Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I bought a 17" MBP in July 2011, it has always been a bit flakey when starting up from cold, but a few months ago the screen went stripey blue and it would not complete a boot.

I took it into the Apple store and they replaced the topcase (which includes the logic board). Thankfully they did not charge for that in the end (although they were going to at one point)

Only 2-3 months later, the problem is back again.

When it worked it was a great laptop, but its very expensive. I'm very disappointed, and it has really affected how I see Apple equipment. There really seems to be an endemic fault with these machines. I can only hope that Apple put this right.

As a developer I've bought a lot of kit. I have an iPad 1,2,3,Air, An iPad mini, iPhone 4S,5,5S,6, a Mac mini, a Touch, and Gen 2 and Gen 3 Apple TVs (and my wife has an MBA), but I don't think I can really justify replacing the MBP with something high-end that can't be repaired, and costs so much.

I do pro audio, been using macs since system 7.

My 2011 macbook pro with 8gb ram and hi rez screen had full on gpu failure, blue screen in 2013. Wouldn't boot past blue screen unless option s. Took it in and paid $1000 for a new motherboard. It did the same thing again about two weeks ago. Because all laptops will fail I buy two identical ones and keep one as a backup and show rental computer. So when this one died I switched out the drives and ran off my backup 2011 macbook pro. I called apple and tried to get up the chain to see if there was any support for this issue, when there wasn't I went out and bought a new macbook pro and put the dead one on the shelf until a class action suit happens. In the meantime I used my backup 2011 'puter to run a show. Last night it crashed, froze with the blue screen while running a show, stopping the show. First sign of gpu failure on this one. It did reboot and finish the show eventually, but this makes it look like its not going to last long.

That's 2 gpu failures on one 2011 and now signs that my other one is about to die the same death.

Apple, you need to recall or offer compensation for faulty manufacturing.

No, PS3Specialist did not resolve my issue. I did not receive any sort of a refund. In my opinion, the company's customer service and "warranty" is absolutely terrible. I had to file a PayPal dispute and lost because PayPal doesn't deal with services. Now, I'm just using the integrated chip because the discrete has already glitched since I received it back from a GPU replacement under warranty. I'll probably just end up selling the macbook soon.

Again, I strongly recommend avoiding PS3Specialist services and seeking repairs through Apple or elsewhere .

My earlier 2011 is now out of warranty and the display problem started. The screen would have horizontal lines and sometimes split in the middle. This happens in Maverick and in Yosemite. So, I don't think its OS related. This is terrible. This can happen even when the computer is cold. My questions are:

1. If I switch to SSD, will the computer be cooler and the problem would be solved?

2. Is there a cheaper solution than spend >$300?

So my early 2011 15" MB Pro has worked more or less flawlessly for nearly 3 years. I did have to get the Logic Board replaced after 10 months as one of the USB ports wasn't getting any power, but that was quickly replaced under warranty without any issues. That aside it has been perfect. For the last 2 years I have been using it in a vertical dock connected to a Apple Thunderbolt screen. Hence it has been driving just a single screen. About a month ago, I decided to buy a second Apple Thunderbolt screen, and within a week the MacBook abruptly stopped working, just as I was watching Netflix on one of the screens.

When trying to start the machine, I just got the (Apple) blue screen of death. I carried out a whole bunch of tests on the machine. I was able to restart it and get the machine to offer all the boot options. When selecting OSX Recovery from the drive recovery partition, it would go through various processes, and then just end up on a solid grey screen. That is as far as the recovery partition would get.

If I inserted an OSX recovery USB drive, it would again go through various processes, and then still end up on a grey screen. The interesting difference here is that the grey screen from the USB drive would have more of an interlaced look to it, not quite as solid.

I took it to the Genius bar, and the tech guy ran various in-house tests. Everything looked good. Of note, the hard drive came back as working just fine, which is correct as I was able to get to the hard drive boot options previously. I explained the full problem to the tech, and in the end he seemed to understand the issue and without suggesting what he thought the problem was, offered to do a logic board replace for a fixed fee of $337, which felt like a good deal at the time considering it was out of warranty and the boards are normally $700 plus to replace.

A few days later the MB was fixed and returned to me. I noticed that on the repair sheet there was no mention of any graphics chip issue, instead they put that there was SATA (hard drive) error, even though it had cleared the initial tests at the Genius Bar.

I am fairly certain that adding the second 27" screen sent the graphics card into overload, which in turn created a huge amount of heat, and hence it died within a week. Much like everyone else in this discussion, I believe the Macbook Pro laptops, which are not cheap, should be better than that, and I also believe Apple should validate that belief.

How stupid is that, there is always a probability that a repair fails for one reason or another and you was asked to send it back and you refused , blame yourself not PS3specialist. Apple's repair fails too so what? should people stop using computers because they break or should they stop fixing them and buy new ones all the time because yours failed and you don't want to send it back for a free repair. should I send someone to pick it up from you?!!

just an FYI that I was in the same boat last week with my work MacBook Pro 15" 2011. Right down to the blue screen. Logic board replaced under contract my employer has. Determined to be GPU failure.

