Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Its been a few months and three logic boards since I last posted here. Now, it appears, the Lightning connector on my latest logic board is flaky, rendering my external monitor setup useless.

Apple flat out STINKS with this issue.  I am working with Executive Relations and they are unwilling to budge at all. In fact, they have gotten more difficult as time goes on.

It is clear that Apple will forever resist doing what is right here. Steve Jobs would be furious. There are legions of users like me who have owned dozens of Macs who are now disgusted by the Apple attitude.

I'm headed in a different direction with my complaints. The media is my next avenue...

Same here, Macbook Pro with gray screen, same year.

Just leaving my comment here and hopefully Apple will acknowledge the problem soon.

Have spent well over $10,000 USD on Apple products and this really ****** me off. They may start to loose customers if they don't change their current attitude.

Same here.. Early 2011 MBP the computer would not boot up although i temporarily fixed it with the single user mode but its unstable it does not go to sleep mode etc etc etc. its only to make a backup of the files but im not willing to pay for a reparatiopn that is going to be costly and useless since the problem will appear again. It's really incredible that they don't do anything about this.. I will go today to the apple store but I already know what's going to be the outcome.. I post it here to sum up to the problem and I really hope they will at least do the reparation for free. I am not going to pay for another mac (and it hurts, to be honest because I love it and I hate windows) but at least i can have a computer for 500 euros wich is less than the third of what i originally payed and will last the same amount of time at least (3.5 years...)

From what I have investigated in these days there are already thousands of people with this same problem... seriously I am so disappointed and ****** off at the same time.. It is unacceptable 

You are trying to fix a hardware problem using a software and that is why its not going to work, I explained before that the dust that gets under the solder that attaches the GPU chip to the logic board and cause bad connection is the root of the problem , some people thought that it make no sense that dust can not just go under the chip but also under the solder so I would like to share few pictures to show an example of that so people can see for real that it really what happens and what ends up breaking these computers , the pictures is not a MacBook , it is from a logic board of an Alienware computer that uses the same concept of having both CPU and GPU attached to the logic board , its as expensive computer as MacBook and probably even more expensive yet it is affected by the same problem

This picture is for the area under the graphics chip , you can clearly see a brown residue on almost every soldering pad and that all accumulated under the solder over time by dust and humidity and ended up causing bad connection between the GPU chip and the logic board which lead to a malfunctioning computer.

This picture is for the same area after removing the old solder and cleaning all the soldering pads like new again ready to reattach the reballing chip, by comparing the two pictures you will clearly and easily see the difference and see why this logic board did not function correctly before this repair.

This picture is just to show that this logic board has the core i7 CPU attached to the board, the same concept used by Apple in MacBook Pro but as I said it is an Alienware computer. After reattaching the reballed chip this computer is back to life and is now working as good as new. This is the only procedure that will fix the graphics problem in MacBook pro and no software can replace it So want your computer fixed right find a Reballer to fix it for you and good luck.

Same problem here. macbook Pro 15" early 2011

First striped split screen, then white screen (normal boot) or blue screen (recovery boot).

And AppleCare just expired!

Planned obsolescence?

The graphics cards are built into the computers motherboard. If this is a problem with the GPU itself, the motherboard will need replacing, Unfortunately this isn't cheap to have done. Also, It may just be a software thing. Contact apple and have them take a look at it.

Good luck.

"I explained before that the dust that gets under the solder that attaches the GPU chip to the logic board and cause bad connection is the root of the problem"

That dust is not the cause of the problem.  The board is cleaned before the chip is attached.  The chip is held in place by the solder paste, until the solder is reflowed using IR lamps.  If there is dust between the solder ball and the ball pad, there was a detachment caused by some mechanism, and that mechanism is not dust.  As I posted before, a visual inspection of the detachment will provide some insight to the problem.  That is, if the detachment was caused by melting they'd be evidence of solder paste flow.  If the solder was cracked, it may be evidence that there is mechanical stress - and there's a myriad of problems that can cause that.  Regardless, since this occurred to a Dell product, it would be interesting to read its technical discussions.  They are online, needing only a user name and password to join, and are essentially unmoderated.

+1

Early 2011, Yosemite Installed.  Graphics anomolies

"Thanks for participating in Apple Support Communities. We removed your post Re: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card because it contained a poll or a petition. We understand wanting to share experiences, but these forums are meant for technical questions that can be answered by the community."

No, it did not contain a poll or petition.

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Certainly looked like a poll to me.

Of course the forum is for technical problems.

Infact the problem is already clear. Not the solution for thousand of customers.

And I'm speaking as a loyal and valuable customer: I think I have bough one hundred of macs since march 1995 for me, my family and our companies).

Of course this censorship speaks for itself and stands as a smoking gun!

Come on! Start a recall the defective products think about thousand of bricks on our desktops!

Luca Basilico wrote:

 

Of course the forum is for technical problems.

Infact the problem is already clear. Not the solution for thousand of customers.

And I'm speaking as a loyal and valuable customer: I think I have bough one hundred of macs since march 1995 for me, my family and our companies).

 

Of course this censorship speaks for itself and stands as a smoking gun!

 

Come on! Start a recall the defective products think about thousand of bricks on our desktops!

Do you understand that you are not addressing Apple, we (like you) are Apple customers. The censorship comes from posters breaking the terms they have agreed to. Keep to the Terms of Use and the posts will remain in place, violate them and they may be removed.

Tuurlijk wrote:

 

No, it did not contain a poll or petition.

 

I'm wading thru TOU, for my information.

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For me aswell the graphics card of my late 2011 MBP 17" has stopped working properly. The system would crash and remain unbootable until the usual graphics extensions were removed from the Library. It's hardly usable this way and certainly not worth the price it came for.

How a company can become big enough to ignore thousands of customers is beyond me.

Hey people! same issue here: broken graphics, computer freeze, unable to boot...

After researching everything from news, forums I came to this blog post with a proposed solution; tried and worked according, I'm writing this from my zombie (awaken) macbook pro early 2011.

In short, it goes like these: you have to force your macbook pro to shut down external GPU (which is the faulty piece causing this ****), once you do this you have to make your macbook pro stays this way. For all these there's a few steps detailed here.

Only bummer is you'll have your macbook pro going with just the Intel HD 3000 GPU, which vs having a dead macbook pro isn't a bad deal, right?

Give it a try, it worked 100% for me, cheers!

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