Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

 

It happened for the first time while I was launching Photoshop, the screen suddenly turned black. I forced the shut down and rebooted.

 

Hi tdlemonade,

as someone who had their logic board malfunction twic in the last 6 months, I can tell you that photoshop is one of the apps that cause your grahpic card to switch from intregrated to discretes. (just install gfxcardstatus and you will know)

you have applecare or is this still under warrenty man?

if not there's still the baking method but i would use that as a last resort.

good luck man.

Unfortunately No warranty and no apple care, the point is: if mine was an isolated case I'd have been happy to pay Apple for a durable/permanent fix... But it doesn't seem to be an isolated case, and furthermore it looks like apple's fix doesn't prevent any future similar glitch. I'd love to have a satisfying feedback from apple about all these cases.

I've heard about baking, and also about GPU reball (Made in UK by a company selling their service on ebay), but i don't what exactly would be the best option to fix my macbook's issue.

totally agree with you

There are other is NY City.  They do have a perfect feeback on their repairs.

" it looks like apple's fix doesn't prevent any future similar glitch."

That is what I told the to Apple representative who call me on behalf of Tim Cook.

tdlemonade wrote:

I've heard about baking, and also about GPU reball (Made in UK by a company selling their service on ebay), but i don't what exactly would be the best option to fix my macbook's issue.

As I wrote a few times allready.

If you're have no experience soldering, DIY, or any other of that technical stuff. stay away from baking.

If it fails, can completely destroy it.

A good soldering (baking) has to be done following some rules for best result.

After a DIY repair most shops don't even take it in anymore as they are usually fubared.

Leaving you with an useless paperweight.

Why you think people like me, doing reballs, invest a lot of money in a rework station if an oven would do the job?

Btw, gonna build me  reflow oven. But reflow/reball will allways be done on my rework station, not in the oven.

Go for a reflow or reball.

It's a better repair then swapping your logic board for another one having the same problem on it.

And before some start commenting, a good reflow is better then a bad reball.

One knowing his stuff, like me ;-), has long lasting success with both.

Sent an email to Tim Cook as well, and the day after I got a call back from a representative saying that they would be very happy to fix my macbook for $310 (without taxes), since the computer is out of warranty.

Very polite but completely useless. They keep ignoring the issue.

Yesterday I called Apple Care in The Netherlands for a broken airport extreme card. While talking to the representative I took the liberty to ask about this issue. He told me the following:

- When the macbook is showing this issue they will refer you to a local service point

- They will confirm the issue and check with apple care if your mbp serial number is within the problem range

- If your mbp is in the problem range they will replace your logic board free of charge with or without Apple Care or any other warranty program

My boot drive got damaged 3 times while troubleshooting this problem. DiskWarrior fixed it. Disk Utility wouldn't. SpinRite is the wrong tool for filesystem damage.

... richard ... mobile

Did they mean they already know this GPU glitch, they just want to verify if a specific laptop is covered by the program, or was that just a generic explanation on how it goes with a generic issue?

This is specific to the MBP Late 2011 gpu glitch, he acknowledged that there was a manufacturing error in some production series of this model and that Apple will replace the logic board free of charge.

I have a 2011 15" MBP which is now in for repair getting its Logic board replaced for the 2nd time within 3 years. The first time it happened, I was watching YouTube videos, and the second time it happened I was doing basic audio editing in Adobe Audition. Both times I have been docked to my Thunderbolt display. I always keep graphic switching turned off because it prevents blue screen freezing from the switch.

This is just unnacceptable, and from what I understand this is actually a wide spread problem with the 2011 models.

So, I am considering upgrading to a newer model and selling my current model when I get it back from repair, but I did a search on "MBP 2013 Retina Heat" and it looks like people are having the same issues with the latest models too. Is there anyone who is not experiencing such an issue, and if so, which model are you using?

I purchased a Mac Mini for my girlfriend to replace her old PC, and so far it seems to not be experiencing this issue, however I need a laptop.

I'm at work right now, and I use an older iMac with a 3.06 Ghz Core 2 Duo, doing the same stuff and it doesn't even cause the fans to budge. I also tested Sculptris which is a free 3D sculpting program from Pixologic. Same deal, no fans. No problems. That program would cause my MBP to use 700% of the processor just for moving the base model around! My iPhone can also play Youtube videos without overheating but not my MBP?

My previous post was removed by Apple.

I wrote an email to Mr. Cook.

I haven't posted here in awhile. I was doing some research on the forthcoming Mavericks update and read that the engineers are focusing on Graphic Driver updates regarding OpenGL performance issues. I doubt any tweaks they offer could solve our problem as it has probably tipped into the hardware category for us. Plus I don't even think I could install the update on my 2011 MBP considering it won't boot at all.

My main reason for bringing this up is to pose the theory that poorly optimized code may have brought our devices to their knees. We all have discussed the probable production issues (ie leadless solder vs leaded) but, giving Apple the benefit of the doubt on that one, could it be possible that some bad drivers or engineering neglect could have exacerbated the situation? I'm so afraid that Apple will turn their heads toward the future and forget about the dead MBPs that Mavericks left in its wake.

I eventually gave in and got a MBP retina so that I could get back to work and even now I have experienced some issues with frame rate when running on the NVidia card in this machine. Obviously doesn't bode well considering my recent history with hotswapping graphics cards. Nonetheless I will continue in the hopes that Apple can properly optimize the software to take advantage of the hardware I have paid so dearly for.

Well, it's been long enough, I'm going to drop the $310.00 USD on getting the logic board replaced later today.  I was hoping that there'd be a solution by now, but I see that's not the case. 

At least when I get it back I'll have a machine operating much faster than the PowerBook G4 I've been relying on since December.