GPUs Dropping Dead In 2011 MacBook Pro Models 359
New submitter blackwizard writes "MacRumors is reporting on pervasive GPU failures in 2011 MacBook Pro machines, leading both to intermittent video issues, corruption, crashing/freezing, and eventually even failure to boot. Luckily for Apple, the machines are now out of warranty (unless you bought AppleCare). The issues have been reported both on Apple's own forums and other blogs. Apple has so far failed to take action on the problem. Will they take ownership of the issue, or continue to ask customers to pay for an entire new logic board when just the GPU fails?"
Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullshit, Apple will do no such thing unless they face severe penalties. Here in Denmark it took several court cases regarding faulty design on the MBP, which Apple lost all of them - even then did Apple not want to own up and repair the affected MBPs, it wasn't until they faced severe repercussions they started fixing them.
By the way, I'm a happy MBP owner and will probably keep being one, just saying, don't expect them to go out of the way to help you.
Re:Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:5, Funny)
A laptop built by my company has serious issues with GPUs dropping ead. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of laptops in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
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That's the Ford Pinto memo [calbaptist.edu], eh? I doubt if anybody is going to leak Apple's modern equivalent.
Not that anybody is gonna die like with the Pinto, but the pangs of Mac withdrawal could be debilitating.
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Re:Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the primary selling points is their longevity. I have two Macs from 2006-7 that I still use on a regular basis. I'm typing this on a 2007 model now. Finally had to shelve my 2003 model a few years ago as it can't handle playing high res video.
As an amusing anecdote, I will tell you about my experience with Mac vs PC in a laboratory environment. My lab has always been all Mac, even before I got there. I was allowed to get a new iMac back in 2008 as I needed a higher resolution screen to do graphics manipulation on electron micrographs. A couple of years later, another member of our lab wanted a new computer, but insisted on a PC (he had to run some stats software and couldn't into boot camp). So we got him one. A couple of years later, he wanted another one, complaining that his had slowed down so much it was unusable. I was still using my 2008 model, and it was running like a champ. It still works fine, so far as I know, as I have since moved on. Also of note is that we had another Mac from the early 90's running our HPLC, which still works, though that probably isn't a fair comparison as we never used it for anything else.
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That's good for bean counters that run most corporations these days. Eventually though you lose brand loyalty if you keep fucking your customers over. When that happens you become just another nothing special outfit. Apple can't afford that. If they lose the association of quality with their name they'll die.
Re:Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:5, Informative)
That's not true. I bought a used, out-of-warranty iMac which developed bad capacitors (swollen and leaking) on the graphics card a year later. I called Apple and they replaced everything inside it without charging me a penny. I never heard of that being a big scandal, and in the US I doubt they had any legal obligations to fix my 3.5 year old used Mac.
I think a more accurate version is that sometimes Apple fixes things for free because they want to, and other times because they're forced to. There's no obvious way of knowing in advance which way an "event" will go.
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It's basically luck if they happen to acknowledge your particular fault, in which case as you say they will usually fix it. If they don't though... Like the manufacturing defects in iMac screens [youtube.com], for example.
Faulty moisture sensors was the other classic one. Took a lawsuit to sort that out. On the other hand they admitted the iPhone 4 antenna problem fairly quickly and gave everyone rubber bumpers. Who knows how they decide what to fix and what to pretend doesn't exist.
Re:Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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This is an industry wide issue thanks to RoHS.
Yep, and the thermal profile of a laptop (and a thin one at that) makes it that much more of a difficult environment.
I wonder when or if we've seen the first deaths from RoHS - in safety-critical systems in healthcare or potentially dangerous environments. Lead is akin to kryptonite in the anti-DHMO circles that run government bureaucracies.
Remember, kids, GPU's are chips but you shouldn't put them in your mouth.
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We've almost certainly seen deaths. Some models of vehicles have frequent ABS module failures because of solder joints failing, even in the U.S., where RoHS doesn't apply. With lead-free solder, I'd expect those problems to be much more frequent, and every ABS unit that isn't working increases the odds of somebody being unable to avoid a car accident.
Mind you, chances are good that none of those deaths have been properly reported as being caused by RoHS, because the odds against someone noticing somethin
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because the odds against someone noticing something as subtle as a defective ABS module during a post-crash investigation are astronomical.
