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Some 2011 MacBook Pros Experiencing GPU Glitches, System Crashes

Gav Mack said:
You do have another option if you are the original purchaser. Make a Genius Bar appointment and use the UK Sale of Goods Act to demand they fix it for free but that would probably be with yet another flawed logic board swap!
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Another reason I'm holding back for now is I'm awaiting the Apple Store in Edinburgh to open so it isn't a waste of a day when the Genius to point to the door.

I'm planning to buy a new laptop this year and sell my current one. This glitch makes that difficult, but on the off chance Apple swaps it for a newer model (or refurb of a 2012/2013) then I wouldn't complain!
 
Kilamite said:
Another reason I'm holding back for now is I'm awaiting the Apple Store in Edinburgh to open so it isn't a waste of a day when the Genius to point to the door.

I'm planning to buy a new laptop this year and sell my current one. This glitch makes that difficult, but on the off chance Apple swaps it for a newer model (or refurb of a 2012/2013) then I wouldn't complain!
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Understandable. Think even if a program was initiated I don't think they will be exchanging for newer models just yet, at the moment for those under AppleCare or using the Sale of Goods Act you have to have 3 replacement logic boards fail for them to offer a newer alternative MBP!

I couldn't be without mine for that long period, I would want a good quick permanent fix to ensure it lasts for another 3-4 years, though at the moment with my temperatures having dropped considerably inside having re-pasted optimally this could have extended its life somewhat anyway. With an SSD and upgraded ram on top these models can more than hold their own performance wise and with the thermals and solder done right will last me a long time, perhaps till they bring out another 17 inch with a true 4k panel!
 
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mavericks errors & restarts

Have had many crashes and restarts.
Took MacBook Pro to Apple genius desk
LOgic board test failed.
Of course it was past warranty and apple's 3 year replacement for faulty board.
$550 later it is fine now.
 
I'm on my 3rd logic board in my early 2011 MBP. The first went out in August with the distorted/displaced screen images and eventually a grey screen. Had a local Authorized Service Provider replace it under Applecare. That lasted until February when exactly the same thing happened. Took it to the Apple Store and they replaced it, again under Applecare.

Clearly there's an issue with this year/model. Hoping Apple acknowledges this before the current logic board gives up, as I'm now out of Applecare and have only a few weeks left on the 90 day repair warranty.
 
FrankeeD said:
I'm on my 3rd logic board in my early 2011 MBP. The first went out in August with the distorted/displaced screen images and eventually a grey screen. Had a local Authorized Service Provider replace it under Applecare. That lasted until February when exactly the same thing happened. Took it to the Apple Store and they replaced it, again under Applecare.

Clearly there's an issue with this year/model. Hoping Apple acknowledges this before the current logic board gives up, as I'm now out of Applecare and have only a few weeks left on the 90 day repair warranty.
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If it fails again I would immediately contact Apple and email Tim Cook cos on the 4th failure things change, even out of AppleCare.

Give them the link for the community thread and insist that four logic board failures means you've been sold effectively a lemon product that you are surprised that isn't on an exchange program already, the obvious defective lead solder they had making these in 2011. The fact that after about 2 years of use these models have produced a large spike in the number of failures which they and their service agents know and are fully aware about but they are stonewalling their customers of this being the case and are saddling many of them unknowingly with the cost of a manufacturing defect.

If you do all that right you could have a nice new 15 inch rMBP on your desk though depending on your spec of your old 2011, they try to offer the lowest model with you having to make a contribution if you want the Iris Pro version, which in reality is the only decent integrated GPU in the range so be prepared to haggle if/when they cave in to a replacement.
 
Early 2011 MBP here, just started seeing these symptoms about a week ago. Ironically literally 1 week after my AppleCare expired.

Still intermittent (although I can easily force a crash running a GPU stress test), and I'm playing around with the fan speed to try to keep it more stable, but from reports it looks like it will only get worse, so I'm debating what to do next.
 
dbwiddis said:
Early 2011 MBP here, just started seeing these symptoms about a week ago. Ironically literally 1 week after my AppleCare expired.

Still intermittent (although I can easily force a crash running a GPU stress test), and I'm playing around with the fan speed to try to keep it more stable, but from reports it looks like it will only get worse, so I'm debating what to do next.
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If it's only one week outside your expiry, I'd take it in and see what they say. They may replace it out of goodwill, especially if they quietly know about the issue.
 
my early 17" MBP 2011 has operated faultless till upgrading to maverics! a few minor cliches here and there but i still prefer using this over my late 2013 13" mbp with dell ultrasharp monitor

really love the 17" mbp - a true workhorse
 
fat jez said:
If it's only one week outside your expiry, I'd take it in and see what they say. They may replace it out of goodwill, especially if they quietly know about the issue.
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Wow, thanks for that encouragement... decided to take it in today, and got great news.

