Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I'll to this.

Installed 10.8.5 on my late 2011 over the weekend and this morning, stated to get all of the graphics glitches described in this thread. But now it won't boot at all! Genius bar apointment tomorrow afternoon for them to look at it.

Here's my story

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5421677

Hi all,

An update on my mbp - in a 3 week span it went from intermintent problems to completely bricked. In my last post I said it took 50 reboots to startup (the 49 other times the grey boot screen had interlaced-like graphics, and would freeze before loading the OS). Well, I was forced to reboot due to a VPN issue afterwhich the machine was not willing to boot again.

Apple Store Repair pricing confusion (US Apple Store, San Francisco)

Last December I took a 13" MBP early 2011 to the Apple store to have the logic board replaced (a chip on it got wet). I was quoted over $800 which was almost equivilent to the resale price so I didn't do it.

I assumed the logic board on the 15" MBP would be at least as expensive. I was extremely surprised when they said I could get it done in house for ~ $500, or ship it off for repairs which would take 3-5 days for $310. Three hundered dollars later, I'm back up and running.

So what's the deal with the flat repair rate? Is it always available, available only for older machines, or available when Apple knows it's might have some responsibility for the problem?

I always recommend asking for Apple's flat rate repair option to those with 'older' machines... you can learn more about it here.

Just curious, though: do you have an early 15" 2011? I'm very surprised that Apple would have considered that model 'old' enough to qualify for the flat rate repair scheme!

Clinton

To add another tale of woe:

Sam challenge as everyone else…machines powers on with lots of thin horizontal lines most of the time then crashes with either blue and black vertical lines or just a grey screen.  Occasionally boots ok but as soon as Discrete graphics are enabled (i.e. loading VMWare Fusion or Apple Bridge) it locks.  Only way to use the machine when is occasionally boots is to do a quick switch to Integrated graphics only with gfxCardStatus then everything is fine for a while.

Specifics:

• MBP, 15-inch, Late 2011, 2.4Ghz.
• Problems started 5th Oct 13
• 3rd party RAM but it's in an identical pair.  3rd party SSD and HDD (replacing the CD Drive).
• Never connect to an external monitor.

Haven't approached Apple (UK) yet but hoping that they've recognised this as a 'known problem'

sammysimpson

Most of the posts here are from users that have EARLY 2011 15" MacBook Pro. I've seen very few reports of prevalent problems with the LATE 2011 15" MacBook Pro, so your problem, while still probably a GPU problem, doesn't fit neatly in the problems that most users here are having.

Take your machine to your local Apple Store or an AASP and have them diagnose the problem. If it is the GPU then the logic board will need to be replaced. Did you purchase the extended AppleCare Protection Plan?

Clinton

clintfrombirmingham, we've had this conversation before...the late 2011 mbps are having the same problem as the early mbps...why are you so defensive of a company you dont work for?  read the multitude of posts on these discussion boards yourself!  my radeon 6750M 512MB exhibits the exact same symptoms are everyone else in these threads.  so does the guy who posted above you...so do many other unfortunates..

<Edited By Host>

Apple has admitted to this defect on other models.  Other manufactures have also had the same issue of the GPU defect (by using the type and method of soldering that has caused this issue).  Because the class of users for the 17'' Macbook Pro is lower, and a more costly repair than the other models, Apples has brushed the issue under the rug.  I would like to see them be held responsible not only for replacing the hardware, but for damages due to their customers  data corruption, and the wasted time spent seeking resolution to a known problem.  This issue is a ticking time bomb.  It obviously shows itself after 22 - 24 months like clockwork.  At the very least, Apple should have provided a firmware update to disable the discrete GPU so the system would at least boot to a state capable of a backup.  The moral thing would be to recall or replace the machines.  (But this would cost $$$ that  Apple does not have...)

If any user reads this thread and has not posted a 'same issue here' comment, please do, and help document this criminal behaviour.

BTW, I am on motherboard #3.

I've been synthesizing the major community threads about this issue into a spreadsheet with dates, models, etc. (slowly, because 2500+ posts is a lot of data, and it's too messy for me to automate).  What's been interesting to me so far is that these issues were actually quite prevalent immediately after these models were released in late February 2011 - within the first three weeks of March, at least 125 people posted about issues that sound pretty much exactly like ours!  There were already external wikis and Reddit threads about this in March 2011.  If you fast-forward to just about any month between then and now, you'll see several dozen people post about these issues. Fortunately for the early posters, many of these early issues were resolved with replacement/repair under warranty - something many of us don't have the fortune of at this point. 

So while I agree that there's something wrong with these models that's showing up on more and more of them... it's been appearing since the release.  Who knows how many folks have given up and moved on since they made their posts in 2011, 2012, or early 2013?  We're only capturing the voices of the people affected and involved at any given time - which, right now, are the folks whose problems showed up around two years after release.  Only Apple really has a shot at documenting the scale and spread of the issue, and they have yet to acknowledge this as a known issue.