Compare the effort that goes into investigating a rail accident (example [raib.gov.uk] -- a derailment with no injuries, a 41-page report concluding with learning points and recommendations) to the not-much that happens after a road accident.
I'd like to see more effort spent investigating road accidents -- perhaps choosing a small sample to thoroughly investigate.
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I can guarantee that a non-working ABS would be detected in very close to 100% of investigations of deadly accidents in Denmark. Whether they would be detected during the stupid mandatory car check done every two years I am not sure.
Alas, practically no fatalities in Denmark are due to faults with the cars, at least not faults which makes the car illegal to drive (like broken ABS), and Denmark is a bit infamous for the average age of its vehicles.
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So don't drive your car when the ABS warning light is on.
It's one of the systems that goes through a full self-test every time it turns on.
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The question is would more people have died from lead and other hazardous substance pollution than have died because of defective solder joints? Can defective soldering even be blamed on RoHS, when slightly more expensive but much more reliable lead free solder is available to those who choose to pay for it?
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This sounds to my [admittedly uneducated] ears just like the yellow light of death issues affecting the PS3, particularly the launch models. Same issue, more or less; the PS3 gets cooked when the lead-free solder cracks and allows the GPU to physically separate from the board.
[I am sad, I have a launch model that's been taken in twice for reflowing; it's now failed a third time, so no more]
I did have a 2011 mbp as well, but a 13" without the discrete graphics that I've since passed to my girlfriend. I recko
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I've had satellite receivers crap out and I've had to heat-gun the chips back into connection. It's a real great way to generate mountains of e-waste - most people don't put a heat gun to their electronics' motherboards.
RoHS was supposed to be about e-waste, but maybe they forgot about unintended consequences.
Re: Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:5, Interesting)
In the case of the 2008 and the 2.2/2.4 mbp's, the problem was actually Nvidia, fault, not Apple.. Apple pushes the design limits of their components pretty close to the edge to keep their designs small, light, and enduring. The frame and cooling was designed to only slightly exceed required cooling for nvidia's GPU, according to their provided specifications.
Nvidia lied about the cooling requirements of their GPU, describing it as requiring less cooling than it actually did. (probably as a selling point to get Apple to use it) As a result, the machine didn't adequately cool it under very high stress. (playing WoW for an extended time was a known cause of failure) As a result, boards and GPUs flexed, ball solder joints failed, and gpus stopped functioning. (this is not a gpu defect or a ball problem, it's a mechanical problem, caused by thermal stress due to inadequate cooling)
After Apple had encountered a larger number of in-warranty failures than expected, they contacted Nvidia, who denied the problem. Bad logic boards continued to pour in and get repaired under the one year warranty, but replaced boards were frequently failing again, and users were sometimes seeing 2-4 replacements within the first year. A few customers got a new machine per Apple's policy on "three major repairs within warranty", some of which had gpu failures on their replacement machines as well. Apple put their own engineers to work testing new GPUs, and found that the cooling requirements were significantly above Nvidia's stated specs.
Although they were aware of this issue well before the first year, Apple's SOP on an issue like this is to stay quiet until the units start dropping out of their first year's warranty, and then issue a Repair Extension on them. (probably trying to mitigate a drop in sales on a "defective model") Coverage time for REPs vary, and only extend the warranty on the specific part, and only for the specific failure. REPs typically extend coverage to the 2, 3, or 4 year point after purchase. It does not stack with applecare extended warranty. This REP I believe went the maximum at four years from date of purchase.
Apple has issued a dozen or so REPs in the last ten years. Considering the units sold, the variety of models offered, and the cutting-edge technology they'r fond of using, this is actually a pretty low failure rate, as well as a very good manufacturer's response.
2011 is not a new computer, it's going on three years old. Referring to them as "dropping dead" makes it sound like it's a very early failure (first year or so) I think the article is being sensational and a bit deceptive to link-bait. Apple expects their products to last 3-5 years before they get replaced. Considering how fast tech advances, and that Apple users typically want new and cutting-edge tech, this isn't at all unreasonable. With as many models as they make, there are going to be those that fail sooner than others, and that you can expect to get less than 7-8 years out of. This may just be one of them. It happens. And it can suck to be the unlucky one that owns one. But "only" getting three years out of a laptop may not be desirable, but it's hardly a travesty. If Apple were to refuse to cover failures inside the one year warranty, or not extend coverage to units failing frequently in the 2-3 year area, that'd be newsworthy. This really isn't.
