Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Dear actionman99,

I do not understand why do you have to apologise to anyone... just ignore, seriously... we all can see that there is obviously a large majority in this forum that understand exactly what you say and appreciate your contribution to this "noise" which generated +1.3M views so far... thanks from me to you.

Have you taken this matter up with the relevant NZ authorities?

Thanks for your reply.

I have followed the directions to move all ATI and AMD extensions out of the Extensions folder and the 'sudo touch' command. And this definitely has allowed me to login (where I couldn't before) BUT, gfxcardstatus reads out that I am on Discrete GPU and won't allow switch to Integrayes because it thinks I'm on an external display (which is what I understand is supposed to happen with this extension removal solution)?

As I said here before, Reballing is a very advanced procedure, not everyone claims to do reballing can really do it , its also hard to verify that it has been really done in the first place, that is why I have always said that you need to make sure to send your computer to a reputable place in reballing that have a verified record and high success rate - at least over 95% success rate - and a long warranty time or you will be risking your logic board, when reballing fails its usually due to a low skilled reballer and a bad thermal profile and that is not strange , its actually very expected if the reballer is not very experienced, have done the process hundreds of times with high success rate, no one should blame the process, if there is someone to be blamed is the reballer and the owner of the computer who did not do his homework right and choose only by price without verifying the expertise level of the person who will work on his computer. Its a wrong understanding that the chip is bad and replacing it will fix the problem, 99% of the time replacing the chip is not needed and the reballing failure with the original chip will happen again with the replacement chip if it is done the same way by the same person and the same thermal profile, to make it simple if the reballing fails the first time you need to replace the reballer before replacing the chip or don't expect a different result, even if it works at all it won't be a long lasting result unless its done by someone else with higher skills and expertise. To make that easier to understand, the GPU chip in a 2011 MBP uses 0.5mm soldering balls, that is 0.5mm solder balls, heating the logic board as a metallic material means there will be some expansion , when the logic board expand it will rise up, if that happens at all and the logic board rises at the center of the area where the GPU chip should be soldered by just 0.5mm , that means that most of the soldering points at the corners of the chip will not be soldered at all or at least will not have a good soldering bond and that is enough to make the process fails , it can not be more clear how hard this procedure is , matter of fact if the logic board rises at the center of the area where the GPU chip should be soldered by just 0.2mm , yes only 0.2mm the process will fail and the computer will not work. how is that ?! when the 0.5mm soldering balls get soldered to the GPU chip its diameter will go down to 0.35mm , when that gets soldered to the logic board the clearance between the chip and the logic board will be around 0.2mm so if the logic board rises due to heating by just 0.2mm that means the soldering bond will be weak and the process will fail. Simply without 100% perfect thermal profile that will not allow for any rise of the logic board during the whole soldering process the process will fail or the result will not last , that is why I have always said that the thermal profile is 95% of the process, the material and all other factors are only 5% , that thermal profile is different from one reballer to another and that is why not all the results are the same and the warranty is also different from one place to another. Every reballer knows how long his repair will last and gives his warranty accordingly.

" This means that the goods have to be free from major or minor defects, safe, and durable."

An attorney will disagree with your understanding, and that can be verified by speaking with one.

What do you care if he did or not? or have you tried at least to try and add something productive to the discussion at least once, that might help someone.

That's interesting that you found those term on apples own website. I think the MBP 2011 fails to meet these three for sure:

• You would not have purchased the product if you had known about the problem.
• The product is substantially unfit for its normal purpose and cannot easily be made fit within a reasonable time.
• The product is substantially unfit for a purpose that you told the supplier about, and cannot easily be made fit within a reasonable time.

Macworld magazine just made an article about our problem, in the UK printed version, october issue.

Woohoo!

Great news. Maybe now Apple will take action.

Apple can easily recall these laptops but don't want to as it will be bad PR, especially when they are launching the iphone6.

"Macworld UK has reached out to Apple on multiple occasions about the issue, but has yet to receive a response. "

would be great if the US version covered it too...

I think it would be better for all, including Apple, that Apple representatives take serious action before it is published in the US... I believe it is enough damaging for all parties: to all of us who purchased premium product and want Apple to stick to its own standards, as well as to the Apple reputation and quality of services and products they deliver... minority of those who are trying to "bring us down" in this forum are actually not helping to anyone.

at this point, and I'm probably not the only one, couldn't care less about the negative effect this issue could have on Apple.

let's not forget that this company is expending more and more everyday, their focus is on phones, tablets, watches, music subscription service, payment transactions and many more to come.

computers are just a drop in their big ocean now.

let's face it, even if they never step up to this problem, that won't hurt their new products success and what's losing 15k customers with a 3 years old computer when you're assured to gain 15k others in just a few days when launching a new phone?

and between all of us affected, the 15k, how many will totally get rid of all Apple products forever and will convince others to do the same?

but I'm glad a printed magazine is making a piece on this story, hope others will do and not only in Europe.

Unfortunately, the print edition of the the US MacWorld has gone belly-up and their website will employee on a few staffers. So there really are no print resources for Mac news remaining in the US that I'm aware of.

I remember MacWorld, MacUser, MacWeek, etc. and they've all gone the way of the dinosaur. Apple's just not selling computers any longer - it's just not that financially beneficial. And they're certainly not going to acknowledge a three-year-old 'problem' that doesn't affect iPhone customers.

Sad truth...

Clinton

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

I agree with you... and, to avoid any misunderstanding, glad to hear it is published -  so it is not just a "internet noise" any longer.

My comment was addressed more to some "insiders", who seem to be crawling trough these pages these days, to those forum moderators that delete posts and counterproductive "fellow users" who think they are kind of "on the Apple side"...

I don't care also, totally ... If Apple prefers to read from the paper magazines about this issue, along with publications about the new products, let them... but I am afraid it will be bit more damaging than expected.

And if Apple does not care about us, I am kind of relieved... Over the time I purchased so many products from Apple (is a long list, trust me)... so if they do not want to have me as a customer any longer, it will be better and cheaper for me. I will also have no pressure any longer to stand behind Apple products to my family, friends, coworkers and customers.