Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I agree that Apple computers cannot be trusted anymore. Let me tell you about my situation:

I was contacted by Executive Relations and they said nothing was wrong and I was out in the cold. I pondered my options, considered costs and benefits and paid $310 for the depot repair.

After my computer returned from repair, I removed the original 4 GB RAM and put back the 16 GB Corsair memory I had befoe and ran hardware tests that found out my memory went bad.

Contacted Corsair, they quickly issued an RMA and after a few days, I got back two perfectly healthy 8 GB RAM modules.

I ask you, what if you buy a Retina MBP today and a single memory chip goes bad just outside the warranty? In my case, the cost is 0 dollars, as Corsair has lifetime warranty and memory prices are almost always going down. In a new rMBP case, you're looking at fronting the FULL PRICE OF A NEW MOTHERBOARD, JUST TO REPLACE A SINGLE BAD MEMORY CHIP.

So there it is, Apple is creating extremely expensive disposable computers that only help its own bottom line and not the customers.

I am looking at the same "closed box" issue as I contemplate my next steps. The fact that Apple has now made it impossible to upgrade or repair MacBooks is a huge setback in my mind.

RAM *might* fail and hard drives *usually* fail over time. I should be able to open the case and put whatever replacement in that I want. Why? Because there is almost no downtime. Also, the costs is signficiantly less when buying open market parts. Finally, I can only imagine what it's like if you are far away from an Apple-authorized repair center.

YUCK!

Apple seems to be going backwards on their computer engineering. Maybe that's why I am hearing so much about Hackintosh projects.  As a loyal Apple customer, I won't do that, but I can see why it is becoming more popular.

What I find really odd and rather disturbing is that for many folks who bring in their machines to the Apple Store, the staff can visibly see that there is an issue with the machine (the distorted display with artifacts, shifted display, grey screen at boot, etc).  Yet, when they go through their diagnostics process and run the Apple Hardware Test (AHT), the computer shows up as fine and dandy.

On top of that, they are also seeing that machines with the logic board replaced still exhibit the same issues shortly after.  Of course, if they are simply running their standard AHT after they replace the MLB, then the machine is going to look like it is operating within Apple's specs.

It is surprising to me that there is not a dedicated diagnostic test designed to detect this specific issue, and frustrating that Apple has not developed such a diagnostic hardware test.  Until they do, machines sent in for repair may be getting a faulty MLB that will pass the standard AHT, the the endless cycle will continue, wasting both Apple's time and the customer's valuable time.

Apple, consider developing a specific diagnostic test for this issue unless you as a company think that the time and resources to do so is more costly than a soiled reputation, lost customers, and negative publicity. 

LeVeL5 wrote:

 

I agree that Apple computers cannot be trusted anymore. Let me tell you about my situation:

 

I was contacted by Executive Relations and they said nothing was wrong and I was out in the cold. I pondered my options, considered costs and benefits and paid $310 for the depot repair.

 

After my computer returned from repair, I removed the original 4 GB RAM and put back the 16 GB Corsair memory I had befoe and ran hardware tests that found out my memory went bad.

 

Contacted Corsair, they quickly issued an RMA and after a few days, I got back two perfectly healthy 8 GB RAM modules.

 

I ask you, what if you buy a Retina MBP today and a single memory chip goes bad just outside the warranty? In my case, the cost is 0 dollars, as Corsair has lifetime warranty and memory prices are almost always going down. In a new rMBP case, you're looking at fronting the FULL PRICE OF A NEW MOTHERBOARD, JUST TO REPLACE A SINGLE BAD MEMORY CHIP.

 

So there it is, Apple is creating extremely expensive disposable computers that only help its own bottom line and not the customers.

I have to disagree about it being the whole of Apple's range - it's just this particular early/late 2011 generation of the 08-12 chassis that has a problem with bad solder, too much heat to dissipate, too much thermal paste and far too tight thermal tolerances to cope with even a small blockage.  The fact that the 2012 models in the 15 inch used both CPU and GPU which consume 25/40 percent less power and heat and that most of the 2011's I have come across run hottest out of all the unibody range.  The retina models have a far larger heatpipe arrangement and can handle dissipating lots of heat far better than our older chassis.  The only things I would not hesitate in doing if I was buying a new retina would be maxing the memory out and getting AppleCare.