Re: Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:5, Informative)
3 years IS an early death. Even my ten year old white box specials still run just as well as they ever did. It's reasonable to expect more from a premium brand.
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Stopped reading after the first paragraph. Since it is Apple that does the system design and manufacturing, it is entirely their responsibility to make sure the design works. If the nVidia part fails to work within their design requirements, they should be selecting a different part.
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Nvidia lied about the cooling requirements of their GPU, describing it as requiring less cooling than it actually did.
This is not true. Nvidia simply did not test their hardware through enough thermal cycles to discover that the soldering would fail after some time, typically 12-18 months. No malice, just incompetence. You probably got the impression that they lied because a common fix, suggested by themselves, was to underclock the GPU or increase cooling, but that was simply an attempt to reduce thermal cycling load and get the parts past the mandatory 2 year EU warranty.
Apple put their own engineers to work testing new GPUs, and found that the cooling requirements were significantly above Nvidia's stated specs.
Seems like an incredible waste of time considering
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Sure, every company has had screwups, and this time it's AMD and Apple. So why are you so intent on talking about Nvidia?
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This is an industry wide issue thanks to RoHS. This isn't just Apple, this effects Dell and HP laptops that have high temp GPUs. The XBox 360 is another perfect example. The problem is caused from the constant thermal cycling causing expansion and contraction as it cools. Like bending a paper clip, over time metal fatigue sets in and cracks the solder.
AFAIK, they still use tin-lead based solder in medical equipment, even the new stuff, for this reason. The consumer industry went along with the RoHS stuff because they knew it was a form of built-in obsolescence. Even the tin whisker problem has been known about since the 1960s.
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With tin, you get whiskers. With lead, you get the solder pushed out of the way by thermal cycling. Is there any winning?
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Why do you people keep buying laptops with tiny cooling systems and dedicated graphics cards with dozens of Watts of TDP? I stopped buying those damned things years ago and haven't had to replace a machine since then.
Reliable onboard Intel graphics > Hot-headed dedicated graphics
Graphically intensive work (and gaming) should be done on desktops.
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3. Keep remaining good hand clear of the Genius Bar.
Can doing a lot of Ruby on Rails cause this? (Score:5, Funny)
Shit, I'm getting really worried now. I've got a 2011 MacBook Pro and I do so much Ruby on Rails and JavaScript. I wake up at 4 am every day and then I put on my fedora, my anime t-shirt and I write Ruby on Rails and JavaScript libraries until 3 am the next day. Sometimes I don't even eat and urinate, but that's beside the point.
Could all my hardcore Rubying be causing my MacBook Pro to die? I do push it pretty hard. A lot of the coding I'm doing is webscale. I even use NoSQL I'm dealing with so much data. My web app's logging subsystem logs almost 2 GB of data a month. When you're dealing with a lot of data like that a superpowerful database like Mongo then I can understand my poor little MacBook having a hard time coping. Maybe I'm pushing her too hard?
I can't just ease up though. I've got so many Ruby on Rails web apps to write and so many JavaScript libraries to craft. This is a life or death situation for me. I don't want it to be a life or death situation for my MacBook either. We've been through so much! I remember writing my very first line of code ever on my laptop. It was a Ruby code and it made me feel really good. Now I'm an accomplished software architect with numerous Web 2.0 web sites under my belt like for the local veterinarian and the herbal store down the street.
Now I really don't know what to do. I'm so confused. I want my MacBook to live forever because it has become part of me. But I need to use her, too. I need her to do my Ruby on Rails coding and my JavaScript programming. I need to use my NoSQL DB but if it hurts my MacBook Pro, do I really want to use it? I just don't know any more.
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> If it's truly faulty hardware Apple will typically own up to it and offer repairs free of charge.
You missed one important bit.
Applies only in the US. Fuck elsewhere we do not care about you.
Re:Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:5, Insightful)
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UK breaches EU warranty laws.
