Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Well my 2012 cMBP just failed and while it is not a 2011, my 2011 failed so many times they had to give me a 2012. Now it's out of warranty and they won't offer a flat rate repair so they want $1136 to replace the display and logic board, even though the display is fine.

I had a really snobby genius as well, one of the main reasons I am posting this. But he made a good point. As a college student, I know that apples largest customer type is the clueless college student that buys a $2000+ 15 inch Macbook Pro because it's cool and hip. They end up using it for Microsoft Word and facebook. They also will stand by the company because it's cool and if they had their Mac break, they would just spend another $2000 and get a new one without second thought.

Almost everyone at my school has a Mac and it's nearly always not a 13 inch one. Most have updated to retina ones too. This type of consumer will just keep us hidden and not bring about a solution.

I experienced most of the problems cited in this thread on my 2011 MacBook Pro.

All started after I upgraded my OS from Snow Leopard to Mavericks; the first time I was just working as I used to do when suddendly the screen displaced, and then the system crashed. After the substitution of the logic board (luckly my applecare is still on) the system was still unstable, and after a few episodes of freezing and crashes I went back again to the apple store (less than 1 month after I got back the mac, and in between have been Christmas holidays so I was forced to wait), and they changed again the logic board.

From then I did not work hard as before, scared by possible new issues. What should I do? It is possible that they fixed the problem with the last update to 10.9.1?

P.S. I underline that since I bought the mac I had no problem with Snow Leopard, and all started quasi-immediatly after upgrading to Mavericks.

Thanks for your reaction, I guess I have to face the truth and accept it.

By reading posts here and there, I was pretty sure my logic board and I were no exception...

Tried to call them yesterday, choose the "I'm not covered" option and was told goodbye by the robot woman so I tried the online chat, talked with Brian (yeah, right) who basically told me to run to an Apple Store asap while stating he (they) wasn't aware of any problem regarding the early 2011 serie.

Well I Tried...

So what now, my freshly installed system is working so far so I'll hang on to it and try again to get an appointment with some genius by monday since I couldn't get ANY in my little town (Paris, France).

Will also try the phone but I'm a bit scared with the costs, don't know how much they charge for it.

Whatever the case, I won't go with the $600 option. If I want to have a new logic board, will try to get one and place it myself.

Might be a 200 pages full of people having the same problem, Apple won't recognize their fault or at least responsability anytime soon, doubt it.

<Edited By Host>

Update to my situation regarding a repair (from Portugal): the repair center contacted Apple about getting a new Logicboard to repair my MBP (which doesn't pass the grey screen, at this point) and got told they are out of stock and have no predictions of when new boards will be available.

For me, it is not about paying for a new board (although I hope a repair program would be put in place, at some point), but the fact that a permanent solution is not being provided by Apple. Actually, at this point, NO solution is being provided!

According to Portuguese Consumer Law, a new board would be warranty covered for 2 years and a repair at least for 1 year, so I would be rather protected and willing to proceed with the repair, also because I need the computed for work! Has anyone had any luck getting a decent repair in Portugal/Spain?

Hi everyone from Italy! Same issue for me since yesterday. MBP early 2011 15", 4GB RAM, 2.0 GHz processor. I am going to call Apple Support on Monday.

I think i have a possible solution to this problem, at least for the MacBook Pro 2010.

To fix it you have to disable compressed memory by typing the following command in the terminal:

sudo nvram boot-args="vm_compressor=1"

and then Restarting your Mac.

I'm guessing that its a bug in the driver of the Intel HD Graphics integrated GPU used in the 2010 MacBook Pro and somehow a part of the graphics RAM is accidentally compressed. I've been testing for approx. 8 hours and so far no graphics corruption at all.

If it gets fixed in an OSX update or it doesn't work for you you can use:

sudo nvram -d boot-args

and then Restart to reenable compressed memory.

It might affect other Intel GPUs so its worth a shot if you have a similar problem.

dadro wrote:

 

Update to my situation regarding a repair (from Portugal): the repair center contacted Apple about getting a new Logicboard to repair my MBP (which doesn't pass the grey screen, at this point) and got told they are out of stock and have no predictions of when new boards will be available.

 

For me, it is not about paying for a new board (although I hope a repair program would be put in place, at some point), but the fact that a permanent solution is not being provided by Apple. Actually, at this point, NO solution is being provided!

 

According to Portuguese Consumer Law, a new board would be warranty covered for 2 years and a repair at least for 1 year, so I would be rather protected and willing to proceed with the repair, also because I need the computed for work! Has anyone had any luck getting a decent repair in Portugal/Spain?

