Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Mr_Bip wrote:

 

Do you think they are running out of working refurbished boards and they are now having to resort to badly re-balling them? It can't have lasted long if it ended up on your waiting list. If this is apples fix I would rather go to someone who knows how to do it.

My thougths on it, no science, just experience and thinking about it when I saw these damages too in repairs.

I wouldn't say they have to "resort to badly re-balling".

They probablly want it done correctly.

However, don't think Apples does this themselves, probably spend it out to 3th party.

These companies probably have to work close to jedec standards and iso norms.

This often means thight windows for soldering a BGA, which is often the problem for not getting all balls fully liquidus.

Most of these profiles however are made for production soldering using new parts, like new PCBs, chips etc...

After a few years of use those pcbs are not "new" anymore. Have suffered mechanical stress due heating up and cooling down.

Normally not really a problem but if stressed much allready this sometimes can affect the "reworkability".

Like the symptoms shown in bga_repairs's photos, can happen even when using a standard jedec profile.

We try to follow those jedec profiles as close as possible too, but allways keep in mind it is a repair.

Realising reworking them in a thight window can result in damage like that or failing again.

Adapting to this by sometimes going a bit slower, adding an extra step or dwell etc.

Let's hope Apple is indeed not running out of replacement boards.

Or choose the cheapest repair lab to fix them going for fast jobs instead of quality.

Just wanted to post here that my Macbook Pro early 2011 i7 15 inches has experienced that same problem. The Discrete video card is making my macbook freeze or crash, only way to use macbook partially now is to disable the discrete video card.

i made the mistake of buying 4 macbook pros in mid 2011 so they're the early 2011 models. over £6000 of kit and now two have failed. The harddiscs eent first and now the gpu.

ITs it's totally unacceptable that a premium mac product fails in such a short period.

i have read so little positive reports about a successful board replacement I feel that route is not worth it. So two new macs needed .... Or perhaps I'll go back to PC and get rid of our 8 iPads, 12 iPhones, 6 iMacs, 4 pros, 2 Mac minis.... Or perhaps apple have me round the balls on this one...

Hi balikpinoy,

Are you going to get the GPU replaced under warranty? I am also having problems after having mine reballed. Problems started two weeks after. Screen glitches occasionally (especially when opening app that uses high performance GPU) and my computer freezes very often. It seems the reball wasn't entirely successful.

What do you do with boards like in first picture, are they reparable?

"However, don't think Apples does this themselves, probably spend it out to 3th party....These companies probably have to work close to jedec standards and iso norms..."

Any device that needs to be reballed is sent by Apple to the original vendor to have the procedure performed.

This my last post to this discussion and I will unsubscribe after this.

I hope some of you will find this helpful.

I had the same problem as everybody here. My approach was this and this is also a suggestion that you can follow cause I no longer have to deal with this issue.

1. Visited apple to fix my mac. They were too busy to see me. Needed to fix my mac asap. Went to authorised repair centre. Paid £500+

2. Two weeks in I had he same issue. Returned to Authorised. They replaced the logic board again. No additional cost other than my traveling expenses.

3. Two weeks in, same problem. Booked appointment with Genius Bar. I had to wait 1+ week to see them. They diagnosed the same issue. Asked for advise on how to approach issue. They told me to go to authorised and see what they will say and then talk to apple care.

4. Visited authorised. They were happy to fix my mac again with no additional charge.They suggested me to talk to apple care.

5. Phoned apple care. They already had all my info about all the repairs plus my last visit to genius bar. I asked for a solution to the problem. They looked into my case.

6. Result. New mac is on its way. Problem solved. My mac was 2 years and 4 months old. No apple care. Bought from the US were warranty lasts for 1 year. Exchange took place in UK

It took me 3+ months to resolve this issue which cost me around £600 to replace the logic board plus all my traveling expenses. It costed me a lot more because this was my workstation.

Apple will not acknowledge this issue simple because they have no solution to this. But they will reimburse  the people who follow the 'normal' procedure.

