Q: Early 2011 Macbook Pro 15' - Logic Board Failure

I have the same problem….! with the same Macbook...

all,

my unit is now 4 years old, after two years(within the apple care warranty I purchased) my mbr failed and it "cost" $550 to fix. Today, 2 years later same exact issue, no apple care at a cost of $340 with tax. Really!  I bought a high end machine to have the same issue happen to me twice!  Funny thing was the apple genius said to me, it must be a fluke that it happened to you twice!

AS I type this on my iPad, my MBP reboots itself because of a panic attack!

this is BS.

I got the same problem too, 1 week ago, I update my OS Yosemite to 10.10.02 after rebooted and login, the Progress is about 40% and it will turn to white screen and after a while will restart again, I am very disappointed, i bought this expensive MacBook Pro 15" 2011 SGD$ 2400 which i believe is very good product and quality in terms of hardware. I call apple support they want to pay my Labor fee only instead of compensate all the charges by their authorize service provider. I don't know why this model 2011 a lot of issue which the apple company never address to their customer which they will lost their customer trust if they will ignore this issues. We will call the attention of the officer of Apple company to give us an answer and help us.

Thanks,

Emil

In an earlier post in this list I indicated that the problem is the GPU AMD Radeon on the circuit board getting to hot. First renewing the thermal paste fixed this problem for me - but not for long! After a few days the problem came up again - the thermal paste was simply vaporised! (It was a standard one, not a special one for CPUs, GPUs - I thought that there is one for all). This second crash seemed to damage the GPU definetely.

Yosemite is using much more graphic power than earlier versions even during booting (that is the hang at 40%). But now, what can we do?

1. Send out a warning to your friends, who have such a Mac Book, via Facebook, Twitter etc. not to update to Yosemite.

2. If you recognize, that your Mac Book hangs up during booting and the fans start to blow, turn it off and don't turn it on again - anything else might cause further damage! Bring it to a service station for a hardware check and point to that cooling problem. Professionals will know what you are talking about.

Somehow I can understand why Apple pushes this problem away: 20-30% in a production line are produced as spare parts. The problem here seems to affect nearly 50% or more of this product. Reproduction of the circuitboard is now a days nearly impossible (getting the components etc.)

It would be nice, if Apple takes a firm stand to this problem and offers a special sales discount to affected users!

My MacBook Pro 15inch (early 2011) died earlier this week. I learned to know what this is all about just this morning. I feel totally ripped off by Apple! I have a mouth full of vocabulary I'm not even allowed to post here. Thanks for your understanding and support Mr. Cook!

My 2011 model GPU died about four month ago. I got charged a premium price for product and I hoped to get a working, reliable instrument for the money. I invested $2500 in this laptop and now Apple service centre tells me to spend another $750 on a new motherboard. It’s just ridiculous!

I Think we are all wasting our time trying to place honest complaints within "Mac forums". Apple is too busy flaunting their record profits to notice that their is a fire in the basement! We all need to post complaints to outside advocates like consumer affairs or maybe even your local states attorneys general, or even BBB. Remember, it takes as many complaints as possible to bring attention to this. If you look at the header of Mac forums, just in posting "logic board issues" you will see over 100,000 views to that link. What does that tell you?

Pretty sad isn't it?  First my MBP and all the logic board issues, now my replacement Mac mini is having issues as well.  Let's see, I've got my 4th logic board in but now my battery is draining so fast it's scary (Yosemite issue).  Now my Mac mini, according to the Apple guy I talked to is experiencing times when the "ram gets stuck" and it won't wake when in sleep mode.  My traveling macbook air is the only thing that so far has not shown a problem.  Fire in the basement.....good one.  I have not upgraded my iPhone because I'm not confident in the quality of Apple products anymore yet I will not go back to a PC.

