What is wrong / how did I manage to fix it?

[Andy348]

MacBook Pro 15 late 2011 anti-glare, recently upgraded to Yosemite

Worked fine until this morning, was frozen so I hard powered off and then tried to start it up again. It would get to the Apple loading screen, get about 1/3rd of the way through, then display a blank grey screen and restart. This just kept happening.

I tried safe mode to no avail, then detailed safe mode (Shift-command-V) and took some pictures with my phone of what it came up with (I can post if necessary). It never could boot into safe mode though.

Then I tried to reset PRAM, no avail.

Then I tried Internet Recovery, it took six minutes, loaded up, then returned to a blank grey screen with the fans blazing. Left it for about 20 minutes, didn't do anything so I powered down.

I found here that COMMAND-OPTION-SHIFT-ESC would allow some people to get to their desktop screen. I tried that right when it usually gives me the blank screen and restarts, and IT WORKED!

So now I am on the computer, working as it should. I have backed up everything I need to, just in case this is to happen again. That said, I am obviously terrified of restarting the computer.

So what exactly could be my problem? I recently downloaded SMC fan control and I thought that that might be problematic, so I just deleted it.

I was just convinced the hard-drive was fried, but apparently not. Either way, I have a phone call set up for when I get home on Monday with Apple, and I have no problems bringing it in as its still under warranty. I just want to kinda understand what went wrong here.

Thanks in advance

 

[DeltaMac]

If you want to find out what is wrong - search for "radeongate"

Your late 2011 15-inch MBPro is one of the models affected by that.
It's likely that the problem will return, and it will get worse.

 

[Andy348]

If you want to find out what is wrong - search for "radeongate"

Your late 2011 15-inch MBPro is one of the models affected by that.
It's likely that the problem will return, and it will get worse.

Great. Exactly what I was hoping for (not). But thank you for identifying the problem.

I have scheduled a meeting with the Genius Bar, but I'm not too hopeful. I don't want to experience what apparently everyone else has - problems right out of warranty, or logic board replacements every three weeks.