Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Csound1 wrote:

 

The bulk of my Macs are later than 2011, or earlier (chance) and the only 2011 I have is a 13 (although there is at least one poster here having the same symptoms with a 13) Heat management in electronics has been a daily task for many years now, I take it seriously. All our equipment racks contain their own cooling systems. Macs get treated the same way (even though they are very cheap compared to some of the equipment they replaced) cheap enough to carry 2 for every task.

I've been deadly serious for so long, improving any Mac's TDP by making it cooler on idle increases the headroom on performance, enabling turbo boost to clock for longer and renders times to be cut, some significantly.  Video wise which stresses out Macs like no other I have repasted Mac Pro towers, iMacs, and even Mini's in the field which give improved performance over stock thermals.  Mac Pro's have also done 6/12 core upgrades over stock to extend life and power, and even the new Mac Pro with a Xeon upgrade.  All with less heat, less noise, more reliability. Though the Mini's run far better rendering like the Macbook Pro's do running on a cooling pad to give them a bit of air from underneath, the recent Zalman 17 inch pad out folds flat and can hold a pair of Mini's inside the rack!

Not only Mac's have benefited from this treatment, I've also been modifying HP Z Series and Dell Precision workstations to improve their performance, acoustics and with less heat and accordingly reliability running monster apps like C4D, 3DSMax etc.  Insides of those units during 2009-12 are basically the same as a Mac Pro 4-5,1 cheesegrater tower and PC firms like them as just as bad thermal wise also.

I hope when you understand with all my background filled in this issue with these 2011's hasn't come through with a sudden hissy fit; it's been years of frustration building up and I am pig sick of hearing Mac's sound like hovercraft, breaking down when a little bit of what I call perfection means they wouldn't, or far, far less that I am 100% sure of.

I've even made one of my dear friends who builds very high power RF kit a convert - in fact he's gone even further down the thermal road by using the liquid silver compounds to sandwich his transistors to the heatsinks, most of which dwarf any CPU or GPU by huge factors. I stick with my lapping stone, chrome polish, isopropyl, AS cleaning kit plus Gelid GC and AS-5.

And now I know you have a ton more to contribute to the debate about these Mac's than I've ever thought for the past year - thanks for finally chipping in and changing my mind.

ylair wrote:

 

I understand that, but what I mean is if this issue spans all late 2011 models, is it a gpu malfunction, logic board, combination of, soldering on all these models, or what is really causing this breakdown? Also again, is it physically possible to put another gpu on any of these logic boards if you had the ability to remove it? Thanks.

I'm have a physics brain so it's a quantum combination of :GPU, defective solder batches, bad pasting, awful heatsink surfaces.  I could not give an accurate estimate of percentages, but in my experience only I believe the failures are mostly primarily heat related.  The CPU die size for the 2011 is over 50% larger than the previous gen and the AMD chip also is large and runs hot.  Also the heatpipe surfaces which bind the CPU and GPU to the logic board are rough and pitted, clearly visible under a magnifier when for chips of this size should be micron flat, as precise as the rest of the design clearly is.

My hypothesis is the massive overpaste of the stock Shin-etsu paste means it dries to a fine light grey almost white powder which if you open up a used Macintosh you will plainly see, and also you will spot with a good eye of magnifier tiny powder grains of this thermal dust are everywhere.  As it's almost right next to the parts I would imagine it's very easy for that fine thermally conductive dust to go underneath the dies onto the solder balls and stick to it with the usual assorted dust you will find.  Which aids unnecessary heat transfer on the solder balls and helps that solder break.

When I repaste I use a tiny amount which covers the die with an extremely thin layer so there is minimal excess, the fans never go nuts, they run very cool the opposite of Apple's guidelines and depot logic boards seem to do quite a lot.

Those are my conclusions and I would love a chief Apple engineer to prove me totally wrong on all of that - but my experience says he's got no chance.

You can only replace this GPU with a similar model, reballed by a real professional reballer as it's a difficult task to do right, though buying a new AMD GPU with a manufacture date later than 2011 is preferable.

