Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Well just to add another failure to the list , £ 2400 on a 17" macbook pro a couple of yrs ago and now it is not a usable machine, Apple sort out this GPU problem, were not buying £ 200 windows machines here.

Lenovo recalls more than 150k batteries because of 2 reports of battery overheating led to computer damage.each battery sold $80 to $150.it's a really big cost for Lenovo.look at Apple,thousands uses here with GPU issue,but it looks like APPLE DONT CARE!

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I did the GPU reball on the logic board 5 months ago to fix the graphics gone bad. That reball failed in less than 90 days. Considering buying a used logic board and sending the reballed one back to fix again for free. Then I can sell it and make some of my money back. :/

Frustrating for sure. Late 2011, only 2.5 years old. Apple is shootin for users to replace the laptop yearly. I'm postitive of that.

Hi Mark,

It depends of what kind of reball they do. I found a place here in Spain where they do the reball with lead solderings. They Apply new Artic Silver Paste on the CPU as well. They guarantee the repairing for 1 year. There is another place in UK called Bgb (find them in ebay, if I write the link here the host is going to censure for sure) where do the same but replacing the chip. It cost around 200£ but it worth. There is some pros in this forum who send them their laptops and they are very happy with the results. If you are in USA, ask to the guys who made you the reball if they followed all this steps. I hope it works. I'm freelance , 2 months in this matter without can work.

P.S Host working in 3..2...1....

The hosts won't censor links to reball repair centers.

Here's one in the UK -> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Macbook-Pro-A1297-820-2914-A-17-2011-Logic-Board-R epair-New-GPU-Reball-/291051512404?pt=UK_Computing_Other_Computing_Networking&ha sh=item43c405a254.

And one in California -> http://www.ebay.com/itm/271139379677.

When my AppleCre expires in one year and if I get the problem again I will be using the service in the US. They guarantee work for one year and will use lead-free or leaded solder (your choice). They will also install a new GPU or simply reball the old one.

I've heard nothing but praise from both repair centers.

Clinton

skimnc - you don't see it because Apple moderators are deleting/removing the posts from users who are trying to find alternate ways of getting support for this technical issue.

As there is solder inside the AMD GPU simply reballing the existing BGA chip means there is a possibility it will fail again .  The most sure fire repair in my opinion for long, extended life as I expect of all Mac products is a brand new replacement GPU soldered with far more heat resistant lead solder. Like yourself if my 6770 fails on my logic board I will most likely get mine replaced from the supplier you've linked to in the UK and keep the receipt for any future reimbursement from Apple. 

I have heard from two different UK Apple repair agents personally and also one mentioned earlier in this thread is that the statistics do not lie - they have had a large spike in the number of failed 2011 models so I'm pretty hopeful Apple will do the right thing eventually.

They do have a great track record in doing the right thing compared to other computer manufacturers - anyone who had a defective nvidia 8 series GPU in an HP or Sony PC didn't get anywhere near the customer care that Apple provided with their comparable products.

I wish they'd hurry up though!

one of the problems is the the use of the discrete Graphics card, and whenever you use an external display, most likely it will be switching to the Discrete GPU, so yea it probably isn't helping.

Please do not settle with using the integrated graphics only as a suitable solution.  While the laptop will work, it is a crippled machine.  As SaMiChi mentioned, the discrete graphics is used whenever there is an external display.

Also consider that we are now holding on to a laptop which has no resale value, even if you had the logic board replaced as it is known that the issue will almost certainly arise again.

At the very least contact Apple and leave feedback and log the issue with Apple Support.

There are other channels to pursue outside of Apple, but the moderators of this forum are actively editing/deleting posts where it may be of use to those affected.

As someone who takes Mac's apart for a living and has knowledge of intel processor designs and also AMD/Nvidia GPU I can offer this summary of the changes inside the MBP and the factors why many of the 2011's are failing for the lay person angry mac users on this thread.

The MacBook Pro 15-17 unibody design from 2008-12 is very much the same inside across all generations inside and out, with the CPU and GPU close together on a narrow stretch of the logic board between twin fans and the 'palm tree' style heatsink, originally designed for the thermal dissipation of an intel core2duo CPU and nvidia 9 series GPU.  Both chips attached to the heatsink by the usual over application of thermal compound.

