Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

So why hasn't any of the support staff here of Apple answered yet?? Suggestions? They are support aren't they?

I completely agree. But please don't tell me to cut down my program use on a high end graphics computer. I was also told that it lasted their suggested lifetime of 3-5 years, completly agree with everything, just frustrated. I will never go back to a windows based laptop simply because of the support.

The support tech did tell me that it is a 1year warranty for any repeat repair. So if you have the logic board repaired and 60 days later the monitor takes a dump, you can take it back and have that repaired all under that same ticket. If the logic board goes out in 11 months, they will repair that under the same ticket. He also told me that if they did have a recall they would reimburse the $310 that I paid for the logic board repair. They are doing what they can. I'm assuming  they sold hundreds of thousands of these early MBP 15's & 17's and for a handful to go out, and unfortunately i don't think its high on apples radar.  This is just my .02

This is a user-to-user forum - the only time that Apple employees actually join in here is when they may answer a message that has slipped by for a couple of days, when a user reports a post as being inappropriate or when the Hosts deem that a post is inappropriate for these forums.

Apple have not commented on these problems at this time, and I really don't expect them to unless they're ready to admit fault - and that doesn't seem likely.

Clinton

While the support tech may have informed you that if the same part that was replaced or repaired fails again will be covered within 1 year, I see no indication of this on the warranty listed.  Seeing how Apple has been about warranties on these machines, I would rely on what it says on paper and not what a support tech says.

When I brought in my machine to the Apple Store after having worked with a support tech online, I was told the following (and this is quoted directly from the chat transcript I saved):

When they run the test at the Apple Retail Store they will be able to verify fore sure that the hardware is covered under the known hardware issue.

Sounds promising right?  Well, when I brought it to the store for the appointment they made for me (and even with them having access to the chat transcript), I was told that they do not see where the tech indicated it would be covered, and that there was no known hardware issue.

Your mileage may vary, but with how things have gone thus far, I am very much in the skeptical camp.

I really don't think posting alternatives to the MacBook Pro line will get us in any hot water.

That Asus really looks nice - I read a couple of reviews and it seems as if it would satisfy the needs of any graphics professional - and certain those who have a preference for a 17" screen.

Clinton

paigoomein,

When I took my machine in, the 'genius' told me that there was a tech note that said that my system had a logic board replacement program (although I was still under AppleCare so I wasn't worried about paying to have it 'fixed'). Then he looked it up on his iPad and said, no, that tech note was for mid-2010 models. I'm betting that's what the tech was thinking of when he/she wrote that in the transcript.

Clinton

MARSERdesigns wrote:

 

I completely agree. But please don't tell me to cut down my program use on a high end graphics computer. I was also told that it lasted their suggested lifetime of 3-5 years, completly agree with everything, just frustrated. I will never go back to a windows based laptop simply because of the support.

 

The support tech did tell me that it is a 1year warranty for any repeat repair. So if you have the logic board repaired and 60 days later the monitor takes a dump, you can take it back and have that repaired all under that same ticket. If the logic board goes out in 11 months, they will repair that under the same ticket. He also told me that if they did have a recall they would reimburse the $310 that I paid for the logic board repair. They are doing what they can. I'm assuming  they sold hundreds of thousands of these early MBP 15's & 17's and for a handful to go out, and unfortunately i don't think its high on apples radar.  This is just my .02

Sadly what you are told isn't worth the paper it isn't written on! As when it come to the crunch, you will just found out that you were misinformed... Sad, but that is often the reality of life.

As for a handful to go wrong? Sorry, are you reading the wrong forum? There are thousands that have got this problem, IT IS NOT JUST A HANDFUL. Do you not think that Apple's stock depot doesn't know how many Logic Board replacements are occuring? Please wake up and smell the coffee!

Sorry to be so strong in my comments, but I find it bewildering that you can believe that Apple doesn't know about this.

Your honour my first witnes: http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/widespread-2011-macbook-pro-failures-reported -3497935/

Your honour my second witness: http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/14/apples-2011-macbook-pro-lineup-sufferi ng-from-sporadic-gpu-failures

Should I go on?

