Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I found a site that explains the Hybrid graphics, and it makes sense that the IGP and DGP share something, see this:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/hybrid_graphics

Linux has the ability to call out to a DGP and disable it.  I've obviously not found anything in regards to this for OS X.

Overall, i guess I am going to have to buy my own Macbook Pro and take the leap! - I may end up with an expensive brick.

I'm on the fence with regards to the $310 depot repair.  My goal is to have a working reliable laptop, which is why I chose Apple to begin with based on recommendations.  That is also why I was able to justify the higher price premium.  What concerns me is the posts I read about folks who went with the depot repair for the main logic board replacement only to have the same issue reappear.  Sure, the retina display is nice, but I really do like the hi-res matte anti-glare screen on the MBP.  One thing Apple doesn't really take into consideration is the amount of time wasted in working with customer service, getting the machines repaired, and the productivity loss during that time.

Update - repaired logic board working with no incidents.

Curious, when did you get your logic board replaced?  How often do you use your machine where it is graphics intensive and it switches to the discrete GPU?

Ditto. Mine was replaced in October (I think, LOL) and so far so good.

Knocking on wood.

I don't do a ton that is graphics intense, but i use an external monitor 8-9 hours a day, so the discreet card is in use all the time.

I'm a fan of the 17 myself, for real estate, awesome battery life even more than good in Windows too and intend to keep this 2011 for another 3-5 years barring mishaps.  They aren't that much slower than the retinas either, after all this generation gave by far the biggest boost in power over any other notebook intel mac laptop. As mine is already out of warranty if it fails I can't justify the expense of having a flawed replacement board go after a short period from Apple when the cost of the depot repair is actually slightly more than having a third party lead solder a fresh GPU on my logic board here in the UK, with six months and not 3 months warranty on the repair.

It's my hope that when they do admit there is a problem I will be reimbursed for my expense in making my MBP last as long as I think it should. Which is a lot longer than 2-3 years!

My laptop, $330 dollars and four days later, works fine.  But the Apple executive who made the decision to stonewall on this issue is an idiot.  Apple is sitting on over 150 billion dollars in cash.  The cost to satisfy a few thousand customers and repair their defective laptops is peanuts to Apple.  This is how companies destroy their brand.  It makes no sense.

Joining the club. 15" 2011 w/ 6770M.

I had the logic board replaced on depot repair a few days ago so I'm very much hoping that Apple comes to their senses and acknowledges the widespread flaw within 90 days. The store manager confirmed of course that if a program is announced I can come back to claim a refund. Hopefully I can claim the refund without still having the computer, eBaying this sucker as soon as possible.

+1 here too. I never had a reason to join the forums, but now that I have, and I wont be buying anymore Apple products, I guess my username is perfect.

I'll be selling my Late 2011 15inch MacbookPro part for part on eBay. If anyone wants an anti-glare screen, get at me. I also have 2 chargers and a magic mouse. While I'm at it I think I'll switch to ATT from Comcast. Time to rid my house of corporate corruption.

Does anyone know if reballing a GPU (to avoid months of corporate faffing and associated loss of earnings) will have any impact on the situation once Apple 'fess up to this design flaw and address their customers? They'd never know... Or maybe they have a tiny paper patch in there that can detect the pungent musk of an unwashed IT technician*?

(* - not a "Genius", obviously...)

Does anyone know if reballing a GPU (to avoid months of corporate faffing and associated loss of earnings) will have any impact on the situation once Apple 'fess up to this design flaw and address their customers?

Reballing - with the old or a new GPU - seems to 'fix' the problem more often than not. But, as I've pointed out before, Apple techs are not equipped to do board-level repairs. They only exchange parts for parts. So it simply wouldn't do for Apple to admit the defect as they've no way of actually fixing the problem.

That's one of my takes on the situation, anyway...

Clinton

Hi everyone.. I just wanted to share my experience:

My macbook started to have GPU failures yesterday (April 1st) and it got completed crazy... not booting anymore, crazy lines on the screen, etc, etc.

I work at a big international investments bank (IT) and, here in the bank, we have thousands of Apple products everywhere. All the  meeting rooms with Ipads, Apple tvs for each TV, ipods and also worldwide. I'm one person that is usually reference for technology choices (family, work, etc), probably like many people here. So I'm feeling really bad about this macbook, again, like everyone here, and I contacted Apple yesterday.

I wrote all this history on an email to Apple: How started, how I found all these threads, people with the problems, thousands of websites talking abt this, petition,  everything.

