Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Add me to the long list of people with a 2011 MacBook Pro with graphics failure.

My 17" MacBook Pro is 3 1/2 years old so it's 6 months out of AppleCare. I get a gray screen of death every time my computer gets warm.

Took it to the Genius Bar. The guy confirmed the problem. And he completely ignored my request for an exemption for them to fix it at no cost. $500+ dollars to replace the logic board. And no guarantee the problem won't just recur.

I am NOT happy. I did not spend 3K on a top-of-the-line professional computer to have to pour money into it at 3 1/2 years in due to a design flaw which Apple will not take acknowledge, despite 600+ pages on this board and 25,000+ signatures on a petition.

Apple needs to take care of this. Long time Apple customer and investor.

For the first time ever, I am having serious second thoughts about Apple.

The heyday may be over.

NOT happy.

I'm in the same boat.  I have a $3000 brick that I hesitate to fix until I know they are using a revised logic board.

Apple needs to remember that customers who are complaining are not those who bought a $499 Mini to surf the Internet and play Facebook games.  We are the customers willing to pay 6 x more for a Pro computer specifically because we use these products to earn a living.

As such, when our systems fail, we take it seriously.

Well said Coupon Pages. I really do feel your pain.

This continuing hear-no-evil-see-no-evil posture of Apple is inexplicable, and the vacuum it creates naturally provokes all kinds of (negative) conjecture: too small an issue to bother with?; too big to address?; stone-wall in the belief the little people will all slink off defeated in the face of granite obduracy? (we won't); some other deeply sinister strategy that we toilers-in-the-dark wot not of?

Whatever the answer, to built such a substantial reservoir of hostility is a very dangerous policy in the internet age, where propaganda is brought into direct confrontation with the actualité. Even for very large corporations: the bigger they come ... the larger helping of hubris. You'd think Apple, of all people, would understand that.

(Fellow afflictee).

FIrst time ever on the forums, just got my 2011 Macbook pro back from Apple after paying a very expensive amount of money to get it replaced, and I'm sitting here typing from my iphone. Yeah, that's right I got my freshy cleaned and sparkly macbook back and I went to hit the power button and NOTHING, authorized dealer said its broken again. This is exactly what I want to be doing at college, sick of using my

libraries computers.

Hey peeps, so I found a guy here in LA who can re-solder the card. Apparently he has done quite a few and they seem to be holding up. He changes $160 complete, and turn around is 24 hours. I think I'm going to give it a shot. Beats the up to ONE WEEK turn around, and $300+ to send it out to Apple's depot, or $500+ to swap the logic board though Apple, only to have it be just another board that will likely, inevitably have the same problem. At least this way, it might be a more lasting fix.

I recommend others look into SKILLFUL private shops near you (make sure they're reputable!) that can re-ball/re-solder, and do it WELL, so there is little chance of damage.

If I decide to go through with it, I will repost and let you all know if it works AND holds up.

ALSO, I downloaded and am running "Macs Fan Control" with both fans set to a constant of 3000 RPMs, and it seems to be temporarily keeping the GPU diode extra cool, and preventing a crash. .. So far.

So I'll leave the fans up like that while I'm using the computer for short periods until I can get it fixed.

Probably not good to run them that high all the time though. .. But in a crunch..

And worn out fans are relatively cheap to replace.. so.. maybe a good temporary solution.. to keep me limping along for the moment.

Might try to lower them to ~2500 RPM for basic computing that's not processor intensive, and see if I can maintain without a crash.

hfiles, as you predicted, today is the day my MacBook is no longer to boot up.

I was able to make a full backup before this happened.

I'm not sure what to do with this brick now.

This is very upsetting.

Count me in. Mine died over the weekend. Apple Store wants almost $600 to fix it... I'm examining my options but this doesn't exactly inspire faith in the new generation when EVERYTHING is soldered to the board.

Called Apple Care today for the first time, and they've never heard of this problem.  This is not a known issue.   I pointed them to this forum and to the recent Time magazine article about the issue, nope, they've never heard of it.   Even reached the head VIP tech support supervisor dude.  Nope, never heard of any problems with the Macbook Pro 2011.  So the answer to all your questions is "we're all dreaming". 

OH THEY'VE HEARD OF IT. They're just not officially ALLOWED to have heard of it. .. Until they're officially allowed to have heard of it.

Warning to all... Yosemite does not fix nor workaround the GPU failure.

I installed Yosemite on my MacBook Pro 17" late 2011. It took 7 reboots at all-black screens and all-white screens. Eventually, Yosemite booted up successfully, likely due to sheer luck.

It was up 8 days. I never let it use the discrete chip, sleep or go on battery (17 battery cycles since the battery was created 2011-08!)

