2011 Macbook Pro and Discrete Graphics

Question

Hi Everyone
I am writing to give an update on this issue. Just to recount... my MBP Early 2011 went into the white screen of death mode in mid-December. I had immediately taken it in for check up and diagnostics at a Apple Service Centre in Kolkata. After paying Rs. 2400/- they called me and confirmed the diagnostics, which I had already pointed out to them. After that I could not access the hard drive for almost 20 days, and later I managed to install the Snow Leopard that had shipped with the MBP when I bought it. In the meantime I had been reading each and every post that has got posted here, and somehow the restart with the 'twist' trick worked for me to install Mountain Lion.
But all this with disabled graphics and very low performance.
I contacted apple about a week and half back and the customer service rep. on the phone advised me to take the MBP to a nearest service centre and tell them the problem along with this forum. I told the rep. that this is now a know issue and thousands of people are suffering not just loss of money but faith in apple and more importantly productivity, as we use this computer for all our main work. The rep. was very helpful, and raised a case and encouraged me to go into the service provider.
Last week I took the MBP to the service provider in Hyderabad, RSG Infotech. The rep. there spoke the script that we usually hear: that they will have to check, they will have to run diagnostics, it will cost minimum amount to get it checked since its out of warranty etc. I patiently heard everything. Then I told him the specific issue, told him the history of this and also said that apple has told me to come there. I gave the case number to them and showed this community. Fortunately the MBP was going through a display hang where the safari browser kept on refreshing without anything, and the rep. saw it and said yes its a gpu issue. So, I asked him to contact apple and let me know. He called me up after two days and gave a quotation for Rs. 45000/- for changing the battery (for it had swilled-up), the magsafe port and the logic board. I told him to wait for my call.
I then contact apple on phone. The customer rep. was very patient and helpful. He said that there is an open case against my earlier call and he would transfer the call to his senior. The supervisor too listened to me and asked a few questions. She was again very polite and helpful, and asked for some time to get the hardware diagnostics from the service provider. After half an hour she called me back and said that the battery will be replaced free of charge. She asked for a day to respond to the logic board issue. Yesterday she called me and told that apple is going to take care of the other parts free of cost, and I would have to bear the cost of minimum service Rs. 1500/- I agreed to it. I also asked her what the warranty period of the replaced parts would be. She said that it would be 90 days and I could take the MBP back to the service provider if any problem occurs.
Now I am waiting for the call from the service provider. This whole process shows 2 things, first that apple is serious about its customer care, and second that they know about this issue but will only address it case by case. The whole picture seems to be that apple is ready to help but you need to go pass the first rung of customer care, and tell them specifically to raise this issue to higher ups in the hierarchy. Since we have been using apple products for a long time, and since the company can help us out reliably I thing everyone must contact apple on phone or through the service centres to get a case opened. Only then will apple understand the extent of this problem. I am not sure about the third party solutions of rebelling/reflowing in India. Since anything apple in India is a very highly priced product and they would charge you money only to have a look at it !
Will keep everyone posted on this

Answer 1

Hey!
I ran into the exact same issue around the same time like you. I have a early 2011 MBP 15", and the same issue arose. First, my external monitor (and laptop monitor) screen shifted like in your first shot. It happened a couple of times, unplugging/plugging the external monitor would help solve it. I restarted the comp and it didn't happen.
Tomorrow, though, the screen started exhibiting worse issues like you described. Lock ups, screen tearing, graphics glitches etc. I tried to localize the problem to be a software one, but failed. Althought Windows was stable, it also started showing glitches, and eventually they started appearing on the recovery partition as well.
I sort of identified the issue to be with the discrete graphics, as switching to integrated didn't cause the problems.
I brought it into the service center, where they noticed my laptop heats up substantially more than they would expect. They ran a couple of tests, many of which failed because my laptop locked up.
They offered two procedures: one is to switch out the logic board, which is the usual path they would take, and the other one (cheaper) was to actually re-solder in the graphics chip. They said it was a bit detached and not soldered well to the board. Either as a result of falling damage (a slight fall happened, but a very long while ago and I never had issues after that - I slipped while the laptop was in my backpack) or heating over time, it got fuzzed up. I had them do the resoldering and the laptop worked fine for about 10 days, and now it's acting up again.
I'll go for the logic board solution, but if you find any solutions, let me know. If you're interested, I can ping in with the results of the procedure.