If you have a 2011 MacBook Pro that is wonking out like it was haunted by a Japanese ghost, you’re not the only one. It appears that a massive number of early-2011 MacBook Pro owners with AMD graphics are having issues with system crashes and hardware problems, with failure rates reaching a critical mass in recent weeks.
According to an enormous, 157-page thread on the Apple Support Communities, a number of early-2011 MacBook Pro owners began having problems with the AMD discrete graphics cards inside their laptops. The troubles began appear to have begun in February 2013, but activity in the support thread has really escalated over the last few weeks.
The problem seems to first exhibit itself during graphics-intensive tasks like playing games or high-definition video, or running the CPU hot. The display ends up distorting, or going entirely blank, and while reboots make the problems go away for a short period of time, they almost always return later. After the graphical glitches start, things get worse, with many users reporting inevitable gray and blue screens of death.
It’s a bad situation, and frankly, the issue seems obvious: It’s a heating issue, to which Macs have always been susceptible. It seems, however, that early-2011 MacBook Pros are particularly prone to this issue. Unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done about it, unless Apple institutes a replacement program: The only way to fix the issue right now is to swap the logic board on your machine, which is an extremely expensive upgrade.
We’re keeping an eye on this, and if Apple responds to the issue, we’ll let you know. In the meantime, if you’re affected, know that you aren’t alone.
Source: Apple Discussions
Via: ModMyi
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
44 responses to “Early 2011 MacBook Pros Are Dropping Like Flies, Heat Issues To Blame”
If you are effected by the 2011 MacBook Pro GPU failures;
Please ‘Take Action’ at http://action.mbp2011.com
The apple customer relation I called up totally disregard reports from 3rd party sites. Better to have everyone call them up directly.
If you visit the site, it’s not a 3rd party discussion. It provides links to sign the petition, email Tim Cook, register official Apple feedback, and much more…
Will give a shot still. Thanks for the link. Apple even refuse to acknowledge the threads regarding this in their own discussion community. The customer relation guy said anyone can start a thread claiming anything they want. And said I alr had a good 2 years out of the MBP. I said so smth tt cost 3k can only last 2 years? He said yep. They are hopeless. How they even hire ppl for customer relations is a mystery.
I also have the same problem!
if you are affected by this problem
Please sign this petition, so Apple have to make a Replacement or Fix our 2011 MBP.
Just 20 to reach the objective! (1500 supporters)
http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/timothy-d-cook-replace-or-fix-all-early-2011-macbook-pro-with-graphics-failure
Apple didnt only remain silent, they know abt the issue and yet disregard it totally. I called them up tdy abt my 15″ with the same problem, they askes me to send then links to prove many others are facing the same problem. Then they investigated and called me back 2 hours later to tell me they cant do anything as it’s out of warranty and referred me to customer relation. The first thing the guy said was the links I sent are of third party sources and can’t rely on that. I asked abt apple discussion forum and guess what? He said tts a discussion forum and anyone can start any thread they like, he added that they sold 1.2million of the laptops of 2011 model and they have not hit the quota for a recall so everything is to be treated case by case. I ask so what if I replace with another logic board of the same kind and it breaks down agn? (FYI. I’ve replaced the logic board once during the warranty period and now 2 years later, it happen agn.) He said there’s a 90 days warranty to cover that and after which if anything happens u needa pay to have it replaced.
He said that they alr replaced once for me before and have a good 2 years out of it, im more than welcome to do a replacement w them for the quoted price ( est S $950 )
It seems like they are following a procedure. The excuses are the same you wrote in your post for Apple communities forum and other sites. They said me the same here in Spain.
If its a procedure then most probably apple already know of the problem and refuse to do anything abt it. Tsk tsk. Im never getting apple products ever. Same for my friends and family.
Yep. They follow the script well. They haven’t heard of the issue. Forums are not a reliable source. Blah, blah, blah. The manager at the Apple store we went to said, “Your expectations are too high if you think a laptop should last three years.” Apple employees are their own worst marketers. That’s an admission of junk.
Mine just went down! Aargh… Any word on this replacement program?
Apple just replaced my macbook pro early 2011 for a brand new 2014 512gb 2.3ghz with retina. I had the graphics issues and 3 logic board replacements in a year, and then had the same issue. Escalate to Executive relations.
My first Mac: Macbookpro 15 late 2011 (~US$2400) diplay-off due to
GPU issues. A second mac I purchased for my fiancee: Macbookpro 13″ mid 2012(~US$1660) had its Toshiba 750GB HDD dead. All of this happened around march 2014. What would I should problaby think about Apple’s
Quality Control and Apple Products’ lifespan?… Can someone explain
this to me?.
I’m losing time and money,…and probably the most important: values, confidence and trust…, in Apple brand, in Apple people.
I work in the peruvian jungle; and no, there is no Apple Support Service
here. Should I pray to Pope Saint John Paul II for Apple’s Ethics?
Take a look at this from:
http://www.apple.com/environment/finite-resources/
>Design for Durability
-You don’t have to buy a new Apple product to have one that feels new. We make it easy to update to new versions of apps, software, and entire
operating systems — OS X Mavericks works on Mac computers made as far back as 2007 — so you’ll have a new experience without buying a new device.-…
…-Our built‑in notebook batteries last up to five years. Which
saves on buying new batteries, produces less waste, and increases the lifespan of your notebook. And when Apple product owners pass along their devices to friends or family, they’re conserving resources, too. Sometimes the mark of a great product isn’t how many you sell, but how much it’s used.-
Last paragraph explains the reasons why i did buy APPLE products. and now i’m very disapointed.