If apple can't/won't help you but you want it to be fixed, I can point you to a repair service in Portugal.

The guy I know there does a good job.

<Edited By Host>

I'm from Brazil and I didn't take my mac to a repair center yet... If the logic board is unavailable in Portugal and other countries as I'm reading in this forum, it also will not be available here for sure! =/

Same problem occuring with 17 inch MBP 2.3GHZ i7 8GB RAM running 10.8.5.

White screen lock ups, black screen lockups, itunes stuck on same not continuously, unresponsive, white screen with black stripes, pixelated full screen (desktop), restart chime repeating continuously every couple of seconds, no start up at all unless left for an hour or so....

akamyself wrote:

 

Thanks for your reaction, I guess I have to face the truth and accept it.

By reading posts here and there, I was pretty sure my logic board and I were no exception...

 

Tried to call them yesterday, choose the "I'm not covered" option and was told goodbye by the robot woman so I tried the online chat, talked with Brian (yeah, right) who basically told me to run to an Apple Store asap while stating he (they) wasn't aware of any problem regarding the early 2011 serie.

Well I Tried...

 

So what now, my freshly installed system is working so far so I'll hang on to it and try again to get an appointment with some genius by monday since I couldn't get ANY in my little town (Paris, France).

Will also try the phone but I'm a bit scared with the costs, don't know how much they charge for it.

 

Whatever the case, I won't go with the $600 option. If I want to have a new logic board, will try to get one and place it myself.

 

Might be a 200 pages full of people having the same problem, Apple won't recognize their fault or at least responsability anytime soon, doubt it.

 

<Edited By Host>

Call them again on the phone and when the robot asks you to "pay for a single support incident or hang up", just mumble. Eventually, the robot will patch you through to an AppleCare person and you can let them know about your issue. Give them your serial number so it can go on the record.

It is ridiculous! Apple still do not want to accept, that this problem exists! This is definitely Apple's fault. My MBP 17 inch even do not switch on! Just grey screen. I bought a top version in 2011 for huge amount of money.

Absolutely dissapointed by Apple service. After Steve died, everything went down.

They even do not have enough spare parts for fixing this problem!

Bye bye apple! My next machine is MSI or Asus.

So, The machine is back!

15" MBP Logicboard replaced Thursday 23 Jan 2014. Applecare. Apple quickshipped a board from the US to Penang, Malaysia. They put it in, rebooted, and apparently in the process, backed up and reinstalled my SSD.

So far so good. It appears to be "normal" I haven't had the time or energy to hunt down a GPU exerciser.

Interesting point though: Parellels 9 has a limit to the number of reinstalls that are allowed. I hit it. after a long and drawn out conversation with their customer support, I was informed in no uncertain terms that once you hit the limit, you have to buy a new license. There's another nail in the coffin. I can switch to VMWare and their license is good for any 3 machines, for any number of reinstalls. I'm really not sure why I've decide to go through this pain for a machine that costs 3x what the same class of PC does.

One more problem, and it goes directly to eBay....

Thanks LeVeL5 will try and do that.

Already got a Case ID registered from the online chat so it's on.

PaoloAlba873 wrote:

 

P.S. I underline that since I bought the mac I had no problem with Snow Leopard, and all started quasi-immediatly after upgrading to Mavericks.

There is a pattern for sure. Yes, some users had problems way before Mavericks, but the huge bulk started to have problems right after the upgrade. It's like there is something in the OS that is either speeding up, exponentially, the degrade rate of the GPU, or something corrupted in the OS that is causing the GPU to fail.

I have a 2011, 17'' MBP. So far so good, i had 0 problems with it in 2 and half years. I have Mountain Lion installed. I really hope that there is no problem with mine, but everyday, when i turn it on, its always on my mind that it may break anytime. :/ It's very stressfull, mainly due to this lack of support from Apple.

darwinp5101 wrote:

 

Interesting point though: Parellels 9 has a limit to the number of reinstalls that are allowed. I hit it. after a long and drawn out conversation with their customer support, I was informed in no uncertain terms that once you hit the limit, you have to buy a new license. There's another nail in the coffin. I can switch to VMWare and their license is good for any 3 machines, for any number of reinstalls. I'm really not sure why I've decide to go through this pain for a machine that costs 3x what the same class of PC does.

 

One more problem, and it goes directly to eBay....

Or you could maybe try a free one like this:

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Doesn't cost you anything to try out. If it works, don't have to pay for it.