Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I've got an early 2011 mbp 15" I've been experiencing the issues reported in this thread for about a month now (never prior to that).

Recently updated to Mavericks 13A603, I turned off gfxCardStatus to see what would happen. Since then, I've been running Parallels+Windows8.1 etc and experienced no crashes.

I don't know how long this will last, or if it's just a coincidence, but I haven't seen it be this stable for about a month now.

Yes its not really a solution, just a way to be abble and get some use of the mbp get access to the files,  same low graphics performance, im thinking on try the "force to amd gpu" option and see how it goes

Thought I'd add my comment here to do my bit in helping Apple determine whether the issue is worth a free repair program. I imagine they will do it sooner or later considering the number of people affected, it's cheaper than a class action.

I have a 17" MacBook Pro Early 2011. I already replaced the graphics card this summer (video anomolies followed by the machine locking up). Four months later and it seems the replacement card has started to fail too.

To save some people here time in determining whether your issue is hardware or just software you can do this: erase your hdd and install OS X. If you see garbage on the screen with a clean install, you have a hardware fault.

It's a shame, I don't want a new machine as I love the 17" screen size, and the option of booting from 10.6 to run my older apps. On the other hand, I'm not keen on spending $500 every four months to replace bad AMD hardware.

Valmorion wrote:

 

im thinking on try the "force to amd gpu" option and see how it goes

It worked for me for about 3 weeks... now about twice a day it will freeze with green squares. Strange thing is I can still move the cursor and see it clear as day.

I just have my early 2011 mbp 17" fail like all others described here. Now it doesn't even startup properly. I have green and purple stripes on the apple startup screen then the screen goes grey and stays like that while the fan starts going into panic mode.

This is my fifth apple laptop 17" and the first time such an expensive laptop fails after 2 years. I think Apple must recognize the problem and offer us a solution.

Seeing how widespread the problem is on this model, Apple must tackle the problem elegantly and face its responsabilities.

Well, having followed this thread since the beginning, I today encountered a harbinger of things to come. I am running a Late 2011 Macbook Pro, with the AMD Radeon HD 6750M GPU chip. I had logged into console, running non volitile, user space commands from the the shell, just perusing my directory. I went upstairs, came down 10 minutes later, hit the space button to wake the machine up, and saw this:

The machine completely froze up and I had to perform a hard reboot. I noted the timestamp, and immediately checked my console when the machine powered up again. I found an interesting concerning line of output that I had never seen up to this point:

Whether this implies looming failure, or not, I have learned a great deal over the past year (thanks, in large part, to the senior members of Apple Support Communities) and have a drawn a few conclusions from it:

1) Since 2010, major replacements programs have been issued for different components of Apple notebooks. The most prominent of which is: the Macbook Pro 15'' (6,2) mid-2010 Logic Board Replacement program, due to the defective NVIDEA GPU. The most recent, issued less than a month ago, is the Macbook Air, Mid 2012, failed SSD Replacement program. Insert the 2011 MBP issue, pending Apple's decision on offering a replacement program, this would be three consecutive years of widespread, costly, and catastrophic failures of the Macbook lineup.

2) Given (1), combined with the $ Apple customers pay for Apple machines, AppleCare is a MUST. I cannot stress this enough. I will never again buy an Apple product without Applecare. Paying $150-250 for three year coverage for all hardware failures (with the caveat that Apple determines they are in no way user induced), is quite reasonable, especially considering you have a one year window from the purchase date to opt in for AppleCare.

3) Apple does stand by its products, but this isn't an excuse for their failure. This is not a case of user negligence. The extensive QT testing which all machines undergo may need to be more extensive. Not only that, but more stringent requirements regarding the use of third party hardware, period, in Apple branded machines, should be taken into consideration. Companies such as Toshiba, Samsung, NVIDEA, AMD, and, most prominently, Intel*, produce the majority of components in Apple machines. The hardware is a prerequisite for Apple to work it's 'magic,' which boils down to maximizing the raw capabilities of these components in an aesthetically pleasing way (both in software development and device design).

*Intel has been the most reputable of these companies, to date, by far. The PPC to Intel switch revolutionized Apple Computers and OSX.