I'm just as frustrated as everyone else. But I'm paying to fix it, I use it for a living and cannot wait for a "fix" Yes it ***** that this is a issue thats being over looked at the molment. I'm sure there are people at Apple that are aware of the issue and are looking into a solution. I'm in no way siding with Apple, but lets be honest they built the computer to last 3-5 years....it did its job (wish it was longer than the 3 years).

As for a handful to go wrong? Sorry, are you reading the wrong forum? There are thousands that have got this problem, IT IS NOT JUST A HANDFUL. Do you not think that Apple's stock depot doesn't know how many Logic Board replacements are occuring? Please wake up and smell the coffee!

Pretend your Apple....you just sold 1 million MBP's and 10,000 just reported a problem....are you going to spend the money and recall 1,000,000 computers for the handfull that failed? Sorry for looking at this from a Apple Executives eyes.

I hope they fix our problems soon.

Will NEVER spend $2500 on something that will cost MORE $$$/become a paperweight in 3 short years. Have had better luck and better/less convoluted "customer service" with cheap Dells. SO disappointed in Apple. So sad that "people" and "loyalty" no longer mean anything. Seriously thinking about going back to the hammer/chisel/stone tablet.

I apologize in advance if the 2¢ I am about to add is redundant, I've just discovered this thread and I don't have time at the moment to read through the 399(!) pages to see if this has been suggested as of yet.

I started to experience these wonky GPU artifacts out of the blue yesterday for the first time after owning this late 2011 15" MBP since April of 2012 (I bought it factory refurb) with nary a problem. Full disclosure, about a year ago i swapped the optical drive for a Crucial M500 960GB SSD and replaced in the stock HD with a 2nd M500. So naturally, after this problem occurred yesterday, I certainly thought that this "upgrade" could have something to do with the GPU artifacts and problems.

The problem first manifested itself like a faulty Horizontal Hold on an old tube television set, the entire picture shifted to the left a couple hundred pixels (only to reemerge on the right side of the screen as if on a loop.) The screen had a pattern of horizontal striations and a flickering of GPU artifact snow. Basically the MBP was rendered useless as I could hardly use the pointer, although I could tell it wasn't in a complete freeze state. So I immediately started googling the problem on my iphone and started trying stuff. I first reset the NVRAM/PRAM to no avail. Trying to boot in safe mode didn't work. The second time I attempted to boot up I got the striations on the grey screen before the apple logo. Then I got the blue screen on the third boot up attempt. Lastly, I tried resetting the SMC (System Management Controller) as someone in a forum had had that work and VOILA, I had my MBP back and I could breathe easy. But that is not the end of the story, as the GPU artifacts reappeared about 30 minutes later. Reset the SMC again, voila, back to normal. 20 minutes later GPU artifacts. Reset the SMC rinse repeat.

Glad to have found these apple insider articles (http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/01/16/owners-of-late-2011-macbook-pros-repor t-critical-gpu-failures-system-crashes) and this thread however. I live next to a apple genius so I'm going to have him take a looksee hopefully because I believe my AppleCare is likely expired now.

The SMC reset result is interesting, but is a false positive to resolving the issue. Your efforts are most definitely temporary. Short version of what is 99% likely the cause of your graphic issues:

GPU is soldered into the logic board and with heat stress the connections are weakened. Based on expansion and contraction, your graphic problems will get progressively worse. In short, the GPU is cooked.

Apple has no "fix" for this because all they do is swap out logic boards with the same heat-related design flaw and you start cooking GPU #2. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

DOCUMENT EVERYTHING YOU DO and take it into Apple for a look-see.  Very few have gotten a reasonable answer, but if you do what they say and this ever is recognized by Apple as a problem, you'll have the documentation to receive whatever "settlement" they provide.

You seem like a shill for Apple.  This isn't just a handful of computers here.  Also, how do you explain all the people that are returning the early 2011 MacBook Pros for repeat repairs for the same, exact faulty GPU issue.  You can't.

Like many others, I'm now returning my early 2011 MacBook Pro for the second time after only having it back for a few months.  There is very obviously a defect in the GPU.  The same, exact thing happened as before when I had the logic board replaced.

You may proudly dish out more money for a defective product and apologize for Apple, but the rest of us aren't swayed by your poor logic.

