Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Just adding weight to the issue. I have spent over 16 hours over 7 months trying to get this fixed. was told by a third tier tech support that there is nothing they can do for me and had no response when I said this would affect my future buying choices. I have had an apple in my house for about 34 years. I am ashamed at all the anti-mac fanatics laughing over this.

Well, it did not last too much. GPU crashes are back...

BTW installing and manually preventing GPU changes using the free gfxCardStatus program can reduce random reboots but not graphic glitching. If it hasn't been mentioned or is buried. It won't fix it all but it will make the computer usable.

Hello, I've posted here a few times asking how to approach the problem, as I live a long way from a genius bar. Anyway I've got a doctors appointment in the city on thursday so i'm going to go to the genius bar to see what i can do. So are there any tips on discussing the problem? or things I should bring up because I'm not going to pay for repair seeing as people are still having issues after the repair. (This is in Australia BTW, I've heard some have been covered under consumer law??)

also should I wipe my Mac before going?

I went to the store yesterday, I would make sure you

Have a backup of your hard drive (Time machine backup)

Have used the GFX card utility mentioned on this thread that allows you to see if it crashes when you switch to the discreet card

Be completely honest with them, I said I've done some research online I think this is the problem but your the expert,  Go through what you did when the failure happened, what programme you were running.

I said there seems to be a lot of people with this model that are having the same issues, is this a known problem and is there anything you can do to help?

There should be no need to wipe your drive unless you are concerned about your own private data in the store.

If you have a consumer warranty law (like the UK), try and dig out some proof of purchase it may help you, though they looked up on there system for me and knew straight away where I bought it and when, but this law at least in the UK is about where you bought the machine so if you bought it on Amazon, it would be Amazon you'd have to deal with not Apple (The Manufacturer).

They did mention to me there is an issue with some macbook pro's of a certain serial number, you could ask them to check this info and see if your machine is covered.

Should i welcome my self to the club of dead MacBooks pro late 2011 cause of burn cards... saturday grey screen... Apple care didn't do anything...i will try to go to another genius to see what i can do. i can't afford to pay 435 pounds...

I have got the same problem as well. I the service center wanted more than $650 to fix it. This is ridiculous.

Hi all,

another dead MBP... Yesterday I went to the Apple Store in Amsterdam and they asked me ~500 eur for motherboard replacement. The Genius denied that it's a widespread issue (I showed him some pages from this thread). After discussing for a few minutes, they handed me the business card of the Store Manager, to whom I've just sent an email. Fingers crossed...

Iammic i have another appointment with genius at saturday, if you go before that please let me know, what you did or said, i plan to show them everything, at phone with apple care i couldn't do something.

I went 2 weeks ago to the Apple Premium Service Providers for the same issue that all of us are having. Pfffff, they ran all the apple tests and...surprise they could not detect any issue even if I showed them the nice pictures of the splitted or the blue screen of my MBP late 2011. I told and gave them also the link of this thread just to tell that I'm not dreaming that this is a true manufacturing issue. BTW, they charged me 100 CHF( 105 $) and made a quote in case I would like to replace the insane card.... Something like 933 CHF (970 $).

Is there anyone here in Switzerland who has found a way to fix the problem by a reballing/reflow procedure? Any help would be truly appreciate, thanks

As I read the thread, I'm getting confused. First, I'm only a USER. I know very little about computers, and of course I don't understand half the posts about lead solder, kernel configuration and so on..

So here is my question: my mbp is a 13" i7. I think (not very sure) that it has only AMD 3000 graphic card and not the GPU. Is that right? But I've had the same problem, the only apple authorized service here first replace logic board, and it still had issues, then replaced again and the battery too. Running slow and crashes safari. And then format, told me not to go back to time capsule copy. Now it is working ok. Tech was very rude, the third time I went to the store I had done some research and brought him copies of the forum...he said people write here for fun. He even gave my laptop a wrong name I cannot change and a different OS and it's taking me hours to restore it transferrin info (why did them sell me a time capsule and now I have to copy/paste info as it was a pen drive???)

Can my mbp have the same problem or may it be different? I had grey screen, crashed then nothing. Dead.

I spent over 700€ repairing it, now it works but its almost empty, may it get bad again as it works harder? I'm afraid to lose my money 90 day after...

In terms of finding out your model number, if you click the Apple in the top right, then About this Mac, then More Info... it will show you the manufacturing date and serial number. If it's an early 2011 model then it may be related to this issue.

I also have the same problem as described exactly on the front page of this thread. I took my MBP to the Apple Store this morning and the technician confirmed the fault, and said that he'd had a few people within the last couple of weeks with the same problem, but had not heard of it before then. I showed him several photos of the problem, including it occurring in Windows 7 under Boot Camp.

In terms of getting this fixed, check your consumer rights. In the UK we are covered for 6 years after sale by the Sale of Goods Act. Note that this is through the retailer (I bought mine from Dixons, now Currys PC World) rather than the manufacturer (although if you bought it from Apple, they'd be both). I've emailed Currys customer services to find what they will do about it, referencing this thread, and these articles (from somewhere earlier in this thread):

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/03/latest-macbook-pros-suffering-from-gpu-rela ted-freezes/

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/21/is-your-new-macbook-pro-freezing-up-youre-not-t he-only-one/

This explains the UK Sale of Goods as it affects this problem: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1677034/Two-year-warranty-EU-la w.html

The technician I spoke to at the Apple Store also gave me a letter confirming the problem and the logic board replacement required to correct it. If you're going to pursue this route then I'd attempt to get similar, as this will help your case.

Owen

Same here. Early 2011 MPB 15". Helpless.

jokigenki wrote:

 

In terms of getting this fixed, check your consumer rights. In the UK we are covered for 6 years after sale by the Sale of Goods Act. Note that this is through the retailer (I bought mine from Dixons, now Currys PC World) rather than the manufacturer (although if you bought it from Apple, they'd be both).

In practice, that is a bit of a complication. In The Netherlands, a similar law is in position, but I am dealing with a rogue Apple dealer who simply denies responsibility, so I will need to bring this in court, which will cost me money one way or the other. I had hoped that Apple would be willing to serve as a mediator, but Apple told me that Apple does not respect Dutch consumer law, and that I will have to hire a lawyer if I do not like it.

Hi lammic,

Please post the store managers reply here. I am very interested in his reaction.

Kind regards,

Michiel