Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Apple Over 2011 MacBook Pro Graphics Issues
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Good thing I sold off my 2011 after it was repaired. It broke down one within the 1 year warranty, another time within the 1 year free American Express warranty, and then AGAIN within 90 days of the 2nd repair. I ended up selling my MBP for $1100 and picked up a NEW 2013 13.3" MBA for $650 and haven't looked back. I might spring for a 13.3" MBP with a retina screen sometime soon, but I built up a heavy duty workhorse desktop.
I hope this gave Apple an fair lesson on whats means sell PREMIUN hardware when actually it comes into (censored).
Those Purchasing PREMIUN hardware Expect an lifespan of about 5 year at least, this piece of(censored) lasted the half.
As one of the Owners on an afffected MBP e2011, I hope from Apple:
An New Logic Board (since I sent my damaged board to some chinese repair service and ended ransome or seized whatever, its lost).
If no new logic board is plausible an 1700$ cupon/GiftCard to purchase anther new MacBook Pro, its Fair since dont account the expenses related, only the unit cost.
PREMIUN ? MY ASS ...
Those Purchasing PREMIUN hardware Expect an lifespan of about 5 year at least, this piece of
As one of the Owners on an afffected MBP e2011, I hope from Apple:
An New Logic Board (since I sent my damaged board to some chinese repair service and ended ransome or seized whatever, its lost).
If no new logic board is plausible an 1700$ cupon/GiftCard to purchase anther new MacBook Pro, its Fair since dont account the expenses related, only the unit cost.
PREMIUN ? MY ASS ...
Did you even read my post? I give you the most basic method to prove it's not the lead free solder balls. Heat the chip to 120c for five minutes- this is almost 100c below what you need to melt lead free solder. It brings the chip back for a short period.
For a more long term experiment - open a repair shop. Invest 10k+ into BGA rework equipment. When the failure occurs, reball the chips with leaded solder. For other customers, replace the chip with a new one. Keep track of who got a reball, and who got a new chip in the ticketing system. Then, compare the rate of people who come back, and keep track of who got a reball, and who got a new chip. If the answer isn't obvious inside of six months, you don't have a client base.
Our repair shop has had about 30 tickets per day, many being board repair, over the past three years. New York City is one of the top Mac places in the world in terms of population density of people with Macbooks over other brands, and people using them for artistic(read: CPU & GPU intensive) tasks. Give video editors reballed GPUs and watch what happens, it's not pretty.
My test makes it obvious it is not the lead free balls at issue. Any amount of research on flip chip design & failure makes that obvious as well, but if all of this is to be ignored, then try simple real world experience. It's fairly obvious to anyone who does this for a living what the answers are, and when you see all the reball shops with 30 day warranties closing after all the bad reviews and chargebacks and angry customers sink them, it really does become obvious.
I don't know who doesn't "believe" that these failures are internal to the GPU. Again, just mess & uneducated rumor spread on forums. But for anyone who doesn't "believe" this, I have about 60 pounds of GPUs for you to reball. Make me an offer and I'll sell you them!
Read this as well to learn more on flip chip desgn. http://www.chipscalereview.com/tech_monthly/csrtm-1213-front.php
I wouldn't say it's the cause, maybe a weakness. The lead free stuff doesn't hold up as well as the leaded stuff where heat is involved, such as in the MBP, and similarly the PS3.
Doing the things some people have done with the heatsinks and paste to help reduce temperature is a big help, but doesn't mean that by doing those mods the machine will never fail, it still may, but will take longer than if left as it was from manufacture.
Lead free solder is just one of those things to make it look like something is being done that's good for the environment. It's not that good at it's job, that's why many places, like the military, don't use it.
Word is spreading quickly. Found this article on Yahoo!'s front page:
"21,000 Apple Inc. MacBook Pro Users Asking For Replacement"
http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/10/21000-apple-macbook-replacement/
"21,000 Apple Inc. MacBook Pro Users Asking For Replacement"
http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/10/21000-apple-macbook-replacement/
It definitely is among the best visually.
----------
That's a great picture.
Cool.
Mine's the latest to go, or rather it's on its way out. Something that invoked graphics switching brought up a blue screen. In cases where it isn't completely gone, you can try what I did. I booted to single user mode and disabled all AMD library extensions. It allowed me to retrieve data from the last couple days via one final backup. it's still partly usable in that state, but it won't sleep, runs on discrete graphics all the time, has no brightness adjustment, etc.
