Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I have a 15" MacBook Pro (early 2011), with AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB. Moving the ATI driver didn't work for me; however moving the AMD Accelerator did:

% cd /System/Library/Extensions/

% mkdir DisabledExtensions

% mv AMDRadeonAccelerator.kext DisabledExtensions/

My local Apple shop quoted me US $1,200 to replace the logic board!

Cheers,

-hq

Hey man, same problem but I went to Greenhills. They just put thermal paste onto the chip but after a few days my dislay is acting up again. Is the repair shop in delta OK?

the repair shop in delta is superb. i opted to replace the graphics chip and it works fine up to now. no glitches whatsoever. highly recommended! the repair also included replacing the thermal paste on the processor around 5000php total cost. BEST DEAL EVER!

Thanks for the info! Will go tomorrow. How long did they repair yours? Is the new chip still AMD radeon or Nvidia?

it's the exact model for compatibility, still the AMD chip. it's a 50/50 chance for repair but it's worth the risk before taking it in for replacement. 2 weeks for the repair. we're talking about hottoyz here right? haha. good luck!

Yea hottoyz in Delta. I already asked them before but i didn't go back. Thanks!

Please trust what im trying to say.

After u were succesfully bootup your mac.. Immediately install SMCfancontrol & set minimum fan speed at 4000RPM all the way.. Please dont forget to set the smcfancontrol to open automaticaly when login next time... Dont restart 1st.. Let your mac running with the setting for about 1 hour.... Then only u can restart... The purpose is to let SMC familiar with these fan setting...  Its work.. Please trust me.

Same problem... Blue screen or glitches across the screen presumably when descrete graphics is on (AMD Radeon)

Same issue just occurred to my 15" MacBook Pro (early 2011; 2.2 GHz i7), with AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB running OS X 10.7.5.

This shows a photo of the screen issue https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ke76oyeko4rn64/discrete-glitch.jpg

Each time it happened the screen was glitching and the system was unresponsive (apart from the mouse continued to move on the screen).

After restarting and this happening a couple of times I restarted on another system (10.6.8) and it happened there too.

Next I ran extended Apple Hardware Test and no problems were found.

After that my MacBook refused to boot to the login screen. Would get a black screen then a medium grey screen and freeze.

Then I found this thread. And eventually I was able to boot with Safe mode (shift on startup) and download gfxcardstatus mirror from http://mac.majorgeeks.com/files/details/gfxcardstatus.html (it doesn't seem to be available from the http://gfx.io/ official source any more). This version is 2.2.1 but it still works okay.

I've also removed ATIRadeonX2000.kext from the /System/Library/Extensions directory. However my MacBook is using the discrete graphics now (according to gfxcardstatus) so that hasn't done anything.

Right now my MacBook seems to be working normally - for how long?

Not very long I am afraid... There is no permanent fix other than replacing the defective GPU. I would highly recommend you back up everything before it's too late. My MBP went from working perfectly to not booting in 3 days.

Same problem here. Met a genius today but only thing they can do is change the board and make me pay for it. Hope Apple will do something SOON!

Toronto, Canada here.

I will now have to add myself to the growing list of users that have problems with MBP.  Mine is the late-2011 model and since yesterday, it has failed to boot up at all.  I get the Apple logo with the spinning loading icon and it turns solid grey.  If I try to access other modes, like Safe Mode, I get a blue screen with dark thin vertical lines.

Skien, Norway.
just got my MBP 8.1 back from repair. Here in Norway we got 5 years "warranty" (Kjøpsloven), so they replaced my mainboard for free.

After the Apple "repairs":

After a few minutes of normal "lap-top" use, the fans start running fast and the bottom gets very hot.

So using gfxCardStatus, I have forced it to use the integrated graphics. I need discreet card only when connected to the cinema display and then the laptop is on table & not on lap. This has basically solved the heat issues & hopefully the heat from chip will not melt the solder or burn the chip itself.

Hi airbum88 I'm having exactly same problem on exactly same model of macbook pro and I live in toronto canada maybe we can help each other about this. I went to the fairview apple store for genius bar but they told me to pay 600 bucks for replacing logic board. so I kept complained that a lot of people are having problem so I get to talk to one of the apple quaility manager over the phone and he will going to look over the case and let me know tomorrow. I was wondering any luck for you yet? let me know.