Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I think after this I will not trust Apple.

APPLE knows that we need a solution NOW, I can not work with a computer that cost me € 2300 ($1990) !!!

This is not understandable

APPLE knows that we need a solution NOW, I can not work with a computer that cost me € 2300 ($1990) !!!

Well, 2300€ is more like 3150$ actually.

I agree 199% there just not enough space for cooling which is why I think Apple will do away with the whole bmp line altogether in favor of tablets and cloud computing. Every mbp I've had has had gfx card issues..

Just heard from the Apple repair shop and they quoted me an enormous amount of money to replace the logic board. I showed them the thread and articles on the web, but until Apple acknowledge it, they can't do anything.  I am not going to pay that amount of money for something that will break again, so will have to wait it out.  In the meanwhile I got a "normal" Laptop, loaded Linux and I can work again.  Do miss the MacBook though, but my faith in Apple took a bit of a knock with this. Hope Apple comes to the party.

Do you guys think that we we bought laptop cooling pads that this would help keep the temperature of the laptop cooler thus prolonging the life of our GPU?

The problem has hit a few friends of mine by now who had the 2011 Macbooks. But waiting for a fix was no option, so they opted for a BGA-Reballing process. The company which executes said reballing process (which unlike "Reflowing" means removing all solder points and applying newer ones, probably with lead in them) also replaced the graphics chip. It still was rather expensive (around 200-250€) but all Macbooks came back to life and continue to work strong.

What I noticed however is that almost all of them had clogged up fans by the time the issue happened (and was probably also the cause leading up to the gfx failure), with a big stripe of dust causing the fans to spin at maximum speed by the time.

I have a 2011 MBP myself which I rode pretty hard in the first year (gaming in Windows) and almost always have it connected to an external screen thus utilising the dedicated GPU but I havent encountered any of the issues so far. Then again I opened mine up every now and then (once a year) and cleaned out the fans...

Same problem with my 15' MBP (2011 Early, AMD GPU), I bought it in Aug 2011. It was upgraded to OS X 10.9 two weeks ago. This afternoon I found the display a bit abnormal (but still work), but few hours later it turned to be more worse and I can't bear it so I decided to shutdown and restart... Yes, it was shutdown, and forever.

Fxxk!

While the laptop being cool can help in the long run, this high rate of failures with the chip point towards there being an issue in the hardware. Between the fluctuations in temperature from dynamic switching and constant heat, this issue will obviously only be exacerbated. It is temporary solution, but I don't think it would prevent eventual failure. With a maximum of only 2 years of operation time for the affected hardware, there has to be something wrong with the design, whether it be in the computer or the chip itself.

you should try to reboot and reboot and reboot.... For me it works when I try for 30min ....

I would just like to repeat that everyone who is able to head to an Apple store to get their machines inspected should. Even if you do not go through with the suggested logic board replacement at least you will be noted as a customer with a 2011 Macbook Pro with GPU failures.

Nobody is going to spend 30 minutes rebooting every time they want to use their laptop. I have a $2600 paperweight sitting on a shelf now. I really hope Apple does something to resolve this. It was faulty design and they should take responsibility.

I read a a comment on another board. When the machine was hanging on the grey screen just after booting it up he would close the lid, wrap the laptop in a blanket and wait for it to heat up and shut itself down. It would then boot up everytime like normal. I tried it once and when my system booted i forced integrated GPU. I then shut it down and removed the AMD kext files in single user mode and i've been running on that for 2 days without a glitch. It's only a temporary solution which turns my machines into a rather expensive entry level notebook.

This reminds me of the Xbox 360 hardware debacle (A heat issue causing chip failure? Go figure. I wonder where I've seen this happen recently?) and the legendary towel trick that gave you just a little extra time. If you can get your system to boot, disabling Discrete graphics can give you basic functionality, which has been stated repeatedly. I got mine to boot into OS X in the late hours of last night, and honestly, the only thing I did differently was use the Force Boot into OS X key command when powering on. I have no idea what the impact that had on it was, but its done fine since after 2 weeks of nothing with discrete graphics now disabled. I've restarted it several times to test different things, but without discrete graphics enabled, I don't run into any issues. Apple really needs to address the issue, though. As a software engineer, I'm appalled by the idea of a product having a very specific critical issue so widespread without any official word on it at all. It shows little accountability on the Apple's part, even if there is eventually some sort of fix or replacement program put in place. Of course, acknowledging a problem would necessitate a fix so they'll wait until there is no other option while people spend exorbitant amounts to repair an already outrageously priced product.

A firmware upgrade that uses the integrated card on boot would be a cheap "fix" for apple here... but I guess that would mean admitting the problem is widespread.    

Though it wouldn't fix the problem of machines freezing once the discrete GPU kicks in - there are many factors needing to be solved and it looks like it will be both hardware and software fixes.