When this thread was a fraction of this current size and growing rapidly, the naysayers and apologists said it wasn't widespread and the threads and reports would have to grow.  Now here we are with many hundreds more posts, more threads being added, news reports of it being a widespread issue, more people adding every day that they've been finally hit and all these people are all having the exact, same specific issue with the GPU.

If your goal is to have the rest of us and the media blow this off, then you're sadly mistaken.  There was a time when Apple users expected more and didn't apologize for defects.  Some of us still expect better.  You may not be applicable.

MARSERdesigns wrote:

 

I'm just as frustrated as everyone else. But I'm paying to fix it, I use it for a living and cannot wait for a "fix" Yes it ***** that this is a issue thats being over looked at the molment. I'm sure there are people at Apple that are aware of the issue and are looking into a solution. I'm in no way siding with Apple, but lets be honest they built the computer to last 3-5 years....it did its job (wish it was longer than the 3 years).

Actually in some countries like the UK, consumer laws state that a laptop (or a TV) should work at least for 6 years (5 years in Scotland) even if it's out of warranty. The law is called "sale of goods act".

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-23189582

Pier11 wrote:

 

Actually in some countries like the UK, consumer laws state that a laptop (or a TV) should work at least for 6 years (5 years in Scotland) even if it's out of warranty. The law is called "sale of goods act".

Also in countries like Germany the tax code demands a useful life expectancy of minimum 3 years for PCs for depreciation, a mark that many early and late 2011 MBPs clearly missed.

Maybe this is what Apple should be looking into as a way of bypassing the need for replacing the logic boards..

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-External-Graphics-Cards-for-Laptops.112162.0 .html

Connecting an external graphics card could be a solution albeit an expensive one just to keep a 3 year old machine alive.

I'm a UK resident so will definitely be quoting the Sale of Goods Act on this one.  Here is some documentation I found from the apple site itself in relation to claims in the UK/EU (some countries impose certain their rules/jurisdictions).  Would be interesting to see if we could get some media coverage going on this issue through legal challenges.

https://www.apple.com/ie/legal/statutory-warranty/

Plan to pop into the London Regent Street store and have a chat with the "Genuis' ".  Will provide you with an update as to what transpires. 

This is I must tell you that after having visited the Amsterdam store 3 times to reach a compromise with little joy and ended up feeling like these guys don't even care about the customer service Steve Jobs created and inspired.  This is what made his product of "Apple" sell to the masses.  We had every confidence in what we were buying be it the iPhone 3, iPod (1st Generation), etc because of its sleek, functional yet simple design had us drooling and to top it off the sales guys were so helpful and even gave you tips on how to use your new product.  Now?  They run around the sales floor grabbing as many credit cards they can (almost as if a game), swiping them, handing the customer the receipt and wishing them a nice day...  eh?  Did I miss something?  "Hey you didn't teach me how to turn it on! ", "We don't, that's why you have a manual inside!  Have a good day!, Next, Ms EDITED, How can I help you today?".  Why go through all that when you can order online, but hey where is the fun in that?  Customer Service is after all about human interaction.

I have been merely frustrated in my attempts to compromise with Apple in anyway shape or form.  The tech guys simply pointed to the hardware replacement programme, went on to say there is no replacement programme for the logic board and offered me a fix within 2-3 hours (having made a space in their ever busy schedule) at a cost of €410, in the Amsterdam store of The Netherlands.  Sorry but that is a lot of money and I want to take out a business finance package with Apple but it all rests on how they deal with my current machine.  I certainly don't see the point in putting another logic board from another failed machine for the problem only to reoccur and possibly worse than before.

After having spoken with a few of the online tech support, receiving a phone call from a Senior Advsior based in Cork, Ireland, not much has occurred for me and it is a great shame that Apple cannot work on a case by case basis in their dealing with this issue as it would go away quickly if they were to replace the dead machines with good and new machines or even refurbished machines and not this model (self defeating indeed).

I have for the last few days managed to get my machine to work but only runnning "integrated only" in gfxCardStatus as when trying to use an application that utilises the AMD graphics card the shift screen problem occurs along with fuzzy lines, six horizontal yellow lines cursor.  Means I can't really do much apart from use safari and doesn't require the AMD Card.  I know its only a matter of time before the chip fails....

I hope I can get some joy from the UK store.  Who knows...