I needed my 17", had replaced the GPU and reballed, and bought a new 15" rMBP.... Life is grand 
/complain
/complain
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Apple Initiates Repair Program for 2011-2013 MacBook Pros With Video Issues
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Hmmm my 15" rMBP has been showing this exact behavior over the last month or so. When I check the serial number though it doesn't seem to indicate my machine is eligible. Anyone else get this? I'm in the UK so maybe the check wont work for me until after the 27th?
I feel better about selling my 2011 MBP now
Apple replaced the faulty chip with a used one from Canada - they had them onhand in an Apple store in Virginia as it was "a common problem they new about" - so said the Genius. The replaced logic board even had a bit of corrosion on it! I sold it, feeling a little bad that the "new" one might also fail. Now I fell less bad.
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Man you so should have gotten a free replacement at the third repair. You should have tried escalating to customer relations at that point.
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Tons. They were using used boards. Not sure what they'll do now.
Except that doesn't really explain the problems with the 650M on the previous gen rMBP's. Tons of folks keep touting the updated cooling system will prevent this. I can see this announcement as really adding fuel to the argument for buying a baseline non-GPU rMBP.
Apple replaced the faulty chip with a used one from Canada - they had them onhand in an Apple store in Virginia as it was "a common problem they new about" - so said the Genius. The replaced logic board even had a bit of corrosion on it! I sold it, feeling a little bad that the "new" one might also fail. Now I fell less bad.
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My 15 inch 2011 MBP machine would randomly start getting graphical glitches and slowly over time they would become more pronounced to the extent that Apple Geniuses couldn't deny anymore that there was a problem. This continued over 3 logic board/motherboards and a replaced screen. That is all the replacements would exhibit the same behavior of slowly deteriorating. All under Apple Care over a 3 year period and with Apple Geniuses during this time telling me they had never heard of a problem with the 2011 MBPs. Its very frustrating in the middle of work for my machine to just go all blue or when it was dying to get freezes. Its even more frustrating to put in my MBP serial number and see that I'm not getting the extended warranty support.
Its disappointing to see Apple state that it "..has determined that a small percentage of MacBook Pro systems may exhibit distorted video, no video, or unexpected system restarts." They are not being very transparent by withholding numbers. In fact it seems most likely that they are deciding to limit support to a "small percentage" of the affected users to limit their costs. Unfortunately, my machine doesn't seem to fall into their small percentage, which leaves me stuck with this slowly dying lemon of a laptop. Not the first time that Apple has screwed me over with my serial number not being one of the affected pieces of hardware, but this may very well be the last since I'm seriously considering not buying another mac again.
Man you so should have gotten a free replacement at the third repair. You should have tried escalating to customer relations at that point.
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Tons. They were using used boards. Not sure what they'll do now.
Except that doesn't really explain the problems with the 650M on the previous gen rMBP's. Tons of folks keep touting the updated cooling system will prevent this. I can see this announcement as really adding fuel to the argument for buying a baseline non-GPU rMBP.
Yes. Most of my machines were among those. My current mid 2012 retina MBP already had 3 main board replacements. 2 under warranty and the last one just now in January I had to pay for and I hope and assume I'll get the money back now. Nobody pays for the time lost dealing with those issues.
It is a great machine when it works and should be for that price but Apple really needs to fix these quality issues. At the moment I am not sure I would buy a MacBook Pro again.
I think the question everyone should be asking is: What issue will the 2014 Macbook Pros have? Gotta start think forward guys #
I actually had two 15" MBPs from that era and both failed. One was from 2007 - had it fixed in 2011, the other one was from 2008 - fixed it in 2012, both via a logic board exchange program Apple launched. This was in Poland so I guess you were eligible in the Netherlands too. Maybe yours failed too early, before Apple acknowledged the issue.
I tried to do the online check but when it came to date of purchase it didn't give me an option for 2011 in the pull down. Had to do it the long way by sending them a copy of the invoice. Now need to wait 3 days to get it checked, just confirm it was bought in late 2011.
