Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Nikolay - I too live in italy, Marche, who did you find to do reballing here? I googled and found several possibilities - any recommendations. You can find my email at www.unicam.it, or try  michael dot carroll at unicam dot it

thanks

mike

2 MBP 2011, one 15", showing some problems still usable, one 17", late 2011 - still ok but all of these terrible stories have caused me to completely loose trust! It's like I am just waiting for it to fail. Luckily I have other comps, but I am really disappointed with Apple over this... Not a good (any) response so far!

I started having same Graphic card issue this week

within this speant hrs going thru forums for a easy fix since i presently cannot afford to pay for fix

I am on mid 2010 mbp model

i7 2.66ghz

4gb ram

nvidia gt 330m n intel hd graphic

my fix was gfxCardStatus 2.2.1 and yet i was facing issue which lead me to force restart

today while messing around i discoverd

after every restart when i switched gfx to intergrated my screen had garbled issues(which they fixed on newer version of gfx but newer version dosent let me to force it to intergrated only n its automatic in the newer version which gives me no control over it)

so today i tryed this bfore restart :-

1 - quit gfx

2 - uninstall it(move to trash n empty trash)

3 - restart

after restart the gfx menu didnt show up in bar so :-

1 - i reinstalled it from a back up i saved in external hd(can redownload from internet)

2 - switched mode to intergrated again.

bfore this discovery i realised opening Logic Pro 9 forced gfx to switch to Discrete which after a while lead to black screen and a force restart.

but now after this when i open n work on Logic Pro 9 , the gfx stays in Intergrated Only n everything works fine as bfore.

Hope this helps.

Just got back my late 2011'', 15'' MBP from having its logic board replaced. Lasted 15 minutes until the blue screen appeared! Nice going Apple... 600 euros!!!

Another one bites the dust:

MacBook Pro

Processor Name: Intel Core i7

Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz

Memory: 8 GB

...

Graphics/Displays:

    AMD Radeon HD 6750M:

      Chipset Model: AMD Radeon HD 6750M

      Type: GPU

      Bus: PCIe

      PCIe Lane Width: x8

      VRAM (Total): 512 MB

      Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

      Device ID: 0x6741

      Revision ID: 0x0000

      ROM Revision: 113-C0170L-573

      gMux Version: 1.9.23

      EFI Driver Version: 01.00.573

Just send my MBP 2011 for this problem ... 492 euros

MacBook Pro

Processor Name: Intel Core i7

Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz

Memory: 4 GB

My Early 2011 MacBook Pro exhibited the progression from fan on --> video jitters --> self booting --> unable to login --> brick progression that has been described so many times in this thread.  Today I picked up my MacBook from the Apple Store in Geneva after they did a Swiss Franc 511.90 motherboard swap. 

In the mid-1980's I purchased first Mac 512k and then in the late 1980s and early 1990s I worked at Apple for 7 years as a Systems Engineer.  Over the years, I have owned so many Macs that I have lost count.  This one was the first lemon.  So when I took my MacBook Pro into the Apple Store I calmly but forcefully sent the message to the folks who helped me and then to their supervisors that this was a problem that was well known, well documented, and Apple's repair strategy for it was all wrong.  I did this both when I dropped the Machine off and repeated it again when I picked the machine up.  They were all understanding and sympathetic but in the end they merely replaced the motherboard and charged me full price (511.90 CHF) for a "fix" that we all know will not last.  I requested and received the business card of the supervisor with notes on the back stating that they would try to be reasonable if the MacBook died beyond the 90 days but of course the written guarantee only lasts 90 days.  I would encourage any of you that have these MacBook problems to speak calmly yet forcefully with folks in Apple to let them know how you feel about your Mac.  Don't be hostile but tell them how bad it makes you feel.  At the end of the conversation, ask to speak to their supervisor and start the whole statement over again from the beginning.  We need them to feel our pain while avoiding any hint of hostility.  If buying an Apple product is supposed to give you an emotional high then seeing it be sick or die should make you feel sad.  Calmly let them know how sad you feel.

I don't know for sure if this is the same issue, but my early 2011 MBP seems to refuse to use the discrete graphics card (AMD Radeon HD 6750M). Every time I try starting an application that requires high performance graphics the application locks up and needs to be force quit.  This includes photoshop which is an issue since I use it every day for work.

2 times in a week Apple Store attempted to fix my early 2011 and it still exhibits the same issues the Genius told me were wrong?!?!

So i have a Macbook pro 2011 and luckily I bought the Applecare. Unfortuantly my Macbook has started to display the same issues. Firstly it all started with a display crashing issue, with the screen going blury and fuzy and then the computer needed to be restarted. The problem then got worse and I then could not login to my computer as it just kept on restarting.

Lucikly I am under Applecare till December 1st 2014. I have already taken my Apple in for a repair once and the problem was not fixed as they said it was just a "software issue” *******.

So I have now again sent it away to Group8 in Kent who are currently replacing the logic board. I am also upgrading to a SSD at the same time though as wondering whether this will help things.

I will report back if the problem is fixed.

<Edited by Host>

I ran the AHT (Apple Hardware Test) and it indicated 0 (zero) problems with my hardware.  Yet, I frequently experience lags, timeouts and failures to launch applications.  Freezes are frequent.  I have reinstalled Mavericks, tried going back to Snow Leopard, moved up to Yosemite.  While it was better for a while, it is starting to slow again.  It took an average of three days to reinstall any operating system.

Same thing here.

But after severals months/weeks, the MBP don't started.

The AHT were good before, but freezes and lags increased... until death.

Hi Carl,

while it's always a bit of pain to reinstall an OS, three days seems a bit long, a few hours should be enough varying on the amount of data you have to import back, using the migration assistant with a time machine backup or a disk image for example.

hope you don't do it manually each time.

the hardware test is known for not reporting anything related to this cpu-gpu failure so no surprise here.

maybe you should stick to mavericks if yosemite gives you problems, but be sure that no mac OS will allow you to use your computer normally if the soldering is already messed up.

but still, if you 'only' experience lags, timeouts, freezes and application failures on launch and no artifacts, split screens, vertical color lines or grey screen on boot, maybe your problem simply resides somewhere else.

I do have ghosting, I should have mentioned that.  I never paid much attention to that because I figured it was part of the lag issue...

My 2004 Mac Desktop runs better than my 2011 macbook pro. My MBP is running 16 gb of ram. 

How wild is that?

carlfromnd wrote:

 

I ran the AHT (Apple Hardware Test) and it indicated 0 (zero) problems with my hardware.  Yet, I frequently experience lags, timeouts and failures to launch applications.  Freezes are frequent.  I have reinstalled Mavericks, tried going back to Snow Leopard, moved up to Yosemite.  While it was better for a while, it is starting to slow again.  It took an average of three days to reinstall any operating system.

Then something is seriously wrong, 3 hours should be enough (more than enough) to install any of them.

Did you install Snow Leopard from the disk on a blank drive/partition?

carlfromnd wrote:

 

I do have ghosting, I should have mentioned that.  I never paid much attention to that because I figured it was part of the lag issue...

 

My 2004 Mac Desktop runs better than my 2011 macbook pro. My MBP is running 16 gb of ram.

 

How wild is that?

ok well, yes, guess it is.

still, lags are not something I never experienced, haven't seen many reporting any either, usually the display simply goes wild or straight freezes.

or maybe you already selected gfxCardStatus to use integrated only?

do you have an external display plugged in?

sounds more like a software related issue than the consequence of the bad gpu soldering we are all experiencing and enduring.