Indeed, and consumer organizations are colluding with the industry on this issue, misinforming consumers about the EU laws. They only provide the information that by EU law, after 6 months, the consumer has to prove that the fault was caused by a problem which was there from the time of manufacture. They neglect to mention that the way you prove this is to write a statement "I have handled the equipment with reasonable care and not done anything to it which would be expected to cause the problem" (assuming
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No they don't. I had Power Mac G5, 3Ghz. I got it as soon as it came out. It was liquid cooled. I never put serious load on this system, I used it as a workstation but rarely was it ever running at 100% CPU usage. One day I noticed it shut off and wouldn't turn back on. Turns out the coolant had leaked out over the logic board, frying it. I had paid $3500 for the setup, it was 2 years old. Did some research and apparently the o-rings in the first few runs were known to be defective, and they silently switch
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The newer stuff? Some sp
Re:Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:5, Funny)
If it was faulty then it should have failed in the first days. That it happens three years later is a sign that the user is to blame.
For not buying a new machine after the warranty expires?
I am intrigued by your ideas and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Just think of what a boon this kind of thinking would be to the automobile industry!
A new car mandatory after three years.
Re:Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all the rage in appliances. Try buying a new major appliance without buying a warranty. When, not if, they fail you can count on a repair bill of 200 to 1000 dollars nowadays. If it's over three years old and you have no warranty then you might just as well buy a new one for what it'll cost unless you can repair it yourself. I fixed my refrigerator and while sitting at the appliance parts supply place waiting to pay 22 dollars for a part the guy next to me looked at it and laughed. I replace 7 or 8 of those a week he laughed. I asked what he charged and he told me 165 dollars. That was 8 years ago and I've replaced that same fucking part 3 times since then. I hate working on appliances but I hate taking it up the ass even more.
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What part was it? Was it electronic? I've seen a lot of consumer appliances and electronics failing because of bad capacitors (well after the "capacitor plague" of the early 2000s). It's a lot cheaper to replace a few caps than a whole board.
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Not an appliance, but I just repaired my 19" Acer LCD a couple of weeks ago. It had a few bad caps so I replaced all of them, and now it's good as GNU^H^H^Hnew.
Total cost was around $5 in parts, though the bummer was $6 shipping. But what can you do? $11 is still cheaper than a new LCD.
Re:Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:4, Interesting)
I've also noticed that the high-end appliances seem to have more problems than the cheap stuff. Admittedly, I'm a small sample size, but I bought a house that had previously been owned by Orthodox Jews, and so there are two of everything in the kitchen. I haven't had to repair any of the cheaper appliances, but the expensive stuff keeps nickel and diming me.
Re:Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:5, Informative)
That's not really a surprise. A few years ago, while trying to decide between two products made by a major electronics company, I asked one of their engineers for advice (having repeatedly repaired the previous product before giving up on it), and he suggested that if lifespan was a major concern, I should buy the cheaper model. Why? Because it was built in such volume that even a 1% failure rate would be catastrophic to the company's bottom line, whereas a much higher failure rate in the expensive product would still be a small enough number of total units that it could be absorbed.
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That's not really a surprise. A few years ago, while trying to decide between two products made by a major electronics company, I asked one of their engineers for advice (having repeatedly repaired the previous product before giving up on it), and he suggested that if lifespan was a major concern, I should buy the cheaper model. Why? Because it was built in such volume that even a 1% failure rate would be catastrophic to the company's bottom line, whereas a much higher failure rate in the expensive product would still be a small enough number of total units that it could be absorbed.
Pardon my ignorance, but why would Orthodox Jews have duplicate appliances?
I'm not being an ass, I'm genuinely curious.
Thanks.
Re:Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:5, Informative)
Because it's not Kosher if dairy and meat are prepared together, mostly.
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Yeah, I'm not an expert by any means (I simply inherited the kitchen), but it seems like they keep two sets of everything... dishes, silverware, shelf space, dishwashers, sinks, refrigerators, ovens... just about everything is duplicated - my understanding is that is to avoid cross-"contamination". All of the major appliances and many house lights are also either on timers or have Sabbath timers built-in. I have been de-timering my house since we first moved in :) At first it was quite freaky, as some of th
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Or it could be that people who buy cheaper appliances tend not to complain as frequently as those who buy expensive stuff.
Quality standard were different 30 years ago (Score:2, Interesting)
A refrigerator from 30 years ago was built to last. Modern appliances have every penny that could be saved taken into account.
That said, a 30 year old refrigerator isn't nearly as energy efficient as a modern one. You might be surprised to learn that a new one might pay for itself in two years from the savings in energy alone.
