Radeongate III, 2011 MBP. A third graphics failure

[sarge]

Wow, I wouldn't be very happy either. I'll be picking up my Late 2011 15" tonight from Apple with a replacement board under the repair program. Really not feeling all that confident with all the posts here.

I took it in just now and it went to blue screen before I even got past the login. They tested it and the GPU failed so they are going to perform another replacement and I should have it back by tomorrow. I'm pleased with the turnaround but not the hassle. I'm not sure how replacing a defective part with another equally defective part is supposed to enhance their customer satisfaction standing. Admit the problem, apologize, and fix it.

While it's not as serious as an airbag recall where peoples lives are potentially at risk, I do have a major deadline coming up and I need this resolved because my livelihood is potentially at stake. Imagine a car company replacing a your defective airbag with a pillow and sending you out the door. Apple should be better than this.

 

[Queen6]

I took it in just now and it went to blue screen before I even got past the login. They tested it and the GPU failed so they are going to perform another replacement and I should have it back by tomorrow. I'm pleased with the turnaround but not the hassle. I'm not sure how replacing a defective part with another equally defective part is supposed to enhance their customer satisfaction standing. Admit the problem, apologize, and fix it.

While it's not as serious as an airbag recall where peoples lives are potentially at risk, I do have a major deadline coming up and I need this resolved because my livelihood is potentially at stake. Imagine a car company replacing a your defective airbag with a pillow and sending you out the door. Apple should be better than this.

I can only say be prepared, refurbished electronics in general have a very poor track record. Backup is given, equally prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

Me I would be "strongly" taking advantage of Apple`s 14 day return to cover your deadline, as frankly it`s Apple poor design & quality control that has generated this situation. Ultimately if your system continues to fail Apple will be compelled to replace it with a new equivalent, with your scope of work this is highly likely...

Just stay cool, never be confrontational; state the facts, the potential losses, how much you "love" Apple, equally your concerns. Play the game, combined with problematic Logic Boards and there is a fair chance you will receive a new replacement in time.

Apple sets a high bar, equally we the users need to ensure that Apple follows through, holding Apple fully accountable.

Q-6

 

[sarge]

I can only say be prepared, refurbished electronics in general have a very poor track record. Backup is given, equally prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

Me I would be "strongly" taking advantage of Apple`s 14 day return to cover your deadline, as frankly it`s Apple poor design & quality control that has generated this situation. Ultimately if your system continues to fail Apple will be compelled to replace it with a new equivalent, with your scope of work this is highly likely...

Just stay cool, never be confrontational; state the facts, the potential losses, how much you "love" Apple, equally your concerns. Play the game, combined with problematic Logic Boards and there is a fair chance you will receive a new replacement in time.

Apple sets a high bar, equally we the users need to ensure that Apple follows through, holding Apple fully accountable.

Q-6

Good advice. Me, I never get uppity or irascible w/the staff. I have worked in enough retail/customer service jobs to know better than to treat people who don't draft policy like my personal peons. Confrontation is reserved exclusively for intractable management who either have leeway and refuse to exercise it or are exhibiting poor judgment, in order to force them to escalate my position to policy makers back in the front office

 

[markhort]

Spoken to a senior Apple technical advisor who has told me to take the laptop to a Premium Apple service provider for a 2nd opinion, they have wavered the £99 diagnostic fee. I'll take it in next weekend.

Spent 30 minutes convincing them at it wasn't a software issue.

Update -

So I took the MBP to the Premium service provider. Gave the repair reference number which Apple provided and the serial number. They bought up all the information and the code for them to charge back to Apple with. Result! The store ran the same test which the genius guy used in the Apple Store, which then advised to run the GPU one. At this point I left. They said someone would be in contact with me over the next couple of days with an update.

A couple of days later I received a call asking me to come in and collect my laptop. They couldn't find any issue and had passed their tests and as a added bonus I would need to pay the inspection fee as they were unable to charge their inspection fee back to Apple with the code Apple provided. I politely said I would call my contact in Apple first and see what now needs to be done now as I wasn't willing to pay the inspection fee due to Apple agreeing that they would cover it.

