MacBook Pro (2.0 GHz, Intel Core i7)

the photo of macbookpro 15" was token last year, NOW this is just a rubble

$1999 apple.......

Well I just got word from Techpeople that my 2011MBP is ready.  A straight-up logic-board swap, I assume.  Maybe a nice rusty one like some people got LOL.

Anyway, they indicated they did prolonged testing; that is all I can ask.

LociKW wrote:

 

Well I just got word from Techpeople that my 2011MBP is ready.  A straight-up logic-board swap, I assume.  Maybe a nice rusty one like some people got LOL.

 

Anyway, they indicated they did prolonged testing; that is all I can ask.

 

How many days did it take to fix (from dropoff to pick up)?

It took 11 days, but several of those were just shipment of the logic board to Bogota, Colombia from the US.  I cannot complain about the service level or speed, really; it was what I anticipated.  This was an iShop, I believe operated by TechPeople, who have stores and service locations in Bogota, Medellin, and Cali; possibly others.

I was in Key West, FL, when my 2007 MBP got the Nvidia (8600) logic board swap.  That also took 8 days I think.

There are no Apple Stores in Bogota, or anywhere in Colombia.  There is more than one authorized service places; heck there must be 10 in Bogota, many of which have stores physically modelled after Apple Stores; some just shops.

I would hazard that Bogota is a candidate for an actual Apple Store at some point due to its size and how busy the stores all are.

I will take the bottom off at least to re-insert my SSD.  I could take a photo and upload it if that has any value here.

In my case, apple tech offered me to send my machine to Germany for reballing (Im from Slovenia). I think it would take as much days as for LociKW.

He offered me reballing for 240€ (100€ more as if I would organise repair by my self) and also with 6 months warranty.

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I am so ****** right now.  My computer's a complete dud, dead, or as others have said a $2000 paper weight. I was using it fine then the screen went black. I tried to restart, but whatever happened corrupted my hard drive.  I booted into Internet recovery twice but now it won't work.

Whoever said that our computers are a ticking time bomb was right. Even with the workaround, the unit will fail and you will eventually be locked out.  Seriously... Apple screwed us.  I can't work now so what am I supposed to do? Pay $310 for something that will probably fail again or get a new laptop from a competitor? I'm leaning towards the latter.  I have only had apple computers so it's kind of big deal to make the switch but I have no other choice.

I believe thousands of machines have failed.  That guy from the authorized repair center admitted seeing 40 cases this year and more each week.  Another person said that the apple genuis said they are dealing with more gpu repairs. That doesn't count someone like me who went in but didn't go through with the repair.  There are 500 Apple stores and probably more authorized repair centers.  If one admits to seeing 40 cases and you multiply that by 500 Apple stores, that's 20,000 units with GPU failure.  And that's not even including the repair centers because I have no idea how many there are or the multiple repeated failures after GPU replacement.

Believe me someone is going to go after them for this and we will be compensated for the "fix" but I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon.  Apple screwed us.

HI! Add me to the list! I have the exact same issue. Second motherboard in the laptop, was replaced by apple under warranty. Now, out of warranty for the computer and since I upgraded to maverics, I have the issue.... What to do!!!

Same here!!! I've been googling this for 3 days as I'm having big displaying issues that happen everytime I reboot but also randomly. My macbookpro is from early 2011 and has the AMD Radeon HD 6490M. I'm gonna pray Apple finaly handles the issue cause I def don't plan on paying €500 to fix this as it's a failure that is THEIR FAULT.