- I described the symptoms having started in January but thinking they were on my Thunderbolt display, and provided evidence of contacting Apple about it then
- I was actually 26 days out of warranty (it starts from when you buy it, not from when you receive it and set it up... also an Apple "Year" is 365 days so you don't get an extra day on leap years) but the manager went ahead and approved a complimentary repair even out of warranty because I had originally contacted them (about the Thunderbolt display) in January.

They gave me an option of an in-shop replacement of MLB (would have cost just under $500) with 90 day warranty on just the MLB, or sending the whole thing off to the depot to replace not only the MLB but anything else that didn't check out 100%... plus a 90 day warranty on the whole thing. (Would have cost $310.) I opted for the cheaper of the two free options.

Chatting with the Genius (and the manager) Apple is aware of the issue but it is not yet common enough (and there are many troubleshooting steps they have to narrow it down to various software issues) to do more than that. It helped that I had already taken many of the troubleshooting steps myself and proved knowledgeable about the problem.

They even knew about the "baking the logic board" solution and say it works about 85% of the time. Obviously not an official Apple solution!
 
Has anyone used one of the ebay services to "rebake" the computer?

It's been a few months and I'm tired of apple to step up here, just wondering if the rebake actually fixes this problem.
Thanks.
 
Late 2011 MacBook Pro Graphics Card/Logic Board

2011 15 inch MacBook Pro Graphics Card/Logic Board Issues. I have had this computer for 2.5 years paid almost $2,000 for it. All of a sudden, without warning, while using iMovie the screen gets garbled. I restart the computer and get the gray screen then the blue screen of death! Took it to Apple Genius, and I use that term loosely, Don at the Apple Northlake Store. He said it was a bad graphics card, it will be almost $600 for an I store repair or I could send it off for $310. He also said this was a common problem and couldn't guarantee the same thing wouldn't happen again. He also said my hard drive would need to be replaced since it was also bad. It wasn't bad, using it in another computer and it works just fine. I took my computer home and starting researching this problem. I also wrote an email to Tim Cook over at apple, Tcook@apple.com. I got an email the next day from Suzanne Bradford, Corporate Executive Relations. She wanted to speak to us about this problem. Needless to say talking to her was a huge waste of time. She simply told me that this was not a common problem, no matter what I had read or what the genius said. She said there was no fault of this apple product and apple had no plans to do any repairs on this item unless you either have apple care or paid the money. Just makes me wonder why I paid almost $2000 for a powerhouse computer that is now a really expensive paper weight and why Apple is not standing behind their products. Makes me wonder what I will buy next considering everything in my home is apple and I love being part of the Eco system. But, never again will I trust Apple again.
 
A couple weeks ago my 17" 2011 MBP had its graphics card die for the second time. First was in March 2013. Logic board replaced under applecare.

This time I was 32 days past applecare. Nonetheless, the genius at the Stanford Mall store had it replaced again for free. Rationale was that AppleCare had only just expired - he didn't seem particularly moved by the fact that this is already the second time I've had to get it replaced. Anyway, they sent it out (charge would have been $310) and I got it back 48 hours later. (Which was actually much faster than the last time, when they did it in-store and needed to do it twice because the first time they put the wrong processor speed in).

My old 2007 17" MBP also needed the logic board replaced during the three year applecare period - can't recall how far in it was.

I also have (and regularly use) a 2009 15", a 2011 11" MBA, and a 2013 11" MBA, and those have been fine (so far). Of course the MBA's don't have discrete graphics, so just looking at my machines that do have graphics chips I've needed 3 board replacements for 3 machines... Bad luck.
 
I think mine just went. 🙁

Bah.

Scrambled display for a half second when scrolling down a page in Safari then the screen went black. Powered the Mac off and back on, it chimes and there are green lines across the display. Fans start screaming, stuck at a grey screen and it powers off after about a minute.

Late 2011 2.2GHz ordered on launch day. No AppleCare.

Anyone in the UK had success sorting this under SOGA?
 
MagicBoy said:
I think mine just went. 🙁

Bah.

Scrambled display for a half second when scrolling down a page in Safari then the screen went black. Powered the Mac off and back on, it chimes and there are green lines across the display. Fans start screaming, stuck at a grey screen and it powers off after about a minute.

Late 2011 2.2GHz ordered on launch day. No AppleCare.

Anyone in the UK had success sorting this under SOGA?
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Yeah, the black screen, screaming fans, stuck at gray screen and power off thing is what my symptoms were this time.
 
