Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Hi !

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Hello, I'm from italy and i have a macbook pro early 2011. I've experienced the same problems posted here on the group. I've called the apple assistance in order to know if they were aware of the problem but they could not help me. They said they did not receive any information from the headquarters and they advice me to leave a feedback on www.apple.com/feedback. I would like to invite you all to do that, call the assistance and raise your voice. The operator also told me that to buy a brand new mac is cheaper than to reapair it, I restrained my self from insulting him. Bye

Carlo.dg wrote:

Well, I suppose a top manifacturer like Apple, use only best components for their products. Also capacitor that last more than 3 years (as others manifacturer DO).

 

That's not always true as it's assembled with common parts made in China. And heat shorten the lifespan of capacitor. Capacitor can die in 1 year.

You can understand there are two lines of parts. One is made for desktop and the other is for mobile. Some Mac Pro has been slower than the high-end laptop. But there truly are people prefer these Mac Pro over the laptop. Why? Because Mac Pro is redundantly built for stressful environment. It's heavy and is not compact as laptop but has advantages. It indirectly explains the mobile can't last long like desktop does. Heat inside small chassis is one of the disadvantage of mobile devices. You have to understand the users of mobile more likely to encounter the fail caused by heat than traditional destkop style computer users.

ciu5781 wrote:

 

Carlo.dg wrote:

Well, I suppose a top manifacturer like Apple, use only best components for their products. Also capacitor that last more than 3 years (as others manifacturer DO).

 

That's not always true as it's assembled with common parts made in China. And heat shorten the lifespan of capacitor. Capacitor can die in 1 year.

 

You can understand there are two lines of parts. One is made for desktop and the other is for mobile. Some Mac Pro has been slower than the high-end laptop. But there truly are people prefer these Mac Pro over the laptop. Why? Because Mac Pro is redundantly built for stressful environment. It's heavy and is not compact as laptop but has advantages. It indirectly explains the mobile can't last long like desktop does. Heat inside small chassis is one of the disadvantage of mobile devices. You have to understand the users of mobile more likely to encounter the fail caused by heat than traditional destkop style computer users.

Maybe ciu5781 you did not understand the sense of this thread.

So it's been a couple of days since i did a clean install and my machine is still working fine on the discrete gpu. It's important to say that when i did the clean install i  installed my tm backup and immediatly after it was installed the machine crashed. So i had to do a new clean install, but since than the machine is running fine. So don't recover your backup after the clean install. I now only reinstall the programs i need and get the documents that i need from my back up disk. Has anyone tried this because this seems to work for now? As i said in my first post you probably need to reboot the machine a few times before you can open recovery mode. I keep my fingers crossed but right now it looks good.

 

So anyone tried this already?

I've been down this road.  As the problem progresses (degradation), even a clean install won't solve the problem.  Besides that, don't we want our machines operating like they're supposed to?  I, for one, bought a powerhouse so I could edit video.  Hard to do that with a failing GPU.

Maybe ciu5781 you did not understand the sense of this thread.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending ciu5781, but he/she is entitled to his/her opinion, despite how contrary it is to our opinions and the general purpose of this discussion. 

I, too, disagree with his/her assertions, but valid points are made, regardless of how appropriate they are to this discussion. 

May I propose that from here forward we let ciu5781 make his/her comments (yes, sometimes repeatedly and seemingly passive aggressive) and let's just move on without cluttering this already overflowing discussion with even more defensive comments?  And Yes, I'm aware that THIS is one of those cluttering comments. 

Today I faced this problem again =(

The computer has freezed. I turned it off and then it keeps freezing on start... I tried a "safe mode" starting and then I get this:

And after that screen, this one:

After try restarting the machine a couple of times it back to normal... But once a while I have to pass through this process =(

Hardware Overview:

  Model Name:          MacBook Pro

  Model Identifier:          MacBookPro8,2

  Processor Name:          Intel Core i7

  Processor Speed:          2.5 GHz

  Number of Processors:          1

  Total Number of Cores:          4

  L2 Cache (per Core):          256 KB

  L3 Cache:          8 MB

  Memory:          8 GB

  Boot ROM Version:          MBP81.0047.B27

  SMC Version (system):          1.69f4

  System Version:          OS X 10.9.1 (13B42)

AMD Radeon HD 6770M:

  Chipset Model:          AMD Radeon HD 6770M

  Type:          GPU

  Bus:          PCIe

  PCIe Lane Width:          x8

  VRAM (Total):          1024 MB

  Vendor:          ATI (0x1002)

