Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

No no....    so I would like to know what do  you think about selling this macs and what price might have with this problem...

Probably the price you see them on ebay, minus twice the price of a reball!

All -

Going to chime in here and let you all know where I am with my 17" - 2011 MBP.   Things I want to make point out to everyone, and I have seen this said before:

1)  Call and get a case number with Apple Care.   The more that we can show there is a visible problem with their ticket system (their metrics for reporting) the better off we are with getting visibility internally to Apple.   Every manufacturing company has metrics that they report to show where the issues are coming from.  Complaining about it on a site like this does very little to make an impact.

2)  Express your concerns with Apple.  Be polite and curtious, but ensure you are firm on your disappointment with this product.  I assure you that if you are polite and explain your concerns with a $350 repair that may or may not fix your product is unacceptable.   Ask them what else they are able to do for this.  Explain to them that $350 for a repair that could go out after warranty is not something that you are interested if it's just the same part with no design improvement.  (I will tell you that this is the only option internally).

3)  Ask to speak with someone in customer relations internal about your disappointment.   Getting to a specialist or a senior engineer is not going to get you to voice your opinions.   I assure you that Apple listens to Customer Relations, and if you are able to get to someone, again voice your issues with them and explain how you are extremely disappointed with this product.  How spending $2800 - $3000 for a laptop that has a manufacturing defect, that is only going to be broken in 3 years is not something you are interested in.   Again be firm, but do not be a jerk or unpolite.   Tell them that it is unfortunate, you've been an apple follower, and believed in spending more money for quality, but this does not meet the expectations you had.   Explain to them your frustation in a polite and curteous manner.  

4) Go through Apple for your repair.   Apple is not making money on these repairs, I assure you this is not in their business model to make billions off of repairing these things.  The reason I say go with Apple is because "IF" and yes, it's an "IF" they do a recall, you will get your money back and a working product.  Sure it will have been some frustration, but I honestly do have faith in Apple that they will make this right "IF" everyone is reporting the issue. 

5)  If you do not trust Apple in repairing and making this right, and you DO choose to reball.   Please still open a case with Apple.  This will help the remaining people have a larger voice.   Every call into Apple does impact the metrics in the right direction for the customer.   Please continue to open support cases. 

Anyway, I know this was lengthy, but it's the right way to do the process and in the long run I still do have faith in Apple.   I am JUST as frustrated as everyone else, but I do believe in process and following it so that the right thing gets done.  Yes $350 *****, so does $175 for a reball.   Sure one is cheaper, but one also might be cheaper if the recall happens.

Anyway, thanks for the rant and hope this goes well for everyone here.

Thanks.

sitting here on my freshly repaired early 20011 MBP 17 ($310 from apple depot)..... very hot on my lap and just went to a black screen with cursor only visable, had to hard reset and back to normal-ish...but very hot on my lap.

My late 2011 15 inch has suffered the same problem.  Is it possible to replace the  logic board with a 2012 logic board?  I wasn't able to find someone that offers a reballing service in my country and the cost of a new faulty logic board is 620 euros.  I always used my laptop with an external monitor. Average idle temperature was areound 70 degrees centigrade.  My previous laptop which was a thinkpad t61p which sufferred from a similar problem.   I replaced 3 logic boards in. 3 years :(.  Unbelievable.

sam.masini wrote:

 

My late 2011 15 inch has suffered the same problem.  Is it possible to replace the  logic board with a 2012 logic board?

Yes, you can, the drawbacks iss that is too expensive to worth;

1. I've the same Idea and i found a new one at HongKong at 800$.
2. Requires New Memory, your old memory isn't compatible, you need DDR3@1600mhz (2011 is @1333), this adds about 150$ if you need a 16gb system or 80 for 8gb.

I'suggesto you to wait few weeks for Apple, if you can't, get an new Macbook Air or an entry level retina MBP (my choose), and an USB3 enclosure for your MBp's HDD, then sell the case, LCD and the ram the balance will be favorable than repair.

Thanks for your reply.  Do you suspect that apple will issue a recall?

I might wait for a while but i will also ask for a quote for a new 2012 logic board.

Thanks again!

I have the exact same problem. I've owened my MacBook Pro since I got it in  April 2011 (2.2 GHz Intel i7 with 4 GB RAM that I upgrade to 8 later). It hardly ever left the apartment, and when it did, it was well cared for. What blows my mind is that I don't do graphically intense work. I do audio on my laptop. It worked fine for the past 3 years. I didn't have to update the OS past 10.6.8, I upgraded to a solid state drive for the OS in 2012 (so there's less internal heat...) and life was great.