Has anyone had the logic board replaced under warranty and then had it go bad again after warranty? I think there's a 90 day warranty on the logic board? What happens after that?
 
kyriostrife said:
Has anyone had the logic board replaced under warranty and then had it go bad again after warranty? I think there's a 90 day warranty on the logic board? What happens after that?
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Yes. Mine was replaced march of 2013 under AppleCare and then again last week after AppleCare had run out (32 days ago it ran out). They only agreed to replace it for free because I was so close to the end of my AppleCare.

I fully expect it to die again in another 12-18 months at which point they'll refuse to fix it for free.
 
Macbook pro early 2011

I bought 4 little rubber feet for my laptop as it would heat up far to much. It was meant to give better airflow underneath. Did not realise buying a apple laptop means you need to remove thermal paste because they do a poor job in production. Anyway as i had no free time to play with a working laptop i didn't get around to this job. Now as of saturday i have a dead laptop. I can load the apple hardware test and it reports no trouble after a 1hr22min check. Running in safe mode i get the crashed screen. Running osx lion i get just a white screen. So all in all i have a working laptop and a bad gpu which is a known fault and more and more 2011 users will feel this injustice that apple are ignoring.

Uk user
macbook pro 15 2.0 i7
hd 6490m

Yay for apple and their ignorance
 
fat jez said:
If it's only one week outside your expiry, I'd take it in and see what they say. They may replace it out of goodwill, especially if they quietly know about the issue.
Click to expand...

May or may not. On Apple's support forums, some people have been given fair treatment. But one person reported Apple said "just buy a new one, we keep making them better" (paraphrased, obviously, but if I were a business and I treated a customer like that, I wouldn't last long. Why should any business get away with that behavior?)

----------
rplayer said:
I bought 4 little rubber feet for my laptop as it would heat up far to much. It was meant to give better airflow underneath. Did not realise buying a apple laptop means you need to remove thermal paste because they do a poor job in production. Anyway as i had no free time to play with a working laptop i didn't get around to this job. Now as of saturday i have a dead laptop. I can load the apple hardware test and it reports no trouble after a 1hr22min check. Running in safe mode i get the crashed screen. Running osx lion i get just a white screen. So all in all i have a working laptop and a bad gpu which is a known fault and more and more 2011 users will feel this injustice that apple are ignoring.

Uk user
macbook pro 15 2.0 i7
hd 6490m

Yay for apple and their ignorance
Click to expand...

"But the CPU is made to withstand 100 degrees C"... (um, no. Not for any length of time since heat-related problems will develop far, far sooner...)

Some people even drilled holes in their MBP's bottom plates to improve airflow... which worked, for a while... Apple's support forum has a number of posts with irate MBP 2011 owners -- one person discussed how there's more to the problem than just thermal grease being overly applied...

Indeed, it might not be Apple's fault - directly, or otherwise. For one thing, the contractor they hire to do the manufacturing is responsible for thermal grease. Why can't Apple work on their customers' behalf on that? And isn't it true that the heatspreader, which goes over the GPU, has a different type of epoxy or solder between the spreader and actual GPU core, that isn't as efficient in transferring heat? Or even the solder on the PSB, which is no longer lead-based and has a lower melting point - many people indicated that "baking" the motherboard briefly in an oven fixed the problem (albeit temporarily)...
 
An update :

Had a nice chat with a gent on the genius bar. Mac passed all the basic diagnostics, well where you could read them through the green lines across the screen. After a second opinion a faulty graphics chip was diagnosed. Quoted £400 for a replacement logic board with 90 day warranty. Asserted my expectations for the product then had a chat with his manager. Apple are covering the cost of a replacement logic board.

So far, so good. My faith in Apples customer service is mostly restored.
 
an update

So after 3 or 4 logic board replacements, I can't even remember anymore, the amazingly awesome guy at the apple store was able to provide me with a replacement new 15 in retina macbook pro. I was close to panicking since I need my computer for freelance work and just couldn't afford for it to crash again or buy a new one so glad everything worked out.
 
coniker said:
So after 3 or 4 logic board replacements, I can't even remember anymore, the amazingly awesome guy at the apple store was able to provide me with a replacement new 15 in retina macbook pro. I was close to panicking since I need my computer for freelance work and just couldn't afford for it to crash again or buy a new one so glad everything worked out.
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That's great!
Were you still covered by AppleCare, or did you pay for those logic board replacements yourself?
 
JTravers said:
That's great!
Were you still covered by AppleCare, or did you pay for those logic board replacements yourself?
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The first replacement cost me $300, each subsequent replacement was apparently covered under the replacement warranty, I probably lucked out in the last logic board replacement since I'm pretty sure it was out of the replacement warranty time frame but I was never told to pay more. The guy that replaced my mbp with the retina also threw in a disk drive for free. Pretty good outcome I think for half a year of back and forth
 
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