Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Carl, I did not infer that you inferred anything about Apple's stated potential cause.  Sorry if my statement came across otherwise.

However,I did interpret your earlier statement as quashing some of those ancillary arguments that have arisen by other mbp owners in their attempts to substantiate Apple's claims, e.g. the metalic whiskers.

But I'm confident the problem is not what we've been told.

BTW, has AMD or Intel weighed in on this ordeal in any way?  I'm suspecting the answer is no, nor will they.

ps3specialist wrote:

 

I don't know what people would say to a Judge if their computers are failing two years or more after the manufacturer warranty, I think your advise will just cause people who follow it to loose an extra $10 in court fees and look very bad and greedy in front of a judge.

You may not know what you would say, but others will.

destinationpsp wrote:

 

He's arguing that the problem isn't the use of lead free solder, which I agree with.

Imo, the problem is the lead free solder. Or at least the used soldering process/profile.

Lead free solder doesn't wet (solder) as well as lead solder, needs higher preheat and soldering temps.

This temp has to be reached a specific soldering profile.

Higher temps = more chance for oxidation = more chance for errors, which can arise later, etc...

That AMD GPU has over 900 solder balls on it.

Much chance for some going wrong.

Still stand by what I wrote before:

It's probably not an internal GPU fault.

The reason is bad soldering of the BGA most likely.

Not all balls got fully liquidus or long enough TAL, not giving a 100% soldered connection.

It makes contact but is not really soldered, doesn't have a real intermetallic bond.

More "glued" instead of soldered.

Same bad soldering process can also result in "brittle" solder.

The mechanical stress caused by heating/cooling cycles, making it expand and shrink, breaks the "glued" or brittle connections.

Other possibilties are "head in pillow", can break later due mecanical stress too.

Tin wiskers, as mentioned, but less likely in this case.

And others...

Just wanted to add to the chorus. I'm an early 2011 15" macbook pro owner. Apple has replaced my logic board twice at no charge. It's now at Apple for the third failure. Each failure the laptop worked fine with integrated graphics, and then would freak out when switching to discrete.

Apple store just emailed me claiming they found liquid in the laptop and need to replace the logic board. This is a total fabrication as I only use the laptop sitting on my desk closed, on it's side, in a stand. Aren't they obligated to take a picture as evidence to prove something like this?

So frustrated because the computer has been great when it works, but dealing with three logic board failures over the years has been a total pain in the butt.

Somehow, I don't receive mail notifications anymore when a new message is posted, first time since I started to follow this thread this late january.

That's off topic but maybe posting a message will reactivate it.

Anyway, relevant or not, back in february when I had an appointment at an apple store in Paris France, geniuses were already aware of the problem, so weren't surprised, while not offering anything else than a 500€ logic board replacement.

Haven't seen many french people posting here though, so I can't help but think there ought  to be a huge number of people worldwide that just go the apple store and pay for the "repair" without even looking on the net for answers or just infos on the matter.

The total number of affected computers must be way bigger than we think we know.

I talk every month to an apple employee from Ireland that called me after I emailed tim cook early february, just to check on how things are evolving on their official side since he told me 5 months ago that apple knew about this problem and was looking into it.

Well, a few weeks ago his speech was the same and will probably still be next time I'll call him later this month.

Glad I don't need to use adobe products or Final Cut kind of softwares, I learned what apps to use or not and installed Ubuntu when I'm forced to restart my mbp and tired to end up on the black screen.. But like some people here, I just can't select "integrated only" with gfxCardStatus because it freezes the computer, switching to the AMD happens sometimes but I just stop whatever process I launched to get back on the integrated. Can't go to the app store in chrome to install extensions, can't use Transmit app and sometimes just clicking a link in a webpage makes the screen go black.

Sad to see people arguing for silly reasons in this forum but in the end, it is the best place to get the most useful informations on this problem we are all having and I'm thanking them for their research and knowledge sharing.

CindyBruce

As for your other question...no, it would not make a difference.  I know that there are many before me who have experienced this issue long before I did and have reported the issue to Apple.  For Apple to maintain a stance that they are not aware of the issue speaks volumes here.  This is an Apple Community Forum and they have moderators actively monitoring the posts here.  Any mention of a certain word (rhymes with repetition) is either edited or deleted. If the moderators are truly monitoring based on the terms of use of this website, then there would be many of these replies which should have been edited/removed.

It is absolutely irresponsible for Apple to continue to take the stance of "we are not aware of such an issue".

paigoomein wrote:

 

CindyBruce

This is an Apple Community Forum and they have moderators actively monitoring the posts here.  Any mention of a certain word (rhymes with repetition) is either edited or deleted.

