Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I have an 8,2 early 2011 MBP with the AMD 6750M.

I have had somewhat similar issues as being described here.  No distortion-but-still-usable- I would get hard locks with the screen either going blank or displaying vertical bars.

AHT failed memory on the 3rd run, I replaced the memory with brand new but did not re-test.

Apple store replaced the screen and put Apple original memory in it.  No problems yet, but I have not been using it very much.  I'm skeptical they fixed the right stuff, this smells more like logic board or GPU stuff to me.  They told me something like a connection between LCD and logic board can erode and cause the symptoms I experienced.

Same symptoms as reported here- Hard reboot causes high fan activity and grayscreen with no resolution until another hard reboot.  Rebooting caused, sometimes, thin horizontal lines through the display (the apple logo).

Seems the problem was more prevalent on battery power.

Anyway, I'm going to stress the machine and see what happens.  Just wanted to chime in with my experience and am curious if someone has gotten the run around before.

Just wanted to leave my experience here.

Last week, my MBP crashed when opening up Youtube. Restarted with lines through the screen and resulting in a gray screen. A few reboots, waiting and more reboots sometimes helped to fix it.

Forcing to run on the intel GPU worked, but it still crashed from standby or on boot sometimes. So to the Apple Store I went!

I bought my MBP on March 3th 2011, no Apple care. So my hopes in Apple fixing this for free was low.

Talked the the 'genius' and he said it was a known problem for this model, but if it didn't happen in the first 3 years, the machine wasn't affected by the problem. And here I am 3 years and 2 months later, with the issue

The genius couldn't do anything directly for me, so I asked for a manager or "someone higher". I told him, I thought that a 2000+ euro machine should at least last me 5 years. He left to talk to the manager and a few minutes later, he came back to let me know they were going to fix it under (Dutch) Consumer Law.

I couldn't find my receipt, so had to get back a couple days later to show I actually bought it as a consumer, not a company. (Apparently the actual Stores can't search through the online store its systems)

So, at the end, free fix!

I'm in the Netherland btw, bought the MBP via the online Apple Store, and went to the Genius bar in Amsterdam.

Thanks for you quick reply.

How did you repair it at this price? My estimate was $800. What language should I use to get this price?

I have no faith in what I hear from my local mac guys after I got such a poor service with diagnostics.

Also I am on the island, not too much choice.

Basically walking to the store, what should I ask for?

1) Logic board replacement

     I am getting quotes about $800

2) Repair/Rebaill GPU

     Can they do this in the mac store?

3) Does it worth getting a logic board and replacing it myself. There are tutorials online that look involved but doable. If this is an option where one looks for the hardware.

It seems that in countries with strong consumer laws there is some potential for getting a free repair (albeit one that will most likely fail again).  Can we read this as tacit agreement that the problem exists? Or are they just avoiding the hassle of dealing with some consumer affairs department?

Quote: Talked the the 'genius' and he said it was a known problem for this model, but if it didn't happen in the first 3 years, the machine wasn't affected by the problem.

That genius is talking out of his hat, to put it politely. But the "known problem" line is revealing.

macbook pro late 2011 here and it just started happening a few days ago. I'm going to take it to the Apple store today and hope for the best ( no apple care ).

Are we sure this wasn't because of an update? Seems a bit fishy to me. I installed a security update on May 16th and shortly after this started happening. It may be coincidence but is it possible this update broken something in how our macbooks sleep and fried my GPU? Before then I have zero issues!

I really don't want to go back to using PCs. If I'm paying a premium for a macbook then the hardware should last longer than 3 years!!!

My household is all apple products. iphones, macbook, mac air, ipad etc.. I was hoping that the iphone 6 will have a bigger screen so been holding off on upgrading. Depending on how this turns out I may switch my brand loyalty. Not a happy camper!