I have complet same sympton with every one have encountered. ,scratch screen came first, then stuned in gray screen when reboot, blue screen with vertical black line shows  more frequently then ever. even ,i try to re-install a new system. and i actually did it 5 or 6 times.

I´d upgrade system to yosemite, which might have problem with gfxCardStatus, while i select to integrate only, system will suddent black out and reboot automaticaly in one minute, sometime gfxCS it works sometime it doesn't.

looking for apple´s recall. I don't think user has responsibility for this issue, especially this annoying problem become worldwide with more then 16000 people stucking in this.

My MBP 15 inch, Late 2011, Intel Core i7, 2.4 GHz, AMD Radeon HD 6770M repeatedly started showing various pixelated screens and became unresponsive on October 16, 2014. Over the following two days the frequency of the crashes increased, making me look for the cause. The images of the screens shown here and elsewhere match very well what I experience so I think I found my answer here in this thread but also at Macworld, Macrumors, reddit and plenty of other places.

Back in the 80ies I learned programming on an Apple IIe, during the 90ies I worked with several Power Macintoshs and Powerbooks, and since graduate school I am using a MacBook Pro for my daily work. My lab uses several Macs and at home we have an assortment of Macbooks, iPads and iPhones.

Why did I buy Apple products? The single most important reason has always been: they worked!

This experience together with the reports I have been finding are changing my view on Apple and I am very disappointed. Why should I replace my MBP with a potentially  faulty piece of equipment? Why has Apple taken care of the 27-inch iMacs with related problems but not the MBPs?

There is a pretty good fix out there but it doesn't involve sending it to Apple, they cannot do the best repair work.  Find a local re-balling specialist to put a fresh AMD GPU made after 2011 onto your logic board with leaded solder.  If your logic board has never had a reball on the GPU or CPU it's surface using the lower temperatures of lead has a much greater chance of success long term than one that has already been re-balled and has a scorched surface.  That hazardous substance solder bends instead of snapping and is proven to be superior with fast heat cycles.  When my logic board which I know is it's original does fail I will be taking this route like I advise every single client of mine also.  I fancy the chances of my own logic board lasting a lot longer than the lottery of the depot refurbished boards which actually cost more than you, the user re-working your own.  There are plenty of reball companies out there who ignore the risks to their own health by using lead because it fails far less than lead free, plain and simple.  Even before this 2011 fault came to light for GPU and CPU repairs I have always used lead.  In fact one re-ball company who did use lead I used for years, I insisted upon it and when they started breaking down pretty quickly afterwards it came to light they has switched to lead free and expected me not to find out!  They lost my business unsurprisingly.

Just ask them to use some very good paste, shine the die plates to mirrors and the chances are it might even last as long as we actually expect a Macbook Pro to - years.

Glad to see this thread is still going. Not cool that a premium laptop (2011 MBP) needs a $300- $700 repair for Defective Hardware!! Apple should do the right thing and refund everyone who had this issue. Defective hardware and/or craftsmanship should not cost the customers. Not that anyone is listening from Apple but this has given me pause over the last two years when purchasing other Apple hardware...Just saying thousands of dollars spent on defective hardware is not fun.

Me (yeah I'm an Apple fan!)

2011 MBP, 2012 iMac, iPad2, iPad3, iPad Mini, iPhone4, iPhone4s (2), iPhone5 (2), iPhone5s, iPhone6+, Apple TV, Time Capsule

Weird... for the last couple of days i've had no lines on screen or flickering and restart is working every time, however trying to use GFXcardstatus or use of software is just freezing it completely. It's actually a lot more annoying right now because usually after a period of annoying restarts I would be able to use GFXcardstatus to at least be able to access Logic And Photoshop etc. and slowly get some work done.

      i had email to apple customer service few days ago, so they call me and ask what happen to your MBP

i explain on the phone to them its all blue and i mention GPU problem , at the end they said i should bring MBP to closest apple service for repair and they will fix for you even i dont have apple care and i dont need to pay for anything!!

     so in my opinion we should try to contact them first and explain how bad is it to them. thanks to them im quite happy for their action about my MBP now , so try to contact them first and good luck guys!!

fishinpocket wrote:

 

      i had email to apple customer service few days ago, so they call me and ask what happen to your MBP

i explain on the phone to them its all blue and i mention GPU problem , at the end they said i should bring MBP to closest apple service for repair and they will fix for you even i dont have apple care and i dont need to pay for anything!!

     so in my opinion we should try to contact them first and explain how bad is it to them. thanks to them im quite happy for their action about my MBP now , so try to contact them first and good luck guys!!

that's great but this kind of answer from Apple is random.

what country are you from?

getting in touch with Apple Care is first thing to do, requesting an exception for the call so it's free of charge, explaining the problem, documenting the issue and quoting the +17000 people affected and finally getting a case number is what everybody should do.

keep in mind, though, you probably will experience the same problem soon and need to get another logic board swap, but at least you didn't have to pay for anything in the first place.

Your best reply to the C-Something is to ignore him. Try to focus on the topic at hand.

P.S great point btw =)

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