Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card
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Jul 8, 2014 3:34 PMby Chris Prock,I was facing the same as everybody. I had to replace the logic board on my late 2011 macbook pro which cost £500+ . Two weeks in the same problem started happening and I had to replace the logic board for the second time. Now I am worried that the problem will occur again. The warranty on the logic board is only for 3 months and it costs way too much for me to replace. I am only using my mac for professional use.
I hope Apple finds a way to fix this problem somehow. When I talked to them for the problem the reply I got was that they do not know why this is happening and that the only instructions they have is to keep replacing the logic board.
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Jul 8, 2014 4:28 PMby gpu freeze,I just had mine baked...run a graphic card test and now everything seems fine...
http://russell.heistuman.com/2010/04/27/cooking-the-books-or-baking-my-macbook-p ro-logic-board/
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Jul 8, 2014 4:36 PMby Pier11,gpu freeze wrote:
I just had mine baked...run a graphic card test and now everything seems fine...
http://russell.heistuman.com/2010/04/27/cooking-the-books-or-baking-my-macbook-p ro-logic-board/
It won't last. The author of the article mentions he has done it 5 times already. This is known as a reflow and it has been discussed many times in this never ending thread. Not only it is just a quick fix, but you can damage your logic board by doing it and losing the rest of your components. -
Jul 8, 2014 7:23 PMby Electronsi00,Attention MacBook Pro users!
i Had the exact same issue as all of you are describing. Grey lines and white screen of death. Genius Bar diagnosed it with failed logic board. No warranty or apple care, would cost $310 to fix. Genius Bar said there WAS a repair program for this video card issue. Told me to call apple care. I did, and mentioned the repair program, and they fixed my Laptop FREE OF CHARGE!
i Highly recommend you call apple care ( 1-800-APL-CARE ) to get this done (speak to senior adviser)
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Jul 8, 2014 9:23 PMby Pier11,Electronsi00 wrote:
Attention MacBook Pro users!
i Had the exact same issue as all of you are describing. Grey lines and white screen of death. Genius Bar diagnosed it with failed logic board. No warranty or apple care, would cost $310 to fix. Genius Bar said there WAS a repair program for this video card issue. Told me to call apple care. I did, and mentioned the repair program, and they fixed my Laptop FREE OF CHARGE!
i Highly recommend you call apple care ( 1-800-APL-CARE ) to get this done (speak to senior adviser)
If that is true it seems it isn't official yet.https://www.apple.com/support/exchange_repair/
Anyone else can confirm this? -
Jul 8, 2014 11:05 PMby Electronsi00,I live in California. It is not a official recall, but if you tell them that there was a program once for these video cards that is no longer valid, they will probably replace it for you for free. You should tell them that you have done research and this is a widespread issue on the Internet. The advisor I talked to said that he already knows that there is a big issue with these video cards, but there is no official recall for them. Apple is probably being careful to be nice to all of these complainers, so they don't cause widespread anger and are forced to host a recall campaign.
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Jul 8, 2014 11:28 PMby dsolomon89,Hi All,
Looks like my Macbook Pro 17" Early 2011 has followed suit.
The computer had just turned 2 years old (about 1 year ago) and the system would kernel panic whenever the hardware switched from integrated to discreet graphics. My way around this was to boot up with a 2nd screen plugged in which forced the machine to boot with the discreet graphics. From there I disabled the automatic graphics switching in the settings and this resolved the issue where by forcing the system to only use the discreet graphics. I demonstrated this to a genius in Canberra ACT and he recommended that I replace the logic board for around the $750 mark at the time (I didn't buy the apple care). As i was able to use the laptop in its flawed state, i decided not to replace the logic board and just continue on as usual.
However last night while helping out a client on team viewer the graphics started to glitch where the screen split in the middle was inverted like the edge of the screen was not in the middle, flashing green, then blue, it would go snowy and then crashed and cant get it to reboot. Just comes up the apple logo with blue and white vertical lines and goes to white screen where the fans run 100% and the system just sits there. Now the system in an unusable state.
I was a heavy user for the first 12 months however in the past 2 years I would only use it a couple of times a month. the machine would go for weeks without being switched on.
What has disappointed me most about this is that you buy a premium product and pay good money and for this have a high expectation of a product which in my opinion has not been met as the unit had its first failure 2 years into its life.
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Jul 8, 2014 11:57 PMby inzidermusic,Im so unfortunate that we don't have a Apple flag store in Denmark and the authorized retailers I have talked will all charge me for the repair, so I chose to use my insurance to fix it.
With "fix" I mean, they will probably just change the logic board and then I might experience the problem again... :/
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Jul 9, 2014 10:36 AMby PromInc1,My MBP 15" early 2011 was affected as well. According to my local Apple store, the logic board needed replacement because the graphics card failed. They claimed that their "engineering docs" showed nothing of knowledge that this was an issue with this model of machine; though they knew that the 2010 models had similar issues and a plan was implemented to reimburse for those models. They had no answer as to why this issue happened or how I could prevent it later. One of the Genius Bar employees said that this is a 'chance' that the new part would be a different revision than that which was originally installed, but he had no way to verify if that were they case or not.
I opted for the repair - they sent it off to a repair center where they replaced the logic card. They quoted me $310 for the repair, which breaks down as $210 as a flat rate repair charge and $100 for labor. The $210 is taxed, so all in all it was about $325. I do not have Apple Care on this device. The ironic thing about that 'insurance plan', is the price would have been very similar for me to have the 3 years of Apple Care coverage, however it would have expired about 1 month prior to my computer failing. So just like my belief on many forms of insurance - if you simply self insure and don't need it, you come out ahead. In this case, had I bought Apple Care I would have lost double my insurance investment.
One interesting thing is despite the quoted price being just for the logic board replacement, Apple replaced my RAM at no extra cost. The Apple Store tested my RAM and said it was good, but the repair center apparently didn't agree so they replaced it and gave me my old RAM back as well.
One item of note - they did wipe he hard drive. I had to do a manual backup using a spare PC and MacDrive software - what a mess... The other option is that the Apple Store would have done the backup (to my own drive) for $99. The machine wasn't usable by time I needed to do the backup as the monitor was doing what you see in the picture, and more commonly blue screened, upon bootup, so I had to pull the drive and do the backup method via PC. I'll be setting up Timemachine from here on out... would have made things much easier.
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Jul 9, 2014 1:03 PMby Electronsi00,Just dropped off the laptop. They let me choose between getting it fixed in store or send it to repair depot. $545 for in store. $310 for repair depot. Either way, Apple covering cost. The tech told me in store gives more flexibility on data in hard drive. When you send to repair depot there is no guarantee that the data won't be wiped out.
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