Did the reballing 2 months ago for 90 Eur. Everything is working properly now! I have only one doubt...Of those who did the reballing have noticed oddities with a temperature sensor of CPU? Because I have noticed that often has sudden changes in temperature. Example while I'm on the web, from 50c to 70c and then down to 50 in an instant. It seems that the CPU's temperature sensor is busted...

"How did you repair it at this price? "

Ask the Apple Genius for the "fixed price repair".

Linuxx84 wrote:

 

Did the reballing 2 months ago for 90 Eur. Everything is working properly now! I have only one doubt...Of those who did the reballing have noticed oddities with a temperature sensor of CPU? Because I have noticed that often has sudden changes in temperature. Example while I'm on the web, from 50c to 70c and then down to 50 in an instant. It seems that the CPU's temperature sensor is busted...

There're a couple possible explanations for that. Usually it's a good thing if the temperature follows the load quickly because it means that the cooling systems is properly connected and working well (otherwise it would cool down much slower than "instant"). OTOH if the heating up happens very quickly that is also a bad sign because the heat might not spread properly but stays mostly locally.

I would carefully stress it while watching the temps, if they permanently stay below about 90c the system is doing just fine.

Hey,

I have the exact same model of early 2011 MBP 15 inch. Its screen not only goes to a blue tint randomly when switching to descrete graphics but now the computer gets held up with that coloured wheel circling continuously whenever I play videos on Youtube or when the system is heated up due to gaming. This problem has started occuring quite frequently now.

Additionally, another problem has started happening since yesterday. The grey startup screen is cut up from top and bottom making the apple logo very small.

I don't know what to do with this computer.

SilverHawke,

You can take your machine into your local Apple Store or an AASP (make an appointment first) and have them diagnose your machine and give you an estimate for repair. The estimate will likely recommend a logic board replacement. If you're still under AppleCare, have them replace the logic board, having every assurance that it will likely fail again.

If you're not under warranty, DON'T have Apple replace the logic board but rather find a reballer in your area and have the GPU reballed. Price is usually $140-200USD and some shops have a one-year warranty on their work.

Good luck,

Clinton

Hello folks I just came back from Akibahara Tokyo GSS shop, they checked the hardware and asked 480USD for fixing and I don't think that's worth at all and going to buy a new one.

And yesterday night I tried to reinstall OSX 10.8 Lion it worked as usual, no any problem on screen, even I watched the video at Youtube, but once I did a WebGL test, it f*cked up again, so I think maybe my machine is easy to be fixed. Now, it's still in half dead mode.

Hi everybody, I have a 2011 Mac 15" with the 6750M that I purchased at the start of 2012. I have used it for mid-level gaming and photo editing since then and this has caused some pretty high temperatures. I am currently really concerned from reading the multitude of info on this malfunction, I hope Apple gets it together and starts a replacement program very soon. I've signed the petition for my own and everyone's sake. It feels like I may have a year left of my mac tops, although I guess I could just not do any heavy work and run the integrated card. My question is, does anyone know whether running smcFanControl and keeping temperatures cool during 6750M use may offer some form of prevention??

Hello everyone I want to contribute to the discussion by saying I too have a 15" early 2011 macbook pro that has a failing gpu (6750m) it first started as graphic glitches (weird interlacing bars) and mostly occured during video playback, also the mb would'nt wake up from sleep and eventually escalated to the point where it could no longer boot up, I used it for some light gaming and alot of video production stuff, reading through the comments leaves no doubt in my mind this is a widespread problem and apple needs to do a recall.

480USD! It is even more expensive than Apple Genius Bar! It is not for reballing just for replacement, right?

480USD = 400USD Logic Board + 80USD Tax etc. Japan is a kind of special country everything is under the rules so the cost is really higher than the other countries. Even the Apple Genius(Idiot) Bar asked 600+USD to replace the Logic Board so that's really not worth to fix the machine in Japan here, if I was in China I could find a much more cheap shop to replace the GPU.