Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Dear friends,

please add another one to delighted customers of 2011 Macbook Pro. I'm in Italy. My graphic card started going crazy a couple of weeks ago. I was unaware of this discussion, and brought the Mac to an authorized center in Udine. They didn't tell me anything about the huge number of customers having the same problem, and just sentenced: "motherboard replacement". I usually trust the Apple service (or should I say: I use to trust the service?) and agreed to pay EUR 500 for the replacement. The machine came back after about one week. I turned it on and it lasted ... 10 minutes? 15 at best? Exactly the same identical problem with the new motherboard.

I immediately called them back and they told me: "strange! please bring it back and we will replace it again". Which is what I am going to do (sure, for FREE) as many times as the graphic card will fail, with the hope that they will soon or later admit that replacing the card is not the way to go.

In the meantime, I have disabled the dedicated card (or I think I did it, not sure actually as the card is still listed in the hardware system report) doing the following:

cd /System/Library/Extensions/

sudo mv ATIRadeonX2000.kext ~/Junk_Video_Card/

sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/

Does anyone know whether anything better than this can be done?

I thank you in advance, and I will keep you informed.

Regards

When I last posted I had had the "It's the SSD" story from the Apple store and taken the machine home. Since then I wrote an email to Tim Cook which triggered a response from Apple Australia correcting what I had originally understood from the techs. I also replaced the SSD with the original HDD from Apple and did a wipe and install of Mavericks.

Over the next few days I ran the machine using typical usage of Aperture and Xcode. After 3 days it started glitching again, culminating in a machine that would boot to a grey screen. So I took the machine back to Apple.

They have now replaced the logic board and I have it back. The first thing I have noticed is how cool it is running compared to the previous board. On that board I could barely touch the area between the keyboard and screen. This one is now warm, but nowhere near as hot.

Warranty wise, Apple gives me 90 days on the new board. They also said that in addition, Australia consumer laws mandate that they must give 2 years. So if this problem is going to return (a likely scenario) then I have two years before they won't have to cover it.

Thanks for all the support and comments. If you are having this problem please take it into Apple, even if it's out of warranty. The only way for them to get the message if for enough people to come in that it becomes a problem for them. Also don't forget to sign the petitions.

Is there anyone who has this problem that HASNT upgraded the RAM OR the hard drive? I had the exact same problems but then when i put my original hard drive and ram back in i couldnt get it to crash again to prove the problem to apple and so far it runs perfectly. Im a bit confused as im sure 7200rpm hdd and 8gb ram couldnt cause so much more heat than the standard components, or am i wrong?

eezacque wrote:

 

Tuurlijk wrote:

 

I just started a page to collect all information regarding these issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:MacBook_Pro_Technical_Problems Please add your facts there. Take care to use as many solid references as you can find. A pastie of the current source is here http://pastebin.com/tp42WX3z just in case the article magically disappears.

 

I elaborated a bit, but the article still needs work. I think it is a good idea to gather various ways to approach Apple, and the results.

Submission was declined: "While this may be quite useful, WP is not a "how-to" site." I invite you all to spend some time with this, to make this a valid wikipedia entry...

Gapulus wrote:

 

Is there anyone who has this problem that HASNT upgraded the RAM OR the hard drive? I had the exact same problems but then when i put my original hard drive and ram back in i couldnt get it to crash again to prove the problem to apple and so far it runs perfectly. Im a bit confused as im sure 7200rpm hdd and 8gb ram couldnt cause so much more heat than the standard components, or am i wrong?

Excessive heat is almost always caused by software issues, runaway processes.

Have you checked there before moving on to hardware (8GB and a 7200rpm drive is virtually standard, it does not cause extra heat to any significant degree)

Do a process of elimination - put 7.2k in with stock memory see if it errors.

then remove original ram replace with 1x8gb stick

remove and replace with the other 8gb stick.

I have done many 16gb ram upgrades to these 2011's, though I don't buy stock memory from crucial I specify the 16Gb kit specifically for the model.

I really doubt its a software issue as my 7200rpm and 5400 are exact clones of eachother and so the issue would have still been persistent in the 5400

Ive never had any problems with singular  8gb stick in it, nor with 16gb in it. My problem started about 2 or 3 werks after installing a 1tb hgst 7200 drive. I dont have an ssd.

Gapulus wrote:

 

I really doubt its a software issue as my 7200rpm and 5400 are exact clones of eachother and so the issue would have still been persistent in the 5400

That's the problem with this thread, everybody 'thinks' they know what it is not but no-one is prepared to check. That is the reason this thread has no useful function.

Good luck with your problem.

Hmm - this sounds like it doesn't belong on this thread.  Could you post the full model number of the HGST drive please?

Because the bigger HSGT models I have had problems with going into optibays and I have had to run a bootable utility CD to change the drives handshake from SATA3 to SATA2.  But that's for early 2011's in optibay only but could give you a clue. I only install either SSD or the very occasional SSHD in the primary hard drive bay of Mac kit nowadays.

I dont think i know anything, i was just saying i doubt it as the exact same software seemed to cause no problems while on the 5400 drive thats all. How would i check if its a software issue? The annoying thing is when i first took it in they confirmend my gpu was faulty and tried to charge me £450. I refused and eventually they agreed to do it for free when i brought it back again but because i cant replicate the problem, they dont want to replace the logic board, which was the original agreement

Hardware faults are pretty obvious to an engineer and as nearly everyone here is a user and not a tech on this thread I'm not surprised one bit.  This case I'm not thinking about the GPU...

If you want to look at the software start by running Activity Monitor, select the CPU tab and observe which apps use the most and how long they use it for. Observe for a few hours while you use your Mac.

Download a copy of Etrecheck, run it and post the report back here.

I have not seen any significant rise in temperature caused by switching from a 5400rpm drive and a 7200rpm drive.

Ok thanks csound1 il try that

Gav The hard drive is hgst 7k1000-1000

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