Macbook Pro 2011 15"

I know these things are awful. I will be acquring one from a friend who no longer has the stomach to deal with it. She's already paid for a LCD replacement (she cracked it) and a mobo replacement for dead graphics (tune of around $660), and it has died again, assuming another GPU failure. She's moving on into the PC world (YAY) and has agreed to give me the macbook pro for keeps in exchange for recovering her data off her HDD (thank you dual HDD slots in the M17x R4).

My question to you fellas is this: Can I pour some liquid flux on the GPU BGA and put it in the oven at 175 deg F and cook it for around 7 minutes? I have resurrected a PS3 using this method, I figure I can do the same with this board. Any precautions?

Also, I have experience with undervolting the 6970M and 6990M (top cards of that generation), and it SIGNIFICANTLY reduced temperatures. I am exploring the possibility of doing the same with these cards, as I'm sure a reduction in heat would greatly benefit the system. Problem is.... I have no experience with Apple EFI and SMC, so I really have no idea how to potentially flash the card's vBIOS. Any hints? RadeonBiosEditor should be able to modify the voltage values.

 

can try to do a reflow, but be careful I know of the EFI battery exploding on a few who tried. also flashing the GPU on a Mac is totally different as a lot of the VBIOS resides in Apples EFI firmware and not over on th GPU like you are used to.

to be fully honest ...... there is a VERY good chance it is an expensive paperweight like many others.

oh as for reflow, I have heard better success with an aluminum foil shield and a high temperature heat gun and a no contact thermometer rather than an oven. and there are a few companies doing reflow for that board too, you can look into the cost if you are interested.

 

There are lots of services that do GPU re-balling for a fraction of what Apple charges for a replacement logic board.

 

Just for the record, I got it working. Just used a little liquid flux and heat gun set on 1000 F and heated it for 10 minutes, and voila, working again.

 

I'm looking into purchasing a 2011 17" MBP. Is it really that bad of an issue with the AMD video cards? Should I look into an earlier year model? Is the graphics card upgradable? What are your thoughts?

 

Yeah it really is a bad issue, they will ALL die sooner or later, due to usage of lead-free solder. You could reflow like I did, but the solution would be to find somebody with a BGA station that can re-ball the GPU and CPU with leaded solder.

 

Should I be looking for an older model? I really like the idea of quad core of the 2011 models. Is it possible to change the video card?

 

no every MacBook / MacBook pro ever made has the GPU soldered on to the mainboard. and many of the 17" units are dying out and not much for replacement parts left except fleabay, I have had to permanently retire 2 of my 3 now.

 

Care to let me experiment with any of them

 

LoL.... I'm up for it to.

Since this problem exist. Are there other alternatives to the 17" MBP that you guys would recommend?

 

depends on what you are doing and wanting it for, for video editing and photo work I use Dell Precision M series, HP Zbook 17" and Elitebook 8770W's primarily now.

your about the 20th person to ask, but my husband beat you all to it, he is currently working on a refit preocedure involving welding to mount micro ATX motherboards inside the base and rebuild them into portable asterisk PBX servers to run VOIP phone systems at remore locations and public events and venues. ( yes going to make the bottom assembly about 3/4" thicker with a welder and CNC )

 

i was going to say to use the flux and heat gun as someone else suggested. i have done the ps3 thing as well however as a heads up don't be surprised if it goes bad or starts to give you problems again.

 

You might want to hang on to your 2011 MBP in case this develops into something:

Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Apple Over 2011 MacBook Pro Graphics Issues - Mac Rumors

I'm still using my 2008 17 MacBook Pro. Everything is great except for the screen but I just hook it up to an external monitor.

 

Hi,

I had a 2011 model before my new mac, we reflowed and changed the thermal paste on it and it seemed to fix the problem. Give it a try it might work! Cheaper than Apple's £420