Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

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Sorry for double post. I can not edit my post on my cell

I just wanted to share my negative experience dealing with PS3Specialist. I would like to retract my previous hastily-made positive recommendation for his services on this forum.

In my opinion, PS3Specialist should be avoided at all costs!

I sent PS3Specialist my Macbook back in late June for the GPU reball because I was experiencing the same problems with my computer that most of you are dealing with. I paid $179 USD for the repair and paid $40 to ship my Macbook to him (insured). I received my Macbook a few days later and everything was working great.

However, a mere TWO WEEKS after his reball, the computer screen started glitching, it was freezing constantly, and I was experiencing many of the same old problems as before.

I should have been issued a full refund then. I immediately contacted PS3Specialist who told me that I would now require a GPU replacement and he could order a chip which would take up to two weeks. I weighed my options and eventually ended up taking his advice and shipped him my computer for a GPU replacement (under warranty). Big mistake.

I was to pay for shipping both ways and the cost of the chip (which he estimated would be anywhere from $35-65) while labour would be free. Strangely, he couldn’t tell me the price of the chip although I told him it was an AMD Radeon HD  6750M for 2011 Macbook Pro. I ended up paying $20 to send my computer, as well as a $70 payment to PS3Specialist ($50 for the chip and $20 for the return shipping).

The next time I heard from PS3Specialist after multiple emails asking for an update and no response was in the middle of September. He said he had received the chip and was working on it. I ended up hearing from him again (after bombarding him with more emails) at the beginning of October and I was told he had just received the chip (again?) and my Macbook was “working as good as new”.

After finally receiving my computer on October 8^th – well over a month after I had sent it in for the warranty repair. I opened up Final Cut to see if the GPU chip had been fixed and the screen instantly flickered/glitched.

I asked PS3Specialist for a $70 refund (although he really should refund the entire job) but he has refused. He also now claims he was waiting for the chip for an entire month but his previous emails clearly say otherwise. He also has now asked me to send my computer to him a third time for a reflow.

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Starting a week ago, my early 2011 macbook pro started crashing with the horizontal glitchy lines everytime i used a graphic heavy program like Photoshop or Indesign. Today, my MBP crashed and now it boots up to the grey/blue screen of death. I am unemployed and cannot afford to get this fixed. I am praying for a replacement program to come soon. Right now, I am a very sad panda .....

Same problem here. Mac book pro 15" Late 2011.

JKKiang wrote:

 

Not to pour cold water on your excitement, I had my logic board replaced by Apple for free too on 28 August 2014. Last week, my screen went black twice but I managed to power it up. Today it went black screen again but does not want to power up anymore. I will be taking it to Apple for a round of diagnostic tomorrow... cheers

Radeongate is structural instead of incidental: a new logic board just restarts the clock, and you can wait for the next failure to happen...

junkBookPro wrote:

 

My point actually is: I would suggest everyone to call Apple Care, annoy them about the issue, create case, "file a product complain" at least... as this forum does not "ring the bell" at Apple.

Apple told me they are routinely ignoring customer complaints on logic boards, so this is not going to work...

Hi

Just took my 2011 17" to Apple Store in Canada. They were aware of the issue as soon as they saw it. $550 to replace mother board. I didn't commit yet thinking it might be better to get a new machine and hope for a replacement program rather then risk finding myself in the same boat 6 months from now.

David

in any case filing complains to official channel should work better than posting a complain in this forum... at least, from my experience, going via Apple Care and complaining about it fixed my logic board for free...

Late model 2011 15" Macbook pro with 512mb ATI GPU.  Purchased in early 2012.  Count me among those having this issue.  Extremely frustrated.  $2,000 laptop, treated well, bricked.  Same thing that happened with my 2006 Macbook Pro.  Unless they fix this, I'm done with Apple.

Another MAC bites the dust (MBP2011), mine died when i tried to launch design software, it went to a glitchy frozen screen that forced me to hard reset my laptop and after that i got stuck at a grey screen. This really *****, i always sticked to apple beacuse i wanted a reliable machine. After this problem and how Apple has responded to their loyal clients, i really feel disappointed  and frustrated, i am considering to move to PCs after this because i can see better customer support in brands like ASUS.

Shame on you Apple.

