Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Its the case in Ireland too i would have had it covered 100% if I had bought in the EU but I bought in Bangkok and would have to return there .. But even there it's 4 years .. I find it hard to believe Italy is only 2 when you are still part of the EU... Or am I wrong?

http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/

Iam from Austria. We have a 2 year warranty. So I had to pay the repaircosts of 886,- Euro.

I have the same problems with the graphics card. Screen flickers again and banding in the image. I live in Germany and 2 years guarantee

For the Swedes amongst you:

'Over and above the guarantee, the Consumer Purchases Act applies, according to which you have up to three years to complain about a fault which was already there when you first purchased the good. The fact that you may receive a guarantee with a shorter period of validity does not mean that the time period allowed to submit a complaint is shortened. The difference is that when the guarantee period has expired you have to prove that the fault existed when you first purchased the good.'

Swedish Consumer Agency

http://www.konsumentverket.se/otherlanguages/English/Consumer-rights/

Keep in mind the following is the most logical explanation about this sordid affair posted in this discussion group:

D3us wrote:

"It's not about the solder getting 150c to melt.

If it's not an intern GPU fault, it's prbabably bad soldering of the BGA.

Not all balls got fully liquidus or long enough TAL, not giving a 100% soldered connection.

It makes contact but is not really soldered, doesn't havea  real intermetallic bond.

More "glued" instead of soldered.

It's the mechanical stress caused by heating/cooling cycles, making it expand and contract.

Breaking the "glued"  connection, like the head-in-pillow photo posted."

 

same problem here, but I wonder why screenshots (^ CMD 4) are also in the distorted quality?  see image

you do not have to pay yourself- you are covered by EU consumer law for 6 years and if you explain yourself correctly you should get an apple rep directing you to go this route!

Please stop posting wrong information. EU wide consumer law only specifies a 2 year warranty period and actually there's a slight caveat to that, too.

This is what I waws told by a Senior Rep with Apple yesterday, now he was talking about my situation (Ireland) but he said EU consumer law.. so sorry if I gave wrong info but it was coming from the horses mouth!

He said he had not had enough calls about this issue to investigate further so I think people need to stop whinging on here as that will do NO good as he said they do not monitor the forums.

Martin - Freephone from Ireland 

He is working tomorrow 10-6 UK time

<Personal Information Edited By Host>

Another problematic unit here (Finland).

Early 2011 MacBookPro8,2 with AMD Radeon HD 6490M 256 MB, running OS X 10.7.5

Problems so far:

- two months of random cyan, magenta, blue etc. dot areas after waking up

- few screen lockups that required forced reboot (power button down)

- one case of severe graphical distortion, horizontal lines and image edges shifting, which required forced reboot

The computer has been in regular use for DAW-based music making and photography related work with an external 1920x1080 display plugged in for majority of the time.

Today I reset NVRAM and disabled graphics switching in Energy Saving part of System Preferences to test whether it'll have any effect.

I have read a lot of complains about the mbp early 2011, now that I have the same problem as all of you in my case they change the logic board  but my question is I will have the same problem within a few month if they still  using the same graphic card, why they don't replace it or simply change the logic board for an upgraded one

Some people have had good luck - some have had their logic boards replaced 3 or 4 times. You really can't even begin to speculate if this defect is on 'new' boards or not.

It's just a gamble right now - if you're out of warranty, it's probably best to get a new GPU soldered with leaded solder than to get the logic board replaced.

Clintonh

I have an early MBP 2011 17. The screen went green and unresponsive so I rebooted it. Loads with pink lines and then it goes to grey screen. Computer doesn't respond after that???

Took it into the genius bar and they diagnosed it as a graphics card issue - the whole motherboard has to be replaced. I have to pay to fix it since I don't have apple care. This is my 3rd Mac and I have never experience an issue like this before.

Now that I am aware that this is a common problem with early 2011 MBP, I wanted to know if anyone has any latest news if apple is issuing some kind of recall or fix to this problem.

it's been a year since this thread has been started. and guys in apple haven't made any response to this f..kin gpu failure

this has made me lost my confidence in apple products

Been dealing with this issue for about 2 weeks now. Getting worse fast.

MacBook Pro

15-inch, Early 2011

Processor  2 GHz Intel Core i7

Graphics  Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB

AMD Radeon HD 6490M:

Software  OS X 10.8.5 (12F45)

Screen went black a few times using Aperture. Maybe twice over three days.

A few days later - some freeze ups with screen going solid royal blue. A nice shade too. Pretty color.

A few days more - garbled screen with  split screen right half of image goes to left side of screen and vice-versa.

I was able to use another Mac to share the screen on this freeze to simply chage the screen res pixel dimensions and then changing it back to normal. My laptop was fiully recovered with that one. Pretty cool.

During the other black and blue screen freeze ups, the system crashed as well, as I cound't connect on the network at all.

Now I have finallyu realized that these issues are caused with the machine is called upon do do some real graphic processsing. Exmple VLC, Photoshop, iPhoto Aperture. So obviously when the Radeon is called uppon, the system takes a hit.

I downloaded the gfCardStatus app and was able to figire out that chaging the video to the AMD causes the crash.

My machine is pretty stable right now, I'm using it now. But for anytthing real taxing, I don't stand a chance.

So let's make Apple aware of the issue together. I wonder if it's hardware related for sure. Maybe it's software. Is that possible?

I'm not running Mavericks yet, should I? Willl that help?

Any suggestion about the OS itself? Anyone tried installing back-dated to Snow Leopard to see if the problem exists.

I just need my laptop and think I must call, set up a repair and just hope that if and when a recall is issued, I might get a refund.

Makes me think about a nice new retia display machine. Hmmmm.

Hi Richard III!

I got my Macbook Pro late 2011 back from repair in Sweden just this week.The logic board was changed and the expenses were covered by Apple under the EU-wide consumer rights. The MBP was 2 years and 1 month. I think the consumer laws cover at least three years for laptops.

This is the english info page http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/

Swedish: http://www.apple.com/se/legal/statutory-warranty/

You have to go to the shop were you bought it. If it was directly from Apple, then just contract them.