I thought it was a software problem until it froze in both bootcamp and my backup OSX (a clean install on a firewire drive). I'm going to see if they offer any credit on replacement. I don't really wish I sold it. It would have just stuck someone else with the same problem. I do however wish that I didn't elect to pay for a new battery when the old one started to bulge, 6 months out of applecare's expiration.
Anyway you're right that it is ludicrous. I doubt I would ever purchase a notebook from Apple with discrete graphics after the recent problems.
Try to educate yourself on the utter uselessness of typical settlements for plaintiffs.
Except millions in punitives would be unconstitutional. Gotta love macrumors and the armchair lawyers, business experts, marketing experts etc etc.
Sons MacBook died after 3 1/2 years, go the motherboard replaced for free.
----------
No idea, how much padding do you think they have to account for class action suits ? Then there is the fact that we dont have to buy extended warranties.
And sometimes, when you account for exchange rates, shipping, taxes, etc it is actually cheaper to buy some Apple products in NZ, and sometimes it is not.
However if you can get someone is the USA to buy an extended warranty in the USA and send the registration code to you in NZ, you can typically halve the cost. I would have thought a cheaper extended warranty would have been more profitable here in NZ, because more people would opt to buy something they were already covered for (for free), thus reducing Apples exposure.
We've got that for two years here. But honestly two years isn't the expected life span of a laptop in my opinion. If mine dies now, I'm ****ed.
Mine died for the 3rd time on Thursday. I have had two logic boards a new battery and a new screen.
Yesterday without provocation they apologised profusely and offered me a top of the line 2.5 i7 15in retina and a 3yr Apple Care Free of charge. I am typing on it as we speak.
There is no ability to host a Class Action Law Suit in the UK. So I am very happy with my £2,300 result!
Thank you Apple. For the free repairs and the new Macbook.
Yesterday without provocation they apologised profusely and offered me a top of the line 2.5 i7 15in retina and a 3yr Apple Care Free of charge. I am typing on it as we speak.
There is no ability to host a Class Action Law Suit in the UK. So I am very happy with my £2,300 result!
Thank you Apple. For the free repairs and the new Macbook.
There is something that I still have a hard time understanding. My Last Generation Late 2011 17-inch MacBook Pro does have the graphic issue and I got the third party store repaired it at just ¥2,400. Now it's running fine. In fact, I just brought another Late 2011 refurbished 17-inch MacBook Pro.
Can't people just send it to the third party repair shop or buy a new Mac?
Can't people just send it to the third party repair shop or buy a new Mac?
FYI for everyone, heres the link to that video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF0PBUnoNOc&list=UUrL_Ki3xuBV4iamSL1demHw
Same here. I owned both without any issue (still using the late 2011 every day).
I'm a little worried about it, reading this thread, but with an ssd it just flies.
In NZ (Depending on brand) you can get up to 5-6 years on computers. If you buy a no name chinese bit of rubbish the "expectation" will be much lower than say for an Apple product. Whitener can be up to 10 years, same with TVs etc.
I've said stuff regarding this on some other places, how this can be repaired fairly cheaply and reliably but people really like to argue with me for some reason
Together with my friend we have repaired already over hundred of these machines since December of last year. Not by replacing the Logic Board. Not by reballing or just reflowing. All of these solutions are actually band-aid solutions. What actually works is to solder new Graphics chip in there. If you know where to look, you can get them for about 30-35$ and get someone to put it there for you.
So yeah. My friend is doing these repairs for roughly $130 (Converted from CZK because we live in Czech Republic) and the computers work flawlessly.
However, the repair could be compared to doing an open heart surgery and only someone really experienced should be doing it.
I have a Late 2011 17" now which I bought almost 2 months ago, and I expect it to fail one day. Sure, it pisses me off. I just want to let people know that they can repair their computers for cheaper in the meantime. I think it's pretty unlikely that Apple will address this issue =/
Together with my friend we have repaired already over hundred of these machines since December of last year. Not by replacing the Logic Board. Not by reballing or just reflowing. All of these solutions are actually band-aid solutions. What actually works is to solder new Graphics chip in there. If you know where to look, you can get them for about 30-35$ and get someone to put it there for you.
So yeah. My friend is doing these repairs for roughly $130 (Converted from CZK because we live in Czech Republic) and the computers work flawlessly.
However, the repair could be compared to doing an open heart surgery and only someone really experienced should be doing it.