I'm a little confused on how to proceed on this one, so any advice is welcome. My 15" 2011 MBP (BTO with 1680x1050 screen, upgraded 6770M dgpu option, etc) has been reflowed 3 times by myself to keep it up and running. Its only a matter of time before it fails again, its already showing some signs of prefailure, and I am sure I can make it fail in under a week by just doing some Steam inhouse game streaming via bootcamp using the hdmi dongle (gpu loves to overheat doing that - even though its not exactly the most gpu taxing task).
My concerns are - if the replacement boards have the same issue, how much warranty does apple provide on the repair? I have a bunch of software tied to my ethernet-mac address/uuid/whatever, and if I have to go through a merry go round of replacement boards, I risk invalidating software licenses that cost more than the laptop to begin with (some of them, like Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate dont have the option to deregister computers).
If I had previously repaired the laptop myself (which I have, three times for the reflow, and once to replace the keyboard, not bad for an almost $3000 machine hey), will Apple present me with any issues when I give them the laptop for official repair? Will they deny an "official" repair?
I honestly would rather just get a nice discount off a new machine, or do a trade in type program, than go through what might be more hassle than its worth. Or am I not giving Apple enough credit on what should be handled well and nicely now that they have acknowledged dGPU the problem?
My concerns are - if the replacement boards have the same issue, how much warranty does apple provide on the repair? I have a bunch of software tied to my ethernet-mac address/uuid/whatever, and if I have to go through a merry go round of replacement boards, I risk invalidating software licenses that cost more than the laptop to begin with (some of them, like Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate dont have the option to deregister computers).
If I had previously repaired the laptop myself (which I have, three times for the reflow, and once to replace the keyboard, not bad for an almost $3000 machine hey), will Apple present me with any issues when I give them the laptop for official repair? Will they deny an "official" repair?
I honestly would rather just get a nice discount off a new machine, or do a trade in type program, than go through what might be more hassle than its worth. Or am I not giving Apple enough credit on what should be handled well and nicely now that they have acknowledged dGPU the problem?
I'm in the UK and I checked if my 2012 rMBP was eligible. It said it was within the right date range but because I'm out of warranty with no Apple Care, I couldn't have a repair. I thought everyone affected was eligible for a repair regardless of warranty or Apple Care cover?
So it took 4 years for them to acknowledge this issue.
Can't wait for summer 2016 when retina MBP users might finally have the image retention issue acknowledged.
Can't wait for summer 2016 when retina MBP users might finally have the image retention issue acknowledged.
Extremely lucky, actually
Both my father and brother have had about 11 changes between them..
OK I'm in the UK and have a 15" Early 2011. I haven't experienced any issues, and when I follow the link and enter my serial I just get the normal Support Status screen (Valid purchase date, expired phone support etc)
So, where do I go from here? I want to sell on the machine, but would prefer to get this fixed before doing so, to give a buyer peace of mind.
So, where do I go from here? I want to sell on the machine, but would prefer to get this fixed before doing so, to give a buyer peace of mind.
You won't see a warranty extension online, you need to take the computer in for service, and in general, Apple will not do preemptive repairs for extension programs.
Ah OK ... It looked from the article like you go to that page to see if you are eligible....
I'm UK based and have a mid 2010 MBP so I'm not covered by this. My MBP has all the same issues that these 2011 ones have. I have already had 2 new motherboards and 2 new graphic cards replaced. Because there was a known issue with the graphics cards for the Mid 2010's Apple fixed it for free. So far so good but I'm still now 100% convinced that its fine. The guy at the Apple Mac store told me that there is a known issue with the graphic cards yet Apple still buys from the same supplier. My iMac 2008 also has freezing issues, which many other people have also reported so I've not used that much since I got the MBP. I think I'm done with Apple to be honest and may go back to a PC for my next upgrade in a couple of years as the Mid 2010 will soon be 5 years old already anyway. With all the hassle that I've had with my two apple products I might as well spend 4 times less and still have hassle but a lot more cash! lol! I do think though that the mid 2010 MBP's have the same issues though.