16 hours later, an Executive Relations from Apple USA called me, directly on my mobile phone (in Brazil). I got surprised with tnat, and actually I got very happy on the beginning, but the end of this story is sad.

He said that Apple is reading all of these threads and websites, and they did some researchs with many of the laptops sent to Apple Care. He said that their conclusion is that this is not a project problem and It could occour  with any component of the macbook (harddrive, motherboard, keyboard, etc) like any PC and, at this time, it was the GPU.

I told him about thousands of people having the problem at the same time and how this is possible on an such expensive notebook. I asked him: and if it was your macbook, costing 2200 USD, having this problem with only 2,5 years of use. Would you accept or would you be happy? He said: I would be sad too but this can happens with any notebook, any brand... So, we stayed on an infinite conversation loop I asked him the same thing 5 more times, he answered the same thing all the times.

I asked him to send everything that he was saying by e-mail, so I could have it written. He denied to do that and said that Apple feel sorry for my (our) GPU problem ()  but they cannot do anything else than offering the local assistance address to me.

I insisted and asked him many times abt the GPU free replace. He said, no, your 1 year warranty does not cover that (and he also sent by email the link of my macbook warranty contract  )

So,

1) they know the problem;

2) they are seeing and reading all these people here talking and making this mess;

3) they already did the researchs and the conclusion is: ok, this is not a problem, this could happen with any macbook.

4) if you dont have apple care, they will not help you.

We spent 25 minutes on the phone and I didnt get anything more than this. He said that "maybe the price at the Apple Authorized Service Provider" would not be so expensive as you said. Go there and take your macbook to check that.

I asked him: but how can I keep buying apple macbooks now after this? He answered: the macbooks are getting improved.

Great! Thanks Apple for making and selling a Ferrari except for the fact that it can be used only for 2,5~3 years.

<E-mail Edited by Host>

Steve Jobs is obviously now gone.  The bean counters have taken over.

I guess then if Apple don't even recognise you can reball the GPU, they can't really refuse a subsequent replacement logic board when they admit this is a design flaw.

I mean, I'd only be doing it 'cos it's the only option left if I want to use this £2,500, supposedly premium grade, PC beating, audio/graphics professional laptop I bought only two years ago for anything more strenuous than keeping up with this thread or stopping some very impoerant papers from blowing away.

Sometimes.

Some stuff I've noticed about how my setup is behaving, might be useful to someone or maybe it's just me. For now, my MBP is sort-of usable for basic stuff.

I fitted an SSD a bit before this all started and ditched sleep to hibernate only. That's given me some stuff to think about with how my laptop is behaving now, and at least it's nice to repeatedly...... reboot.......... a...... tiny....... bit........ quicker.............

I noticed when coming out of a crash, it's usually/always got a glitchy screen with wide vertical stripes. But there's a point the integrated graphics kick back in then it wakes up okay with no corruption, with gfxCardStatus confirming it's on 'i'. This switch happens at the point when the GUI would appear on verbose boot, just before the login screen. I guess maybe the GPU gets reset at this point in the boot process?

So I think disabling sleep in favour of hibernation *might* help recovering from this, at least for me. So that was: ‘sudo pmset hibernate mode 25’ in Terminal - read up here: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/Manpages/ man1/pmset.1.html

Sometimes it crashes completely because of some call to the discrete graphics, an SMC reset seems to kick it out of the stripy loop and allow it to start up using integrated graphics again (with a reassuring loud Apple tone), then it's okay until something calls the 3d/acceleration and it’ll die again soon after. This is usually following some glitchy corruption/screen tearing, but no stripes as such.

Crashes whilst I'm working are usually BSOD style 0,0,255 vertical primary blue pinstripes. Crashes on boot are quarter inch wide stripes of green, pink etc. superimposed over the Apple logo. Cute. As mentioned above, the wide stripes clear up when the graphics get reset before the login screen.

Whilst using the discrete graphics with some 3d apps it's seemingly okay, video players that call the Radeon are OK, but some things (even some websites) can cause it to crash immediately, I haven’t narrowed it down any further yet. Photoshop CC is an immediate bomb but I can run, edit (just about) and encode (!!) in Premiere, more stably by disabling all that Mercury Playback stuff.

Windows: no-go area. Perma-loop on the Windows 7 logo.

I guess if this is all caused by slivers of solder, it's totally up to chance which connections get shorted so we'll all get different crashes.