Auch bei meinem Macbook Pro (Early 2011) war letzte Woche (Januar 2015) die Grafikkarte defekt. Es zeigten sich die schon vielfach im Internet beschriebenen Display-Symptome, und schließlich ließ sich das Notebook gar nicht mehr starten (grauer Bildschirm). Die dreijährige Garantie war im September 2014 ausgelaufen. Ein Anruf bei der Apple-Hotline ergab, dass man mir von einer Reparatur abraten würde, da nur dasselbe Logicboard (mit demselben Fehler) wieder eingebaute werden könne. Eine Reparatur sei deswegen nicht sinnvoll. Ich könne jedoch mein Macbook Pro bei Apple abgeben, dort würde man die Geräte sammeln! Man glaubt also bei Apple ernsthaft, dass ich ein Arbeits-Gerät, das ich vor nicht einmal dreieinhalb Jahren für 4500 EUR (inkl. mattes Display, Flash-Speicher etc.) gekauft habe, einfach in den Wind schiesse? Ich habe nun ein neues Logicboard einbauen lassen, in der Hoffnung, dass ich die Kosten dafür (600 EUR) zurück erstattet bekomme, wenn der Prozess gegen Apple in dieser Sache abgeschlossen ist. Sobald es ein überarbeitetes Logicboard gibt, müsste dieses dann allerdings nochmals ausgetauscht werden... Als Berufsmusiker war ich bisher immer ein Fan von Apple-Computern, aber die Reaktion von Apple auf dieses tausendfach auftretende Problem mit den AMD Macbook Pro Grafikkarten ist sehr vertrauensschädigend.

Exact same issue here with me. Early 2011 with a 2.3 CPU and AMD GPU. Graphics issues for a few months and then died 5 months out of AppleCare's expiration.

I wrote a letter to Apple telling them of my experience and disappointment given their hardware is generally of better quality than everyone else, and included evidence showing how big of a problem this is. Considering the lifespan and the price I paid (over 3 grand), I could have bought a brand new UltraBook every single year and threw the old one away. Apple's response was a generic cut & paste letter that denies anything is wrong with the design and that they do not make exceptions for products out of warranty, even if the part is in fact defective or flawed. I can't say I was all that surprised, but I can say that I think many PC makers are providing better hardware support than Apple is at this point given most of them will address design flaws and part problems even when out of warranty...on laptops that cost 1/5th the price.

That's not the same Apple of 15 years ago that took the utmost pride in their reputation, and if they saw a recurring issue that clearly indicated a problem with a part, they would jump through hoops to make sure their customers were taken care of. It differentiated them from everyone else, and it was total justification of the premium pricing of Apple products. This will make me think twice about future hardware purchases given there are some very nice Windows laptops I can get for less than half the price, many which have the options of an extended warranty that go past the date that AppleCare does.

I recommend to others with this issue:

• Document your experiences with detailed descriptions, images, videos, service records, and communication.
• Write Apple a letter that is professional, direct, and provides full documentation, and send it via Certified Mail.
• Let others know of your experience and the commonality of this problem.
• Keep an eye on the two current class-action lawsuits against Apple regarding this problem, as it may result in a policy change and/or some type of compensation for affected machines.

They have finally offered a solution as of 4 days ago: http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

Wow about time!  Very glad about this.  I now have my 4th logic board installed.  So I have to wonder if it's a different board entirely or just putting in the same old crap.  Guess I'll line up to visit the Apple Store.  I have been very fortunate in that I've never had to pay for the replacements.  2 done in warranty and one done after the 90 days and they didn't charge me.  YEA!!!!

4 days? this happened today.

OP should have purchased AC though. It's not fair to not buy warranty and then complain to have to fix something. Just turns out this issue was bigger than that, lucky for him.

Once all our laptops are repaired make sure you don't have the other Yosemite issue......battery drain.  My battery now drains in 4.5 hours running just the screen saver.  No fixes in sight...and of course not all are affected. 

http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

Apple has decided to repair all MacBook Pro's with this issue and will reimburse for previous repairs made!