Clinton - thanks.  Did notice that most reports were from early '11 models...But my issue is pretty much identical ('interlaced' grey lines on boot screen, vertical blue/black bars when the machine switches to discrete, can be resolved by switching to Integrated graphics only when cold etc).

As Flamenco13 said...it's precisely 22-24 months as well. 

Sigh......

Clinton's comment had nothing to do with defending Apple, and he is right in saying the majority of these posts have been in regards to the early 2011 model...I have been following this thread from the beginning...

...(and the GPU's are different). Here is a helpful comparison between early and late 2011 MBPs.

Dear saramwrap!

Two thumbs up for your effort in collecting all the info and pushing this crucial issue upwards. I can easily understand its a huge amount ow work.

Im pretty sure the best way to act would be a class action by guys from US Because the spread of issue is obviously huge worldwide but there's not much we folks in another countries could do except fill feedback forms, write letters to Tim Cook and fill in google survey regarding the problem.

I feel thousands of people been affected and feel strangulated and disappointed.

Obviously the critical mass will gain when this issue could be avoided by Apple any longer.

It's just a matter of time.

lol from your link:

"Even internally, the "Late 2011" MacBook Pro models are almost identical -- with the later line only packing modestly faster processors across the board and faster graphics or larger hard drives in some models. "

Yes I know that some early 2011 MBPS had the radeon HD 6490...some also had the radeon HD 6750...so you're saying that early 2011 MBPs w/ the radeon 6750 are affected but that late 2011 MBPs with the same video card are not affected?   How does that make sense?  I'm sorry for attacking clinton but he pops up in every post after me saying "well actually its mostly early 2011..." Okay?

Well my late 2011 MBP suffers from these same problems.  Why wouldn't it make sense that they used the same logic boards and video cards for both the early and late 2011 mbps with the radeon 6750?  Why do you guys persecute late 2011ers in this thead when it's clearly the same problem? 

I simply haven't seen a vast number of late 2011 models with a GPU problem with the same frequency as I have early 2011 models. That's why I still claim that the GPU problem is primarily contained in the early 2011 models.

Note that the early 2011 models have:

AMD Radeon HD 6490M or 6750M discrete GPUs.

...whlist the late 2011 models have:

AMD Radeon HD 6750M or 6770M discrete GPUs.

...and it seems that the majority of the problems are found with those models that have the 6490M GPUs.

I don't doubt that there may exist some problems with the 6750M's... but the problems don't seem as prevalent in the late 2011s as the early 2011s.

Note that this is just my observation after reading the number of threads on the matter - not a scientific analysis of each post!

Clinton

Well, I can't claim that my attempts to gather and synthesize information are particularly scientific, but they have produced some numbers and trends that I'd be happy to share. 

• Of the 184 early 2011 MBP owners who have responded to the survey, 112 have the 6750M and 56 have the 6490M.  Nearly all of these respondents report graphics issues, regardless of which GPU they have. 

• Of the 220 people whose information I've logged from threads about this issue, only 104 provided enough information about their affected early 2011 models to know which GPU they have.  Of these 104 users, only 11 have the 6490M, and the remainder have the 6750M.  (This sample size should be a lot larger once I've made it through more posts on the largest thread about this issue.)

I'm not incredibly surprised by these numbers, as only one of the standard early 2011 models offered the 6490M, and the remainder used the 6750M.  By comparison, only one of the standard late 2011 models offered the 6750M, and the remainder used the 6770M.  And, in case you're wondering, the mid-2011 iMacs whose faulty GPUs are being replaced through the latest video card replacement program use a 6970M.  I've seen a number of complaints from other mid-2011 iMac owners whose models were not covered under the replacement program even though they have graphics issues as well, and - guess what? - the rest of the mid-2011 line used a 6750M or 6770M.  The more I look, the bigger this gets.  In 2012, the iMacs and MacBook Pro models switched to using NVIDIA graphics processors, which had been heavily used in MBPs before 2011 (most famously, in the 2007 and 2008 models that ended up covered under a GPU replacement program).

There are certainly affected late 2011 users posting in the threads about these issues, though so far their numbers seem to be a bit smaller than the affected early 2011 users - but not insignificant.  If the early 2011 models have so many with the 6750M that are affected, then it would seem logical that the late 2011 models with the same GPU could have the same problems.  I'm actually more curious about whether there's a problem with the 6770M, because we know the 6490M, 6750M, and 6970M have issues.  All of these are part of the AMD Radeon HD 6000M Series, and share many specs and features among them.

When I started the survey over the summer, I had no idea how big this would turn out to be.  If I were doing it all over again, I'd structure the survey quite differently to accommodate owners of any of the affected 2011 MacBook Pros or iMacs.  If someone else is interested in creating a broader survey, I'd be glad to provide the form I created as a basis to manipulate - I'd work on this, but my hands are a bit full with the thread logging and the governent shutdown. 

Pretty good stats! Did you include the posts from -> https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4637833?tstart=0?

Clinton