Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Add me to the list of people with the problem.  early 2011 MBP 15"

What a lengthy thread.

Hello And Thanks to Everyones troubleshooting suggestions and Best to all those Suffering this Manufacturing Faux Pas. My early 15" macbook problem went Grey Blue Screen 2 days ago on Saturday afternoon which I posted in this thread that day. Took it to an Apple Sore in Los Angeles today who diagnosed it as an Instant GPU Failure and offered either a $510 or $310 assembly / replacement option, both of which I Passed On.

Now I go home and read about this wrapping in a blanket quick fix and was about to try it when I stumbled on to this solution that has temporarily fixed the Dead GPU for Me.

Please TRY, I turned it upside down and opened the lower case as pictured below, about a 10 to 15 degree angle and pressed the power button. To My pleasant surprise a few moments later it Booted Perfectly to My desktop!!!!! Here is a picture of it laying upside down.

Please let Me know if this works for You because it might strengthen the obvious fact that the GPU card is Not seated properly in its Socket of some of these malfunctioning machines and gravity might aid in a proper diagnosis. Looking Forward, Stu

I'm choked to see how many early and late 2011 MBP are having this problem.

I have the same issue. My MBP is early-2011. I bought in NYC and I'm using it here in Brazil.

So far the shiftkey+control+option boot thing has worked. I'm worried when it will happen a permanent problem...

Please add me to any list or petition for this case.

You can find a Change petition if you google for it. Due to thread regulations it is quite possible links may be removed automatically.

So after replacing my SSD with the original drive that came in my MBP, I fired it up, and it works.

for a little while anyway. I put Netflix back on, and it started going crazy, white screen, blue screen, distorted screen

split screen, flickering etc.

So in my case, as stated in plenty of other cases, I am definitely dealing with a graphics issue.

genius bar appointment is set for 1:00 PM.

At this point I am reluctant to let them replace the logic board in fear that the problem will come right back.

Keeping my fingers crossed for a miracle.

Here is a pic of it freaking out.

Not sure how many of you have left feedback on the MacBook Pro, but it may not be a bad idea.

I Just left one begging for a solution to this problem

I've left feedback on the MacBook Pro, I've also signed the petition and sent Tim Cook an e-mail. It looks like the frequency of the issue is getting higher and higher recently and it's not that marginal of a problem the way some authors in this thread have tried to suggest earlier. Unfortunately the blanket solution has only lasted less than 12 hours for me. After the problem resurfaced I rebooted upside down and now it's running fine again but it cannot continue like this forever... booting in strange positions, keeping fingers crossed and so forth... if the chipset needs proper resoldering, why not have that done by Apple and continue using our otherwise perfectly functioning notebooks rather than going to great lengths with logic board replacements and what not...

As of this weekend my early 2011 15" Macbook pro is also a £2000 text editor, anything more intensive than that kills it. I feel sick.

Try gfxCardStatus and switching to "Integrated Only". For me it has made my MBP usable, if slow. The app is a little glitchy so you sometimes have to select it a couple of times. It doesn't hold after a reboot, and Mavericks especially can force it to use the AMD graphics, so it's not a permanent solution.

On a positive note, I emailed Apple and they called me yesterday and offered me a replacement logic board for my out of warranty MBP. From what people have been saying this is not a permanent fix either, but at least it's something. I'm a long term Apple user, and an Apple developer, which no doubt helped my case, but everyone I've spoken to at Apple has been very polite and helpful.

Thanks for your advice, I will give gfx a try, my problem is that my work is almost all really graphics intensive (Photoshop, Cinema 4D etc) so it might not be a solution that works for me professionally, though it might help my son complete his homework in MS Word which would be very useful short term.

I was wondering, did you just go through the Contact Apple Support section of the website? Ive just had a look round and can't find an email option, just online chat which Im not a big fan of.

"can't find an email option,"

Except for feedback, there is no email option to contact apple.  You need to make a call.

I emailed Tim Cook but yeah, give them a call.

Thanks to you both. Having read some of the stuff on here Im wondering whether to go for the reball option, its a lot cheaper than a new motherboard and possibly more reliable.

My heart says go through apple as this is clearly unacceptable, my head says get a repair as its probably quicker and I can get some work done.

As mentioned I have used the 'disable GPU drivers' option to temporarily fix it. This morning I re activated the drivers and took it to a apple store like authorized reseller. Weird thing is that the person that helped me claimed that it sounded like a GPU issue pretty quick. I didnt even took my mac out of the bag while I was there. But then said that this is an unknown problem. I instructed her to type in gpu macbook pro 2011 in google and it would pop up all over google. She did and saw the issue. Then gave me the phone number to call apple. After I spoke to a total idiot who did not sound anything like I would expect an apple servicedesk would respond I got annoyed. I harshly declined the offer to pay for a fix.

So I was out of luck... Then I thought 'lets try to overheat my mac'. I was skeptical but it worked. My process was as following:

- hold upside down with open lid

- press power button and close lid after screen turns on

- put in sleeve

- wait...

- profit... because it worked...

BUT... till when...