If it can fail, it WILL fail eventually. Mine was thought FINE too ONCE. Don't wait for it. Good luck to your buyer.
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Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Apple Over 2011 MacBook Pro Graphics Issues
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If it can fail, it WILL fail eventually. Mine was thought FINE too ONCE. Don't wait for it. Good luck to your buyer.
Get it repasted and re profiled the day AppleCare runs out. Unlike others I am not so sure that a fully functional GPU will fail reworked thermally with shiny die and less paste as my evidence suggests they won't fail anywhere near as much when redone. The maddening thing is the rework using my guidelines costs a fraction of reballing a failed logic board, vram chips etc with lead free solder which definitely won't last especially with the guidelines the way they are right now which are to put it mildly stupid!
I'm in South London which is Europe if you need what I call a repaste and not Apple!
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If it can fail, it WILL fail eventually. Mine was thought FINE too ONCE. Don't wait for it. Good luck to your buyer.
I've been hearing that along time and it is fine. I don't want to keep it beyond warranty if it WILL fail. Buyer will get a good deal anyhow - the upgraded RAM and SSD alone in this thing cost about 700.
Not interested in repaste. If it fails they should replace it.
Then sell it while it has AppleCare left, and remove it off your support profile so they can have what's left of the warranty remaining. Though prices are going to dive sharply after yesterday. Upgraded and optimised thermally they are superb Macs cos I have 1tb SSD/16gb ram probably like yours and I expect mine to last repasted on its original GPU and logic board.
It really sucks that they're bringing up that bunk on lead free solder. It will allow Apple to kill their case. To hear credible sources, and lawfirms parroting this junk really steams me.
Put the focus where it belongs -it's a bad cooling system, bad design with no intake vents, and above BAD CHIP!!!
As long as people are focusing on solder ball cracks(not the problem), instead of on the bad chip & bad cooling design(real problem) Apple can weasel out, by saying that is not the issue.
There are no major laptop manufacturers that use leaded solder.
NONE.
My Thinkpad T520's NVIDIA Quadro can MINE LITECOIN using CUDA for months. It's fine. I bought it in 2011, it is still alive, editing trolling youtube videos using GPU accelerated video decoding, even after months of litecoin mining 24/7.
Hundreds of thousands of laptops out there work and don't die like these, all using lead free solder. The CPU on this same laptop uses lead free solder, and it still works.
Do I choose lead free solder for my own rework? No. Is it IMPROPERLY soldered because it's lead free? F no.... clearly not since many other laptops get along just fine with lead free solder.
It's a dead inside a crappily cooled design. Therefore, it dies. Leaded or not! And if you're reballing these things, in 2014, you are ripping people off because you are not fixing their problem.
Put the focus where it belongs -it's a bad cooling system, bad design with no intake vents, and above BAD CHIP!!!
As long as people are focusing on solder ball cracks(not the problem), instead of on the bad chip & bad cooling design(real problem) Apple can weasel out, by saying that is not the issue.
There are no major laptop manufacturers that use leaded solder.
NONE.
My Thinkpad T520's NVIDIA Quadro can MINE LITECOIN using CUDA for months. It's fine. I bought it in 2011, it is still alive, editing trolling youtube videos using GPU accelerated video decoding, even after months of litecoin mining 24/7.
Hundreds of thousands of laptops out there work and don't die like these, all using lead free solder. The CPU on this same laptop uses lead free solder, and it still works.
Do I choose lead free solder for my own rework? No. Is it IMPROPERLY soldered because it's lead free? F no.... clearly not since many other laptops get along just fine with lead free solder.
It's a dead inside a crappily cooled design. Therefore, it dies. Leaded or not! And if you're reballing these things, in 2014, you are ripping people off because you are not fixing their problem.
I'd sell it sooner then later, I'm in a similar situation though no record of the dGPU failing on the 2012 models but I'm rather spooked over this problem.
It is sad, because they are really good machines.
From a performance point of view, many of the users (like me) don't see a real improvement in upgrading, so I would really like a "real" fix to the problem.
From a performance point of view, many of the users (like me) don't see a real improvement in upgrading, so I would really like a "real" fix to the problem.
the 820-3330 boards from 2012 are beasts, and you have nothing to worry about.
