Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

So far, I have no issue yet ... lol I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hope the issue(s) which other users reported are a workmanship, reliability related, not a design flaw.

Lucky you. Mine started failing on the 17th so only a couple of days after the first reports came up. I can only hope I can get that logic board replaced really quick because at the moment I'm stuck with a 13" MBP which makes for a really cramped working compared to my 17" -- but so far I did not even get a quote for the costs, but I'm expecting around 800€...

Well, you're fortunate neo that you haven't been affected. Although a number of comments here have seemingly been stimulated by the AppleInsider article, I've had these issues for the past roughly 18 months. And, in my case, just because I'm posting now, that doesn't mean I've just suddenly discoverd I have a problem. Instead, I had NO IDEA this problem was so widespread UNTIL I ran into the AppleInsider article! I have the 6490M.

I use an external monitor constantly, requiring discrete graphics, so I had assumed that perhaps I was stressing the graphics card more than others. While unhappy that I have been expeiencing artifacts, banding, and freezes for some time now, they haven't resulted in blowing up the entire system (at least yet), so I figured I probably just had a 'weaker' graphics chip...luck of the draw...and just slogged through it all.

NOW that I see how many people have had exactly the same issue, I am REALLY, REALLY miffed! I've been a BIG Apple customer all the way back to the Performa 600 and LC machine days, probably purchasing 20-25 Macs (not to mention countless other Apple products) for myself, my wife, and my 4 boys as they grew up. In fact, ironically, the reason I purchased this 'early 2011' MBP was to replace my previous MBP (model 3,1) that was having graphics glitches...and ironically, THE VERY DAY i placed an order for this MBP, I discovered Apple had a recall on my previous MBP (3,1) that replaced the motherboard for free BECAUSE of the graphics problem.

So here I am, with my 'OLD' MBP, which had it's motherboard replaced for free out-of-warrantly by Apple, fired up now BECAUSE I'm having graphics glitches with my 'early 2011' MPB with the clearly defective 6490M graphics. Some people (like you) have all the luck...others (like me) do not.

Come on Apple where are you?!

I owned a 2011 early 15inch mbp with 6490M graphics card and it working fine now. BUT i am afraid it will DOWN in some day beacuse i always use it with a external DISPLAY and system always switch the graphics card to 6490M.I think APPLE should replace all the logicboard which hav that hidden trouble!!!

Yes you are lucky one, im ingenier and really know how to care my computer but, if you stress the gpu it breakes, i managed to enter single user mpde and remove the ATI files to force the integrated, but its not what i must be doing in a pro model computer its suposed to be made for profesinal work . If apple didnt fix this im sad i will stop buying them i anything.

i cant imagine use integrate HD3000 with 2 dispalys Hope my mbp will be OK.....

Hope APPLE will replace all early 2011 MBP.....

Yes thats what i mean, with the integreated you cant use another displays, and some apps just dont work well even the finder crash on mine . I just be abble to do a few things i should be doing its my work tool and i need it.

<Edited by Host>

This is happening to me too. And the timing was just perfect. My Macbook started to fail just as I was finishing Senior project. I had to buy a new computer just to have somewhere safe to store my project on something mildy reliable. It started to go when I put strain on the graphics card (I am an animator), but now it fails when I'm just browsing the internet. 

I can get it to work about every three days with persistant restarting in safe mode.

My previous MBP kernal paniced and died which was replaced with this, also defective one. I'm pretty tired of this.

I have OS 10.7.5, 2.2GHz i7, AMD Radeon 6750M. =/

Jpl63 wrote:

 

This is happening to me too. And the timing was just perfect. My Macbook started to fail just as I was finishing Senior project. I had to buy a new computer just to have somewhere safe to store my project on something mildy reliable. It started to go when I put strain on the graphics card (I am an animator), but now it fails when I'm just browsing the internet.

 

 

There's never a good time for an important tool to just spontaneously fail, is there? In my case, I'm a videographer with a backlog of projects. My laptop, which I use as my main editing system since I travel so much, just died in the middle of two jobs, with a bigger and more important job coming up. It was out of commission for a full month while it was in for repairs three different times, causing me to not only lose confidence in Apple's product quality, but their service quality also.

Eventually I just bought a new MacBook Pro so I could get back to work so I could feed my family (it turns out nobody rents decent MBPs for a decent price). I guess in a sense, Apple came out ahead because they got my repair money AND a new sale. But I have serious qualms about staking my business on Apple products now, after having been a daily user for the past 7 years. And that - combined with their apparent exit from the professional video editing tools market - may run me off for good.

