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Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Apple Over 2011 MacBook Pro Graphics Issues
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Traverse
macrumors 604
Well, mine broke down during finals week. AppleCare took 1 week to fix it. When I got it back they chipped the unibody, messed up the hinge, and the USB ports didn't fit right. I took it back and they fixed it again. Then that refurbished logic board died 2/3 weeks later and they gave me a rMBP.
iFitzgerald
macrumors regular
My Mid 2010 15" MBP also has issues regarding the dedicated graphics card. If I force Integrated only with gfxCardStatus, it never gets a Kernel Panic, but if I leave the dedicated graphics on, sooner or later it gets a KP and restarts.
I also know that if I run Snow Leopard the issue doesn't exist. They had a Logic Board Replacement program, but I missed it, so now I'm stuck with this machine...
I also know that if I run Snow Leopard the issue doesn't exist. They had a Logic Board Replacement program, but I missed it, so now I'm stuck with this machine...
MacInTO
macrumors 68000
Yes, disappointing is a good word. Mine lasted about 3 1/2 years before it crapped out. The shortest of any Mac I have owned since 1989!
I have a 2012 rMBP now and I'm always a bit nervous something is going to happen. 🙁
John.B
macrumors 601
Because... That''s how it works IRL? Example ripped from today's headlines:
Comcast agrees to $50M settlement in 11-year-old class action antitrust suit | Ars Technica
Plaintiffs get a $15 credit toward a future bill. Those who are not still Comcast customers will be subject to separate Byzantine process to get a $15 check.
arvidtp
macrumors newbie
My late 2011 15" fried its graphics card while i was on tour, the night we were leaving pittsburgh and going to play a show in Indianapolis the next day. Totally unusable.
I figured out how to run the show with some compromises using firewire target disk and my partner's slower macbook, but it was a mess, and it cost me $324 to fix - AFTER i could get home a month later, put the stock parts back in and have it shipped out for flat rate repair.
I really did not expect to have a > $2000 machine fail in just under 3 years.
I figured out how to run the show with some compromises using firewire target disk and my partner's slower macbook, but it was a mess, and it cost me $324 to fix - AFTER i could get home a month later, put the stock parts back in and have it shipped out for flat rate repair.
I really did not expect to have a > $2000 machine fail in just under 3 years.
cjmillsnun
macrumors 68020
Mention the sale of goods act to them. You're entitled to a free repair.
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This time the chips are ATI chips.
That's what I'm looking for. I just bought a 2011 last week which seems to be working great. Of course these boards tend to attract those with negative experiences so you can't help but feel like every unit is affected by this issue so it's nice to see posts from those with functional machines.
sjinsjca
macrumors 68020
I'm educated enough to know what ad hominem is.
And I'm here to tell you that there's no greater scam in the American legal profession than class-action lawsuits. The benefits to the plaintiffs are typically beyond trifling.
Clearly you do not understand the purpose of class action suits. Once again, try and educate yourself on the expenses involved.
I had this issue on my Macbook Pro a few months ago and took it in, and they sent it off for repair. They later got back to me and told me that the issue was due to spill damage and that if I wanted it repaired it would cost $700. Luckily my boss decided I needed a new computer anyway and bought me a new one even before they denied the AppleCare claim.
That iMac is still the most beautiful computer I've ever seen.
I wish Apple still built one (well, the 20") with Mac mini internals and I could run ML on it! Ah, dreams.
John.B
macrumors 601
The problem is that the class action lawyers have almost no incentive to resolve cases in the interest of the plaintiffs, and judges don't hold them to that standard.
There is a simple solution: Tie class action legal fees to a percentage of actual plaintiff payouts. Not hours worked, not a percentage of the total settlement, but the actual value received by the people supposedly being represented.
As an example, if the settlement was for one hundred thousand "$10 coupons", but only two thousand "$10 coupons" were ever actually redeemed, set the legal fees at x% of $20,000 instead of x% of $1,000,000 (or xxx billable hours).
