Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Just received a call from Apple regarding my <cough!> high-end <cough!> laptop that "just works" <COUGH!!>. They refused to acknoledge the manufacturing screwup, and thus to repair it.

• Details here: http://fixmymac.tumblr.com/post/77058027473/call-from-apple

All in all, all this is pretty shameful. +300k views of this thread, and Apple is still trying to dodge the issue. What a shame!

try it again and again. sometimes it takes 2-3 times only, sometimes 10-20 times. did not find a better solution yet

As we all can see Apple changed it's politics. Money and profit is on the first place, not our (customer's) satisfaction. Apple changed for free logic board in my previous 2008' MacBook Pro (NVidia had similar glitches).

No questions, no warranty. Just replaced it for free bucause they cared about customers. This MacBook Pro works fine (and i don't wanna to install Mavericks-VGA-killer on this laptop).

It was Apple what we loved. Now Apple DON"T CARE ABOUT US until you're under Apple Care.

That's not the same Apple we loved. Now it's profitmaking company and it's working more for shareholder's profit.

I don't believe to Apple.

And i don't believe in Apple anymore.

You can see clearly - many people wrote to T.Cook and they had a callback with sweet and nice people who don't care about your ~ $2500 paperweight MacBook "Pro" because it's "not a wide spread problem".

People - wake up - Apple had enough time to do something and they've done nothing. Just make sweet faces and absolutely blind about our problems with they "preimium products".

Today I received a call from a guy in Apple Executive Relations regarding this issue, the only option Apple can offer now is me to pay for the replacement of the Logic board( here in Portugal it costs about 600 euros) since my MBP is out of warranty, and he believes this is a permanent fix to the problem. Although I told him I heard of cases of graphic failure repeats even after replacing the logic board , he told me Apple can only guarantee 90 days period after the repair. When I asked if Apple is aware of the issue, the answer is their Engineer team is investigating the issue, but he refuses to make any comment on what is the current status, or when they will work out a appropriate solution. sigh....

Hi Everyone,

Just got off the phone with one of the Apple Executive Relations staff after emailing Tim Cook. They told me it's out of warranty, and if I decide to pursue an OOW repair, if it fails after 90 days I'd be stuck in the same situation I'm in.

I don't think they'll issue a recall, and since I can't trust their computers nor the quailty of the repair, I'm moving on.

Apple's steadfast and so I am. They've lost me and any good word-of-mouth from now on. Good bye.

LeVeL5,

I'm in a somewhat similar situation - my logic board has been replaced once under AppleCare - which I have until April 2015, but if the machine blows up again, or after I'm out of AppleCare, I think that I'll be buying a gaming 17" laptop - not for gaming but for intense graphics use. Most of my hardcore apps I can get in Windows, anyway, even if I won't have all of the little apps that I've become accustomed to.

I like the somewhat open architecture of the non-Retina models and I doubt that I would be happy with a machine that I couldn't even open. That's why I'm looking at Sager models - so very much customization can go into the machine.

I've been using Apple products since 1985. But I've never had such a negative experience with a machine as I've had with this one. To see so many people in the same situation is just so disheartening - knowing that Apple has no concern just makes it worse.

Clinton

And still supposedly valued customers are being given the run around!

For the record, yet another call from executive relations, same sold story. Think the Executive Relations team invented the word stonewall!!

Seriously, what has happened too apple?  This whole thing is unbelievable, faith has not only been lost....it's been destroyed!

Such repair in Portugal is covered for 2 years (on the part replaced). Ignore what Apple has told you on this regard, they are forced to adhere to consumer protection law.

I went this route and not the reball/reflow etc route specifically because of this and all Apple Authorised Resellers confirmed that: a) they could not confirm if the Logicboard would be new or a refurbish; b) Regardless, it is considered an instalation of a new board and subject to consumer protection.

It's true, this could really be a game changer for me too.

As a small business on a tight budget I really need my computers to last at least 5 years before I consider an upgrade, writing off +£2k per computer every 2-3 years just insn't viable, nor is paying £500+ and hoping for the best after 90 days grace, which is a shame as I've always enjoyed using the apple range, and like many loyal fans here I have never owned anything else.

But times are tough, there's a general shortage of cash and I have to vote with my head rather than my heart. Let's hope & pray something happens soon, or it'll be d i v o r c e and the start of a whole new romantic adventure with the other side.....

unfortunately my MBP just passed the 2 year warranty period, that is why I would choose to replace my Logic board as my last option. With 600 euro repiar fee plus some more money I could almost buy another decent laptop from other brand. The reason I chose APPLE is because of its quality and design, but if APPLE choose to ignore the problem, I will certainly put a big question mark on it...