Until now, I never felt like it was necessary to keep a backup Mac around in case the first one died. I'm planning to spend several months traveling, shooting, and editing in Asia in 2015. What if this failure happened when I was on location in Mongolia, a week and thousands of dollars of travel from the nearest Apple service center?

I just wanted to share my situation with others, I own an early 2011 17" MBP and experience a problem similar to the one many people talk about here.

Configuration

• Intel Core i7-2820QM CPU @2.30GHz (early Sandy Bridge generation)
• 16GB 1333MHz DDR3 (upgraded from 8GB 1333MHz DDR3)
• SSD 512GB (upgraded from HD 500GB @7200rpm)
• Mac OSX 10.8.4

I bought it in march 2011, was delivered about 2 weeks later, so it's roughly 2.5 years old.

I mostly use it for software development (C++/C#), web-browsing, music, games.

I use it regularly but it isn't my only computer, I have a mid-2009 13" MBP that I used a LOT more for a longer time (and also put a lot more stress on it comparatively) so it's not the kind of computer that runs all-day-all-night. It's more like a few hours a day of use in "worst-case-scenarios", most of it being lightweight load (text-editors, web and such).

I don't usually move it around, I use it more as a "transportable" computer rather than a "portable" one, and take extreme care of it.

I never had any major problem with it (except some extremely rare problems with the GPU switch not working, resulting in a black screen and requiring a normal reboot to fix it), never had a kernel panic as far as I can remember, the computer was working perfectly (very fast, no performance issue of any sort, no graphical issue, no crash) until this problem occured.

I was using the computer for about an hour, the room temperature was about 22°C and the computer temperature seemed to be about the same as whenever I use it. And suddenly, an extreme amount of graphical artifacts appeared, what remained visible from the interface was cut, disjointed and moving all over the screen. It lasted for about 5 seconds, probably less, and then I could see a kernel panic screen popping up behind the same graphical chaos.

I tried a hard-reboot.

Right from the start stripes appeared on screen, then the Apple logo appeared under the stripes, then a completely blank screen, and then nothing.

It doesn't boot up anymore.

I tried the following, all to no avail :

• Wait an hour for the computer to cool down
• Plug-unplug external Screen and then re-did the whole testing without external screen entirely
• Plug-unplug Magsafe and then re-did the whole testing without Magsafe entirely
• Safe boot (not passing the blank screen)
• System selection (Bootcamp/Recuperation disk : automatically rebooting/not booting either)
• Perform a clean-up on the fans and areas that tend to gather lots of dust (there was less than expected)
• Perform a PRAM & SMC reset (didn't change anything)

Not tried :

• Swap/change memory sticks
• Swap/change hard-disk

There's never a good time for an important tool to just spontaneously fail, is there? In my case, I'm a videographer with a backlog of projects. My laptop, which I use as my main editing system since I travel so much, just died in the middle of two jobs, with a bigger and more important job coming up. It was out of commission for a full month while it was in for repairs three different times, causing me to not only lose confidence in Apple's product quality, but their service quality also.

Some years ago they had a quite decent pickup-repair-dropoff service (best case was morning pickup with proper foam packaging where you just had to put in the goods and seal it, shipment from Germany to the Netherlands, repair and delivery back to me in under 24h -- yes, that good) which now the Apple Care hotline doesn't even known about anymore. Now you'll have to make an appointment at the Genius bar in the center a huge city (just to get there takes an immense amount of time, hence also money) -- and they are booked for 5 days in advance just to demonstrate your damaged stuff and if it doesn't fail for some reason you're being sent home without fix! I had an assistant of mine take it to another Apple certified service center instead and now I'm already waiting 2 days to receive word about the fix and the cost for that.

Seriously Apple, this is what you call service nowadays?!? Tell you what: I'm happy to pay premium prices but I expect premium quality and premium service for my work equipment -- this couldn't be any farther from it!

Eledhwen wrote:

 

I just wanted to share my situation with others, I own an early 2011 17" MBP and experience a problem similar to the one many people talk about here.

 

Configuration

• Intel Core i7-2820QM CPU @2.30GHz (early Sandy Bridge generation)
• 16GB 1333MHz DDR3 (upgraded from 8GB 1333MHz DDR3)
• SSD 512GB (upgraded from HD 500GB @7200rpm)
• Mac OSX 10.8.4

 

I bought it in march 2011, was delivered about 2 weeks later, so it's roughly 2.5 years old.