A few phone calls later with a manager within Apple over the course of a few days. I was keen to express how disappointed I am with Apple, no one seems to believe me that there's an issue even though I have provided a number of pictures and videos of the issue and it seems that unless this GPU test fails no one is willing to do anything more than just give me the laptop back.

Toni from Apple, who has been dealing with my case, she has been great though, listening and trying to provide a solution. Calling the service provider store and arranging everything only calling me to give me an update.

So now Apple have agreed to replace the Logic Board. Email confirmation has been passed to the service provider and the store has now ordered a replacement, which should be here tomorrow. Finally!

Hopefully by this time next week I should have a fully working MacBook Pro again.

My advise for anyone else who has experience this problem. Even though Apple's test passes, keep on at Apple, get a manager to own the case, take as many pictures and videos of the issue and report them to technical support every time. Keep a detailed history, how many times you've had to call, what happened by whom.

 

[sarge]

A follow up to this saga- after getting a replacement board installed 2 weeks prior, the screen went to black and then blue and I had to pwer down again. I took the laptop with the 2 week old logic board replacement and logged in - whereupon the screen went to blue screen in the store. They re-booted from Ethernet in-house and observed flicker upon login, The Genius observed the failure and so approved the replacement of the logic board.

However, when I went to pickup the machine the other day, they had not replaced the board as promised because it passed a second round of tests by the technician doing the repair. They claimed that there were well known issues w/El Cap even though I was running Snow Leopard! I refused to sign off on the 'repair' and insisted that the board be replaced, which they did. To any PR folks at Apple Computer that may be reading this, this process does not engender brand loyalty.

 

[markhort]

Store phoned. The old girl is ready to be picked up

 

[markhort]

Home now, seems to be running well. Just installed the El Capitan update without any issues.

 

[venom600]

I'm curious... why would you let them keep repairing a 15" Macbook Pro? I could see trying to hang on to a 17", but they should have offered to replace your machine with a new one by now. Three major repairs on a machine is all it takes to have them authorize a replacement unit.

 

[Swiss-G]

I'm curious... why would you let them keep repairing a 15" Macbook Pro? I could see trying to hang on to a 17", but they should have offered to replace your machine with a new one by now. Three major repairs on a machine is all it takes to have them authorize a replacement unit.

The OP did have his machine replaced after the third failure.

I believe in markhort's case this was the first failure.

 

[markhort]

The OP did have his machine replaced after the third failure.

I believe in markhort's case this was the first failure.

Yeah that's right. Haven't experienced any further issues at the moment.

 

[iLog.Genius]

As a customer, the experiences posted above are quite annoying. Running the test does absolutely nothing unless the GPU has totally failed. Getting distortion on the screen isn't going to lodge a code somewhere in memory for a tech to find. If you're able to provide pictures of the problem, it baffles me why they would waste time by telling you everything is OK because the tests say so. Service like that pisses me off the most.

If this issue was undocumented, I would totally understand if any tech/Genius Bar relied on the test and it came back negative. But to know that there is a recall with listed symptoms and still relying on the diagnostic program (that doesn't do anything) just to decline a repair is unacceptable.

No one is going to waste their time to get their logic board replaced if it doesn't need to be so I don't understand why Apple or any authorized repair centre what decline or hesitate with a repair.

 

[Queen6]

As a customer, the experiences posted above are quite annoying. Running the test does absolutely nothing unless the GPU has totally failed. Getting distortion on the screen isn't going to lodge a code somewhere in memory for a tech to find. If you're able to provide pictures of the problem, it baffles me why they would waste time by telling you everything is OK because the tests say so. Service like that pisses me off the most.

If this issue was undocumented, I would totally understand if any tech/Genius Bar relied on the test and it came back negative. But to know that there is a recall with listed symptoms and still relying on the diagnostic program (that doesn't do anything) just to decline a repair is unacceptable.

No one is going to waste their time to get their logic board replaced if it doesn't need to be so I don't understand why Apple or any authorized repair centre what decline or hesitate with a repair.