Petitions have been against the terms of use for this site since long before 2011 MBP's existed. Posts that transgress the TOU get removed. It's nothing to do with any particular subject.

If you wish to post against the TOU this is not the place for it.

Csound1

Yes I am completely aware of the TOU for this site.  Bear in mind that submissions of non-technical nature are also against the TOU, but oddly the majority of those are not being edited/removed.  If the moderators are truly here to moderate based on their TOU then they should do exactly that rather than be selective in the process.

I have no wish to speculate on the moderators actions, speculation is as you know, against the Terms of Use.

javiermena wrote:

 

You forgot to mention that you can disable completely the discrete GPU deleting the kernel extensions.

Nope you can''t. That will only disable the OS from utilising the GPU properly (but also severly cripples the performance of the iGPU) but at this point it is already powered up and connected to the PCIe and thus might still cause crashes and and other funny problems. In my 2 cases of a broken logic board I could not even boot up the system without kernel extension in most of the attempts.

nothing to do it felt again after a 2nd reballing...we also bought a brand new bga cleaned it etc...but after few weeks felt again. i am lucky the guy who made this work doesn't want any money and we also noticed some problems on the logic board itself that's very weird. as we followed tighter this forum and many issues about this the conclusion is that not only bad soldering has been applied but yes there is a design fault somehow somewhere (can't explain his words i'm not reballer after all) that makes this happen again, even after a brand new chip plugged in and few weeks of perfect behaviour by the computer. by the way before the first reball and after having changed my logic board at the apple center for the first time, he noticed that it wasn't a brand new logic board but a refurbished... (hope is the right term to say, that it was a fixed logic board and not a new one). this is why i think the first time i replaced it at the appstore did last little more than 90 days (and this made crazy at first and then i made the decision to invest in him instead of paying 600 bucks to have it replaced again and again and again). no idea what to do more... just waiting for apple to at least make a note where they will say just the cause of the prob. can be fixed or not? just for know if it is worth trying something, or leave the computer as a paperweight. But this whole situation is simply nonsense, replace something (and it's expensive) for something that will do the same problem in few months is unuseful for us and that's really annoying for all the professionals who invested money in such a machine to listen comments from apple's people like :"this machine is not for hard gfx work" or similar...then why should i spend all this money if i can't work on the fly travelling the world to make my videoreportages?

sorry for my bad english i hope it was clear enough...and all apple products i ever had are still running (g3, g4, g5, 1st macbook intel and even my 7200 old model still works). when i decided to take this model was for the more gpu power in it (the base model was with the intel chip at 384mb explain me how can i work with 3d, animations, titles effects, etc... if the programs i use requires at least 500mb of video ram). at this point since the new models uses the integrated only shouldn't apple just replace the logic board with a more powerful intel chip (at least 1gb) and no more bga instead of refurbishing something not working in any case?

Just questioning nothing else

peace and love

deka

what was the series of your new chip.

I got a new chip from 2010 series and it last for 1 month after graphic glitches came back

Check this out:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-NEW-AMD-216-0810005-D-C-2013-chipset-not-reball ed-not-re-mark-/331186187237

I read somewhere that this new chips are not overheating that much that previous versions. They are produced in late 2013.

no idea i can just copy and paste what i get from sys inf. but tomorrow i will ask just to know...

AMD Radeon HD 6750M:

  Chipset Model: AMD Radeon HD 6750M

  Type: GPU

  Bus: PCIe

  PCIe Lane Width: x8

  VRAM (Total): 1024 MB

  Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

  Device ID: 0x6741

  Revision ID: 0x0000

  ROM Revision: 113-C0170L-573

  gMux Version: 1.9.23

  EFI Driver Version: 01.00.573

Just picked up my repaired MBP pro 2011 15" from the Apple store Milton Keynes.

Forget the quote wasn't including VAT. £416

I complained about the situation and was given the advice to register my complaint officially with Apple Care where it will be recorded.

Tel 01908 856 650

closed when I rang at 8:00 pm.

Will ring tomorrow

Hi

I'm having same problem (red lines on startup - grey screen then freezes up), early 2011 MacBook Pro running Mavericks.

I used your code to disable the discrete AMD drivers, at least I was able to make a backup, but since I'm going to see the "Genius's" tomorrow, I was trying to figure out how to re-install them, so that I can show the Apple-Guys tomorrow. I found the folder where all the *.kext files are, but just copying them back into System/Library/Extensions doesn't work...

Do I need to download the AMD Driver  in order to re-install them?

best regards

Tlynyrd