Faith restored.

All the best to all

would be a great solution if all us had all that time + 600$ to spare + patience for all that red tape

Same thing happened to me except that they replaced logic board for free may be due to Australian consumer laws. Got logic board changed 3 times and was asked to call apple care and now new macbook is on it's way.

so the moral is, if you follow their advice (even if u have to pay) then eventually they will give u permanent solution.

We should try to get more evidence and if it is happening every where then it is better then reballing.

2011 MacBook Pro 8,2

I used to run a second monitor till mine crashed. I sent feedback about mine doing this but never got a case number or anything from Apple. How do you get that?

Hi,

This is an in detail version on how to fix the Blue Screen of Death,

Your discrete graphics card is no longer functional, hence you'll have to command your computer to stop using it, the easiest way to do this is by using gfxcardstatus, however in my case I wasn't able to login to my MacBook at all, so I logged in via Verbose mode, and then via  command line deleted the graphics drivers as instructed by saramwrap (read below for instructions)

• How to start in Verbose mode: here.

Once starting up successfully in Verbose mode, run the following commands accordingly;

If you have the 6490 M, open the Terminal and type:

> mkdir DisabledExtensions

> cd /System/Library/Extensions

> sudo mv ATIRadeonX3000.kext ~/DisabledExtensions

> sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

If you have the 6750 M, open the Terminal and type:

Open the Terminal:

> mkdir DisabledExtensions

> cd /System/Library/Extensions

> sudo mv ATIRadeonX2000.kext ~/DisabledExtensions

> sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

If you're unsure as to which graphics card your Mac is running on, just run both set of commands, and you should be able to successfully login, once after logging in, manually go to the following directory; System -> Library -> Extensions, find all the .kext files that start with ATI and delete them for before I did this I still kept getting the blue screen of death. After deleting the drivers you don't have to install gfxcardstatus, that is for only if you haven't done this and you don't have any trouble logging in.

Hope this helps

Thank you for this tip.  I'm sure it will work just fine but this time I'm going to wait for others to try first.  Only because last week some guy suggested using his "switchGPU" and apparently I was the first to use it and he released it with a bug he admitted to later.  It errored out during install and crippled my Gfxcardstatus which in turn attempted to engage the discrete chip, which in turn led to about 50 reboots before I could get back in.

On another note, if (and I'm sure it does) it works, this is further proof that Apple wants nothing to do with this issue as perhaps any senior Apple technician could or should easily be able to prescribe this as a temporary work around.  Imagine the grief and anxiety that could have been saved if this tip works.

On yet another note.

Has anybody given any thought about going the Chromebook route with Google?  I'm giving this serious thought as this seems to be the way personal computing is heading and thus keep defects like this to a minimum.

BTW, wouldn't it be good to also move all the many ADM* objects and directories too?

I'm on my fourth logic board for my 2011 Macbook Pro in only six months.  My Applecare policy has covered all three replacements, but since I am in Indonesia, there is a two week delay to get the new logicboard sent from China to Singapore to Surabaya to here, so I've been without my primary work computer for almost six weeks over the past six months.  Not acceptable.  Worse, the Applecare policy runs out in December.

NOBODY has suggesting replacing the MacBook, which is the only sensible solution.  I'm now working (and maintaining backups) on the assumption that I will be lucky to get two months active use before the new motherboard blows again.

I am outraged at the way that Apple is treating its customers over this, and I would very much like to be involved in any effort to pressure on the company to recognize its responsibilities and either replace these faulty laptops or fix them in a way that will last for more than just a few weeks. 

carl wolf wrote:

 

"However, don't think Apples does this themselves, probably spend it out to 3th party....These companies probably have to work close to jedec standards and iso norms..."

 

Any device that needs to be reballed is sent by Apple to the original vendor to have the procedure performed.

3th Party manufacturer, producing the faulty ones.

They fix em with still the same problem as even those replacements keep failing.

Seems they didn't learn much from it...