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SO? mine is 40 years old and still humming along. My amplifier is a Marantz 2240 (1974) and up until a few weeks ago was running fine except for two burnt bulbs (no bad contact in the knobs either). Those old TVs I was seeing in the trash after Canada's analog cut off were pretty old and probably still working. They were building stuff to last back then. Need a 200 power supply? they built one that could give much more than that. Today, they will build a 210w one to save a few pennies.
A modern fridge won't
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What size fridge are you using that saves 500$ a year in energy???
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For not buying a new machine after the warranty expires?
Yeah ... so I used to buy Apple laptops and was happy with them (I left when they decided to focus on iOS and slowly end the Macintosh). But that aside -
If you're an Apple customer and you use your machines for work, what you need to do is to buy AppleCare with the laptop, and then when AppleCare has two months left, sell it on eBay. If there are any problems with the laptop, send it in for a tune-up before you put it on eBay as that will increase it
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve [wikipedia.org]
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No, if it happens to a very small number of users, then it might be the user. If it happens to many users from all over the place, its the product.
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my wife had a problem where here macbook (the old white plastic ones) the palm rest cracked and they replaced it free, 3 years old. I had a problem with my 2009 macbook pro where the feet came off, they replaced it free. apple will take care of you. a lot of the rage here is an instinctive reaction from getting screwed over by so many companies. give apple a try.
also, the summary is a lie and FUD. Nowhere in the linked article does it use the word "pervasive". Here's the first sentence: "Many early and late
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I will never buy another HP laptop after mine croaked twice; once under warranty (which was covered) and then again about four or five months afterwards. Both were due to the nVidia overheating problem and they didn't even have the decency to put a proper heat sync on it for the in warranty repair. Bought a cheapo Asus two years ago and it's still ticking.
Re:Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score:5, Funny)
A place I worked at lost a whole bunch of hard drives from HP laptops just after the warranty expired.
Turned out the HP sticker they put on the drives covered the ventilation hole that says "do not cover".
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Warranties do not, and should not last forever
Really? Can you explain why the videocard that I bought from evga has a lifetime warranty on it. And funny enough the difference in price at the time was $3 compared to the nearest competitor.
I know people that this has happened to... (Score:5, Funny)
Thankfully, I was there to tell them "I told you so."
What's the big deal (Score:2, Funny)
MacBooks are mostly used for appearance. Surely, the hipsters can go to a coffee shop with one that doesn't have a working GPU.
History (Score:4, Informative)
Apple has shown they will replace whatever is necessary, if there is a defect. When the Nvidia 8400M chip was defective (material in chip package caused solder ball fracture due to thermal expansion), they replaced main boards. Dell used the same chip in XPS laptops (I had one and it did die), and supplied the same fix. Of course, in that instance they got some reimbursement from Nvidia.
Smart corporations know to do the right thing or take a righteous bitch slapping from consumers and lawyers.
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Re:History (Score:5, Interesting)
Quanta's quality problems are even more dire when you see that they manufacture about one third of the world's laptop system boards.
Please see Quanta [wikipedia.org] and ball grid array [wikipedia.org].
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The problem is not the chips or cooling, it's the "good enough" techniques Quanta uses to attach them to to a system board.
The case I described had a detailed investigation by Nvidia, who claimed responsibility and reported the materials problem in the chip package. They payed hundreds of millions to settle. The chip in question was used by multiple vendors, all of which had the same failures.
Given those facts, it is hard to see how you come to the conclusion Apple/Quanta is responsible.
Score: -1, Flamebait (Score:4, Informative)
"Will they take ownership of the issue, or continue to ask customers to pay for an entire new logic board when just the GPU fails?"
Seriously?
Apple has a history of acknowledging and providing free fixes for issues of this magnitude, if they're really affecting a significant percentage of the population. I've been the beneficiary of such a fix in the past myself.
Hell, that's even mentioned in the linked article:
Mid–2011 iMacs with AMD Radeon HD 6970 graphics cards experienced similar failures and in August of 2013, Apple initiated a Graphics Card Replacement Program [macrumors.com] for the computers, replacing the graphics cards of affected iMacs at no cost.
So with the MacRumors article having only come out yesterday, it seems pretty aggressively snide to be suggesting that Apple's going to ignore the issue.
Dan Aris
6750M/6770M (Score:2)
For the 2011 macbook pros, my guess is that this mostly impacts the AMD Radeon HD 6750M and AMD Radeon HD 6770M.
