This is the first I've heard of the class-action. How do I get in on this? I'd love to have my graphic card replaced or get a giant credit towards a new Mac.
I beg your pardon. Are we speaking about the early or the late 2011 model?
I'm am happy owner of a 15" late 2011 MBP , bought in October 11, just a few days after its release. I'm using it on a daily basis without a single issue (I swapped the original HDD with an SSD just for performance), and I really think it's the best MacBook I've ever owned (it's my fourth).
I'm worried about this thread, because I don't have plans to change it any soon.
My late 2011 15" MBP suffered from this issue (my previous post). My advice is to keep it cool. Buy one of these stands with cooling fans. Mine suffered this issue when my son started playing Minecraft on it regularly... Not anymore.
My late 2011 15" MBP suffered from this issue (my previous post). My advice is to keep it cool. Buy one of these stands with cooling fans. Mine suffered this issue when my son started playing Minecraft on it regularly... Not anymore.
Thank you for the advice, but quite frankly mine is pretty cool.
I'm not playing with my MBP, I have only Office installed, plus Appetite for my personal photos.
Your late 2011 model could randomly fail this year sometime. They are worth about $1000 in working condition so you could sell it on eBay and get a late 2013 Retina model (these are practically the same as the latest 2014 models):
It has a 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM. If that's enough, it's a small upgrade cost and you'd be able to extend the warranty for 3 years. That has integrated graphics so no dedicated GPU to fail.
If you want to hang onto the 2011 model and it does fail in a few months, you can sell it for spares or try to get Apple to cover the fix. Apple can't really fix these though because the parts aren't manufactured any more so if there's a settlement then you'd just get a payout after a very long time and might not get anything. I'd say your best option is to look at upgrading while it's still in working order. It is sort of just passing the problem onto someone else if it's certainly a defective product but there's not enough certainty of that yet because we don't know the numbers of failures. It could be a defect limited to a certain production run.
Thank you for the comprehensive analysis of the situation.
Well, I'm not the type to pass a possibly defective product to someone else, so I'm not going to sell it.
If it will fail in about six/ten months from now, it would have last for four years, and I'm taking 4 years of daily use as an acceptable lifespan for a notebook. Not great, but still acceptable, so it won't be a real problem for me.
I hope it will last another year when I'm going to replace it.
I have the same problem as you, the screen suddenly goes black. Attempts to reboot results in a grey screen. Then suddenly after a hour or so the machine will boot again.
We live in South Dakota. If everyone here had a early 2011 MacBook Pro we still would not make an impressive number. So like you I would really appreciate it if Apple would step up to the plate and do the ethically appropriate thing.
As a retired Test Engineer I see this problem as an indication of life testing problems. My research indicates the problem initially was observed in 2012 and has been growing every since with a epidemically large increase occurring in the last few months. There are few coincidences in electronics.
To bad we don't have an email address that goes directly to Tim Cook. Honest reports of this problem deserve to be investigated.
From my research this problem first appeared in 2012 and Apple reacted with a firmware change that slowed the graphics processor thus reducing the heat. Since heat is the catalyst for exposing the failure, the firmware delayed the appearance of the failure. Such a delay would move these failures outside the warranty window. Thus absolving Apple of responsibility and the associated costs.
Apple's solution to reduce the graphic processor performance, seems to be conscious and deliberate. Reminds me of Ford's Pinto solution. Ethics lost to costs that subtracted from the bottom line.
If the same graphic processor, at performance levels comparable to original performance for this application, were used in other machines than we can be assured that we are the victims of a process problem, not a component problem. Apple's production produced that problem with a faulty process.
The problem with a motherboard replacement is that the replacement boards were produced at the same time as the motherboards we have in our MacBooks, therefore they have same process time bomb problem we are currently experiencing. Except the replacement have a safety relief valve, these boards only has a 90 day warranty. We know the motherboards built during that production run will fail just as the rest of the production is doing. Only this time it will fail outside Apple's responsibility window.
Go back and read accounts in which mother boards were replaced in 2012 and 2013, many accounts contain stories of repeat offenders, multiple mother board replacements.
I made a living, for a couple decades, finding and fixing these kinds of problems for companies in several countries. Money does strange things to people's virtues.
Bought a 2011 15 inch MacBook Pro , I live in the UK , my Gpu just failed outside of apple care, I called apple and it was replaced free of charge end of March 2015
Bought a 2011 15 inch MacBook Pro , I live in the UK , my Gpu just failed outside of apple care, I called apple and it was replaced free of charge end of March 2015
Comments
I have this problem with my 2011 15: MacBook Pro. Here's a screenshot of what happens when the screen goes weird:
http://grab.by/DQmm
This is the first I've heard of the class-action. How do I get in on this? I'd love to have my graphic card replaced or get a giant credit towards a new Mac.
Try contacting the people at http://www.wbmllp.com/news/class-action-filed-against-apple-for-defective-2011-macbook-pro-laptops. They will want to talk to you over the phone, asking questions about your MBP and it's problems. Currently, they are only handling MBPs purchased in a few states.
My late 2011 15" MBP suffered from this issue (my previous post). My advice is to keep it cool. Buy one of these stands with cooling fans. Mine suffered this issue when my son started playing Minecraft on it regularly... Not anymore.
I'm not playing with my MBP, I have only Office installed, plus Appetite for my personal photos.
Thank you for the comprehensive analysis of the situation.
Well, I'm not the type to pass a possibly defective product to someone else, so I'm not going to sell it.
If it will fail in about six/ten months from now, it would have last for four years, and I'm taking 4 years of daily use as an acceptable lifespan for a notebook. Not great, but still acceptable, so it won't be a real problem for me.
I hope it will last another year when I'm going to replace it.
I have the same problem as you, the screen suddenly goes black. Attempts to reboot results in a grey screen. Then suddenly after a hour or so the machine will boot again.
We live in South Dakota. If everyone here had a early 2011 MacBook Pro we still would not make an impressive number. So like you I would really appreciate it if Apple would step up to the plate and do the ethically appropriate thing.
As a retired Test Engineer I see this problem as an indication of life testing problems. My research indicates the problem initially was observed in 2012 and has been growing every since with a epidemically large increase occurring in the last few months. There are few coincidences in electronics.
To bad we don't have an email address that goes directly to Tim Cook. Honest reports of this problem deserve to be investigated.
From my research this problem first appeared in 2012 and Apple reacted with a firmware change that slowed the graphics processor thus reducing the heat. Since heat is the catalyst for exposing the failure, the firmware delayed the appearance of the failure. Such a delay would move these failures outside the warranty window. Thus absolving Apple of responsibility and the associated costs.
Apple's solution to reduce the graphic processor performance, seems to be conscious and deliberate. Reminds me of Ford's Pinto solution. Ethics lost to costs that subtracted from the bottom line.
If the same graphic processor, at performance levels comparable to original performance for this application, were used in other machines than we can be assured that we are the victims of a process problem, not a component problem. Apple's production produced that problem with a faulty process.
The problem with a motherboard replacement is that the replacement boards were produced at the same time as the motherboards we have in our MacBooks, therefore they have same process time bomb problem we are currently experiencing. Except the replacement have a safety relief valve, these boards only has a 90 day warranty. We know the motherboards built during that production run will fail just as the rest of the production is doing. Only this time it will fail outside Apple's responsibility window.
Go back and read accounts in which mother boards were replaced in 2012 and 2013, many accounts contain stories of repeat offenders, multiple mother board replacements.
I made a living, for a couple decades, finding and fixing these kinds of problems for companies in several countries. Money does strange things to people's virtues.