Then last week, out of nowhere, the screen glitches out. I was working with some audio, and the audio kept playing back for a few seconds until it crashed too. At first I thought it was a hard drive problem, so I grabbed a new one, put Mavericks on it, but then the screen glitched out again. After a while, it would boot up and work, but it would always crash with that offset and distorted screen. Now it won't even boot up at all (it does still function in Target mode).

I've been using Apple for a long time, and I've never encountered a spontaneous hardware failure like this before. I'm left now with a aluminum computer that doesn't boot up. Apple, please fix this.

sam.masini wrote:

 

Thanks for your reply.  Do you suspect that apple will issue a recall?

 

I might wait for a while but i will also ask for a quote for a new 2012 logic board.

 

Thanks again!

I have no crystal ball, but is an hope, Apple is on its best economic moment, an recall on our defective MBP would be very good for theis image as Premiun Brand, no recall will put some doubt on if worth or not to own Apple products.

I missed to suggest you (as last resort) to try a foreign repair service (usa/china etc), search at eBay and Aliexpress, you ship your logic board and they reball and replace gpu for about 200$ and then ship back (some include ship back cost).

Sorry for the late reply but been away a few days.

About lead vs lead free, I've read many papers about advantages/disatvantages for both types.

As with statistics, they prove both to be good....

Off the record however.... And don't forget the main part for both is tin.

Maybe also read this:

http://www.ecnmag.com/articles/2011/12/was-lead-free-solder-worth-effort

"2. Lead-free assembly is less reliable than lead-based assembly. The E.U. environmental commission admits this point. That's why they grant exceptions for military and high-reliability applications that still use SnPb solder. (Ref. 3)"

Also want to vent my 2 cents about this post:

ps3specialist wrote:

 

I feel sorry that some people still don't understand the issue correctly , Here is an example with clear pictures for a HP DV7 motherboard, the first picture show the GPU removed and the old solder still on the motherboard

 

This indeed looks like lifted chip without any cleaning done.

ps3specialist wrote:

 

the second one show how dust and dirt form an isolating layer under the solder that attaches the GPU to the logic board, look at the brown residue on the soldering pads r.

 

And this one looks like it's cleaned but there is still flux on it.

Explaining the brownish pads, probably burned or overheated flux, or oxidated pads.

If you claim it was dirt under it, well that tells they did a very bad soldering job. Telling it was more a production failure au contraire to what you claim.

On the bottom right it also looks there is a lifted (missing) pad?

I place new chips with lead solder balls. Of course, if I buy them they have lead free solder balls and I have to remove those first.

After that I reball the new chip with lead solder balls.

As these chips are new and unused, I suppose they could not collect dust either?

Well, after cleaning them I also see the same brownish pads. (Can even vanish sometimes looking from another angle).

When totally cleaned, solder AND flux cleaned off, it looks perfect.

For the record, I am not doubting ps3 specialist's results on fixing them.

I am also experiencing this problem,

By using gfxcardstatus to make sure my macbook uses the intel 3000 card i can keep it working.

I have a thunderbolt display that won't work because i can't use the discrete card.

I really hope apple will do something about this.

ErikSnijder wrote:

 

I am also experiencing this problem,

 

By using gfxcardstatus to make sure my macbook uses the intel 3000 card i can keep it working.

I have a thunderbolt display that won't work because i can't use the discrete card.

 

I really hope apple will do something about this.

I'm in the same boat as you. My 1000$ LED Cinema Display is sitting sadly in the other room waiting for salvation...

How long is your MBP working like that? Did you try restarting it?

I started experincing problems few days ago, managed to boot the machine after dozens of try and quickly launched gfxcardstatus (I had old version on my hdd). And now I am really afraid to reboot or upgrading gfxcardstatus to the latest version...

I picked Up My Brand NEW replacement Macbook Pro 15inch Retina today, Apple have been great, My old system was a late 2011 MacBook Pro 2.4ghz 750gb hdd 4gb ram, bought may 2012 & under AppleCare warranty the replacement is welll above what I expected!!

They upgreaded Me to the Top Model MacbookPro Retina,

15-inch: 2.3GHz with Retina display

Specifications

• 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
• Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz
• 16GB 1600MHz memory
• 512GB PCIe-based flash storage ¹
• Intel Iris Pro Graphics
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M
  with 2GB GDDR5 memory
• Built-in battery (8 hours)²

then they did cpu upgrade to the 2.6ghz, upgraded the hdd to 1TB PCIe-based Flash Storage  & gave Me a Apple USB Superdrive.

Very happy Apple Customer here.

How many time your macbook 15" early was dead?