Apple`s Hubris and greed...

Q-6

 

[MrAverigeUser]

Did you have also keyboard-problems?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/intermittently-failing-keys-on-mbp-2011.1944973/

 

[markhort]

As a customer, the experiences posted above are quite annoying. Running the test does absolutely nothing unless the GPU has totally failed. Getting distortion on the screen isn't going to lodge a code somewhere in memory for a tech to find. If you're able to provide pictures of the problem, it baffles me why they would waste time by telling you everything is OK because the tests say so. Service like that pisses me off the most.

If this issue was undocumented, I would totally understand if any tech/Genius Bar relied on the test and it came back negative. But to know that there is a recall with listed symptoms and still relying on the diagnostic program (that doesn't do anything) just to decline a repair is unacceptable.

No one is going to waste their time to get their logic board replaced if it doesn't need to be so I don't understand why Apple or any authorized repair centre what decline or hesitate with a repair.

From my experience it was a real struggle to get Apple to do anything. Took a good week for them to get passed it wasn't a software issue, which they only believed me when I told them that I had reinstalled OSX and they remote connected to my machine to check.

I felt like Apple thought I was trying it on. All they were interested in was running this MRI test and of course it passed both times it was run. Having the 10 or so pictures and a couple of video's of the problem seemed to help. But it was only when my case was passed to a manager things started moving in the right direction.

According to the repair centre, the total cost of my replacement Logic Board and labour should have cost nearly £800.

 

[Queen6]

According to the repair centre, the total cost of my replacement Logic Board and labour should have cost nearly £800.

This is exactly why I won't buy another Mac portable with dGPU, Apple`s track record for reliability is absolutely tragic. They then have to be pushed by (impending) court action or local legislation to do anything. Apple only replaces the failed Logic Board with refurbished garbage that is likely fail rapidly if used hard. If your Mac doesn't qualify or your not persistent Apple will expect you to pay royally for this poor level of quality & service, hardly what I would describe as a "Premium Experience"

Q-6

 

[markhort]

This is exactly why I won't buy another Mac portable with dGPU, Apple`s track record for reliability is absolutely tragic. They then have to be pushed by (impending) court action or local legislation to do anything. Apple only replaces the failed Logic Board with refurbished garbage that is likely fail rapidly if used hard. If your Mac doesn't qualify or your not persistent Apple will expect you to pay royally for this poor level of quality & service, hardly what I would describe as a "Premium Experience"

Q-6

Going to give the laptop a good test over the weekend, I'll install a few games from the app store and do some picture and video editing to try and push the dGPU.

It'll probably be fine until Feb 2016 and then fail again knowing my luck. Although I'm pretty sure the repair centre told me it came with a 90 day guarantee

 

[Queen6]

Going to give the laptop a good test over the weekend, I'll install a few games from the app store and do some picture and video editing to try and push the dGPU.

It'll probably be fine until Feb 2016 and then fail again knowing my luck. Although I'm pretty sure the repair centre told me it came with a 90 day guarantee

You will be good for 90 days, longer if it`s still covered by UK consumer protection, 5/6 years for personal computers (not business lease)

Q-6

 

[iLog.Genius]

From my experience it was a real struggle to get Apple to do anything. Took a good week for them to get passed it wasn't a software issue, which they only believed me when I told them that I had reinstalled OSX and they remote connected to my machine to check.

I felt like Apple thought I was trying it on. All they were interested in was running this MRI test and of course it passed both times it was run. Having the 10 or so pictures and a couple of video's of the problem seemed to help. But it was only when my case was passed to a manager things started moving in the right direction.

According to the repair centre, the total cost of my replacement Logic Board and labour should have cost nearly £800.

It's terrible. Working with Apple on a problem is like working with BMW/Mercedes (personal experience). Unless something is broken or failed when you bring it to them, they'll play dumb. They'll scan for problems and when they all pass, it's "sorry can't help you". You have to take pictures and videos to prove that you're not lying. Ridiculous.

