I could use some advise

[Keats1]

7/22/21

I have a late 2011 MBP that's stopped working.
The board is a #661-6162 (820-2915B) 2.5 Ghz, with a 750 GB H.D., 64 bit, Build order # BTO/CTO, A1286.

Typical AMD GPU problem according to all the "On Line" descriptions. I've seen various You Tube repairs that will eliminate the AMD Radeon chip and actually add very fine wire to the circuit board to fix the problem. This is a bit more complex than I can comfortably handle.

I don't know if this is a good solution or not but the videos do show the MBP up and running again after that by pass and the brightness is control-able as well.

My question is simple. If I have to ship my MBP to the repair shop, must I leave the hard drive in it or will it boot up without the hard drive. I know that this may sound silly, but is the O.S. on the CPU chip or on the hard drive? I just don't know enough about this to make a decision.

I'm leery about sending the MBP with my hard drive. I did my banking and taxes on it and to me it's like handing my credit card to a stranger and hoping that nothing will go wrong.

So if I can remove the hard drive and it will still boot up to verify that the repair is complete, that would be great. I do not want to erase the hard drive and I thought about an external Hard drive to transfer all of my files to it and then erasing the hard drive. That's a last resort.

Perhaps there's a way to password protect all of my files (except the O.S.- if it's on the hard drive) so that the files are not available to anyone at the repair shop or to anyone else in case it gets "Lost in Shipment"...

So, #1: is this a worthwhile repair method ?
#2: Can I remove the Hard Drive prior to sending the MBP off for repair?
#3: Can I password protect the Hard Drive files if it must be installed in the MBP for the repair to work?
Thanks for any tips or clues any of you may have...

Keats
Arizona

 

[DeltaMac]

#1 - no, unless the repair is successful (unpredictable results, I think)
#2 - sure, you can remove the hard drive. A repair shop would have SOMETHING to boot to, just a for testing.
#3 - Yes, FileVault is a choice for you, and is part of your system.

my tip of the day: If you choose to get the repair, and it is successful, it would probably be a good opportunity to replace that deteriorating, spinning hard drive with an SSD.
You'll likely already be spending more than worth doing for the logic board repair on a 10 year old Mac, so maybe another $100 or so to upgrade to an SSD might be a Good Thing™

 

[Keats1]

#1 - no, unless the repair is successful (unpredictable results, I think)
#2 - sure, you can remove the hard drive. A repair shop would have SOMETHING to boot to, just a for testing.
#3 - Yes, FileVault is a choice for you, and is part of your system.

my tip of the day: If you choose to get the repair, and it is successful, it would probably be a good opportunity to replace that deteriorating, spinning hard drive with an SSD.
You'll likely already be spending more than worth doing for the logic board repair on a 10 year old Mac, so maybe another $100 or so to upgrade to an SSD might be a Good Thing™

Fair enough.
O.K. on the H.D. removal. I agree that they should have a way to boot it up.
Can't use Fire Vault. Can't get the computer to start up to access anything on it now. So, can't activate Fire Vault.
SSD is a good idea.
It is a 10 Y.O. computer but I loved working with it.
So I'm guessing that the O.S. is on the Hard Drive and if I remove the H.D. it won't be able to boot without something like a thumb drive with an O.S. on it. ?
Keats
Arizona

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, the booting system is on your storage drive, normally internal.
If there is no hard drive, and nothing that is attached to your Mac that would boot your Mac, your Mac will boot far enough to test the hardware, including trying to find a bootable system. If there is NO bootable system (because you have removed the hard drive, for example). then the hardware will not find a bootable system, and show a blinking folder/question mark - telling you that it can't find anything that will boot your Mac.
Your 2011 MBPro also has the capability to boot to Apple's remote servers, even without any local boot system. That only needs an internet connection (and the correct key commands), but that doesn't boot a full system, just the installer and 2 or 3 basic utilities to provide a way to format the drive, and install a system.

 

[Fishrrman]

It's not worth fixing anymore.
(large text intentional)

Time to start shopping for something new (or Apple refurbished).
I would try "the software fix" (as found in the sticky threads area above) to bypass the discrete GPU just to keep it going a few more months.
And then spring for either the MacBook Pro 14" or 16" when they come out later this year.