Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I have also developed the same issue in my MBP. I even went upthe extent of getting it cleaned up. By cleaning it worked fir a while but agagin developed the same problems. The heating takes place when I use photoshop. I contacted Adobe over phone. While giving correction instruction he asked me to open a utuility folder in Mancintosh hd>liabrary>systems> core services folder. I found none in maverick OS. Is there any folder like this guys.

@D3us: 180 US dollars reballing GPU with 6 months warranty, and an additional 30 to extend it to a year.

MacBook Model: A1286/MC723, 2011 Early, 15”

Serial Number: C17F90******

Country or Region: China (buy from Hongkong at March 2011)

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Details:

I was had this problem at 1 week ago.

It start after apple logo appear on the screen it’s hangs on grey screen, can’t boot up the OS anymore.

I am trying to boot from “Recovery HD”, the screen goes blue and there are black vertical lines on it.(BTW: the hard drive works perfectly with other laptaps.)

I was called Apple Store, they want to charge me ¥7000～8000 CNY to replace the Logic Board!

Less than 3 years it is too little for such an investment (around $2,400)!!

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French MBP user here, I own(ed) a MBP early 2011.

It doesn't boot anymore, it simply displays the apple with somes glitches, then grey screen.

Anything else such as recovery partition, USB boot, disc boot lead to a dark blue screen.

It only rebooted once, and I wasn't aware of the gfxCardStatues trick, so I feel SO fu****.

I'm now like you, with a (beautiful) bricked machine, feeling desperate...

Those of you who get the dreaded grey screen (hanging) after the apple logo and then a blue screen when trying to boot from the recovery disk.

Have you tried to force quit and reboot repetitively? This worked for me after 20 or 30 reboots.

I have also gone into quite some detail in my earlier posts as to other things you could try.

Richard, I'm not sure "20-30 reboots" counts as a solution, more like random chance (mine sometimes boots, sometimes not).

Looking back I've always had sporadic problems quitting Aperture & Final Cut Pro - in fact I stopped using FCP about 1 year ago as it was so problematic, I just put it down to software issues, but now I believe it was just one of the nails in this 2011 MacBook Coffin

Have you tried to force quit and reboot repetitively? This worked for me after 20 or 30 reboots.

Sure, the problem is randomic and the severity depends on the machine. Mine can just freeze gray, show the blue screen, the flickering or the shift, it depends (perhaps it also depends on the temperature, when the laptop is cold the severity is likely to be minor). What I saw is that it's getting worse and worse as time passes by.

For those desperated about the bricked machine, recall that by booting with the pressure of the "T" key, you enter the target mode: at this point your laptop is a hard disk enclosure that can be connected by means of Firewire. It works without problems (at least for me) because it only runs something in the firmware that doesn't use the discrete graphic card, so it doesn't trigger the problem.

Connecting to another Apple with Firewire you can access your disks and eventually make a backup. If you boot with the Options key pressed on the other Apple computer, you can even remotely boot (you boot the disk in the bricekd machine using the CPU, GPU etc... on the remote machine). For instance, yesterday I've been able to reformat all the volumes and perform a clean install of Mac OS X to simplify the job of the technical assistance.

Sorry I was a bit vague there.

This eventually allowed me to boot from the recovery disk and zero my disk followed by a clean install of Mavericks and rebuild my system using Time Machine.

My intenetion wasn't that you should do this every day, that wouldn't be a viable solution.

You don't have to try 20-30 reboots. This works in another way. Restart your MacBook Pro. After apple's logo disappears wait for 5-10 minutes. You MUST to hear very loud fan's noise.

Try to restart after 5-10 minutes. (F3-F4 area must be hot). If it won't work. Repeat the same.

The idea here is automatic switch to Intel's graphic during startup if discrete chip is very hot (as I think).

You must to keep your MacBook Pro running 24/7 to use it. I'm not sure it's very Eco/Green decision but Apple don't give us other solution. They don't care !!!

You can try that, and you may also force it to overheat faster by wrapping the MBP inside a plastic bag as soon as it shows that grey screen.

This was the first thing I tried over a period of 2 days whilst working on another machine and it didn't work for me. It seems different things work for different machines.

I still feel the following is the best description of what is going on:

D3us wrote:

"It's not about the solder getting 150°C to melt (should read +200°C). If it's not an intern GPU fault, it's probably bad soldering of the BGA (ball grid array). Not all balls got fully liquidus or long enough TAL (time above liquidus), not giving a 100% soldered connection. It makes contact but is not really soldered, doesn't have a real inter-metallic 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."

Hence heat seems to have an affect.

I agree, the heat cycles could be responsible rather than overheating - I always work in a cool room (not by choice, it's currently 14C) and the computer is on a hard surface with good ventliation. I tend to close apps I'm not using (long term mac user!) especially if I'm working on photo/ video stuff, and I take care with heat management too, if the computer gets warm enough for the fans to come on I leave it whilst I have a cup of tea or feed the cat.

It is hilarious to see how people find all kind of solutions to run their macs.

I have the same foulty 2011 MBP, had the mainboard changed once few months ago, and now it started to freze, and random restart once again... I only have two months left of apple care so it really worries me, as I can't really aford to buy a new mac now.

Some thinks I wan't to aks apple...

1. What happend to your awesome products that were supposed to simply work?

2. Please invent something to bring Steve Jobs back to life... he probably can't even rest when he sees from up there, that his beloved company is going down.... once again...

I tried to heat up my MPB several times as olenev described, doesn't help. I also put it in my fridge, pointless.

I guess there is no free solution... =(

vikyel wrote:

 

I tried to heat up my MPB several times as olenev described, doesn't help. I also put it in my fridge, pointless.

 

I guess there is no free solution... =(

I’m sorry but if anything is going to put a permanent end to your Mac it is doing something like that.

It is not a pre-cooked meal.