I would imagine the AMD Radeon HD 6490M doesn't get hot enough to be impacted :)
Re:Score: -1, Flamebait (Score:5, Informative)
Mainstreaming reporting started in the last few days. The issue has been reported consistently for nearly a year [apple.com]. I and many other impact users have reported faults in stores, reported via Apple Product Feedback in forums and written to Tim Cook to complain. Not only do they ignore the issues reported on the forum but they also delete posts with links to online forums, news stories and petitions. Nice work Apple.....
Apple do little on the issue and offer you a (paid for) repair service to fix this systemic fault. The repair being a replacement board that many users report fails again anyway.
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Seriously?
Apple has a history of acknowledging and providing free fixes for issues of this magnitude, if they're really affecting a significant percentage of the population. I've been the beneficiary of such a fix in the past myself.
Hell, that's even mentioned in the linked article:
Except when they think they can get away with it. They are one of the better corporate citizens but then the Vatican is the symbol for all things good and righteous as well right? They have been repeatedly sued in Europe about warranty practices, have been caught denying problems and then flat out mass deleting customer complaints on their forums (like with the LG screen issue), and even the NVIDIA GPU issue that plagued a few computers they denied everything until NVIDIA eventually took the blame, after wh
Thin and looks over cooling is the apple way (Score:2, Troll)
Thin and looks over cooling is the apple way
I'm not an apple defender, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Will they take ownership of the issue, or continue to ask customers to pay for an entire new logic board when just the GPU fails?
That doesn't sound any different from any other manufacturer. The GPU on the laptop is, after all, soldered into the laptop motherboard. Even though is it "just the GPU" it isn't something that can be replaced on its own. I don't know why we should expect Apple to have a different standard for customer service and expected system longevity.
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MXM...meh (Score:2)
Apple had used MXM II and MXM III slots/cards for several years in the iMac. Like with the MacBook/MacBook Pro line, they've moved the iMac to a soldered GPU solution as well.
With the way Apple crams components into notebooks less than an inch thick, I can't really see an MXM slot being possible. The thickness of the logic board, MXM card and thermal plate for the GPU die on my iMac is thicker than my 2011 MacBook Pro.
I completely agree that Apple should explore replaceable GPU options, but they're not go
2011 Refurbs (Score:3)
Some early/late 2011 refurbs have been popping up on the Apple Refurb Store occasionally still (although there are none on there now there was some several weeks ago). My guess is these are machines Apple is replacing for folks with AppleCare and then they are replacing the logic board and battery and reselling them as refurbs.
I have a late 2011 (a work machine with applecare) and have never seen any issues.
It's not just Apple... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm of the opinion now that notebooks just don't belong having high-end GPUs in them. Notebooks have always had a history of cooling issues because of a variety of issues from inadequate fans or other various issues. Now let's stick the equivalent of a space heater in the device and let's see what happens. I'm really surprised that this sort of thing isn't happening more often to more brands of notebooks.
Let's face it, a notebook is a portable device with very cramped internals. It's like it's become a form of art to find out just how much more stuff we can cram into an even smaller space. A notebook is a portable device, it's not meant to be your one and only device. If you want to be playing games, get a desktop; not a notebook.
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I'm of the opinion now that notebooks just don't belong having high-end GPUs in them. Notebooks have always had a history of cooling issues because of a variety of issues from inadequate fans or other various issues.
I disagree. My Origin EON17 has been rocking for three years with a GeForce 460M without a problem at all. The issue isn't the GPU. The issue is trying to cram a half-decent GPU into anorexic laptops. Apple frequently trumpets their tech as being "thin", which to many people, is a selling point. I understand that. My laptop is, at its largest point, about 2 inches thick. Finding bags that fit it has been a challenge on many occasions. It weighs over ten pounds, and the power brick is another three.
The issue
For people impacted by this issues (Score:4, Informative)
Join the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2011mbp/ [facebook.com]
Keep up to date with the news articles: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Eb-f4R0rWNfK5gPPw4O38bCJZUh5zLTjxj3qSKtqXkA/edit [google.com]
Mail Tim Cook and express your frustration, politely: tcook[at]apple.com
Sign the petition: https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/timothy-d-cook-replace-or-fix-all-early-2011-macbook-pro-with-graphics-failure [change.org]
Is the root cause overheating??? (Score:3)
What is the root cause? I drive a 32" LCD TV with my Early 2011 MBP, it worked flawlessly in Lion, but Mavericks I have notice many glitches... I just assumed it was Apple's reworking of the multiple monitor code that was flaky. I seem to recall these machines have dual video drivers. If it's the internal ATI Radeon GPU that is faulty, can you force it into internal graphics mode? Or vice versa?