  Device ID:          0x6740

  Revision ID:          0x0000

  ROM Revision:          113-C0170L-573

  gMux Version:          1.9.23

  EFI Driver Version:          01.00.573

Intel HD Graphics 3000:

  Chipset Model:          Intel HD Graphics 3000

  Type:          GPU

  Bus:          Built-In

  VRAM (Total):          512 MB

  Vendor:          Intel (0x8086)

  Device ID:          0x0126

  Revision ID:          0x0009

  gMux Version:          1.9.23

  Displays:

Color LCD:

  Display Type:          LCD

  Resolution:          1680 x 1050

  Pixel Depth:          32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

  Main Display:          Yes

  Mirror:          Off

  Online:          Yes

  Built-In:          Yes

Just got an e-mail from executive relations after sending an e-mail to tim cook last night. Hopefuly thay have the power to issue a repair for my laptop at least. Waiting for them to review the case further.

I have exactly the same problem with Macbook Pro 8,3 (Late 2011), i7quad, 750GB 5400HDD version. AMD Radeon HD causes exactly the same problems as indicated here.

Keeping only integrated video active with special programs helps, but not in all cases, including inability to work with external display.

There's always a troll, I suggest we all stop egging him on.

I too have had a response back from a mail to Mr. Cooks. I am arranging to take my machine once more to look at repair, under guidance from. Apple. Feeling re-kindled about it. Fingers crossed.

I do understand that there is an underlaying issue with the GUP. However, steps at a time I guess!

I have established repair rather than no repair, which is where I was this morning, progress!

I want  to share my thoughts after watching this discussion thread  .  I am using a MacBook Pro 8,2 model 33 mothns old , 2.3 Ghz with AMD 6750M and 500GB HDD 7200 RPM which stays most of time on  . My system is always connected to an Apple Cinema Display so it uses dedicated GPU . My activities include occasionally intense 3D gaming and web surfing . So far , I have not noticed any systematic computer crash incidents , my only memory recalls were 2-3 GPU hangs in a 6 month period , solved with hard reboot . My CPU temps under normal system load on Mavricks 10.9.1 are 55-65 ceclsious and under heavy gaming (ex. Borderlands2 , BioShock Infinite , Metro:Last Light ) is 80 -90 Celcious . I would like to mention that many incidents from this discussion use Windows operating system as alternative , work with internal SSD memories and handle their computer as portable device . Of course I cannot make any early conclusions or to extract any cause related- failure senarios . Thanks

My problems just started 2 days ago. I went to turn on my laptop as I do every morning and after a few minutes of light browsing around on safari just looking at the news I got a solid blue screen. I thought it was just a 1 time thing since after restarting the laptop I didn't have problems all day then yesterday morning I started off with a blue screen with vertical lines. Since then it's only got worse to where I'm barely capable of using my laptop at all at this point before I'm forced to shut down.

My MacBook Pro is a late 2011 model that I got roughly 2 years ago around this time in 2012. It has the discrete graphics card 6750M 512MB. This is my first Mac and I'm quite disappointed that it begins to fail just around the 2 year mark compared to my other laptop that runs a bit slow but is still chugging along fine coming up on its 5th year.

Same thing is happening to me:

Early 2011 15 inch macbook pro: 2.2 i7, Radeon 6750, etc.

The computer started getting the graphics corruption issue described in many posts, then it would not boot.

After a while I was able to get it to boot again, I have no idea why.

Next, I put a new disk in, and installed a fresh copy of OS X 10.8, then upgraded to 10.9.

I thought it was fixed, and I was trying to stress it out with an OpenGL graphics benchmark. It ran for a couple of hours and the temperatures never really got too high. I was able to run the computer, reboot it, sleep and wake it with no problems at all.

A couple of days later, I thought I would run the OpenGL benchmark again. It ran for about 10 seconds then the screen became corrupted, and I got a solid blue screen. Now the computer has the start up chime, but the screen is completely black.

I'm so glad I saw the article on Arstechnica.com pointing to this thread. I was about to give up and sell the computer for parts on ebay since it is out of warranty.

Hopefully something can be done.

i've the same problem with mbp early 2011 15".

first i had a flickering screen and horizontal stripes. now the laptop freezes with a grey screen, when i try to restart it.

i talked for more than 1 hour with apple support today and they told me only one thing: i am out of warrenty and apple won't replace the parts.
my local apple dealer is also aware of this problem, but apple itself is ignoring it.
how is this possible? so many people are affected with the same issue?