Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

"should all of us call to Apple in the same day at the same time!?"

Sure, tomorrow at noon.

eezacque wrote:

 

fishinpocket wrote:

 

should all of us call to Apple in the same day at the same time!?

Makes no sense: Apple knows about the issue, and Apple doesn't care.

If you don't like Apple, stop buying Apple...

I'm sure a lot of people have stopped buying Apple products, I am one of them. But that's not what this thread is about.

To me, this is beyond any brand or product. If you buy a car for instance and it breaks down after 3 years due to a manufacturing/design issue and I come up to you and say "hey if you don't like it, don't buy it." How would you react? I don't care if it's a Dell or an Apple, a Bugatti or a Fiat, a Trek or a Giant. I expect it to work well beyond 3-4 years. And for a company to totally ignore the issue just ****** me off. it's not like it was a cheap purchase either. so to me, sir, your statement makes no sense.

got the same problem mine died last week

as nice as these macbooks are if they die after 2 and a half years it´s not worth buying another one(was my 2nd macbook since 2009) .... as hard as it sounds

would be nice to get at least a statement from apple...

Another one bites the dust ...

I can join the list with my beloved 2011 MBP which died last week during a presentation.

Bought a new MacBook Pro immediately. Seems to be a successful business strategy of Apple but what else could I have done?

I agree the silence is so frustrating. I actually expect an Apple Macintosh with 'Pro' in its name to last pretty much the lifetime of the supported OS it can run.  Like the hundreds of others out there I know who do barring the usual accidents or disasters.  Apple know for sure there is an issue, I've been told that by those who work for Apple in the back of stores in more than one UK location and and a number of service partners too, all 'off the record' there has been a very significant spike in failures with the AMD GPU in the 15/17 2011 models.

I can only reconcile their lack of action to that it's the lawyers and bean counters overruling the engineers at this moment.  Which is very disappointing as to when it comes to design and engineering I always put Apple right at the top of the lists, losing loyal customers by having them foot the bill when some simple changes in the engineering guidelines would exacerbate these failures hugely.

same thing happened to my 17" mbp too...

If someone could help me out with this it'd be greatly appreciated.  I just purchased an early 2011 used off of craigslist as a gift for my brother in law

Now after only a few days of him having it the same issue everyone experiences here is happening.

I have a question in regards to gfxcardstatus.  If I install it and set it to always use integrated graphics, does the problem go away completely? Or will he still have issues with restarting the machine and things like that?  I know this isnt an ideal fix, but he needs it for school and can't afford to go without it for a week and we can't exactly afford to dump more money into replacing the board (especially if it doesn't truly fix the issue)

Since Monday, I'm also a member of the club. My Early 2011 17" shows colorful lines on the OS selection, but does not boot any more.

Let's see what the Genius may say. Have an appointment on Monday.

nope, time capsule hard drive died. it's nothing beyond a pretty router now...

Next time replace the drive or use another, this could have been simple.

How much do you want this data?

4 simple methods that will work depending on what you have available

1. Attach external monitor
2. Boot in target mode, if other Mac available
3. If possible boot in recovery mode and use Disk Utility to create an image and save that to an external drive
4. Remove the internal drive from the Mac and access it externally

My MBP started to have this problem almost two years to the day that I bought it. I downloaded gfxcardstatus and put it on integrated, dumped flash, and I have not shut it off since July. I just put it to sleep when I am finished using it. I can't use my external monitor, which I hate, and never remove the computer from my desk, where I have it sitting on two narrow strips of wood to keep it above the desk, and well ventilated, and it has worked pretty good so far. I don't use iPhoto or any graphic intense programs. It stays cool and I barely hear the fans when they are on. I don't know what will happen if I want to turn it off or install something new.

I have an early 2011 MBP, 2.3 GHz i7..4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3, Mac OS X 10.7.5. I have not downloaded many things, so it's pretty basic Mac. I added dropbox, and gfx, that's about it. I use the computer for accounting, surfing, home projects, and used to use iPhoto, but now just save images and store them in a folder. So far so good. Hope this helps.

One thing I forgot to mention. Safari can really get bogged down and gets slow at times. I quit it and reopen occasionally which helps. I was using the computer a couple days ago, and all of a sudden it went gray screen and was that way for a minute or so, causing me to get a slight bit apprehensive, and then it opened the log in screen. Just like it had restarted, but there was not sound, no chime, nothing. I logged in again and it started up as usual. It did not improve the speed any, so I am not sure what happened.

That is the Saddest Apple Mac User Story I have ever heard!

***You really need to restart every couple of days to avoid slow downs, beachballs etc.***

Thanks for the heads up - I'm going to keep at it for the next few days to make sure it's all ok before handing it back to my brother-in-law.  He mainly will just use it for internet and schoolwork so I think it'll be pretty basic

As far as safari speed, I set it up with firefox...safari is right up there with internet explorer in my opinion

Hopefully apple will do the right thing and fix this issue - I just wish I had known of this before purchasing.  My 2008 MB is a champ as is my wife's 2010 17" so this is really surprising

nonsense! i restart once a month or once every 2 months but thats only because there is an update where restart is needed! my mac has never slowed down!

but my situation about reboots has changed because of my 'gpugate' issue