Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

"I'm surprised someone from Apple IS monitoring this forum..."

Actually, others users reported your post to Apple.

actionman99 wrote:

 

Apparently expressing my distaste of Apple's fading quality reputation is non-technical and 'off topic'.

Which it clearly is, it's also a violation of the terms you previously agreed to.

Excuse me, but I'm discussing a technical issue about an Apple product?!

Namely a failing GPU on a MBP and Apple's disregard for fixing them?

And I still have a valid question unanswered?

APPLE is in violation of its terms to provide quality electronics.

Apple must fix this.

Show me the Terms that Apple is in violation of, a link or a screenshot will do.

Distaste is not a technical issue.

Is there any movement on this.

My MBP had almost 3 years and ok, but then as other people have had, with the upgrade to Mavericks 10.x.3 I started getting lock ups wehn trying to open certain applications or tring to start my VM.

Sometimes the reboots would work, but lately have to do full Option+Command+P+R resets, and sometimes that doesn't work.

Finding that doing a full Hardware diagnostic test helps get it to boot again past Apple symbol and the white screen.

Should I just go and replace the Logic board myself?

Apple are not supporting the customers on this. They are getting you to pay for new logic board. $700+

Ive tried the cheap options, reballing GPU, this failed.

also tried swopping the GPU, this failed.

if you can find a cheap logic board try that, but the cheapest I found was $500! Usually recycled,

JPH39

Didn't you receive a warranty when you had your GPU reballed? I've seen a few people here saying that a reball failed for them, but they don't seem to have taken advantage of the warranty for the reball - quite puzzling to me.

Clinton

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), OS Mavericks 10.9.4, 16GB Crucial RAM, Crucial M500 960GB SSD, 27” Apple Thunderbolt Display

I Don't know why reballing the GPU works for some and not for others.

But it never worked in the first place.

People should be aware reballing is not a guarantee to fix the problem.

Yeah, I have wasted 20€ in a failed reballing service...

They tried to reball but it only made the problem worse... before I still could bootup my machine and see the backlight and enter save mode. Now I cannot even see the backlight... When I opened up the rear lid I found a losse cable that goes to the DVD reader...

The Company here in Lisbon is named: Infor-OK. Don't go there!

I have found another company that informed me that the standard procedure is exchanging the GPU and some repair on the motherboard if this is not to many damaged.

The best part here is that when this does not solve the problem, you don't have to pay anything;)

I'm rounding up some money to take my Brick to senhorcomputador. Hope the problem will be solved this time.

I think that the only way to make sure that this will never happen is to take ur MacBook Pro for maintenance EVERY year. (Like a car)

my opinion is: a company that asks for money even if the problem will not be solved, is a company that does not have self confidence and you should avoid these type of company's....

Dannyg888,

Thanks for the reply.

How did you get your MBP to permanently use integrated graphics card?  I haven't been able to boot without using rdbrwn's solution, and when I boot in, gfxcardstatus won't switch out of Discrete?

Thanks

"Show me the Terms that Apple is in violation of, a link or a screenshot will do.

Distaste is not a technical issue."

Csound, I am sorry if I have offended you, but Apple is in violation of not providing a machine fit for purpose. For the cost of purchase, I'd expect my MBP to give me at least 5 years good service, maybe more (albeit I'd expect slower performance) if Apple's quality can be trusted. With a fundamental, repeatable hardware issue, there is a violation of this trust, and the service that customers bought the MBP for. There are numerous links and screenshots ALL THROUGH THIS THREAD and many others. What's more there is no reliable fix for this yet.

Please read them, and have some empathy (This is an Apple support community) for those that wish to discuss their issues.

There still remains an outstanding issue that has not been addressed by Apple. I don't think its wrong to discuss why?

Mikeydapple, disabling your ATI and AMD extensions disables the machine from using discrete mode altogether. GFXstatus can verify this.

Check back a few pages, it has been mentioned a few times, and some of the guides are more extensive than others.

This is not the solution, and must be done with caution, it merely disables part of the machine that is defective, so might keep your machine running short term.

My machine has been running without crashing or screen glitches since doing this, but I will have to take it in for repair at my nearest convenience.

actionman99 wrote:

 

"Show me the Terms that Apple is in violation of, a link or a screenshot will do.

Distaste is not a technical issue."

 

Csound, I am sorry if I have offended you,

I am not offended, I am not even surprised that you still can not provide any attribution for your statement, so I will just put it down to Internet noise.

Good luck.

Great! in that case, here is a general quote of consumer law. It applies in New Zealand, so may differ in your country.

"Relevant to product safety are the guarantees contained within the Act that goods sold are of ‘acceptable quality’. This means that the goods have to be free from major or minor defects, safe, and durable. It also means they have to be ‘fit for the purpose for which they were supplied’ and acceptable in appearance and finish.

Goods that are unsafe are said to be of ‘substantial failure’ and the consumer has the right to reject the goods. To remedy the situation the consumer may choose a repair, replacement, or a full refund."

Here is a screenshot of a defective computer that Apple provided that is not 'fit for purpose', i.e. that is supposed to run software and display the information on a screen. (For a reasonable time = durability)

From Apple's own website:

For goods, there is a serious failure to comply with a consumer guarantee when:

• You would not have purchased the product if you had known about the problem. (A 3 year life span ONLY? - my note)
• The product is significantly different from the description, sample or demonstration model you were shown.
• The product is substantially unfit for its normal purpose and cannot easily be made fit within a reasonable time. (Obvious from this thread - my note)
• The product is substantially unfit for a purpose that you told the supplier about, and cannot easily be made fit within a reasonable time.
• The product is unsafe.

I have also since replaced my charger unit on this machine because it frayed (as per other threads) and was unsafe.

Apple's own standards condemn their current behaviour to charge users to fix their own machines, and then offer a solution which works only for a limited time.

Many thanks, your friendly 'internet noise', and fellow Apple user.