As others have said, if you have a decent reballer in your area just get the GPU replaced with a new one.  I prefer lead solder myself with less heat to avoid cracking the PCB reballing the BGA chip onto your logic board but that's a personal choice.  Make sure they polish the heatsink plate very smooth and use decent, judicious amounts of thermal paste cos they run an awful lot cooler and can dissipate the heat much faster when not done according to Apple's still very stupid engineering guidelines for the 15/17 2011 MBP.  Too much paste and an unpolished heatsink is not going to make these depot boards last very long!

And send your bill from the reballer as a PDF to Tim Cook for reimbursement

And the golden rule of keeping all your original parts such as RAM and hard drive and replacing them back  before taking it into Apple for them to look at still applies cos they have always blamed aftermarket parts since I had a Quadra and nothings changed there...!

I removed today my logic board (didn't failed totally yet, just hangs and color bars) , after reading many pages here and there, I spected to founs largue Amount of thermal paste and similar signs, instead I found right amount of thermal paste no excess that could spread the heat to the BGA, after examining the thermal paste, actually wasn't a paste anymore, just was powder, then the thermal compound degradated not melting but getting into fine powder, this condition is not new, I've seen before and is not related to lead free soldering, but to weak quality control on the Thermal Paste supply, and may affect only few units since it's issues usually only affect small batch of products.

I Suggest to anyone with am working mbp 2011 or anyone 2yr old, to re-apply thermal paste Artic Silver 5 or similar as precaution.

JoseAngelAcosta wrote:

 

I removed today my logic board (didn't failed totally yet, just hangs and color bars) , after reading many pages here and there, I spected to founs largue Amount of thermal paste and similar signs, instead I found right amount of thermal paste no excess that could spread the heat to the BGA, after examining the thermal paste, actually wasn't a paste anymore, just was powder, then the thermal compound degradated not melting but getting into fine powder, this condition is not new, I've seen before and is not related to lead free soldering, but to weak quality control on the Thermal Paste supply, and may affect only few units since it's issues usually only affect small batch of products.

 

I Suggest to anyone with am working mbp 2011 or anyone 2yr old, to re-apply thermal paste Artic Silver 5 or similar as precaution.

I agree wholeheartedly about the paste - I have yet to find a Mac that I havent got lower temps on using better and importantly less paste. With the 2011 models in particular I urge everyone to use some metal polish to smooth the surface of the heatsink plates that go on the CPU/GPU shiny to aid heat transfer, with a magifier you can clearly see the stock surfaces are pitted and uneven, not good to take heat out of a chip quickly Apple!  Bear in mind AS-5 is conductive so you have to be very careful applying as little as possible. Even the 2013 Mac Pro with its awesome heatpipe system was improved and had 8C less idle temps when I upgraded a 4 core black can with an Intel E5–2667 V2 8-core 3.3Ghz bought off ebay using Artic Silver ceramique 2.

My 17" MBP Early 2011 is headed out to see PS3Specialist tomorrow. Hopefully this will fix this issue...and hopefully Apple will eventually acknowledge this and take care of their customers.

Annoying and sad.

I did it and am not sorry. 

jlf599 wrote:

 

My 17" MBP Early 2011 is headed out to see PS3Specialist tomorrow. Hopefully this will fix this issue...and hopefully Apple will eventually acknowledge this and take care of their customers.

 

Annoying and sad.

Please shrae your experience. If it is truly gets it back to like-new condition, I might just do it. 159$ is not so expensive, the postage would cost the same for me since I'm out of the USA .

I get my MBP Early 2011 back tomorrow after Apple have replaced the screen... For some reason that is what they have chosen to fix. I guess only time will tell if this was the true issue with my particualr machine, I highly doubt that it is.

Please do report back. Among many other disturbing trends, I am starting to see people who consistently have their issue misdiagnosed by Apple.