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Heating the dead zombie chip doesn't fix it, it just brings it back to life for a month or two. Baking the board is a terrible idea.
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It is not the lead free solder.
Everyone complains about lead free solder while ignoring every other product that works fine with it.
When you use good chips, and cool them properly, lead free solder is fine. When you use AMD's junk chips, and put them inside an enclosure with no intake vents, tiny heatsinks, crap thermal paste and junk cooling design, you get 20,000+ dead laptops.
You are correct in a lot of that - it's the unoptimised cooling system I place the blame at and leaded solder is put firmly in the repair mode and not the cause of it.
If any GPU or CPU fails on any laptop never mind just a Mac I use leaded solder for reballs as it stays fixed unlike lead free. The reball temperatures on the surface of a logic board is 185C instead of over 220C and I've seen plenty of scorched surfaces on the depot boards. If you havent seen them with your own eyes there are plenty in the huge Apple thread, one I have read from beginning to end and participated in for about a year now. These 2011's have had enough fast heat cycles as it is already so preservation of the surface is key for a successful long term fix. Hence why getting a board which fails it GPU for the first time getting a leaded reball has much better failure rates than lead free.
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Next time, don't put the tarragon cream sauce on until after you bake it.
Don't blame the manufacturer. Blame Europe. Electronics manufacturers use lead-free solder because the European Union's laws require it. The law in question, the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive, effectively prevents electronics manufacturers from shipping anything to Europe if it contains lead-based solder, unless that solder is solely inside of sealed, high-temperature components.
Unfortunately, GPUs are too big (physically) and get too hot to work well with lead-free solder. The extreme temperature changes cause thermal expansion, which fractures the more brittle lead-free solder joints. Worse, the RoHS ban on lead-based solder been an absolute disaster for equipment reliability worldwide, because no manufacturer wants to have to run a separate manufacturing line just for Europe if they can avoid it.
What Europe really needs to do is overturn that aspect of RoHS and replace it with mandatory requirements for recycling in a manner that prevents lead contamination of groundwater, etc. Consumer electronics all around the world would be much more reliable if they did. And the environmental damage from all the extra electronics junk that RoHS causes every year far exceeds any (mostly theoretical) benefit provided by the ban on lead-based solder, so as environmental laws go, this one was a total disaster.
In the meantime, companies everywhere should be encouraged to stop soldering their GPUs to the motherboard. Even before RoHS, GPUs were a dubious component in laptops. Now, they are just a nightmare. It would be much more sensible for manufacturers to place the GPU on a separate daughtercard alongside the main board, so that when (not if) the next round of GPUs starts to fail because of the RoHS plague, they can just swap the GPU board with one based on a newer component.
Using a daughtercard for the GPU probably wouldn't add more than a buck to the BOM cost, and given the staggering number of GPU failures over the past few years and the high cost of those failures (particularly in terms of their impact on customer trust), I would think that such a change would easily pay for itself.
This is really all a pile of misinformation that takes the blame off of Apple(where it belongs) and places it on an element(lead free solder) that works fine for EVERY SINGLE OTHER MANUFACTURER OF LAPTOPS.
Thinkpad T520: mine litecoin on it.
Alienware's gaming line: mine litecoin on it.
Apple's pro line - you can't even watch youtube on it.
They ALL use lead free solder.
Lead free solder is fine. Crappy design ISN'T.
Keep the blame where it belongs.
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Is this the same solder that holds the ram chips in place for the macbook retina's ?
It is the same solder. This is the same solder used on every electronic device you have used for the past eight years, so you have nothing to worry about, since the solder is NOT the problem.
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and for the love of god, never pay for someone to reball your DEAD gpu.
These chips are DEAD.
When they stop working, they are DEAD.
You must heat the chip to reball it. It is the heating of the chip that revives it, not the replacement of the balls.
Don't believe me? You shouldn't! I'm just some yelling idiot on the internet. You need proof, and here's how you can see this for yourself in your own home.
If you want a demo of my theory proving itself true, try this out yourself with a hairdryer and a thermocouple device you get off eBay.Heat your chip to 120c for five minutes. It'll work again. 120c is 97c less than the 217c to melt lead free solder balls, so why does it work again when you heat it to 120c?