How did you manage to get them to replace it with a new laptop? Did you go to an Apple store? Did you email someone in particular? Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Fuck apple. pieces of shit need to issue a replacement program, they make fucking garbage and don’t stand behind anything they do, apple is typical of bending everybody over and fucking everyone, myself included for the early 2011 macbook pro, they obviously rushed it too much and had too poor of engineers.
early 2011 macbook pro is now a paper weight as of saturday 26/04/14. Did a hardware test no problems found. Turn on laptop screen freezes. GPU is screwed due to rubbish workmanship. Apple should replace this known problem. It will only get worse for apple.
i had this problem since 1 month ,i live in jordan and it’s gonna cost me 550jd about 750 $ , the problem is not hardware failure after all its a machine but the cost of repairing is very high 1/3 or more of a brand new mac!!! everyone knows mac is expensive , i will think more than twice before buying a new mac. .
We bought two, yes two of them. Both failed withing two months of each other like clockwork. $4000 for two paperweights. Apple’s responses: “That’s the first I’ve heard of the problem.” “Oh, well we don’t go by forums or things posted on the internet for our information. Our database doesn’t show there is a problem.” “Your expectations are too high if you think a laptop will last over three years.” “You didn’t buy an extended warranty.” Our reply: “You KNOW in your heart there is a problem but Apple refuses to admit it. If our laptops were a random failing, we totally agree that we would just be unlucky. This is a widespread problem and you are losing customers and your reputation.” We will NEVER buy another Apple product and will continue to tell our story until Apple issues a complete recall and admits the problem. Apple is their own worst marketer.
Apple do NOT activate any internal-costing ‘Replacement Programs’ unless an issue highlighted has reached ‘bad press’ critical mass; an Apple insider reliably told me “Apple will wait and often do a lot of what they deem is ‘necessary’ to prevent the rapid appearance over a short period of time of a greater-than-5%-attrition because that triggers a recall within Apple for that product to save face”.
Another factor to consider when trying to gauge the likelihood of a replacement is who’s fault the flaw is – when it’s a non-Apple problem e.g. the 2008 nvidia GPU issue, this was dealt with fairly swiftly as nvidia was the cost-bearer for poor die quality at manufacture stage. On the other hand, the recently-announced iphone 5 power button recall took ages – some say too long, but that was because it was Apple’s fault (likely poor design or an issue with QA) and they hate paying that money back out.
If this GPU issue affecting early-2011 ATi MBPros is an ‘Apple heat dissipation design flaw’ issue as opposed to a ‘GPU die manufacture quality’ issue, it’ll be a clone of the 2006/7 ATi X1600 ‘Apple heat dissipation design flaw’ issue. That one was nasty – the official Apple forum still has some threads with 80+ PAGES, and people STILL adding to it today, and Apple NEVER cranking up a replacement program for that one. ATi must have proven that their GPUs were fine when cooled properly, and Apple didn’t wanna take the hit of replacing so many of those ever-so-popular Core2Duo 15-inch MBPros up to 5 years after they’d squirrelled the money away :/
Depending on what numbers they count, I personally suspect this could be somewhat distorted by other factors like AppleCare and worse, some store-level discretionary repairs/replacements – after all, what better way to keep the ‘trigger’ numbers low and gain some street cred by replacing selective failed devices for people who will crow about ‘awesome support’.
They’re great designers and their products are useful, but bloody hell their attitude to owning up to their shortcomings is poor. I’d take a slightly lower product quality for more honesty and humility from Apple anyday…
ame problem here in brazil… 3year using this machine… i was quite glad with it…
this last week this glitches started happening… restarting done the job for a while… but yesterday, I plugged my tv on thunderbolt port and my mbp can’t initialize anymore…
Mine died on me, but luckily I was still under Applecare so I didn’t have to pay for the logic board replacement. After that happened I did a lot of research and found out about these issues. I took some precautions to make sure this won’t happen again:
1. Installed a freeware program called gfxcardstatus. This allows you to set integrated (intel) graphics card as the card to use all the time. Do NOT use the AMD 6750 card as it is the one causing problems in overheating.
2. Installed a freeware program called SmcFanControl. This allows you to increase the default fan speed rate. I now have my fans running at 3000 rpm all the time. I’d rather pay $15 to replace the fans if they die out then $600 for a new logic board.
3. Replaced the internal stock HD with an OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD. SSD’s run cooler than spinning HD’s.
4. Use a laptop stand with a cooling fan underneath.
My fiancee is going through the Macbook 2011 two-step with Apple now. The complaints, phone tag, and horrific assessments by the lack-of-Genius Bar have lead to her Apple Care expiring. Now they want to charge her for the isssues.
http://www.katiebickley.com/overheating-macbook-pro-and-apples-failed-customer-service
After struggling with my early 2011 MBP for months I’ve recently replaced it with an HP Envy. Better specs than the new MBP, 40% of the price, and a pleasure to use. Only thing left to do is replace my iPhone with something else and I will be rid of my apple products. Look forward to never having to deal with the useless bunch at Apple ever again.
Try smc Fan Control to boost the default fan speed on the machine. It might get you by while you wait for a new logic board.
You can help by signing this petition
https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/timothy-d-cook-replace-or-fix-all-early-2011-macbook-pro-with-graphics-failure