Back on topic, if the lawyers in this class action were being paid based on the value of how many Macbooks were actually repaired or replaced, there would be a hell of a lot more laptops repaired or replaced. Especially compared to some nebulous rebate based on a future purchase (which very well may have the same defect).
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If there's no real compensation to the consumer, then the expenses involved are irrelevant. You might as well have a single-plaintiff court case and assign millions in punitive damages. Same result.
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I like it.
Had 2x 2008 MBP15 and 1xMBP17 (pre-unibody) with nVidia graphics - all of them failed and had to take Apple to small claim to fix the last one. They worked fine ever since (there is no gaming activity on them however).
Have 2011 MBP15 - 1st failure this January, 2nd in March and 3rd in September, conveniently few weeks after Apple Care expired. Took it to store and now waiting for replacement they requested.
Have 2x2011 MBA, 1x2009 MBP13 and 1x2009 iMac27 running with no issues.
When you get repeated failures I'd say it's the manufacturer's responsibility to step up and do recalls. Cars have them all the time.
Have 2011 MBP15 - 1st failure this January, 2nd in March and 3rd in September, conveniently few weeks after Apple Care expired. Took it to store and now waiting for replacement they requested.
Have 2x2011 MBA, 1x2009 MBP13 and 1x2009 iMac27 running with no issues.
When you get repeated failures I'd say it's the manufacturer's responsibility to step up and do recalls. Cars have them all the time.
Hopefully some people will also trigger a class action about the awful retention on the LG retina display... I'm getting tired of having the Safari toolbar ghosted on all my Screens...
When i had my 2011 MBP, it failed twice in a one week period..
Both times, same issue, logic board replacement... but it was under Applecare.
I have seen maybie with Apple products more repeat of failures are needed than any other manufacture, so i dunno...
On thing i can probably say Apple must be decreasing the quality to bring costs down..
That's my only reason.
For example, my parents have a dell PC bought in 2004,,, and its still running to this day.... never been in for repairs or anything... by my 2011 previous MBP had logic board replacement more times in a year than i would shake a stick at.. The thought of "well, all machine need a repair", u can only say that so many time, before u start believing something is wrong here.
Thank god for Apple Care, i would of hate to find out the cost without it.
So, this clearly raises an issue alone, if nothing else.
Apple is a good company, but they really need to step up, and stop pretending this isn't an issue.
Both times, same issue, logic board replacement... but it was under Applecare.
I have seen maybie with Apple products more repeat of failures are needed than any other manufacture, so i dunno...
On thing i can probably say Apple must be decreasing the quality to bring costs down..
That's my only reason.
For example, my parents have a dell PC bought in 2004,,, and its still running to this day.... never been in for repairs or anything... by my 2011 previous MBP had logic board replacement more times in a year than i would shake a stick at.. The thought of "well, all machine need a repair", u can only say that so many time, before u start believing something is wrong here.
Thank god for Apple Care, i would of hate to find out the cost without it.
So, this clearly raises an issue alone, if nothing else.
Apple is a good company, but they really need to step up, and stop pretending this isn't an issue.
MacInTO
macrumors 68000
Anyone that has this should have caught it right away and got it replaced. It happened to me. Got it replaced and it's fine now.
T520, that's a fine machine. Spill proof keyboard, and top notch warranty and customer replacable parts.🙂 your t520 also makes an excellent hackintosh. Google t420 uefi guide on insaely Mac, the guide works for the t520 for lion, M lion, Mavericks and now Yosemite.
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Seriously? What Mac Pro model are you using? Mine has had no problem other than some software issues such as Safari unexpectedly 🙁quitting.
Lead-free solder was mandated about 25 years ago for potable water connections in copper pipe. It works as well as leaded solder. And lead-free solder should adhere as well as leaded copper to electronic parts if the parts are heated, not just the solder.
Where does the article mention which MBP model this is? Are we to assume it is the MC723xx model?
In January 2012 I bought a MBP MC723LL (MacBookPro 8,2 - 15.4"/2.2 Quad-core i7/2x2GB/750-5400) that contains GPU Intel HD 3000 & Radeon HD 6750M. This past year I upgraded the Ram to 16GB. I have had no problem, and I definitely don't want to have more problems.