Because the problem is inside the chip. NOT WITH THE BALLS. The MYTH of it being the balls is a myth perpretrated by the collective wishful thinking of the internet that these issues can be fixed without spending money.
Once the chip is dead to the point where you can temporarily revive it by heating it to 120c, it is dead. You can bring it back a few times with heat, but the damage on the inside of the chip is done, and it's never going to function properly long term again.
These chips are down to twenty nine bucks now anyway, so if someone is charging you $150, $250, $350, $450 to do this, and trying to save $29 by reusing your old dead chip.. that's just f'n sad. Either blowtorch it yourself for free(ghetto, temporary DIY fix for free), or pay someone to replace it(job done right, costs money)... but don't pay someone else to blowtorch it, because this is paying money for the ghetto fix! When you pay for a reflow, or a reball, you are getting the worst of both worlds.
I use a 2011 15 inch in the office and haven't had any problems, but I think it's about time Apple did something about this considering how many have had them.
They don't "repair", they fit a refurbished logic board that's likely originally failed with the same fault. The refurbishment obviously isn't completed to a satisfactory quality.
I got two and half years before my MBP suddenly failed and wouldn't boot. Got a free "repair" under UK consumer law, after the third replacement board failed they replaced with an rMBP.
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I've heard of you guys being south of the river. If no doubt you've done more than a few hex core upgrades to 5,1's like I have and you will know that when it comes to thermal paste, surfaces and Apple they are no way perfect in any way more like the opposite. In fact only the late 2008 3,1 with the upgrade Harpertown Xeon's are the only thermal bond I've ever thought was good in an Apple Intel ever. That includes the Mac Pro 6,1 in the list for not being as good as it should be!
This issue has totally ruined my love of apple. I was crushed last year when the apple "genius" offered to "fix" my 2 year old laptop for $850. So basically apple poorly designs a product, with style and thinness over riding reliability and function. Does an epic fail and leaves the user with no reasonable repair path. Shame on you - apple! Btw the apple genius said he had never heard of this issue. Lies!
Definitely agree on Apple's not so good (perhaps terrible) thermal paste application. Especially on MacBooks. Like I said, I've luckily had no problems on this system, but so many others have, it's frankly ridiculous considering the Apple price point.
Indeed. Got me a free repair on my 2011 which was 17 months out of warranty, and ended up as replacement rMBP as the refurbished logic boards were of terrible quality.
Exactly. I was planning to get the 13-inch Retina for Christmas - I decided that I don't need that much computing power of the 15-inch, besides it's too pricy. But then I compared the benchmarks of my 2011 15-inch with the new 13-inch and mine is still twice as powerful. I rarely use that power, but it was nice to have and handy sometimes, so I figured I'll wait a year 'til 13-inch Macs become more powerful and make more sense for me.
I've heard about the dGPU issue, but figured I'm safe since I had no issues, I take care of this laptop, don't put much "pressure on it" (I rarely make the fans spin), I had the internals cleaned and repasted at an authorised Apple service... but reading this thread made me realise that there's just no f**ing way to know if they machine will die or won't. That's why I'll ask my friend with student's discount for a favour and I'll get the 13-inch, bringing in the 15-inch to the store for a trade off. That's another bonus that I won't be selling a possible dud to anyone.
That's a great picture.
There's thousands of these pics in the post your setup thread in the Picture Gallery section. https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/68/
I agree - when you drop an unauthorised Xeon 3.3 8 core like OWC do in a 6,1 replacing a stock 4 core and get 5C less idle temps you know they are far from perfect even today
Im typing this on a early 2011, i upgraded this machine with 512gb ssd, 8gb of ram and replaced the optical drive with a harddrive bay. Im perfectly satisfied with it but if there is a large chance it will fail im prepare to sell it and get something else. Is there any estimate on how many of these fail how big of a chance is it?
I have a couple of 15-inch, Late 2011, 15" MBPs (2.5 GHz Intel Core i7 with Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB) and while I haven't seen any issues as of yet, I'm curious if these laptops are time bombs?!
I have the late 2011 MBP 17" and mine failed early on so was replaced sometime in 2012. I am hanging on to this 17"er for dear life.
Wish they'd bring them back but no it's not going to happen!
Wish they'd bring them back but no it's not going to happen!