Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

OK，Here are my solutions and my effort with ***** Apple in CHINA.

1.found the similar problems, my MD322 down. reboot, strange pink lines and frozen on a gray screen

2.enter the password blindly is totally useless... let me tell u why: the small green light on the Caps lock isnt work. SO AT THAT TIME the logic board is kind of ******.

3.However when I press ALT/option and try to boot into recovery, the green light works. so the problem is cuzed by ATI's Graphic Card.

4.SO .. How to use the Intel's GPU to boot in without boot in first and use gfxCardStatus?

5.My solution is using entering T mode (press T when reboot) find a thunderbolt and another Mac.

Copy All things about ATI OR AMD in System/Library/Extension ;then delete them.(Also you can do this by using command line --rebooting ,Command+S)

6.SO now OSX had to boot with Intel's card.I can log in..

But the fxxxing problem is still there..http://pic4.zhimg.com/dd0d8c380a44e769934f9b1a099e083b_b.jpg

.I think ATI's card can run without extensions.

so I tried gfxCardStatus 2.1 useless...

update to 3.?

**********

ok

I tried to contact Apple China, the outcome is ****.

Then I tried to contact the government.Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision,

things like that...

They got the equipment,but they cannot say that this problem is cuzed by Apple...

An Engineer in there told me (in person) that he believed this problem is caused by Apple definitely...However if you want to prove it, do these tests and I need to pay the fee of tests first.

give up.

Call back to Apple China...just have a try

my phone called is handed up to a kind of manager...I told him that I had already went to the Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision.

he is kind of ******... actually i didnt do anything in that bureau...

Guys,Sounds like apple knows what is going on, they just do want to move!!!

this time this manager said that i should back to Apple Store Genius Bar again and he promise I will got what i what ...

what.....?

I will go there tomorrow

<Edited by Host>

I have actually twitted Cody K., which is the creator of gfx (AND WORKS FOR APPLE!) asking to release a new version where it is possible to choose any of the options and force it as DEFAULT.

<Link Edited By Host>

My mbp 17(2011 early) encounters such issues as unexpected blue screen, screen blurring, vertical red stripes, image splitting and displaying inversely in the horizontal direction, system crashes and automatically shutdown. Hoping Apple will pay attention to the graphical issues and recall the affected models ASAP.

not quite sure I can wait Apple to feel sorry for all of us and decide to repair all the faulty MBP they have been selling since this issue has been known for years.

I own a MBP mid 2010 and I see this problem persist in even newer models....

SameMacDifferentDay wrote:

 

Apple already knows about this and has done nothing. This issue had been "feed-backed" to Apple, written about in the press, whined about by thousands of consumers online, and I'm sure Apple and Cook have received plenty of notations about the issue.

 

Perhaps Apple could make the case for ignorance regarding the first batch of 2011 MacBook Pros, but I suspect that there’s evidence to the fact that this issue was present pre-production, i.e. Apple knew then that its 2011 MacBook Pros had a higher probability of serious GPU related hardware failures and computing interruptions than acceptable for the quality and value advertised by Apple and portrayed by the price of the 2011 MacBook Pros.

 

If it didn’t know then, it knew by the end of, if not mid-2011 about the issue, and its continued marketing and sale of these defective laptops, without notifying consumers, potential consumers, the market and/or general public means it knowingly and willingly mislead consumers about, and misrepresented the quality and value (or lack their of) of the 2011 MacBook Pros.

 

Apple advertised that these 2011 MacBook Pros could utilize the highly marketed advanced functions of two versions of OS (Snow Leopard and Lion), both of which install/include GPU intensive programs. It also promoted and portrayed that these MacBook Pros would be able to withstand other GPU intensive non-Apple programs in the advertisements for these MacBook Pros.

 

This is, however, false as we all can attest to: overheating, screen glitches, freezes, kernel panics, shutdowns, failures to boot/during startup, are all evidence to the fact that the entire construction of the 2011 MacBook Pros cannot withstand the deficiencies of their included GPU hardware, that these deficiencies seriously limit the operability, quality and value, and permanence of the 2011 MacBook Pros. That these issues begin early into the usage of the machine during normal as-advertised acceptable usage and wear of the machine and thus are evidence to an obvious and critical flaw of the parts and manufacture of the machine, and thus decreases the quality and value of the machine, and thus these MacBook Pros are overpriced lemons, ticking time-bomb booby traps and Apple knew it.

Sadly not all of us live (or bought our MBP) in a country with good consumer laws. I live in Mexico and there is no such thing here like in the EU or the UK.

I'd say affected users from the US are the ones that are most likely to be successful in this matter.

<Edited By Host>

I will add to the general disapointment as I just had that GPU issue on my less than 3 years old 15" MBP last week.

Grey screen and won't boot. As to many of you, all that Apple can suggest is an expensive mother board change...

We must be united in order to let our voice heard by top the management of Apple and get the issue perfectedly solved.

Hola;

Tengo el mismo problema con mi MacBook pro (temprana) 2011.

