Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

That mean you will soon get a new mac

My 15" early 2011 Macbook was broken too. I got a new logic board from Gravis. After 10 minutes of work the Macbook crashed again with a gray screen. I brought it back to Gravis. They performed two days of testing without any crash. Back at home after a day I got the gray screen again. It seems that it was a temperature problem. Normally the Macbook booted fine when it was shut down for a long time. When the crash occurs it was not possible to boot. Only the Apple Recovery Hardware Test runs without an error. The Disk Tool (CMD + R) or boot from an external disk drive crashed with a gray screen.

I disassembled the logic board and put it in an oven at 200 degrees C for 7:30 minutes. Now the Macbook runs without any crash since a week.

An update on my issue, after 90 minutes on the phone yesterday with Apple, they are overnighting me the coffin for my MacBook Pro and claim to be taking care of the parts replacement which will likely include logic board and hard drive.

They stressed that anyone in this thread needs to call Apple customer support if they want this issue to truly be noticed and recognized by Apple. According to my rep, this thread doesn't do the job.

I called again today, hoping I might get a more reasonable person who would offer the free repair. No chance, same response.

Apple refuses to acknowledge this. They refuse to fix it at no cost to us.

After having an identical sounding problem resulting in my 2011 MBP being unusable, the Bristol Mac Genuis concluded that I had a graphics fault and the logic board needed to be replaced at a cost of £347+VAT.  I have refused to pay and then called AppleCare UK who are reporting the issue to the senior engineers, who will hopefully reconise that this is a fault with this model of MBP.  Let's hope I do'nt have to email Tim Cook...

This looks like such a common problem, I can't believe Apple are just turning their backs on it??? My machine has just starting showing signs of this issue and is an early 2011 model. I've had to buy a new replacement as I'm in the middle of a critical job, but I'm assuming this issue can't be fixed cheaply right?

Seems insane that I can't do anything with my old machine - what do people do with their old macbook pros in this type of situation? Do I just have to take the hit financially?

Update: The local Apple Store had my logic board replaced in 3 hours. I was impressed with my experience there but have not gotten my hopes up that the repair would make a long-term difference. Sure enough, yesterday the glitches returned. This time, in addition to the GPU failure when using the discrete GPU, any miniscule brush against the thunderbolt port causes the machine to completely flip out (glitches, fans powering down, shutting off, etc.).

I've got a new appointment at the same store scheduled for tomorrow.

How much did you have to pay?

I need my laptop to work and I wanted to be safe, so I got an out-of-warranty repair from Apple. They replaced the logic board at a total cost of about $350. The service was fast (I sent it in Tuesday morning and received it back Thursday morning). Hopefully the fix lasts for another 3 years (at least). I will definitely give the discrete GPU and workout before the 90 day repair warranty, but I can't risk that right now b/c I need my computer for work. If it fails again, I will be back here posting to share my experience.

Computer is still under AppleCare so nothing for the initial replacement. I still have ~200 days on AppleCare plus the repair is under warranty for 90 days so I don't anticipate having to pay anything this seond time.

But I don't expect it to work, either. I'm not sure how many repairs I'll have to deal with before they are ready to replace the machine. The thought has occured to me that there might be a game of chicken at work here in terms of who (Apple or me) will replace the computer first. 200 days left on AppleCare for a computer that, by the time it expires, I will have owned for about 3 years which gets pretty close to your typical small business computer replacement cycle anyway.

granata, you can request for a new machine after the third time. It's in their policy

Is this new replacement policy only applied to AppleCare owner?

No, it doesnt seems like it from what I can see. Most of the people i talk to with their mac out of warranty got their new mac replaced after their third replacement.

"If you have three repairs within one or two years after the purchase, you will be eligible to have a case made to get your device replaced"

Why is it that the price for logic board repairs isn't fixed? How come some people claim they have to pay $700-1500 and others say $350? What's the deal? The more I'm reading about apple and their service the more I get sceptical. Though they do seem to do an OK job, aside from the fact that they refuse to acknowledge their faulty line of products.

Seem the AppleCare plan is to 'protect' themselves instead of us (consumer).