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Apple Initiates Graphic Card Replacement Program for Mid-2011 27-inch iMac

I had one of those 27" 2011 models too, serial number matches, though my issues were different.

Threw it to Apple's feet after over 10 Genius Bar appointments and like 7 "repairs" when finally the graphics chip burned through, luckily shortly before the implied 2yr warranty was over.
 
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So they can only replace the graphic chip? It's not soldered to the motherboard?

If so... Please, anybody who brought in his mac without having the problem, but with one of these serial numbers.. let me know how that went.

I have the DHJQ serial, but have not seen problems. BUT if they replace the complete motherboard.. I want to do everything to get that done...
 
Well my imac is in for repair now for a video card failure, didnt have a problem till Wednesday morning, when had to do a force shutdown and on restart all I got where 5 green lines coming down the screen and then just a white screen.
I did manage to boot in twice in the evening on Wednesday, but only for a short time before it went to a white flashing screen.
Thursdays appointment at the apple store, revealed it was the video card so hope to pick it up on Wednesday or Thursday and may even have a new screen as was some shading on the side .

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World Citizen said:
So they can only replace the graphic chip? It's not soldered to the motherboard?

If so... Please, anybody who brought in his mac without having the problem, but with one of these serial numbers.. let me know how that went.

I have the DHJQ serial, but have not seen problems. BUT if they replace the complete motherboard.. I want to do everything to get that done...
Click to expand...

Am assuming just replacing graphics card not priced for a motherboard change
157c3caf355e512fcade7f7fb811eb1a.jpg
[/IMG]
 
World Citizen said:
So they can only replace the graphic chip? It's not soldered to the motherboard?

If so... Please, anybody who brought in his mac without having the problem, but with one of these serial numbers.. let me know how that went.

I have the DHJQ serial, but have not seen problems. BUT if they replace the complete motherboard.. I want to do everything to get that done...
Click to expand...

As of 2011 the ATI GPUs were still on daughterboards that can be detached from motherboard and replaced. (This is not easy, first because you have to get into the iMac by popping off the screen and all that; second because there is a huge great heat sink on top of the GPU which you have to detach before you can get at the daughterboard. But it is doable.)

With the 2012 models (which use nVidia, not ATI) the GPU looks like it is soldered onto the motherboard. On the plus side, it also has not huge heatsink, which I read as suggesting that nVidia finally designed the thing with power and thermals in mind.

You can see pictures of both of these at iFixit teardowns:
2011
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2428+Teardown/5485/2

2012:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2544+Teardown/11936/3
 
Sorry if i missed it in the comments but does anyone know what they are replacing it with? Do they still even make the same card that the iMac came with? I haven't had any issues yet and luckily the apple store isn't too far away but man, it isn't exactly easy to carry this monster in. But, i guess i really should.
 
It's ironic that on Wednesday (literally 72 hours ago) I started having video problems ... lines on the screen at boot, screen would completely grey out, etc. Pretty much rendered the entire machine unusable. Took it in to the genius bar Thursday morning and they replaced the video pieces. It wasn't related to this specific hardware support issue, though I do fit it exactly, including serial# and symptoms. Never had the problem at all prior to this.

I've been a long time in the 'puter industry, and I don't think it's a big secret that heat kills hardware faster, so the cooler you keep it, the longer it'll last -- of course this is a generalized statement, but I don't think anyone would agree.

But after my machine started having issues I switched into analysis mode and came up with a few things...

The previous hour prior to my machine blowing up, I saw the GPU reach 90c/200f. Was playing Minecraft over the network with my kiddos.

I do have a secondary monitor.

I did have enough time prior to taking it in to the bar to see that simply removing the secondary monitor lowered the average temp of the GPU die by at least 15 degrees Celsius.

While I was at the bar, I confronted the tech and asked him what the expected temp of the GPU should be. His words : "I've seen it run from 200 to 250 degrees and be fine."

I'm not arguing with any of these issues, but it concerns me greatly that these things would run so hot, and "live fast die young". As I'm a generally paranoid and protective individual I do have iStats and when I do any real "heavy lifting" I have always cranked up the fans in advance, so that might be why I didn't experience anything until now, but wow.

Additionally, I really wonder what the stress / threshold levels are on this GPU. Anyone know? To me, a 200f degree GPU not good.
 
mbc2237 said:
Sorry if i missed it in the comments but does anyone know what they are replacing it with? Do they still even make the same card that the iMac came with? I haven't had any issues yet and luckily the apple store isn't too far away but man, it isn't exactly easy to carry this monster in. But, i guess i really should.
Click to expand...

They are replacing it with the same card you had in there.
 
I haven't had issues yet, but I contacted Apple through chat just in case. They set me up with an authorized repair center. The experience was pretty painless. I expect to be without my iMac for at least a week. I will be working on my 13" Macbook until the repair is done. I will miss the extra screen and processing power.

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Ripmax2000 said:
They are replacing it with the same card you had in there.
Click to expand...

The same card but without the defect?

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wrldwzrd89 said:
Well what do you know, my 2011 27" iMac is in the suspect batch. Took it in to the Genius Bar.
Click to expand...

How soon did you get your iMac back?
 
What the heck? My iMac is sitting on a repair bench waiting for a part after I brought it in Tuesday after the left screen side started going dark. I bought it as a 2011 refurb last year but it's under Apple Care until 2015.