Comenzó, hace un año, con fallos en la pantalla (lineas verticales), intermitentes. Luego empezó a quedar congelada la pantalla, obligandome a apagarla y volver a iniciar.  Y ahora simplemente enciende y solo muestra una pantalla azul. Hable con el servicio técnico de apple y me dijeron que la solucion es reemplazar la placa logica.

La maquina esta guardada, sin poder usarse, desde hace un año.

Hi;

I have the same problem with my MacBook pro (early) 2011.

Began a year ago, with failures in the screen (vertical lines), Intermittent. Then he began to be frozen screen, forcing me to turn it off and restart. And now just turn on and only shows a blue screen. Talk to the service of apple and was told that the solution is to replace the logic board.

The machine is saved, unable to be used, from a year ago.

Sorry for my bad english

Hola TPXX,

mandame un correo a esta dirección: ****************** con tu email. En Granada somos un grupo que está buscando gente para poner una denuncia conjunta. Estamos confeccionando una lista con los afectados. No puede ser que Apple no asuma algo así.

Gracias

Hi, TPXX, please, send me your email to ***************** we are making a list with people who are affected. From Granda-Spain we want to make a complaint against Apple.

Cheers

<Edited by Host>

Hello Sarawrap

I disabled the AMD and my Mac. Book Pro booted up. I had to take it in for repair so I took my hard drive out and installed it in another fully working MBP 2011 late

same model as the last one. But I'm having problems enabling the AMD driver. Please help.

Well there still might be some recourse for those in other countries because Apple is a U.S. company and thus has to abide by U.S. laws. If Apple is found in violation of U.S. law then it may have to pay up or fix this issue anywhere it exists regardless. We are all using a U.S. company product.

If a lawsuit is also successful it could provide another method of having our graphics cards/logic boards repaired at no cost that doesn't involve Apple admitting it committed a crime against society.

Here's what worked for me thus far during a month of GPU ****:

Cmd-R into recovery mode then clicking on the menu to startup from the startup disk booted the machine successfully a lot...until it started to just show blue screens.

Powering up over and over again (my record is 45 times).

gfxCardStatus stopped the problem entirely when I used it on integrated mode and pretty much erased all doubt that the discrete card was the issue. I still get screen glitches and there's still other stuff wrong with my MacBook Pro. But while it was in integrated mode my computer did not repeatedly freeze multiple times a day then fail to boot until the 40^th power-up as it was doing before. I just kept my computer on or asleep because I didn’t trust what would happen if I shut it off but eventually it did freeze/shut down on its own.

Unfortunately, for some reason, twice when I tried to put gfxCardStatus on integrated mode my computer froze then failed to boot. This happened the first time I tried to use it and then today after I used it successfully for days. I tried to search for ways to lock my computer into integrated card mode from the command line but didn't come up with anything right away. I will try again but maybe someone knows how to do this and can post here?

For now I found another way to help these MacBook Pro boot. When it fails to boot and goes to gray screen, close the lid, put it in a blanket or between your couch cushions or in a laptop sleeve or anywhere it'll overheat. It'll then shut down on its own. Its been said that it usually boots easily after that. Leave the power cord unattached and it may be in integrated mode when it boots (maybe that helps it boot).

It worked for me today after my computer started up with the non-booting, teal and purple stripe screen loading to gray screen thing again. I put it in a blanket and it shut down by itself in like 5 minutes and then loaded right away. I was able to put gfxCardStatus on integrated mode when it booted too without my computer freezing.

Don't know how long this'll last but it’s been attested to on the web, including here: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/70283/how-to-permanently-disable-defect ive-graphics-card-in-macbook-pro

I am wondering why so many are failing now. Are we all on Mavericks? Is it really only an hardware issue or could it also be something software-related (e.g. Mavericks over-using the graphics chip). We must all have noticed, how each new operating system ("...the best we have ever created" - in Apple Marketing Slang) gets, well: worse, buggier, more complex and breaks more of the 3rd-party software we had installed before. Don't get me going on the battery life of the laptop, fans go constantly etc. If it really is (also) a software-related issue, then no motherboard replacement will be a long-term solution. In such case, Apple would have a really, really costly operation to fix it. What do you think?

So far for my own case, my laptop run much more hot since I'm on maverick ... but I did change country as well so ... maybe it's more my perception issue.

I ended up with the same conclusion about the cost of the fix for the company ...

Early 2011 MBP victim here too.

I decided that enough was enough with Apple products.  You are paying a premium for essentially the same machines available for good prices (Asus for example).  I was sick of the constant finder slow downs (16GB Ram, SSD) and performance hits from the patched over (12 year old) OS X.

Won't be using Windows for anything but gaming and video editing, with Adobe Premiere kicking FCPX to the kerb (FCP7 Never Forget!), with a Linux flavour as my day-to-day  I bought a MBP because it was supposed to "just work" and because it was *nix.  So far, the keyboard failed and now the GFX failed.

Goodbye Apple, hello real rigs.