Different methods of How thermal paste spreads out.

Also shows how it should be applied.

If people see me apllying thermal compound they allways wonder and ask "is that enough?"

Yes, it is enough...

Apple's and other engineers (pc/laptop) or quality control engineers/inspectors can learn from it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyXLu1Ms-q4

The adage of less is more is so, so applicable with thermal paste.  A sliver of paste tens of microns thick on a cpu or gpu sandwiched with a micron flat heatsink surface will transfer heat vastly better than their guidelines which leave probably 90% of that paste pushed away from the die and allows the powder to break off  and stick on the solder balls with a poorly finished plate as smooth under magnification with tens, if not hundreds of microns of unevenness like the stubble on my chin.

Thermal die thermodynamics 101 - and noone in Cupertino seems to have a clue. Gissa job Tim/johnnie, I can be a far better perfectionist than seemingly any of the incompetent die perfectionists you have there now or for the past 15 years!

Though cpu die die aside which I still improved by my methods the current Mac Pro 6,1 is the greatest most efficient thermodynamic PC i have yet to see so I know there's certainly some talent there. Still some missing though

The work I do on these Macs happens in front of a paying (usually) audience, all errors happen in public!, a shutdown of a piece of equipment can vary from a ripple to a shutdown of the show.

It pays to be well organised under those conditions, and well running, cool Macs is a part of that.

Apple has to listen to us in some way.

<Edited By Host>

Hi MBP users,

Anyone with the same GPU issue, appreciate if you can add value to your complaints by doing the following. Unfortunately, Apple does not monitor this forum.

1. Call Apple Care Contact Apple for support and service
2. Point them to this thread. Ask them why Apple is keeping quiet on this known issue?
3. Get a case number and inform them to follow up with the on-site/certified Apple service provider.

They "should" offer a sound/amicable solution.

cheers

Now I've had the same experience. As an update to my previous timeline:

9/17 - dropped off late 2011 MBP that had developed pin-stripe horizontal lines and other signs of GPU failure starting 8/31/14 with Maryland Genius Bary

9/19 - Product Received by Repair Center

9/19-9/22 - Diagnosing

9/22 - status changes to Repair in Progress, but date is listed as 9/23

9/23 - email from Apple CND Analyst that my laptop is "currently on hold at the AppleCare Repair Center due to some additional questions we have regarding the reported issue" - I left voicemail and email that I could be reached at any time

9/24 - spoke with CND Analyst who told me that my laptop qualified for "Engineering Capture Program" - that the engineers at apple want the laptop so they can investigate the problem in greater depth to understand the causes and find a fix or improve future engineering to avoid similar problems. In return, they would get me a refurbished mid-2012 15" retina macbook pro to match or do better the specs I had on the 2011 (of course, sans the CD drive or ethernet since those are no longer available). The refurbished computer would come with a 1 year warranty, while the repair, if I chose it, would come with routine 90 day warranty.

--I chose the refurb, primarily since the warranty is longer, and from all reports here, the replaced logic boards also have a tendency of failing.

Of course, I paid ~$322 for this, and will likely spend more money as we were using my 2011 MBP as the primary CD-rom drive for the house, and I need LAN-ethernet at work, and I normally connect to an older work iMac via firewire - so there are 3 things I'll need to buy.

Has anyone had experience with the Engineering Capture Program before?

Had this same issue.  Extremely disappointed in the overall Apple response, and, for the record, this absolutely colors my future buying decisions.

At any rate, as suggested by others, I took matters into my own hands and had the GPU re-balled to repair this issue that should have been addressed in a recall.  Did this in April for around $150, I think the same guy now charges around $200 (due to demand no doubt), but it was done well and seems to have completely solved the issue.  This MBP is now in the hands of my college senior and is going strong again.

Perhaps one day Apple will step up on this (for everyone, consistently) and fix what's broken and/or cover the cost of repairs for the faulty product.  In the meantime, there is a way forward for those who can cover the repair cost.  Good luck, all. 

