2011 Macbook Pro - Raedon gate?

[Nickwell24]

Hey everybody,

I want to preface all of this by saying I already am schedule for an Apple Genius Bar appointment tomorrow, but before going I wanted to get the communities opinion.

Here are the issues I'm experiencing:

- Won't wake from Sleep
- Hard Freeze requiring a reboot
- Displayed image splitting (the left side of the screen suddenly jumps to the middle of the right side)
- Horizontal/Vertical Lines
- Will get stuck in the boot up and reboot one or two times (normally happens after the Apple Logo will disappear and vertical gray lines appear).
(As of today) - Receiving Kernal Panics stating there is a graphic error

These problems have been getting significantly worse over the last couple weeks. My initial thought is there is a problem with my discrete graphics card - Raedon AMD 6250M. There are tons of posts stating these cards are faulty and can wreck all types of havoc.

Here are the troubleshooting steps I've tried so far:
Disk Utility - Verify/Repair Disk
Apple Hardware Test - Extended version (No errors found)
Clean install of OS X 10.10
SMC/PRAM reset

So far nothing has fixed the issue. Are there any other troubleshooting steps I should take before tomorrow? Also can somebody think of what else might be causing the issues.

The only changes I've made to the computer are upgrading the Hard Drive and Ram, but those have been done since 2012 with no issues.

 

[snaky69]

Hey everybody,

I want to preface all of this by saying I already am schedule for an Apple Genius Bar appointment tomorrow, but before going I wanted to get the communities opinion.

Here are the issues I'm experiencing:

- Won't wake from Sleep
- Hard Freeze requiring a reboot
- Displayed image splitting (the left side of the screen suddenly jumps to the middle of the right side)
- Horizontal/Vertical Lines
- Will get stuck in the boot up and reboot one or two times (normally happens after the Apple Logo will disappear and vertical gray lines appear).
(As of today) - Receiving Kernal Panics stating there is a graphic error

These problems have been getting significantly worse over the last couple weeks. My initial thought is there is a problem with my discrete graphics card - Raedon AMD 6250M. There are tons of posts stating these cards are faulty and can wreck all types of havoc.

Here are the troubleshooting steps I've tried so far:
Disk Utility - Verify/Repair Disk
Apple Hardware Test - Extended version (No errors found)
Clean install of OS X 10.10
SMC/PRAM reset

So far nothing has fixed the issue. Are there any other troubleshooting steps I should take before tomorrow? Also can somebody think of what else might be causing the issues.

The only changes I've made to the computer are upgrading the Hard Drive and Ram, but those have been done since 2012 with no issues.

You've done all you could, your GPU is likely dead/dying.

 

[yjchua95]

Hey everybody,

I want to preface all of this by saying I already am schedule for an Apple Genius Bar appointment tomorrow, but before going I wanted to get the communities opinion.

Here are the issues I'm experiencing:

- Won't wake from Sleep
- Hard Freeze requiring a reboot
- Displayed image splitting (the left side of the screen suddenly jumps to the middle of the right side)
- Horizontal/Vertical Lines
- Will get stuck in the boot up and reboot one or two times (normally happens after the Apple Logo will disappear and vertical gray lines appear).
(As of today) - Receiving Kernal Panics stating there is a graphic error

These problems have been getting significantly worse over the last couple weeks. My initial thought is there is a problem with my discrete graphics card - Raedon AMD 6250M. There are tons of posts stating these cards are faulty and can wreck all types of havoc.

Here are the troubleshooting steps I've tried so far:
Disk Utility - Verify/Repair Disk
Apple Hardware Test - Extended version (No errors found)
Clean install of OS X 10.10
SMC/PRAM reset

So far nothing has fixed the issue. Are there any other troubleshooting steps I should take before tomorrow? Also can somebody think of what else might be causing the issues.

The only changes I've made to the computer are upgrading the Hard Drive and Ram, but those have been done since 2012 with no issues.

Yup, it's Radeongate.

 

[Prodo123]

- Displayed image splitting (the left side of the screen suddenly jumps to the middle of the right side)
- Horizontal/Vertical Lines
- Will get stuck in the boot up and reboot one or two times (normally happens after the Apple Logo will disappear and vertical gray lines appear).
(As of today) - Receiving Kernal Panics stating there is a graphic error

Classic symptoms of GPU failure. I'm also assuming you meant to say 6750M as the 6250M was never inside a Mac.

I'm typing on the exact same GPU, bought in June 2011. Officially it's an Early 2011 15". Every graphics problem I had with it was isolated to faulty kexts in Yosemite betas which were fixed with Public Beta 1/DP4. The issue was with a conflict in the graphics switching driver causing nonstop GPU switching and freeze-on-bootup. This was fixed with the NVRAM flag which disabled GPU switching altogether and forced the computer to use the 6750M only; you can do this in single-user mode with the command:

nvram gpu-policy=%00; reboot

Try it out, just in case the faulty kext came along with your Yosemite installer.

Also of note is that my GPU is going strong with heavy rendering projects (Final Cut, Photoshop, @Home) on a 2K monitor (Thunderbolt Display) as well as mild overclocking for gaming via MSI Afterburner on Windows. I also replaced the thermal paste with AS5 a year ago, then with Antec Formula 7 few weeks ago to help with thermal performance and get as much life from this chip as I can. Point being, my 6750M has been extremely heavily used and is still stable; you probably did not wear your GPU out, but rather just got a defective one.

By the looks of this, "Radeongate" seems to mostly affect 6970M but there are a handful of reports where multiple 6750M MBPs have failed. Repair for such a case, from one post, cost $310 +S&H. Hopefully Apple catches onto these failures and you don't have to pay anything.

I'll keep my eye out for GPU failure on my machine and update you if it ever fails.

 

[SWAN808]

if your in the UK make sure to quote the EU law and sale of goods act

https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/

technically I understand they should do it for free

 

[Nickwell24]

Well here's the result - Yes it is indeed the GPU failing. Apple gave me the following options:

$540 in house fix
$310 for repair center fix
$550 gift card for recycle program

They said their fix is to replace or repair the logic board with the same model, meaning another AMD, so I said **** that! I don't want to go through this in another 6 months or even 2 years from now. So I'm trading it in for a Mac Mini.

I tried bringing up that this is a well known and well documented issue, no dice - still expensive fix on a 3 year old computer.

Picking up a quad-core mini Sunday and maxing it out.

For anybody else experiencing the issues I did - the best way to check is look at Kernel panics:
Go to System Utilities Folder
Open Console
View kernels

Most will likely say GPU switching failure.