Quoting Bart Simpson: " What happened to you Apple, you used to be cool, you've changed man"

Hi All,

My MBP of Early 2011 started having problems about a week ago. The Genius at the Genius bar said it is not the overheating GPU case and I should reinstall my Mac. I as a software developer for the past 18 years just stayed silent out of politeness and brought my Mac to the repair shop here in The Hague (yes that is in The Netherlands). The repair man said, it is going to cost about 600 Euro to replace the logic board.

The man at the repair shop also said that a new logic board, would eventually have the same problem and by spending 600 EUR you are just restarting the clock. Since I am doing heavy calculation apps it would mean that I will be standing in the repair shop again in a couple of months.

I cannot stop wondering whether problems like these are caused by faulty 3rd party components, or carelessness from Apple's design and quality assurance teams for not testing their creations before asking consumers to purchase a product that is advertised to be the best of the best.

I don't think Apple's decision makers do care enough to start a replacement program leaving us with little room to move.

@Apple, we love you, Love us back.

For those unable to get the machine to boot, persevere. I had to reboot my machine a number of times to get it to run. Sometimes it would boot to a grey screen, sometimes I'd get just the Apple, sometimes the Apple and the spinning icon. Sometimes I'd get the fan spinning up to maximum. I presume this is due to the AMD gfx chip overheating.

Also, try booting into safe mode (hold Shift when starting). This will take a while, but should boot.

If you get as far as the desktop, install gfxCardStatus. Once you've got this running, switch to "Integrated Only". You'll need to do this each time you boot and it's a bit glitchy, so make sure it has actually selected it. There are more permanent ways to disable discrete gfx apparently (in this thread somewhere) but I haven't tried them.

I've been running my machine under integrated for a week or so now and it's stable. I don't do much heavy graphics work though, so ymmv. Before it would crash almost immediately on running Photoshop, but now it works, if slowly.

Owen

jokigenki wrote:

 

For those unable to get the machine to boot, persevere. I had to reboot my machine a number of times to get it to run. Sometimes it would boot to a grey screen, sometimes I'd get just the Apple, sometimes the Apple and the spinning icon. Sometimes I'd get the fan spinning up to maximum. I presume this is due to the AMD gfx chip overheating.

 

Also, try booting into safe mode (hold Shift when starting). This will take a while, but should boot.

If you get as far as the desktop, install gfxCardStatus. Once you've got this running, switch to "Integrated Only". You'll need to do this each time you boot and it's a bit glitchy, so make sure it has actually selected it. There are more permanent ways to disable discrete gfx apparently (in this thread somewhere) but I haven't tried them.

I've been running my machine under integrated for a week or so now and it's stable. I don't do much heavy graphics work though, so ymmv. Before it would crash almost immediately on running Photoshop, but now it works, if slowly.

 

Owen

Very good post. Since my GPU went bad, and even after the logic board replacement I paid for, I have had some very hard crashes at about the time of a GPU switch. Sometimes it takes many attempts to get it to boot. Last night it would boot to a black screen, no feedback, no way to control startup disk, verbose and single-user did nothing. SMC reset, NVRAM reset did not help. I was almost ready to take it to the Apple Store (again) when after the 20th time or so the screen finally lit up.

So it is very true that if the Mac crashes so hard it won't even light up the screen, you should just keep trying. On other occasions the screen would light up but not boot into the system disk, and again I would have to try many times before it would do that.

I have been using gfxcardstatus, and I think it helps avoid the problem, but I have still seen occasional but serious system crashes when programs try to switch the GPU on or off while it is set to Integrated Only.

To rule out RAM I ran Memtest while booted from a USB stick. All my RAM checks out fine. I know Apple probably has better RAM testing machines but so far it looks like RAM is not causing my crashes. It's probably the new logic board dying again.

This issue started affecting my early 2011 MBP last week. I just wanted to add to the misery of this thread and its 1.5 million views. I am shocked that Apple has seemingly done absolutely nothing about such a major design flaw that affects so many people. This is shameful.

Yes, gfxCardStatus is not a permanent solution by any means, but then again, it would appear getting the logic board replaced isn't either

The annoying thing is that Apple's Hardware Test doesn't even show the problem. I ran the 2 hour test to be extra sure and it passes every test, despite my machine failing within minutes of firing up the AMD. Maybe if it pushed the logic board a bit more, then these faults would be apparent before it even left the shop.

Owen