Now this?

Don't have my Mac handy to know the serial number. But would the authorized repair be able to do both at once? He didn't even know about the dark screen issue which I've read is quite common.
 
Big Dave said:
I haven't had issues yet, but I contacted Apple through chat just in case. They set me up with an authorized repair center. The experience was pretty painless. I expect to be without my iMac for at least a week. I will be working on my 13" Macbook until the repair is done. I will miss the extra screen and processing power.

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The same card but without the defect?

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How soon did you get your iMac back?
Click to expand...

I'll probably get another warning for trolling for saying this a second time.

They will replace it with a reconditioned version of the one you have. It won't be new one.
 
graphics card issue

my 2011 imac just started getting the green lines of video card death a month ago, thankfully got it working again long enough to get a 3TB backup on there and move everything over. crapped out for the last time yesterday.

went on apple and bought a new 3,400 imac - which pretty much sucks as i only got 2 years out of the last one. and cause the upgraded one will probably drop in the next few months.

then i see the replacement notification.

call apple and yes my machine is one of the lucky ones with the crap card. however i live overseas - will take me 5hrs (round trip) to get to the nearest apple AD and cost me $75. they won't do ANYTHING for free here (no matter what apple says) so i'm sure i'll pay for it on top of that and get to wait weeks for the parts etc.

plus there's no way i'm sending off my iMac with hard drive intact. all my writing, financial data and photos are on there. you have to take the screen off to get to the machine and apple is telling me that some AD won't work on the machine if i remove the HD... excuse me? can't wipe the drive as it no longer boots. meh..

so i'm keeping my order in for the new iMac. will probably try to sell this one locally if it gets repaired or keep it as a backup. i own 8 mac devices and am pretty disappointed with this - but guess **** happens sometimes.
 
I've had similar problems with my 13-inch, Mid 2012 MacBook Air with Intel HD Graphics as well.
 
A bit sad it's not user serviceable

This (and last year's problem with 1TB Seagate drives in 27" iMacs) really make me question that it's not easier to reach components such as hard drive, memory and graphics card in Apple's (current) desktop computers. I mean think of all the hassle, logistics and work it is behind fixing these issues. If it was easy to reach these components a lot of user could do it themselves.

I can understand why super slim laptops won't let you replace any internals, but for desktops I think it should be easier. Why is it so hard to replace the hard drive in a Mac mini for example? C'mon Apple – be reasonable. :)
 
Also an issue for mid-2010 i7 27" iMacs

I bought a top of the line iMac in late December 2010 (with grant funds).
It is still under AppleCare.
I have been trouble shooting screen going black for months now.
I also had terrible WiFi Dropping issues that Apple can never seem to replicate.
They had my iMac for over a week and claim that the screen blacking out is due to unsupported amount of RAM. (I upgraded it to 32 GB of RAM as soon as I got it and the RAM passed all memory tests).

Now they are telling me I have to buy Apple Certified Memory (I don't know where my original is) to see if the issue goes away. I can't use 16GB of memory I already have because it wasn't purchased directly from Apple. What BS.

Now, I am actually looking to buy a bunch of computer equipment in the next few months. I was going to buy a few iMacs and a Mac pro... but now I am really second guessing that. AppleCare has really gone down the tubes over the years.

I do like the OS, but the lack of upgradability of the iMac and the fact that they would actually make me buy RAM at Apple's jacked up prices just so I can replicate the issue for them... makes me want Hackintosh. In the past, one of the benefits of buying over priced hardware was AppleCare's great support and willingness to fix issues. This is NOT the case anymore.
 
liquorice said:
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[/COLOR]

Am assuming just replacing graphics card not priced for a motherboard change
url]
Click to expand...



name99 said:
As of 2011 the ATI GPUs were still on daughterboards that can be detached from motherboard and replaced. (This is not easy, first because you have to get into the iMac by popping off the screen and all that; second because there is a huge great heat sink on top of the GPU which you have to detach before you can get at the daughterboard. But it is doable.)

With the 2012 models (which use nVidia, not ATI) the GPU looks like it is soldered onto the motherboard. On the plus side, it also has not huge heatsink, which I read as suggesting that nVidia finally designed the thing with power and thermals in mind.

You can see pictures of both of these at iFixit teardowns:
2011
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2428+Teardown/5485/2

2012:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2544+Teardown/11936/3
Click to expand...

So I will get a new video card... If so, it's not worth it in my case... Everything works fine for me. No video problems at all...


(my macbook 2011 has problems with dimming btw.. I would rather have a swap in my macbook.. :eek: )
 
Bonte said:
"If your iMac has an AMD Radeon HD 6970M video card and is exhibiting any of the issues described above, choose one of the following options to arrange to have your iMac evaluated: "

Does this mean that they only replace it if the iMac experiences the flaw?

I just had mine serviced, Apple replaced the hard drive but didn't see a problem in the GPU.
Click to expand...

My guess would be yes.
 
Screen turns black

Apple needs to consider replacing the part in the mid 2011 iMac 21.5 too.
I have a long thread in Apple Communities about my screen all of a sudden going black with no solution found to correct the issue as of yet. It appears this is happening in quite a few machines so I think they need to look into this issue further.
 
wish it was 2007

my white 07' iMac went through the same problem and continued to have it until apple care expired. :(
 
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