2010 - arrandale core i5/i7 plus nvidia 3 series GPU, more heat to dissipate and more failures.

2011 - Our sandy bridge core i7/AMD models, the hottest heat combination by far of all inside a 15/17 inch MacBook Pro.  The CPU is 45w and is far larger than the older chips. AMD have not disclosed its power ratings but the AMD 'northern islands' architecture these models have do run hot. 2011 is the same year that the 5 year exemption from 2006 expired for using lead free solder on CPU/GPU.  The OTT thermal compound makes them run hotter doesn't help either taking heat away for a system designed for a much smaller and cooler pair of chips 3-4 years previously.

2012 - 17 discontinued, 15 has the ivy bridge i7 CPU which is in essence a shrunken version of the Sandy Bridge and runs far cooler plus the Nvidia 6 series GPU. Nvidia's new Kepler architecture, renowned for good performance with far lower power and heat. Less failures as a consequence, plus improvements in lead free soldering solutions.

In my opinion 2011 I'd describe as a perfect storm of weak points in the MacBook Pro thermal design, rectified a year later by lowering the power and the heat which are causing many of these units to fail is no coincidence.  Lead free solder banned I would suggest is primary factor but I feel it's the sum of all the parts which have made this thread 4,000 long.

I don't think I'm wrong and firmly believe that those in Cupertino looking at the failure statistics do either!

TheSharpeMan wrote:

 

Pond wrote:

 

You only need to move the drivers called "AMDRadeonX*", not all of "AMD*.*", in the commands above. For me, that's worked. The files that were moved out of /System/Library/Extensions are:

 

• AMDRadeonX3000GLDriver.bundle
• AMDRadeonX4000GLDriver.bundle
• AMDRadeonX3000.kext
• AMDRadeonX4000.kext

 

...on OS X 10.9.2. With absolutely all AMD drivers removed I too couldn't change brightness, wrong colour profile etc.; with just the above removed (on a machine with 6750M that failed yesterday quite suddenly, with none of the usual warnings documented in this thread) I'm able to operate the machine largely as normal, except for extremely slow / flickery display performance.

 

Thanks. I'm gonna try this after work this evening. FYI I'm still on 10.7.2, does that make a difference?

The principle is the same, but I've noticed a lot of historical references to "ATI" instead of "AMD" in the driver name. I suspect this is related to OS version. If you can't find "AMDRadeonX*" in "/System/Library/Extensions", or if moving the "AMDRadeonX*" files doesn't work, try "ATIRadeonX*" instead.

After some serious trial & error, I've discovered the only 2 files that prevent booting are:

ATIRadeonX3000.kext

ATI6000Controller.kext

None of the other kexts have any noticable effect.

So now I have a bootable system, but not much works. Even MS Office won't open. I've still got an appointment at the applestore next week, so I'll see what they say

My system is slightly different than yours (X2000 versus X3000), and the "####Controller.kext" files are "AMD" instead of "ATI". I'm working on Mavericks 10.9.2.

I've been able to restore full functionality (albeit I haven't tested more graphics intense programs like Photoshop / VLC; I've been able to load Chrome [don't use Google maps or anything like that -- it crashes], LaTeX, and XCode without issue).

My fix was to remove (backup) all of the files starting with "ATIRadeonX2000*" (3000 for you).

If I let my computer go into screensaver mode / sleep mode (screen or HD), my screen won't wakeup from being black. A reboot returns to the same issue and I have to move all of the driver files back, then restart and reset the PRAM, the move the correct drivers back to the backup folder, reset the PRAM, then reboot. It still doesn't work flawlessly.

I'm on my second logic board in 6 months in my early 2011 MBP. First replaced by the local Authorized Apple Service Provider, the second by Apple itself. Working fine now, but AppleCare runs out in  a week or so. Three of four of the PowerBooks/MacBook Pros I've purchased over the past 8 years have had at least one logic board failure. One is currently dead and not worth replacing. Am certainly going to think long and hard before buying another MBP.

i'm a happy reballed customer!