Finally!
I don't credit Apple with any moral kudos for this program. This is solely because they're being sued. They should have cared about their customers and reputation in a way that would make me want to come back and buy more, not tell all my friends what a terrible company they are! Fools.
This was my first Mac computer and judging by my experience its going to be hard for me to buy from them again. When I pay a premium price, I expect both a premium product as well as premium service. I am amazed at the kool aid drunk lemmings that will follow anything Apple over a cliff.
Two thumbs down for Macintrash.
I don't credit Apple with any moral kudos for this program. This is solely because they're being sued. They should have cared about their customers and reputation in a way that would make me want to come back and buy more, not tell all my friends what a terrible company they are! Fools.
This was my first Mac computer and judging by my experience its going to be hard for me to buy from them again. When I pay a premium price, I expect both a premium product as well as premium service. I am amazed at the kool aid drunk lemmings that will follow anything Apple over a cliff.
Two thumbs down for Macintrash.
Well this was about time..
Had my early 2011 machine fail on me around new year and spent almost 3 weeks first waiting to get a diagnosis and written fault repair estimate, then for the insurance company to decide if they're just going to pay out and finally for the machine to be fixed. Fortunately my insurance company did end reimbursing me the cost of the repair, but it cost a more than salty 875 euros, which is about 1000 USD. A bit over 500 of that was just the spare part and the rest was for labor.
To add salt to the wounds the damn thing failed again less than a month later. This time I didn't have to pay for anything or wait for the insurance company to give the go-ahead as the repair went under the warranty for the spare part. However it did end up spending a day short of a week back at the repair shop.
I wouldn't have minded that much if it was just a leisure machine, but I actually use the damn thing for work. I simply don't trust it anymore after failing me like that twice in such a short time period. Even ended up building a desktop to do my more serious work now and the first thing I did was move development of a software development project to it, which thankfully was about as easy as setting up the development environment thanks to said project being built with platform independent tools.
An extra benefit of the desktop is also that as long as it doesn't fail on a Saturday evening after the stores have closed, I'll be able to have bought the spare part, installed it and gotten the machine working again by the next day, rather than having to wait for almost 3 weeks and being robbed blind in the process.
Had my early 2011 machine fail on me around new year and spent almost 3 weeks first waiting to get a diagnosis and written fault repair estimate, then for the insurance company to decide if they're just going to pay out and finally for the machine to be fixed. Fortunately my insurance company did end reimbursing me the cost of the repair, but it cost a more than salty 875 euros, which is about 1000 USD. A bit over 500 of that was just the spare part and the rest was for labor.
To add salt to the wounds the damn thing failed again less than a month later. This time I didn't have to pay for anything or wait for the insurance company to give the go-ahead as the repair went under the warranty for the spare part. However it did end up spending a day short of a week back at the repair shop.
I wouldn't have minded that much if it was just a leisure machine, but I actually use the damn thing for work. I simply don't trust it anymore after failing me like that twice in such a short time period. Even ended up building a desktop to do my more serious work now and the first thing I did was move development of a software development project to it, which thankfully was about as easy as setting up the development environment thanks to said project being built with platform independent tools.
An extra benefit of the desktop is also that as long as it doesn't fail on a Saturday evening after the stores have closed, I'll be able to have bought the spare part, installed it and gotten the machine working again by the next day, rather than having to wait for almost 3 weeks and being robbed blind in the process.
For the 2011, wasn't the GPU and CPU all on the 1 fan and heat-sync? I think overall it was just a bad design. Poor TP applications (aka, it was loaded on), poor heat dissipation design, and the graphics cards weren't particularly the best either. HP has also had similar problems with those models from memory..