Just adding my voice to the massive choir. My GPU failed today, and I've contacted Apple and set up a Genius Bar appointment. My 2011 17" MacBook Pro is still covered under AppleCare, so I'll most likely have a better fate than most of you here.

In any case, this issue upsets me greatly.

Apple needs to own up to this and do the right thing. Some of the stories I've read here are unbelievable.

<Edited By Host>

Early 2011 MBP 17" here. GPU burned out with exactly the symptoms described. Apple Store Phoenix head "genius" feigned ignorance of the GPU issue. Was forced to shell out $322 for the logic board replacement, despite 2 letters to Apple's Tim Cook, but not even the bother of a reply. Apple thinks it has a lock on long term users like me, but they are wrong. The new logic board has exactly the same GPU so I expect to would fail too. The Apple guy assured me Apple had put in a GPU that would not fail like the last one, but that was either a lie or he was speaking out of his arse. Also, the repair center stole my two new Kensington 4 GB DIMMS and replaced them with 2 4GB DIMMS and did not return the originals, which is standard practice. Forced Apple to replace the stolen RAM. Got home and found the new logic board was running even HOTTER than before...fans blowing incessantly whenever I opened a web page with any imbedded video, no matter how small. Bought my own SSD to replace the hard drive, thinking this might solve the heat issue. No improvement. Only after I installed the gfxCardStatus utility and turned off discreet GPU altogether, did I get relief from overheating. Incidentally, all of you who paid the $310 (not including tax) standard repair will only get a 90-day warranty on the supposedly new logic board, not 1 yr. Personally, I don't even trust Apple anymore when they told me the logic board was not a refurb. The already lied to me or gave me the wrong information twice this past encounter.

One further gripe: I bought this MBP in Germany for $3,170. According to the EU Commission, Apple is obliged to honor a standard 2 year warranty on electronics instead of the US's 1 year warranty. Apple routinely flaunts this and I found out when my HD failed 5 days past the 1 yr mark. Apple would not pay. Apple doesn't deserve the right to market in Europe if it flaunts european law. So far, only Italy has taken Apple to court over the 1 yr/2 year warranty issue and Apple lost. Apple now abides by the law, but apparently only in Italy.

Apple is no longer the "Insanely Great" company it was when I bought my first Mac in 1986!

With one and a half million views and nearly 9000 participants on this thread alone, unhappy customers telling their stories about this failed GPU issue, why the **** hasn't someone by now initiated a class action lawsuit against Apple????

Some lawyers are looking into it. I'd post a link but my post would be removed by the censors.

Your high temperatures most likely due to the typical bad Apple thermal paste job.  If you know of a local and competent engineer who can re-paste and polish your heatsinks on your cpu and gpu your MBP will return to being cool. Though you could try repairing the disk permissions on Macintosh hd by using disk utility off the recovery partition first.

if you unscrew your bottom case you could clearly see whether the bottom side of your logic board is used or not.  Most likely it will be.

I just tried to post the following “fix” but I see that Apple’s censors have blocked me from communicating in one other forum and probably soon on this one. I started out a nice guy, writing polite letters to the Tim Cook address (twice), but got no reply. Apple is now censoring criticism and ignoring their faults with the best of the big, faceless corporations.

Anyway, for those of you whose PGU has not yet failed or started to fail, you might try installing the excellent utility, gfxCardStatus, which will allow you to switch from the discreet to the integrated GPU. My early-2011 MBP 17" failed and had to be replaced, but once I got it back, it was running hotter than ever. I switched off the discreet chip and the heat level dropped and the fans come on a lot less often now. It's an unfair kludge, since we all paid for superior graphics processing, but it might save your computer and you $310 (w/o tax) until such time that Apple comes to its senses and issues a recall or they are forced to through the AFM lawsuit.

I wonder at what point the “Insanely Great!” Apple turned into a big, mean old Microsoft?