Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

DMC440,

I may have pointed ps3specialist to this thread in an email to him - or it may have been a number of others that did the same!

Clinton

Apple have a recall for the macbook airs relating to their drives. Maybe they care more because the air's are newer, I didn't read the details. Don't really care anymore.

I have an old logitech cooling pad that I decided to try on my MBP in an attempt to cool it down.

So far this is working. Until I run high intensive applications all at the same time but for basic stuff my computer is running fine. Been up for 2 days straight now. No issues. No idea how long this will last but crossing my fingers.

My early 2011 Macbook Pro's GPU died a few weeks ago. Had it replaced with Apple Care and a couple of weeks later, exactly the same issue. I wasn't too happy and kicked up a bit of a fuss in the Apple Store, refering them to this thread and other sites detailing the issue. They replaced the logic board again trying to convince me that i was just unlucky to get two faulty GPUs.

A couple of weeks later and guess what? Yes, the GPU has died again in exactly the same way for the third time. I have another appointment at the Apple Store tomorrow and I'm going to push for a replacement Macbook Pro altogether as this is getting ridiculous now. I'm really sick of this, I just want a computer that works as it should.

I think you got the answer for the first question, why I am posting here? I am working in this field and dealing with these problems at least ten times a day so when I see wrong conclusions about the problem I can not igniore it, as my own machines, I have a lot of computers some of them are Macbooks and those in particular I bought them broken and reballed them and they have been working fine since, most of the others are brand new and I don't have problems with them, I don't use heavy graphics applications so breaking computers doesn't happen with me very often. Just to explain a wrong understanding in this thread, there is nothing called faulty GPU , faulty GPU will not work not even for one minute , its all soldering issue and the only way to correct it is br soldering and that is the procedure that we call reballing, I don't think that is the procedure used in Apple refurbished logic boards and that is why they fail in short priod of time, Reballing is a very advanced procedure that require a very special skills , very advanced machines and a lot of knowledge and more imposrtant a lot of hands on, that what makes good reballers are hard to find and in general the number of reballers are very small because it is not a cheap learning experience.

degger wrote:

 

Really trustfull manufacturers.

Obviously I meant the manufacturer of the chips, not the assembly lines.

I know, reason I trust a reflow/reball/replacement, as he chips are still fine (at least in this case).

But they (the chip manufacturer) did put on the failing alloy which will probably still be the same on new chips sold now.

It will not be the chip manufacturer replacing/repairing it.

Once they go in to repairs for Apple, it is not the chip manufacturer but Apple or it's sub contractors soldering on the chip again using that same alloy with probably the same soldering profile used on the failing chips too.

Let's hope it's not the same subcontractor as the one causing the problem...

Even if I wouldn't repair them myself, with what I know now, or even allready knew before I even started reworking BGA's, I would go for a reball too instead of an "Apple repair".

I am not stating a chip replacment is a bad repair. If done correct it is of course.

Only that a reball can be just as good as the chips are not the problem but the soldering is.

Fix the soldering and it's fine again. (Not allways, but in this case it is, bare some exceptions maybe)

Of course, everyone has to make out for himself what he goes for.

Just giving my opinion from my experience.

Dealing with rework/reflow/reball/replace daily.

But they (the chip manufacturer) did put on the failing alloy which will probably still be the same on new chips sold now.

There're a couple of reasons why the solder connection might not be bonding properly. One of them is the wrong alloy which happened at least to NVidia in the past when transitioning from lead based solder to lead-free. However those (expensive) times are long gone and they now know the proper materials. If your assumption would hold true then there would be a massive outburst of breakage all over the map which is clearly not the case since not even all MBPs seem to be faulty, leave alone other makes. That should also rule out incorrect manufacturing guidelines and reflow temperature gradients. From what we've learned so far the most likely culprit is an incorrect process used to produce some of the batches, possibly only in one site and maybe even limited to only a small number of production lines.

Once they go in to repairs for Apple, it is not the chip manufacturer but Apple or it's sub contractors soldering on the chip again using that same alloy with probably the same soldering profile used on the failing chips too.

No, that's exactly the problem: Apple does not seem to be doing any soldering as part of their refurbishment process which is the reason that many of those refurbished boards are breaking much faster than the initial boards.

Even if I wouldn't repair them myself, with what I know now, or even allready knew before I even started reworking BGA's, I would go for a reball too instead of an "Apple repair".

An "Apple repair" is in this case not a repair at all since it's only replacing defective boards with other defective boards.

I am having the same issues with my MBP 17 unibody.  I am really new, just signed on today, and would like to know how I would be able to contact you one on one.  I did not see any links to sent a private message.  Any suggestions would be great.

Add me to the list...17" Late 2011 MBP (6770M)

Right. I was hoping that you maybe went searching because you were inundated with failing MBPs.  There seems no question that your expertise in this area has identified the cause of the issue, i.e. a soldering issue, and that you are also expert at rectifying the fault by reballing.  I think that "faulty GPU" is just shorthand for the problem and most of us now are aware of the underlying cause.  But I'm still frustrated that, with all the points you've made (and others such as degger and D3us) you STILL don't accept that there is an unacceptably high premature failure rate. While many of us are prepared to get the issue remedied (or find work arounds, which is how I am still limping along) even more of us feel there is a case to be answered by Apple. Your agreement would advance that cause immensely.  To invoke another of my flawed analogies: if you buy a new car and the head gasket fails after three years (out of warranty) and the technician tells you that the gaskets on this model were made of inferior materials that are prone to failure, wouldn't you think the car manufacturer should take some responsbility?

Same thing, for a three years old car you can put fifty thousand miles on it and you can put three hundred thousand miles on it, I don't think the engin head gasket will go bad if you only put fifty thousand miles but if you put three hundred thousand miles most probably it will go bad that is why cars warranty are not just determined by time, its also by miles so they tell you for example five years or a hundred thousand miles whichever comes first , same thing for computers it is not how many years of ownership it has, its how many hours of use, I personally never turn off my computer so count how many hours I put on it in three years and compare that to someone that uses his computer for only three hours a day , which computer will most probably fail  after those three years? of course mine so do you think I should blame the manufacturer when that happen, I don't think that will be right. Here is a picture after and before cleaning under a GPU chip of a Dell computer just as an exampleshow you what can build up under the GPU chip in couple years so we can see and think practical not just theoritical.

<Link Edited By Host>

Arghh!  I give up.

My MBP was used for normal web browsing for 2-3 hours, some graphic editing on Photoshop. Very rare movies, never HD games. How come my GPU had problem? I don't think the daily usage will the main caused of this.

Part of the manufacturing and assembly process of the logic board is inspection and of course for a comapny like Apple their logic boards go through X-ray inspection befor they go into a computer so beleive me there is a reason that caused the problem to develop into your computer, it could be dust, Humidity, dry weather , usage time is one factor but not all the factors. In cars there is a milage counter so they were able to input that into cars warranty conditions, I lately started to see that kind of counters in smart TVs so I expect so see this usage time counters in computers soon if it is not implemented already somewhere. 

Part of the manufacturing and assembly process of the logic board is inspection and of course for a comapny like Apple their logic boards go through X-ray inspection befor they go into a computer

Typically there's only visual inspection and blackbox, maybe burnin testing. I know factories that don't even have a single X-ray machine, let alone enough for a full inspection of all produced boards. I don't know about Quanta or Foxconn though so that might be different for Apple...

It was affixed to the logic board with materials that weren't up to the job. End of story.