Video card busted but can I use external display?

[pgzone]

Greetings.

As some of you may be aware that MACBOOK PRO 2011 models were delivered with bad VGA. After the lawsuit Apple had the policy to replace the cards free of charge. This policy ended in Dec 2016.

My Macbook finally gave way and I need to replace the display VGA which will cost me around $600-$700.
My question to the forum is that : Can I use this Macbook with external display bypassing the onboard VGA while booting basically using it like a desktop?

Thanks.

 

[pshufd]

Greetings.

As some of you may be aware that MACBOOK PRO 2011 models were delivered with bad VGA. After the lawsuit Apple had the policy to replace the cards free of charge. This policy ended in Dec 2016.

My Macbook finally gave way and I need to replace the display VGA which will cost me around $600-$700.
My question to the forum is that : Can I use this Macbook with external display bypassing the onboard VGA while booting basically using it like a desktop?

Thanks.

Everything that I have read indicates that the answer is no, because the external display is routed through the discrete graphics. I know exactly what you're going through as I bought a used 2011 and it died a month later. I would recommend buying a 2013 or 2014 Retina MacBook Pro for the money that you'd spend repairing your 2011. I spoke to a repair shop about fixing it - the guy told me that they would replace my discrete graphics with another used discrete graphics and that they wouldn't be able to provide me with a warranty because they wouldn't have any idea how "used" the replacement would be. He didn't say it directly but he implied that I'd be much better off not getting it repaired. I did buy a 2015 rMBP afterwards and am incredibly pleased with the computer.

 

[pgzone]

Thanks for your response pshufd. Wondering if there was a way to alter the OS boot sequence to bypass the onboard graphics. If not, I'll just boot it in command line mode and use it. I'm pretty heavy on that anyway.
Appreciate your input though.

 

[pshufd]

Thanks for your response pshufd. Wondering if there was a way to alter the OS boot sequence to bypass the onboard graphics. If not, I'll just boot it in command line mode and use it. I'm pretty heavy on that anyway.
Appreciate your input though.

There's a pinned thread on a patch to disable the discrete graphics so that you can always use it in Intel Integrated mode. I have not been able to get it to work though but I haven't spent a huge amount of time on it either. It's one of my projects to get done eventually.