Thanks Richard III.

And I still stick with it as that beeing the most likely reason.

Same goes for PS3 and PS4 (yes, there were allready PS4's failing within a few weeks), xbox 360/xbox One, laptops, some videocards, but seldom as they have reasonable cooling.

Apple uses smaller cooler transfer thingy (not the fans, but the copper pads and heat pipes) compared to other manufacturers.

Everything getting compacter gets warmer.

The smaller Apple makes them, or putting more performance keepen the same case, the more risk they have it failing.

Goes ofr all electronics, not apple only.

LIke I said before, it's moslty not the heat itself killing it, but the heat cycles.

At least some seem to understand ;-).

Looks like I'm one of the unlucky few Late 2011 MacBook Pro owners with this problem--just like the Early 2011 2.2GHz model, it has an AMD Radeon 6750M inside. There were always minor graphic blips in my experience, but none of them were anything moving the mouse or clicking the window to "wake up" the Mac wouldn't fix (it usually occurred after coming out of sleep mode). For the past 1 1/2 years I've been more focused on hard drive issues (my lemon of a laptop has been in for repairs 7+ times; eventually the hard drive and cable were replaced which temporarily fixed the problem for a few months).

However, last night my mac started having more serious graphic issues and hard freezing which required hard shutdowns to temporarily alleviate the problem...only for it to return even worse a few minutes later. Artefacts, grey screens, split/shifted screens, extreme blur, banding, etc. when performing even the most simple tasks, such as web browsing...

Now, OS X won't boot. I tried to recover my files through Bootcamp, but the graphics issue soon spread to that partition as well, and Windows won't boot either. Within an hour, the problem escalated to the point I'm convinced the graphics card is toast. Aside from the Recovery HD and Windows's Safe Mode (discovered this when I decided to run the usual disk tests, which came up clean), my MBP is brick'd, which means I can't used the gfxCardStatues workaround. Lovely.

At least I can say for certain it's not OS X Mavericks at fault, because I still have OS X Lion.

I have booked a Genius Bar appointment for this weekend, but...thinking back to how many times the "genius's" advice for my hard drive woes was just a band-aid tactic and didn't actually solve the problem, I have my doubts as to whether or not they'll actually help with the graphics card/GPU. I am so, so glad I bought AppleCare so I haven't spent a fortune repairing my MBP yet, but lately I wonder if the beautiful hardware is really worth having to bring it in for repairs so often. I do a lot of heavy graphics work (Photoshop, After Effects, Maya, 3DSMax, etc.) so I want a portable computer that can handle these tasks somewhat smoothly, and now since I've read that sometimes getting the logic board replaced won't help, I just want a computer with graphics that work.

This is my first experience with OS X, and I'm feeling inclined to switch back to Windows. At least I can fix the problems that OS has by myself...

MLDalglish,

Yes, count me into that Late 2011 crowd, too. At first, I thought I was safe because of having a Late 2011 - it seems that Early 2011's were more prone to being shot down. I, too, have AppleCare and the logic board replacement was gratis, but I had to tell them that it was the GPU causing all the problems. But this whole fiasco has left a bad taste and I will be switching to Windows, after being a Mac user since 1985, when my AppleCare warranty is up in April of 2015.

I already know the company that I'm going to order from - Sager - but I'm sure that they will have some more kick-butt machines in a years time!

Commiserating with you,

Clinton

A few week ago I have the same problem in my early 2011 macbook pro 15" 2,2 is out of warranty, and I need to paid 735€ for logic board and hard drive but in Portugal and Europe I have another warranty under this board and hard drive , believe me if this guy hot temperature its a shame

clintonfrombirmingham,

Wow, thats some kind of change after such a long time! Good luck to you; hope it works out.

My case is not so easy... since my copy of Adobe CS6 is OS X-only, I have to choose between paying Apple for repairs all the time once my Applecare runs out, or paying into Adobe's awful subscription-based Creative Cloud.

Well, maybe with continued repairs, Creative Cloud won't be expensive in comparison...

Lenovo's IdeaPad is looking pretty attractive right now, aside from the poor battery life. I guess I'll have to take a good look around, considering how I haven't really been impressed with PC manufacturer's lineups lacking graphics cards and shrinking storage space--which is why I switched to a Mac in the first place.

Sure hope that if Apple does start some sort of replacement program, it'll encompass all 2011 MBP's.