Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I also have this problem. 2011, 15 inch Macbook Pro, bought in UK. It's unbelievable that there's no official response to this thread. It's the official forum on apple.com with hundreds, if not thousands of customers with the same model of malfunctioning hardware, and yet Apple didn't spoke to us.

I've paid this company for a machine that I can do my work on and expected it to work. Nobody on this thread wrote anything about their SSD not working, their speakers, RAM or whatever... We all have hardware with manufacturing defect, we, as consumers have right to get it fixed or replaced. I'm quite surprised that media in tech industry haven't yet made this case loud and didn't ask Apple for a official response.

Tarantas70 wrote:

 

Same situation with my friend Michael Bobarev. His got a blue scree with vertical stripes on the MacBook Pro Early 2011. As he told me repairing cost is $700.

 

He's contact details:

Alex

Alex, do you always post your friends email address in public for the miscreants to harvest in order to bombard him with spam.

That's not a nice thing to do to your friend.

I will ask the hosts to remove it.

mniemyjski wrote:

 

I also have this problem. 2011, 15 inch Macbook Pro, bought in UK. It's unbelievable that there's no official response to this thread. It's the official forum on apple.com with hundreds, if not thousands of customers with the same model of malfunctioning hardware, and yet Apple didn't spoke to us.

I've paid this company for a machine that I can do my work on and expected it to work. Nobody on this thread wrote anything about their SSD not working, their speakers, RAM or whatever... We all have hardware with manufacturing defect, we, as consumers have right to get it fixed or replaced. I'm quite surprised that media in tech industry haven't yet made this case loud and didn't ask Apple for a official response.

If you definitely want your machine repaired by Apple you could try calling customer relations in the UK and say you are not happy and mention the Sale of Goods Act and trading standards.  We are quite fortunate to have a six year period on goods that are inherently defective thanks to the SOGA and Apple know it.

Myself I'm not confident on what Apple deems a proper repair for these 2011 models. The refurb boards and their reball's are of poor quality and they still use the thermal paste guidelines which in real life use for the 2011 are just plain wrong.  For a more permanent fix get the GPU replaced - there are plenty of reputable reballers about. I've recommended bga-repairs on ebay to my clients for the past year - charge about 180 quid for a lead solder reball, turnaround is quick and the work they have done is good. No failures and because they optimise the cooling system by using better paste and polishing the heatsink surfaces the temperatures inside are very good preventing excessive heat build up in this chassis which struggles to handle the heat from this CPU/GPU combo.

Hi there Taranbeer. Sorry to bug you on this but I'm a similar situation as your with a replacement MPB early 2011 model. I have noticed that my thunderbolt  Port Micro Firmware Version: 1.2.1 Have you been able to update it to any newer version? Unfortunately I have a thunderbolt device that is not compatible with this early firmware version. I am running Mavericks and the system is not letting me update the thunderbolt firmware.

Got my machine back yesterday.  Third time repaired, third time logic board replaced.  They had my machine for about a week to go through extensive testing since this was the third time the machine went in for repairs.  So far not without issues, though not related to the GPU.  This is getting really old.  I guess I should have gotten 2 MPB's so that I have one to use while the other is at the repair center.

Will report back once I have more time using the MBP.

It seems that Apple wasnt happy with ny previous comment which they removed due to having a link for petition that is to be signed by all the victims of 2011 MacBook Pros. Anyway you could figure that out.

I am a medical student and just nefore starting college I invested my savings in an earlly 2011 MacBook Pro. I used it mainly for study purposes and that was watching some educational videos and reading some books in PDF files, so in other words I did not use it in any kind of heavy tasks. In addition I made it sure to get best specs at that time just to make sure that I do not stress the laptop out during working on it. Yet I ended up with the same problem this year during my finals. I took it to an autharized service point in the city where I live, and the diagnosis came later suggesting a graphic card issue and in order to fix it I need to pay $800, which is more or less one third of the original price. I then contacted Apple center in Poland and unfortunately their best offer was; take it to an unautharized service pount where you could replace only the graphic card for a cheaper price. I did not give up, and I took a step further, so I sent a letter to the center in Ireland which is supposedly the main one in Europe. After a week of calls and emails I ended up with nothing like seriously nothing. I do not really understand how much ignorance they are implying on the case, it is so ovious yest they have not addressed the problem. Come on more than 7000 thousand comments are here and nore than 900 thousand views, what are you waiting for. I personally will never ever attempt to buy any of their products till they address  this problem, and I hope that you guys will do the same.

I own an early 2011 Macbook pro and am experiencing the same issues as described by many others posting. My screen sometimes turns blue or gray with vertical lines, and the computer needs to be forced to to shut down. Other times the screen flickers and splits in different directions before the computer freezes up. This is infuriating. I hope Apple responds to this issue. There seems to be quite a large number of people reporting this problem.

Hi,

I found this:

http://www.asyncro.com/2014/03/24/macbook-pro-discreate-graphics-card-issue-fix- updated/

For me, at least I can boot now. And since I rarely reboot, I might not need to remove the AMD files.

Cheers,

Zuki

<Link Edited By Host>

TLDR: Advice to others suffering from the issue - make sure you call Apple inside the warranty period, even if you have little to go on at the time. If you go even 1 day outside the warranty before calling, it will be a struggle to get the computer fixed.

Latest update: I have an early 2011 Macbook Pro which suffered from this issue 2 weeks outside the warranty period of 3 years (I was enrolled in Applecare).

The first time I managed to convince the Applecare staff to fix the computer. I stress-tested the computer and used it heavily in the 3 months following the fix and everything was fine. However, I'd read that other people's computers failed very quickly again even after being fixed by Apple, so I was always wary.

