Mac-Mini 2011 - AMD Radeon GPU Failure

Same here in Italy (Mac Mini 2.5 with AMD HD 6630M, 8Gb ram, 500gb HD). I'm discussing with apple since last December, without obtaining anything. I have this case number 1033425101.

Apple is completely neglecting us....

I think that the discussions forum is the wrong address for your request. The discussions are for forum members to forum members – you will not get official reply. https://discussions.apple.com/community/tutorials.

You should contact Apple officially, either in an Apple Store (or an official partner store: they will at least point you to a way to contact Apple) or using the online services provided by Apple. Did you try https://support.apple.com/ “Contact Apple Support” yet?

Well, as harsh as it may be – there is a time of warranty. Outside of warranty you're on your own. If too many products are at fault Apple will most likely react and extend warranty for that very fault. But this is not because Apple is so nice to customers, it is rather a tough business decision, an investment to make the brand strong. People remember this and tend to buy and recommend Apple because of it.

In your case on the other side, the number of faults seems to be too small. Apple again has to make a tough business decision: save money and don't extend warranty or extend it to make a few people happy and invest in the brand. It seems to be not viable for Apple, so they don't extend warranty.

I am sorry for that. But you should consider that AFAIK Apple acts with this issue like any other manufacturer of computer hardware. In my personal experience I had the same issue with HP laptops from the cheap Pavilion series. I don't recommend that to people anymore either because I had two models break within 3 years, both just a week or month after the laptops were out of warranty.

On the other hand I still use an older IBM ThinkPad. It doesn't seem to break. And I still use older Apple Power Macs, which also seem to run forever.

Luckily my Mac mini 2011 (Macmini5,2) and the Readeon 6630 graphics card in it still works. I would hate to see it break since I run not only the current OS X on it but also Windows 7, Linux and – which was the main reason to buy it – Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) with Rosetta for my PowerPC applications. This is unofficial but it works great.

If you think that there are a lot of users with graphics issues on the Macmini5,2 then you could or should try to make it more public, which may include to get it out on some of the news portals, like AppleInsider and so on.

You could like other sources here so that we can chime in to help your case, but I'm afraid that is all that can be done.

Don't get me wrong, I support your case, as well as I have a personal interest to have warranty should my own Mac mini break. But my experience with such issues just doesn't make me more optimisitc about it.

I think this is the main issue here:

lion_nel wrote:

But I am angry because Apple will not answer to any message (email or traditional postal mail).
Apple is totally deaf. They really do not wish to make arrangements with their clients. It's damaging.

Sadly, this is also my experience. Since Apple has become soooo big, they tend to not care for particular individual customers so much. Only programs like Apple Care are working for customers, because this seems to be covered very well by the company, but individual contact outside of the ordinary seems to be completely ignored.

I don't know if that does any good for Apple. But the majority of customers seem to have no problem with it. (Again: sadly!)

News from Apple? In the meantime I bought a Lenovo and installed the latest Ubuntu version, an optimal solution.

At the same time I discourage friends and relatives to buy Apple products, I'm sorry but the quality (both hardware and support) is not longer the same.

My mid 2011 Mac Mini with AMD 6630 GPU just succumbed to the same failure. Haven't gotten to an Apple Store to find out repair costs but they are bound to be significant. Has anyone gotten a quote? My last MacBook Pro also died of GPU failure just outside of warranty. I know they can't warranty these things forever but it does leave a bad taste. I need a replacement now, but I'm concerned a new model may come out in a few months. This was my favorite Mac of the many I've owned and has ended up lasting the least amount of time. My 2006 PPC Mini still runs fine but is of course is just too slow. Thanks for letting me vent.

Expensive since the Apple repair is replacing the logic board.

You can try baking the logic board. See those posts included here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7059717