4) The discrete GPU is becoming increasingly unneccessary in Apple notebooks. Intels' new haswell (dual core/quad core) integrated chips, which offer Iris/Iris Pro graphics on the same die as the CPU, easily outperform the discrete GPUs in 2011 MBPs. Moreover, battery performance drastically increases with processor integration (obviously we need to take into account 2 years of technologically development, shout out to Moore). The new 'top of the line' 15'' rMBP's (with, undoubtly, an amazing discrete GPU > 2 GB vRAM I believe) offer 7 hours of battery life, one hour more than Late 2011'' 15'' specifications (6 hrs). 13'' rMBP model (integrated only and dual core) offers 9 hours. And, well, the Macbook Air is a thing a beauty.  At this point in time, if you are using your machine for heavy graphics rendering (not talking world of warcraft and CS6, which the new line of integrated chips can run with easily), you should be using a desktop.

5) It bugs me when user's 'complain' about Apple's constant rollout of new products, but I can see why they would. On one end: It is not Apple's fault that every year its' lineup of products is a vast improvement (for the most part) from the previous year's lineup.  Apple's progressive and directed philosophy is a catalyst for this.

By the same token, many users seem to conflate moving forward with being left in the dust. A 2011 MBP is not 'obsolete' and 'outdated'  in any way. The 2011 MBP is still a great machine. 

So, what now? After 8 million ( if I remember correctly) iPhone 5S sales in the opening weekend (all time high iOS device opening sale mark), the drastic rise in the company's market value (thanks, in part to Mr. iCahn, who, the ********* he is, managed to raise Apple's stock by 5% with two tweets), and the looming new rollout of Holiday products, it would be in the best interest of Apple, and its customers, to clarify this dissonance, reaffirm the integrity of its products, and offer a replacement program for the defective GPU. Otherwise, Apple would merely be undermining its' own philosophy and neglecting an opportunity for a mutual beneficial solution.

Apologies for the length of this comment. These are my opinions, and I merely wished to share them.

Regards,

NB

What kind of procedure did you use to force the discrete gpu ?

Did you move the integrated gpu kexts or did it via gfxcardstatus ?

I had no success using gfx. Could you please describe exactly what you did? I would like to try that out.

Thks.

I just wanted to report that, out of despair, because I cannot go one day without my computer, I tried the "oven trick". It worked. My early 2011 MBP 17" is now working like before.

Here is what I did :

- Get out the logic board using instructions at iFixIt

- Removed old thermal paste on the processors and on the heat sinks

- Wrapped all the logic board in aluminum foil leaving only the faulty GPU peek out

- Cooked the logic board in my oven at 185 degrees celsius for 7:30 minutes

- Reapplied thermal paste on the processors

- Reassembled eveything

Before to try that trick on my early 2011 MBP 17", I tried the same trick on an old late 2006 MBP 17" that displayed red line instead of black pixels. That old MBP got fixed as well.

I don't know how long these fixes are going to last but at least I am fully operationnal with my laptop again at no cost besides the time it took me to do it and the tube of thermal paste.

Has anyone had any success in keeping their original logic board when having a new one put in?

I'm keen to hang onto it if at all possible and send it in for a reballing to keep as a "spare" as I have little to no faith that the replacement will work.

edit: Just found the conditions... looks like apple retains the faulty part

Point 1.1.2

https://www.apple.com/legal/sales-support/terms/repair/generalservice/Service_Te rms_English.pdf

How many of you are actually getting safe mode to work. I do but this the the form. MBP 15inch 2.0i7 and AMD 256MB

when my 2011 MBP screws up I would say that 50% of the time I cannot actually log in to my account in safe mode -- it typically "black screens" immediately before or immediately after authentication. I have not seen your type of screen show above in safe mode. (However, I have seen it render a "split screen" in safe mode, but that is rarer than black screen behaviors)

m

apple still hasn't said anything about this situation. Maybe someone can submit this forum to some tech news site like engadget or gizmodo to help get ours voice out there?

Funny you say that, I sent an email to someone at Gizmodo yesterday. Not heard back. Probably a lost cause unless everyone gives it a go.

nelime wrote:

 

I just wanted to report that, out of despair, because I cannot go one day without my computer, I tried the "oven trick". It worked.

Yeah, that works, but not for long.

Been there, done that, with a hot air soldering iron, not an oven.

Done it twice. It grants you 2 weeks - 1 month of stability, then you're back to square one.

Waiting .waiting.....& waiting for an announcement from Apple. For the past two weeks I have not shutdown my MBP(With AMD 6750HD GPU) since I fear it may never boot up.Currently running on Intel HD 3000 GPU with the help of the gfx program. Hope good sense prevails & Apple does something with this MBP which for 2 long years had no issues.