Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I'm in Northern California near Berkeley. Called a couple local shops and they said they only do the logic board swap.

> I'm in Northern California near Berkeley

Me too.   We should start a club.

Exacting the same problem here, freeze/crash;

Hope Apple give us a feedback soon!

I've been trying to search for an answer in the thread but I haven't found anything.

I've been experiencing the same problems, and my Apple Care expires in a few months. Is it possible to request a replacement laptop? I don't want to have to deal with another faulty GPU after.

Macbook pro 17" early 2011 repaired under Apple Care. New logicboard. So far so good...

akamyself wrote:

 

we are about to celebrate the 1st anniversary of abelliveau's post in a few days, that's sad, really sad.

It's even sadder that this is the "new" thread about 2011 MacBook Pro GPU issues... we're about to celebrate the third anniversary of this thread.  Some of the early graphics issues reported may have been a bit different than the current failures, but you start seeing posts about very similar glitches and logic board replacements just months after the first early 2011 machines rolled out. 

So while it does seem like we're seeing a lot of new affected users around the 18-24 month mark, it's definitely been a problem for some users for much longer.  Stinks to be left in the cold for repairs on your 2-3 year old $2000 laptop... stinks even more to be stuck paying for these repairs when it's just days out of the 1-year base warranty, as some users were asked to. 

Has anyone tried this service on ebay?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Mac-Macbook-Pro-Logic-Board-Complete-Repair-/33107 5107395?

I'm thinking that this might be the only choice if I don't want to risk spending all of the money for a logic board with a GPU that might just fail again.

I've had this problem for a month and have been using gfxstatus as a temporary solution. My mbp frequently shuts down during sleep mode and it takes several hard resets to reboot. Today, it shut down and won't boot up at all. After pressing the start button, the apple logo comes on and the computer shuts off entirely after a few seconds. I've tried several boot up methods and haven't had any luck. If you haven't already, join the fb group, report the bug issue, and sign the pe-ti-tion so we can have our mbps fixed. I refuse to pay for what is obviously a manufacturer defect. Very disappointed in Apple for not taking responsibility of this problem. We paid for a premium product and service. Ridiculous. 

Ok So I got my machine back from Apple today. It seems to work well.

They replaced the logic board as well as my RAM. They said the RAM was causing the machine to not boot correctly after they replaced the board. This is odd given that the RAM installed had been in there for over a year. Also odd that while I sent it to them with 16gb, they returned it with 8gb (2x 4gb sticks).

Anyways, if I were to do a stress test, should I put the computer on the laptop cooler pad or prop it up to disspate heat at all? Or would it be better to let it sit directly on the desk? Thanks

Again, my 15-inch early 2011 need to go Apple Care, to re-fix logic card. I called this morning and had interview from engineers. Fotunatelly, or parhaps I should say `unfortunatelly`, this happend in less than 40days, so 90 days warrenty is still available.
He said that they will have compete inspection for my machine. I assume this response means that they just fix logic card at first time with short inspection. And have not determin point of problem. And with second inspection, they should know what happend.

Sending twice in 40days sounds stupid, but hope that this might be best contribution for us and Apple under this condion. Hope engineer will write right report on GPU.

Collegues,

If you got fixed early 2011 from Apple care or store, how about give high stress to GPU, instead of using gfxCardStatus? Machine would die sooner than you expected, and got chance for engineer to do compete inspection on newly replaced logic borad, with detailed report.

krislo,

You need to get your 16GB of RAM back! Even if it's faulty, most manufacturers have a lifetime warranty on RAM.

Clinton

Just as a curious note regarding something discussed earlier in these posts.  My early 2011 15" MBP has not gone out yet.  A few signs that make me wonder if we soon are headed there, but?  I have Istat monitor loaded on my unit.  Today I purchased a coolmaster x-lite cooling base and put it under my mbp.  After having done this I have noticed the temps of both the cpu and the gpu have shown a marked decrease.  In fact I have yet to go over 98 degrees F. with the cpu and 91 degrees F with the gpu.  Now I have not been doing anything heavy with the unit but everything is running very cool.  Even the palm rests that after a while online begin to feel warm are now very cool to the touch.  I realize this is not a fix for a bad logic board design but it certainly could add some life to our units if we can keep them cooler.  So that is my experience with having used this for today.  Thought it was note worthy. 

In a sense you're right that keeping the laptop cool is always a good idea and in general will lengthen the lifespan of such a product. However in this special case it does not seem to make any difference at all.

Same problem too in Portugal start sunday

i'm so unfortunate to have a MBP 8,3. it's a 17'' with anti gloss screen 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM. so it actually cost me more than $5000

and it started glitching about three months ago.

so what are your impressions here, - does every early / mid 2011 with discrete graphics eventually go down totally? or does some machines *only* do the glitching?

does this also happen to the 13'' w/ integrated GPU only?

i ask that because this is my daughter's MBP, and that is also showhing some symptoms that i thought was a HD failure, but i rather not buy a new HD or SSD if the motherboard is going down anyway...

hope not

from Italy, replace logic board 570€ mroe or less 800$...