I bought a 2004 Powerbook but no Applecare. Before the end of the first year, it started having problems, but Apple people said try this and try that. It seemed to help, but it prevented the failure from happening until after the warranty had expired. A local shop determined that the logic board HAD failed, along with other related modules. My Visa card sent me a check for the amount of those replacements - additional year because of their program. It is still in my basement / office. It paid for most of the cost of a 2nd PB - at Christmas. Two days after Christmas a replacement battery came since the original was defective. That 2006 PB (only 2GB RAM) lasted until 2012 when I bought the MBP. It still would work but remains put away for the time being.
What a DB comment. And this happened to ONE older woman! You must get along well with all the people around you.
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What's 1,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
krzyglue
macrumors regular
It was my first Mac too. I'm typing this on an Air that I just got back from the Apple store with, I'm away at school and the MBP is/was my main and only computer. Here's hoping some bizarre and unbelievably serious error doesn't start cropping up with the Airs...
That's the thing too, disappointing if anything isn't a strong enough word. This isn't some case of our computers becoming obsolete in three years, it's that they've become (at least in my case) completely unusable — $2000 paperweights.
You appear to be confusing these failures with a previous, unrelated problem. The recent failures are not believed to be internal to the GPU, but rather in the BGA solder connections between the chip and the motherboard. There are no bad chips involved, to the best of anyone's knowledge.
If you want to argue that lead-free solder hasn't caused problems for anyone else, good luck with that, because the statistics I've seen agree with me. All electronics have shown a significantly elevated failure rate since RoHS. It isn't just cracking; that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Tin also tends to form "whiskers" (long growths that stick out from the surface), which can also cause serious failures. For example, Swatch had a $1BN recall because of tin whiskers caused by switching to lead-free solder. And initially they suspected that the unintended acceleration events in the Toyota Camry were caused by tin whiskers resulting from the use of lead-free solder (though NASA studied it and concluded that this was probably not the actual cause of the failures). Any time you have two contacts within a centimeter of one another, you're at risk of failure because of tin whiskers. BGA contacts fall well within that limit.
And there's also tin pest, where at cold temperatures (below about 56F/13.2C), tin begins a self-catalyzing transition into a brittle, nonconductive, crystalline form. If this occurs sufficiently in a BGA joint, that joint is going to shatter the next time you heat up the chip, no matter what kind of cooling you're using, and it may fail to conduct electricity even without shattering.
Worse, tin pest accelerates the growth of whiskers.
That's not to say that inadequate cooling can't make fracturing problems worse—it certainly can—but problems caused by lead-free solder will eventually occur in almost all electronics no matter how well you cool the components.
It isn't high temperatures that cause solder joints to shatter. It is changes in temperature. A device that uses the GPU very little would be unaffected, as would a device that uses it nearly continuously. You start to have problems when a GPU goes through periods of heavy use followed by periods of light use. Keeping the chip hot reduces the rate of both tin pest and whisker formation, and reduces the stress on the solder balls, so your mining almost certainly will extend the life of your Thinkpad, not reduce it.
If you have evidence to back up that statement, please present it. This round, all evidence currently points to this being a simple BGA failure, not a failure of the in-chip solder bumps or other in-chip failures as you seem to believe.
The ironic thing being that it would be much safer to use lead at the factory, where chances are good that no human is involved in the process at all.
Half right. The failure was likely caused by the wires breaking and shorting out, causing localized overheating. The resulting discoloration was because of the PVC-free coating. 🙂
I couldn't tell you whether the plastics fail to protect the wires as well as previous plastics did, but my gut says that the reduced thickness of the newer cables and the resulting increase in flexibility is a bigger contributor than the nature of the plastics themselves. Metal tends to flex only so many times before metal fatigue takes its toll, and the thicker the wire, the less it will flex, and the longer it will typically last. That's why when I replaced my second Lightning cable, I replaced it with a much heavier-duty third-party cable, rather than with an Apple cable.
I would argue that all hardware dies faster with lead-free solder. The only question is whether that hardware will die soon enough that someone still cares about it.