I mostly use it for software development (C++/C#), web-browsing, music, games.

I use it regularly but it isn't my only computer, I have a mid-2009 13" MBP that I used a LOT more for a longer time (and also put a lot more stress on it comparatively) so it's not the kind of computer that runs all-day-all-night. It's more like a few hours a day of use in "worst-case-scenarios", most of it being lightweight load (text-editors, web and such).

I don't usually move it around, I use it more as a "transportable" computer rather than a "portable" one, and take extreme care of it.

I never had any major problem with it (except some extremely rare problems with the GPU switch not working, resulting in a black screen and requiring a normal reboot to fix it), never had a kernel panic as far as I can remember, the computer was working perfectly (very fast, no performance issue of any sort, no graphical issue, no crash) until this problem occured.

 

I was using the computer for about an hour, the room temperature was about 22°C and the computer temperature seemed to be about the same as whenever I use it. And suddenly, an extreme amount of graphical artifacts appeared, what remained visible from the interface was cut, disjointed and moving all over the screen. It lasted for about 5 seconds, probably less, and then I could see a kernel panic screen popping up behind the same graphical chaos.

I tried a hard-reboot.

Right from the start stripes appeared on screen, then the Apple logo appeared under the stripes, then a completely blank screen, and then nothing.

It doesn't boot up anymore.

 

I tried the following, all to no avail :

• Wait an hour for the computer to cool down
• Plug-unplug external Screen and then re-did the whole testing without external screen entirely
• Plug-unplug Magsafe and then re-did the whole testing without Magsafe entirely
• Safe boot (not passing the blank screen)
• System selection (Bootcamp/Recuperation disk : automatically rebooting/not booting either)
• Perform a clean-up on the fans and areas that tend to gather lots of dust (there was less than expected)
• Perform a PRAM & SMC reset (didn't change anything)

Not tried :

• Swap/change memory sticks
• Swap/change hard-disk

Can you update us on your progress? I tired almost everything and still can't boot my macbook pro. In my case, I am in med school and i study everyday using my macbook pro. I have all my notes in there.

Can you update us on your progress? I tired almost everything and still can't boot my macbook pro. In my case, I am in med school and i study everyday using my macbook pro. I have all my notes in there.

I went to the Genius Bar today (Tokyo, Shibuya) and well.. it was disappointing, even if expected.

Apple officially doesn't aknowledge any problem regarding the computer design or its components.

I think the "Genius" did his job.. which means he did the bare minimum.

He ran the MRI twice, which concluded there was no problem with the hardware, the "Genius" automatically concluded that the display was at fault..

I mean, come on. A display suddenly displaying graphical artifacts, image-mangling, stripes, provoking kernel-panics and preventing reboots ? All of it on an EXTERNAL display too ?!

Apart from the MRI test ? Nothing. I provided most of the content by myself, and tried to dig a bit further (also bringing on the table that many people have had problems on the same generation with their logic board and/or the GPU), nothing came out of it.

His argument was that if the repair service found that the logic board or anything else was at fault, they would replace it too. No targeting or identification of the problem = no need to deal with hypothetical design flaws at a PR level. I'll see what the technical service says in the end, but I don't think they'll let me ask for anything after it is done.

So, in the end :

• I have to pay for the repairs by myself, there are no out-of-warranty repairs to be expected at the moment ;
• I can consider myself "lucky" (you know what I mean) to have a flat-rate repair for ~320€.. and a whole week to wait without working tools, not counting the whole day that went to waste today ;

That's quite inappropriate considering the nature of the problem and the fact I paid about 2400€ for this computer 2 years ago.

Dear Team:

Hello! kindly proceed on below Apple product feedback link.

Admin recommended on this case, to post the feedback on suggested link below.

as they block any innapropriate link survey report regarding the MBP 2011 GPU issues.

Lets work together to help apple and help ourselves on this isue.

<Link Edited By Host>

I'm doing this right now! Seems to be the right way to contact Apple about this issue, thanks for the tip! The Google Docs link does not work though, says the file doesn't exist.

I wrote an email to several blogs about this issue yesterday and sent them the link to the various discussion threads regarding the issue, hope they help us get the help we need!

I'm really ****** off Apple hasn't yet said anything about this!