I decided to try running iPhoto and editing a photo and ended up with a black screen.

It took about 20 white-screen reboots to finally get it to startup. Removing AC power, letting it heat up... neither workaround is reliable. The problem has been getting worse, the older it gets.

Eventually it started up and I was greeted with a message about a graphics card failure and this message in system.log:

Nov  3 21:27:35 i7 kernel[0]: [1:0:0] Failed to reset hung GPU! result=151 ulResetBlockBitmap=0x00008001 ulResetResultBitmap=0x00008001

Nov  3 21:27:36 i7.local DumpGPURestart[868]: Saved gpuRestart report for kernel to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Kernel_2014-11-03-212736_i7.gpuRestart

So, does anyone know how to decode the gpuRestart log files?

It only on rare occasion reports failures like this! It never reports or logs the fact that I had to reboot 20+ times before it booted properly. (You have to use smartctl -a and look at the hard drive power-on counter to tell.)

Something else I noticed is that the discrete GPU temperature reported occasionally is less than 4 C (reported by "Hardware Monitor")! That's absurd since the computer never feels that cold to the touch and the ambient air is 68-72 F (normal room temperature).

I wish Apple would at least provide a way to force the Integrated chip on all the time before the graphics chip initializes. (No, I'm not talking about gfxCardStatus, because it doesn't load soon enough! It has to be done before or while windowServer is initializing the graphics cards.) At least then, the computer would be half usable instead of being a productivity killer.

FWIW, I never had a problem until Yosemite. The MBP was driving my Thunderbolt display, all day every day, in any and all Adobe CC 2014 apps. I installed Yosemite and now it's broken on Thunderbolt and anytime the GPU switches to the AMD Radeon 6770M in Adobe, even importing files via Bridge CC, and that will work for a while until (presumably) the chip heats up.

So, while I don't have a brick like some folks, I can't get get any work done. And, to shell out another $3k for a working machine seriously cuts into profits when this one hasn't even earned it's stripes. Wait... yes. I have stripes on the screen {detect sarcasm}.

I'm sure Apple are well aware of this problem - which is why they are keeping so quiet about it!! - The ramifications are far-reaching, and it will hurt their brand immeasurably if they own up to this design flaw which has been present in one of their flagship products.

I know that they know about it, because I've just taken receipt of a new MacBook Pro 15" Mid 2014 model (through work). On studying it further, I have noticed that they have modified the design in several ways. First, they have taken the optical drive out (which generates heat). Secondly, they have replaced the mechanical HD (which again, would have generated more heat) with a SSD. Finally, they have introduced 3 vent holes on the left and right hand side of the base of enclosure as well as the vent holes in the gap between the hinge and the screen. By taking the optical drive out and introducing the vent holes, I am anticipating that this re-works the entire thermal performance of the machine - as it allows air to circulate right through the unibody enclosure from left to right (or vice versa). Why would Jony Ive agree to have holes milled in the side of the beautiful sleek profile of the unibody design, if they didn't know these machines suffer from a terrible problem with heat? They know that heat is the killer, and it has been frying these GPUs for breakfast. It's no coincidence that they are moving to integrated GPUs for much of their MacBook Pro line up also.

Sadly, the first pieces of software I've had to install on my new machine are 'gfxCardStatus' and 'Macs Fan Control'. So far the highest internal temperature I've read on the GPU on idle (except browsing this site) is 41 ºC - and the fans have yet to come on. This machine is silent. I'll keep monitoring the internal temperatures throughout it's life as I start to stress the CPU and GPU, and just hope it doesn't suffer from the same fate as my Late 2011 model, and die an early death in another 2 and a half years.

Apple, seriously. This is becoming completely ridiculous.

You, of all the companys in the world - have so much economic capacity, making up for your own mistake would be like removing a snow flake from ant arctic.

Yet, you insist on pursuing this reckless non-caring idiotic style. Why Apple, why?

I still have my 2007 macbook, and it works flawlessly. So I'm going to just give in and say "oh well, 2,5 years is probably a fine lifetime for a mac product". No that's just utterly ugly.

My next computer will be a hackintosh, yes. No more money to you filthy greedy things.

Over and out,

Søren A.

Denmark

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I agree with Mr. Andreasen

My Early 2011 MBP has also died with the discreet graphics card issue. I've talked with several pleasantly unhelpful Apple employees. As a long time loyal Apple customer, I am saddened by this. There is obviously and clearly an identifiable problem with a known solution. I pay the premium for Apple products because I don't expect this kind of thing to happen. Apple has lost my goodwill and loyalty until they at least acknowledge the issue and apologize for the how they have treated their customers.

William L.

Canada

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