Is heat a factor? If so, Apple should be able to tweak the cooling thresholds with a firmware update.
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Is heat a factor? If so, Apple should be able to tweak the cooling thresholds with a firmware update.
I'm not an engineer, but I don't think that that's going to truly solve the problem at this point.
Even if Apple did this tomorrow, you still have GPUs with over two years of heat wear involved. Similarly, depending on the situation, maxing out the fans at the first sign of a Youtube video may be nice and all, but depending on the situation, the solution would be to ratchet down the clock speed of the GPU, which will NOT make happy campers out of the people who want that GPU to run at full speed during rende
Whew... almost worried. (Score:3)
It is only the 15 and 13 inch models. the 17" models do not have the same problems. That makes me happy as my 17" is my workhorse. The only laptop you could buy at the time with a Matte 1920X1080 screen and had decent hardware build. All other brand laptops made in 2011 were garbage with low res or the crap shiny screens.
poor fan boys (Score:3, Insightful)
guess they wish they had another fan? Those same fan boys want people to believe that we should pay a significant premium for "Apple build quality," yet there are more than enough stories like this one that show Apple build quality (and/or design) is not worth a premium over the likes of Lenovo, HP, etc. Of course, those same fanboys who would trash those companies if the failure was in one of their laptops will simply blame AMD and not Apple for this event.
I guess no one looked at the pictures? (Score:2)
I guess no one looked at the pictures?
3 LCD cable problems, likely from rough treatment, and one damaged area of liquid crystal from an impact to the back of the case (same thing I did to my Sony VAIO, and had to replace the LCD on the thing).
Not sure how these qualify as a problem with the GPU. At worst, the one with the wide bars is broken cable strands from some idiot setting the thing down and making a triangle by laying it down face down with the screen open, like you would a book, and the LCD cable w
Consumer rights (Score:3)
Where I live, there is a mandatory five year protection against manufacturing defects.
As it happens, my sons 2011 MacBook Pro failed last week. Did not boot. Got it back yesterday with a new motherboard. No cost.
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While i agree, that isn't how the world works today. People expect to be babysat their entire life.
Just look at the 'settlement' for the bad parenting skills and iPhone apps we just saw happen?
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Actually, this sounds like a solder ball problem, not a capacitor problem. There's two main problems with electronics these days: 1) shitty capacitors (electrolytic, low-quality Chinese-made, frequently under-specced; problem easily solved by replacing high equivalent-capacitace Japanese caps with 105C and higher voltage ratings), and 2) lead-free solder. There have been a lot of cases of products failing because of lead-free solder balls under BGA packages. Reflowing them helps, but a more permanent and
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The convenience factor does enter into it as well. It's pain taking stuff in for repairs. Apple makes decent hardware, but they do seem to have at least as many lemons as anyone else. From what I've seen it's more, perhaps because of the size of the laptops. Most people I know with MacBooks have had at least one repair in the first couple of years. A couple have had machines that had to be replaced as they kept having problems. The good news is that they were replaced free. It's still a pain though.
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Apple is sort of an oddball in that their base level of service tends to be quite high (they have their share of horror stories; but given that the consumer-l
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I see what you did there...
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Motherboard failure happed to me with a Mac Mini only one month after the warranty expired. The problem was that the epoxy used on the boards when they were made was in short supply, so a substitute resin was used on some to keep production up. Apple wanted $499 for a new board. I never bought another Apple product again. If your MacBook Pro died. Find out what it will cost to replace the board. After your shock go look for a new machine. Apple price gouges the aftermarket.
I have the opposite story. I brought my MBP in to the Apple store because it was over-heating and I asked them to change the fans. They refused (for some reason) but they gave me a free motherboard replacement instead (or at least they claimed they did). This fixed the problem for a while but the over-heating came back eventually. I then paid to have the fans changed, which meant it ran quieter because the bearings were shot. Still over-heated, though.
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Apple hates their customers. I have no clue why anyone does business with them.
I can give you one explanation: Windows 8.
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That's unfair. It's not all of him, just his cock.
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