Lo and behold, 2 weeks outside the 90-day warranty, the computer suffers the exact same problem and I'm on the phone to Applecare again. This time they are really, really reluctant to fix the computer because I called outside the 90-day period, but after much discussion and checks with higher-ups, they agree to fix the computer for free again.

Needless to say, I'm not convinced the problem will be fixed this time and I will be watching the computer closely for the slightest signs.

Otro Mac Book "PRO" afectado. Un equipo de 2011, 15". Ha fallecido en menos de 3 años de vida. Diagnóstico: tarjeta grafica y quizas 'puente norte' kaput.

Es increible que equipos de más de 2000 euros estén teniendo esta vida  util. Con un uso doméstico normal, ademas!. Solo arranca en modo seguro. Ninguna otra solución encontrada de entre las muchas planteadas por mi mismo, por applecare (abrí un par de excepciones) o por servicio técnico. Espero que APPLE se digne abrir un programa de reparación gratuita de una vez, porque no es normal los miles de afectados que está habiendo.

Another affected MBP 2011 15".   3 years old and...die!

Diagnosis: graphics card and maybe 'northbridge' kaput.

It's amazing that more than 2000 euros machines like these are taking this lifespan. With Domestic use. Only boots in safe mode. No other solution found among the many raised by myself, by applecare (I opened a couple of exceptions) or technical services. I hope APPLE deign to open a free repair program, because it is not normal to existis thousands of affected machines.

<Edited By Host>

I've been a Mac user for a little over a decade, now, and have had only a few problems with the equipment.  A 2005 iMac crashed due to a capacitor problem that I didn't know about until 3 years after AppleCare expired (didn't bother to look at the forums while it was running fine - I would have learned about Apple's free logic board replacement/recall program), and a 2007 MBP that had a logic board go out while I was TCB in a war zone in 2008 (sent back to Apple with time left on AppleCare, fixed, and never had another problem with it).

I just recently purchased an early 2011 MBP, 15", Intel HD3000 512/AMD HD 1024, upgraded higher-resolution anti-glare display, quad-core i7, and it appears to be fine.  I upgraded the RAM to 16GB, and replaced the hard drive with a larger, faster HD.  I noticed the fans looked a little dirty, and purchased replacement fans from iFixit. 

Everything seems to be okay.  When I run Mac Call of Duty 4 (or any other graphics-intensive software) the fans obviously kick in and hopefully do their job.  Just in case, though, I thought I'd look online to see if there have been any problems with this particular model notebook. 

Why me?!?!?

Or rather, why not me? 

It seems to be fine.  Was it a particular serial number series?  I tried to read as many of the posts on this thread, but haven't found if it's been a group, certain configuration, or all 2011 MBPs with dual graphics.

I managed to get this notebook at a reasonable price on ebay, and I'm not afraid to spend an hour or so taking it apart myself.  I'd be willing to replace the heat sink (awesome teardown), next, if it started acting up, complete with a correct application of thermal paste, but there seems to be other problems beyond heat/hardware.  Hence, why I wonder if all 2011 MBP owners are doomed, eventually.

I got the same problem just 2 days ago with my MBP late 2011, bought in the US.

I've been noticing weird patterns that suddenly appear on the screen, freezes and rebooting happened along the 3 years that I own this laptop. I thought it was normal, once per month, who cares! I was ok with that, nothing to worry about... But 2 days ago the nightmare started, 2 times frozen just doing normal tasks on the internet the day after it crashed 5 times, more often when I plugged in the second monitor or when I work in photoshop...

Everything is getting worse and worse from a supposedly a high quality laptop that should last long to a piece of trash that is letting me down. I tried changing the memory ram hoping it was the problem but still this happens more and more often.

Hoping finding the solution on the internet, still trusting in such a "reputable company" that supposedly cares about its customers but I just have found literally thousands of complaints without even one single response from Apple... this doesn't make me trust nor speak good about this company.

Add another to the list.

Totally dead, black screen, GPU issues right before.

Tried the "solutions" but to no avail. Apple wants hundreds to fix it.

What a sham!

Mine began having this problem exactly two years after I purchased it. Since I have so many macs already, with no negligible problems, I didn't purchase Apple Care this time. It was all I could do to pay for the MBP by itself. I bought a basic machine with no frills. I didn't even add the extra memory. I still have 4 Gb. I was going to add more later, but now I think it might be a waste of money. But even without Apple Care, I think a $2400. machine should last more than two years.

OK now. This getting ridiculous, today I forked 490€ for logic board repair. Symptoms were the same as other members if the "club" and  diagnosed as faulty logic board. Tested before payment at one of two official Apple service providers here, all peachy. MacBook was bought in January 2012 and 6 months out of 2 years warranty which is mandatory due local legislation.

Anyway, brought it home at 5:30pm and it broke at 6:17 again. Now to be honest symptoms are new; suddenly no web page could opened or any program or application. After hard reset launched Utility OS X in which I am unable to repair disk, or format, or mount disk at all.

So it seem to me like HDD failure or something, but my question is, what will happen now, when I am going to bring the mbp to claim the repair on Monday? Am I going to be told that this is new defect and I will be forced to pay for another repair? That would be just messed up, how could it be possible if it was surely diagnosed, after they'd put new logic board in it, right? Surely it would have to told the repair guy there is also an HDD problem (IF it is HDD issue of course, but I assume it cannot be logic board so quickly, more so I did not put the computer through any paces, just browsing)?

OK, I will update you guys on Monday.. But I am seriously "unhappy", whatever the problem may be. I should have been told there, and I just can't believe that the diagnostics would not show any problem and then it worked for literally less than hour.

Ok enough whining, going to go drink this sh over.

Cheers Michal