2011 MacBook Graphics Card - Out of box solution

"The issue here is that even a replacement will eventually fail due to the design of the IC. Here is a very ""quick and dirty"" explanation of what causes most of these failures.Sometimes it is a failure of the solder balls which connect the IC package to the motherboard. It does happen and you can see why on here. More commonly however is that the failure is due to the chip design itself.

As you can see the ""bumps' are what actually connects the die to the substrate to make the chip complete. If these bumps fail, the die does no longer make contact with the substrate and thus no contact with the circuit board. The chip has failed.

Here you can see the space where the bump has failed and no longer makes contact. We are talking microns of space here. So a bit of pressure on the top of the die potentially close the gap. Same with a reflow, it may allow some of material from the bump to reshape and starting to make contact again. The heating of cooling of the chip during use is what will eventually cause it to fail again.

So if anything, the design of a more effective heatsink may provide a more viable solution."

"Sadly you can’t uncrack an egg and in this case you can’t undo the damage caused by the chip overheating over the years you’ve had the system.

But! It may not be doom & gloom here. There are two distinct issues the tantalum caps failing and the other which is the worse the GPU is shot. You’ll need to find someone with the skills to properly diagnose which way your system failed and hopefully get it fixed.

Last glimmer of hope here is you can also force the system to use the Iris graphics services within the Intel CPU. While this will help you limp along for a short time it’s not as powerful a GPU as the Radion GPU."

"A sollution (other than replacing the mainboard and if the chip isn’t toast yet) would be to properly clean the MacBook and replace the termal paste.

I have got a candidate for that right here, I will investigate and report back."

"Hi there - just had this problem with my early 2011 mbp - it's a very common problem, and a good engineer can buy a new gpu chip and replace without replacing the whole logic board. Just had mine done, and all is well!

Hope that helps

Steve"

"I know this answer is a bit late.

However, keeping the laptop cool cannot help after the GPU has failed.

if you have done the oven trick or replaced said GPU, then most certainly yes keeping cool will stop it happening again.

I use a free app called Macs Fan Control to keep my 2011 Macs cool"

"Hi guys - I posted a while back saying I had found a guy who sorted out this problem for me - his name is Lee and works in South Woodford, London, right next to the tube station in a small computer repair shop .

He replaced the chip, and the thermal paste. In all honesty the solution lasted about months, and then the same thing happened. I took it back, and he was quite surprised, and so agreed that I only pay for the chip and not the labour this time round. So he charged me £60 as opposed to the £180 he charged last time. Im pretty sure he changed the chip as he gave me the old one!

If it happens again then I guess it will be time to get a new mac! I will try and get his website details if anyone needs it."