Replacing parts for no reason is just as bad as the original design flaw. Apple engineers should be ashamed that they know less than people on this thread.

For example, they replaced my RAM. Upon return, I tested the original RAM for three days in another machine. It is flawless.

I had my late 2011 macbook pro 17" showing all the signs: hard lockups, wouldn't boot half the time, digital noise on the display.  After 1-2 months of using gfxCardStatus to force Integrated, I finally sent mine away to ebay seller brickfence for a new GPU and reball.  Its been working for the past month and a half without any further issues.

5421 others have the same issue here:

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My MBP15" is a 2012 model, since a few weeks (probably since it started to get hot due to summer weather) I am experiencing lock ups when loading imaging apps like photoshop or iphoto, strangely LightRoom is not affected but X-Plane (the only game I run which is a 64bit app) is, when I try to launch these apps the computer locks and I have to restart and only after a few attempts it does, most of the times it loads a grey screen and that's it, fans spinning and nothing happening...

Read about the GPU failure and the thermal paste problem, I'd give it a try if I knew where the GPU is.

Anybody found a solution for the problem, is it hardware related or what?

thank you

Yep. Same Problem. I'm on the 3rd logic board. Just got it about three days ago. It was hilarious... The depot ships it back with the original operating system so since I've upgraded to mavericks I go home, spend a night downloading it and half a day installing it and finally it boots. And what is the first thing. The very first thing it does. As the last prompt screen clears and Mavericks is about to begin. It does a graphical glitch! hahah..... just like it was doing days previous to it's demise. So now I've spent the money for the new board and am literally combing and re-combing over all these topics. Literally hundreds of pages. I don't know what to do. I am a heavy gpu needing designer. That's why I bought this 17" beast and got rid of my desktop Mac Pro. Not sure what to do since this is my livelyhood. Now I spend all my free time being paranoid and reading posts from these 400+ pages.

I waited 2 months without a computer overseas to get to the apple store and make my claim that I'd been fooled once to pay for faulty manufacturing but this time I expected what I saw as fair by this financial burden being at least shared this time. Nope. Called up Cupertino from the Apple Store itself and talked to a guy named Sean after talking with his lower level guy Kevin, anyway we talked for a long time. He promised he would help me but they needed to run a 4 hour stress test first. So i waited. I'd flown from Asia to deal with this so I just waited. Finally they say yes. You were right it does seem to be your logic board. Called and called this guy in Cupertino. Finally he calls me back. And his tune is way different. It was like his day had gotten a lot worse or somehting and he just straight up said No. I cannot help you. We do not recognize this problem. I said I'd been using apple since the Apple 2 and that I couldn't believe they were turning their backs on us. I payed.

And now... I don't know... I just installed gfxCard Status. I no longer am using discrete. Coverflow Glitches. VLC does Glitches. It's 3 days old. But having read from all the other people on apple discussions it seems these new logic boards are going faster. My first two went at almost exactly the year mark.

My most recent death, computorially speaking, came when the screen ripped itself in half. horizontal shift of at least 50%. When I told the Genius' they acted like they had never heard of any of this. Now I've seen identical photos of what happened to my machine and heard identical stories. Super Heat. Hand melting heat up in the top right.

Was funny because by the time I got to the apple store they were asking for any other things that had been going wrong... I could barely think of any because it had been bricked for 2 months. But it seems like they have a handle on the issue... The wealth of knowledge on this forum alone seems to be enough to unoquivically prove that there is a wide spread issue with all of our computers.

I would love a solution not a swap.

I love my 17" matte screen. And I was hoping to use it for quite some time.

The new retinas make me feel like I'm squinting to see what I can see on the 17". I'm an art director in Advertising. Have friends that do Apple's Advertising... actually... but ya... anyway. I love my machine. I just wish it wasn't now castrated with only the integrated turned on and with me not comfortable.

It's like the old saying. Shame on you... 1st time. Shame on you... 2nd time. Shame on me... 3rd. Well it's my third board. And I'm feeling vigilant and wronged here.

Apple Do Something!!!! Give us Chips that don't overheat or something!!!!

Ok that's enough...

Here's to waiting for the mothership.