Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Add me to the club .  Early 2011 MacBook Pro 17". Pink and white stripes while booting then freezes with white screen.

i will take the advice on the forum and make an appointment gat the Genius Bar.

DAvid

CAnada

I bought a mac pro early 2011 pro, cost me 2400 euro back then....

Now, when using photoshop etc the screen splits in two with stripes and I have to force the computer to shut down by pressing the power button. Just brought it to a Mac specialist store, and they concluded the logicboard needs to be changed. 750 euro.

Should I put in a new logic board? What would you advice me?
By the way, APPLE, it clearly seems it is a design flaw! It would be nice if you take some responsibillity!

THe logic board had to be changed because of the failure of the grafic card!

Finally, my MBP 2011 GPU died. I took it to an Apple Store, they didn't have a clue about this issue, so they would charge me 390€ + VAT. Now I have a very expensive Apple brick and a very bad mood

Abhi,

In your case you should be moving the AMD*.kext files to DisabledExtensions. Then you will be able to boot.

Kind regards,

Michiel

Allwarus,

Did you try moving the kernel extensions? ATI* or AMD* 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

That made the machine bootable for me.

Kind regards,

Michiel

Thats a very good idea, if it works all the time. You are no longer calling the card, say when launching photoshop, so it does not crash ... Is it reliable ?

Hi Guru,

Yes, it works on every boot. There are downsides however:

• Can't suspend the machine. Need to power down before bagging it;
• Screen brightness can no longer be controlled;
• No longer possible to attach external displays;

Kind regards,

Michiel Roos

Actually, I surrendered  :-(

I work with a Thunderbolt display, so I bought a Mac Mini and put the MBP's RAM & SSD into it. I'm sure there will be a replacement program someday, so I'm growing patience ¬¬

Hi my MBP early 2011 died on August 2014.

First came the blue screen issue, then it just got dead.

I went to an apple center and they told me that i had to pay 580,90€ because my warranty was over.

So i called to apple assistance and they just could not give me any answer, i even told them that it had happened to thousands of people all over the world,

There response was: "send a letter to Ireland."

Think its worth it? or just a waste of time and money?

Cheers

My March 2011 MacBook Pro 15' went wallop last week! Same issues as everyone else on here, Grey screen on start-up, fans then go into overdrive, recovery mode only gets me to a blue screen. 3 and a half years for over 2000 Euro's worth of machine is not good enough! I never paid for Apple Care which wouldn't help anyway as it's six months over the 3 year warranty. I can't speak to any apple expert as there is no Apple Store nearby and when I rang Apple Ireland directly the automated woman told me I could speak to someone on a one incident basis for 49 euro!! ***! To make matters worse in Ireland there is an extended consumer protection law that could kick into gear for me if I hadn't bought the Mac in Australia when I was living there! It's very frustrating and I need my computer for work. Apple's products cost a premium because the just work better/faster and more efficiently than the rest (IMO) Do they anymore? Where do I and WE go from here?

please send ALL letters to ireland (by the way: i wonder why the european headquarter is in IRELAND... maybe because they don't make enough profit and thus can save some taxes...) or to cupertino

i mailed a letter (not very friendly) posted it here (page 559)

and got a very friendly yet meaningless letter back a few days ago

but now i have an apple case number - so i can refer to this if my 3. logicboard will die as well

i think the more cases they have to open to this issue the better (sorry if my english is bad...)

here is the reply again:

I live in the southeast USA (Atlanta) and need to have my 2011 i7 Reballed. Loved this machine, until the failure. Who do you guys like for rebelling in the US? Local would be ideal, but I can live without the machine if I need to send it in.

PS3 Specialist does not seem to be active here or on ebay lately... anyone used him recently? Who else is reputable?

http://www.ps3specialist.com/macbook-pro-gpu-reballing-repair-service/

I join the case of graphics cards of the 2011 Mac Book Pro, that are showing obvious manufacturing errors and causing consumers of these products have to pay for repairs up to 500 €.

Apple does not want to assume this error claiming they are isolated cases, but the number of people affected is increasing per day.

I sincerely hope that Apple will reconsider and begin to bear the costs, returning the money to people who have had to repair their machine.