I have a Late 2011 17" now which I bought almost 2 months ago, and I expect it to fail one day. Sure, it pisses me off. I just want to let people know that they can repair their computers for cheaper in the meantime. I think it's pretty unlikely that Apple will address this issue =/
Last edited:
THIS GUY KNOWS WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT!!!!
HE IS NOT RIPPING OFF HIS CUSTOMERS BY REBALLING THEIR OLD DEAD JUNK AND GIVING IT BACK TO THEM!!!
LISTEN TO HIM!!!!!
Seriously. These chips are between $27 to $50, STOP ripping people off with this reball ********, if you run a business that offers "repair", REPAIR!! Don't give people back dead chips to line your pockets with an additonal $27. In NYC that's like... one meal at a diner anyway.
Marhowl knows what's up.
Thanks for the Backup there. I didn't find much advice online in English that would advocate this solution, but my neighbours in Germany already know what's up and use the same method to fix their 2011 MBP's
And yep, what causes the issue is the faulty Graphics chip, and a simple reball, while also quite time-consuming repair, it just doesn't last as long as chip replacement.
We even do these repairs for our friends for about $100 and "buy me two beers". And everyone is happy in the end =D
Anyway, I could probably go on but I'm going to say one last thing. It's much better to do this repair by heating up the whole board. Therefore, we all do it with our own hands! Those expensive machines usually heat up only the part with and around the chip and that causes bending, because of temperature differences across the whole board.
What do you use? We have a ZM-R6200c, the bottom heating & board support system is pretty good to prevent warping. We use a different board support system, actually a tray from an oven.
What do you use? We have a ZM-R6200c, the bottom heating & board support system is pretty good to prevent warping. We use a different board support system, actually a tray from an oven.
Well, I don't want to take all the credit. It's my friend who is the true Wizard of repairs (That's what I thought when I first met him to repair my friend's mother computer) heheh.
Well, believe it or not, he doesn't use any machine. He built himself his own "motherboard heater" or what should I call it. I was pretty amazed when I saw it for the first time. It has just on/off, temperature regulator and temperature meter. The temperature regulator is analog, which is great.
I'm just his assistant in my spare time and I get all the knowledge from him that I can. I run my own "Refurb & Repair" business as a student in Prague heheh.
What do you use? We have a ZM-R6200c, the bottom heating & board support system is pretty good to prevent warping. We use a different board support system, actually a tray from an oven.
Speaking of ovens - both 2011's I baked in my oven for customers who had no money for a replacement GPU soldered nearly 18 months ago are still working, though they have AS-5 and polished die plates and run cool
Speaking of ovens - both 2011's I baked in my oven for customers who had no money for a replacement GPU soldered nearly 18 months ago are still working, though they have AS-5 and polished die plates and run cool
Are they still working, or do you assume they are working because they didn't come back? A big myth is that if they didn't come back, they didn't have an issue. Many just don't have the time or inclinaton for it.
People can bake this crap in their oven on their own, no reason to charge for things like that. Those are dead chips, if they are actually working after beng torched again they probably never turn the GPU on. Over everyday use, the discrete GPU is only on while it is booting into the OS, or when you open photobooth unless you edit video or play video games. Even a torched dead GPU can last some time under these circumstances.
It gives laptop repair, and repair in general a bad name giving people back torched dead chips and charging money for it. I have genuine disdain for this process, especially when the ghetto fix can be done by the user themself, and when the chips themselves are down to twenty seven dollars.
----------
Kudos to him for coming up with a resourceful way to do things right!! I would absolutely love to see the setup someday if you ever find the time to take pictures.
No I was curious so flung out a couple of texts, pretty sure they would have rang me for a reball anyway. They are lucky I guess but I do polish those die contact plates like mirrors to get that heat into the sinks alone and as efficiently as possible and away from the chip package itself and it does work.
I've been getting new GPU's reballed onto LB with lead and as long as they are virgin boards the fix seems to be lasting well, though some need more than just the GPU doing. Not sensible changing the guidelines or polishing the plates for the CPU/GPU pairing in that chassis, as you well know the die sizes in terms of mm2 are huge compared to the 2010 and 2012. Too much heat for that chassis to handle without optimisation of the cooling which isnt in Apple's technician guide, more like the opposite!
There's a few fake AMD's out there saying they were made in 2012 when they weren't - getting a trusted supply is a very good thing..