 

[markhort]

It's terrible. Working with Apple on a problem is like working with BMW/Mercedes (personal experience). Unless something is broken or failed when you bring it to them, they'll play dumb. They'll scan for problems and when they all pass, it's "sorry can't help you". You have to take pictures and videos to prove that you're not lying. Ridiculous.

This is the first time I've ever experienced these kind of issues, as you said normally it's really easy and it's a straight swap. That's what Apple are known for having great customer service which is why I was shocked at the level of service I received.

To be fair to the customer services team, I'm sure they do get a few people who are trying it on, but they should be easily enough to catch out, maybe they thought I was one of them.

 

[ron1004]

As a customer, the experiences posted above are quite annoying. Running the test does absolutely nothing unless the GPU has totally failed. Getting distortion on the screen isn't going to lodge a code somewhere in memory for a tech to find. If you're able to provide pictures of the problem, it baffles me why they would waste time by telling you everything is OK because the tests say so. Service like that pisses me off the most.

If this issue was undocumented, I would totally understand if any tech/Genius Bar relied on the test and it came back negative. But to know that there is a recall with listed symptoms and still relying on the diagnostic program (that doesn't do anything) just to decline a repair is unacceptable.

No one is going to waste their time to get their logic board replaced if it doesn't need to be so I don't understand why Apple or any authorized repair centre what decline or hesitate with a repair.

In the Apple store my 2011 MBP 17" passed every test, but couldn't boot and just hung with a blank grey screen.

I had printouts from this forum that clearly indicated that it was a known issue, but they claimed otherwise, so I paid for the flat rate repair, ......then months later the recall programme came round and I got a refund.

I use it in "Integrated Only", just to avoid chances fate.

 

[MJub]

Just got my logic board replaced via the repair extension program. Was bought in Canada but now living in the UK and luckily got everything sorted at the Apple store. Turns out while doing the tests that I also have a failing hard drive.

So query - I was planning on replacing my hard drive with a 500 GB SSD and upgrading RAM instead of buying a whole new machine. Do you think given the risk of potential failure in the future that I should forgo the upgrade and just invest in a new machine? I don't imagine I'll be able to make use of the UK extended consumer protection because I didn't buy my laptop in the UK.

 

[Queen6]

Just got my logic board replaced via the repair extension program. Was bought in Canada but now living in the UK and luckily got everything sorted at the Apple store. Turns out while doing the tests that I also have a failing hard drive.

So query - I was planning on replacing my hard drive with a 500 GB SSD and upgrading RAM instead of buying a whole new machine. Do you think given the risk of potential failure in the future that I should forgo the upgrade and just invest in a new machine? I don't imagine I'll be able to make use of the UK extended consumer protection because I didn't buy my laptop in the UK.

Personally no. The refurbished boards can be prone to failure, you will be covered by Apple for 90 days. As for longevity the Notebook could well run for years, equally fail again in a matter of weeks. We still have a 2011 15" MBP, about as much I would be willing to spend on it would be a 3rd party battery. As the HD is failing I would just sources a cheap low capacity SSD or another HD.

Another aspect I don't want to be constantly concerned of the computer failing, I would rather put my money into more reliable hardware with a proven track record.

Q-6

 

[MagicBoy]

Going to give the laptop a good test over the weekend, I'll install a few games from the app store and do some picture and video editing to try and push the dGPU.

It'll probably be fine until Feb 2016 and then fail again knowing my luck. Although I'm pretty sure the repair centre told me it came with a 90 day guarantee

Grab a copy of Unigine Valley demo. That'll give it a workout.

Yes, there's 90 days warranty on the repair.

 

[miscend]

Going to give the laptop a good test over the weekend, I'll install a few games from the app store and do some picture and video editing to try and push the dGPU.

It'll probably be fine until Feb 2016 and then fail again knowing my luck. Although I'm pretty sure the repair centre told me it came with a 90 day guarantee

How is your MBP doing after all this time.

 

[markhort]

How is your MBP doing after all this time.

Seems fine, I haven't experienced any further issues at all since the replacement. Just recently put a new SSD in. Running as fast as the first day I bought it. Not bad for a 5 year old machine.