Apple has launched a repair program to fix MacBook Pro machines sold between February 2011 and February 2013 that have problems with distorted video, no video, or unexpected system restarts.
As of February 20 in the United States and Canada (February 27 in other countries), users with affected machines will be able to visit an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider to receive repairs for their MacBook Pros at no charge. Customers will be able to bring their MacBook Pro to an Apple Store or service provider or send it in via mail for repairs.
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An affected MacBook Pro may display one or more of the following symptoms:
-Distorted or scrambled video on the computer screen
-No video on the computer screen (or external display) even though the computer is on
-Computer restarts unexpectedly
Affected products include 15 and 17-inch MacBook Pro models manufactured in 2011 and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro models manufactured between Mid 2012 and Early 2013. Users can see whether their computers are affected by using the "Check Your Coverage" tool on Apple's site.
Apple is contacting customers who already paid to have their machines repaired either through Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider to arrange a reimbursement. The company asks customers who paid for a repair for the issue and did not receive an email to contact Apple.
Apple will provide repairs until February 27, 2016, or three years from the MacBook's original date of sale, depending on which coverage period is longer.
Some early and late-2011 MacBook Pro owners with discrete graphics cards have been experiencing GPU failures and crashes for years now, causing screen glitches and image distortion, among other problems.
MacBook owners petitioned Apple to begin a repair program for the machines on change.org and even went as far as filing a class action lawsuit after an extended period of time without a repair program.
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The lawsuit asked that Apple acknowledge that an issue exists and repair affected machines, which the company appears to be prepared to do with the launch of today’s repair program covering both repairs and reimbursements for repairs already made. It is unclear how the new program will affect the class-action lawsuit brought against Apple by 2011 MacBook Pro owners.
(Thanks, Philip!)
Top Rated Comments
And, if all they're doing is replacing the logic board, that won't fix the problem. My fixed logic board died after three weeks or so.
Not at all. We've had 4-5 MBPs come down with this issue, it's cost us ~£600 every time. Think we'll see any of that back? Not a chance. They've denied it's been their problem for years. Where was the world class service then?
Only now in 2015 does Apple acknowledge it and they are considered a "leader"? After people gave up on their machine? After people paid for repeated repairs that resulted in the same failure, gave up, and moved onto other machines? After they wrote off their $2000 investment as junk?
The real question here is how many people are going to get turned away because of bumps in the case, liquid damage stickers turned red because of humidity, or "yeah, this isn't a video issue because we can't boot into the ASD disk we use to confirm it's a video issue" BS like in 2008!
I LOVED how they said "we can't run diagnostics therefore we can't tell it's a video issue" when the GPU FAILING KEPT THEM FROM BEING ABLE TO RUN DIAGOSTICS!!!
I am curious to see how this plays out. I hope it works out well for users, but I have little hope.
No I do not. But with large threads (both in size and number) on both Macrumors and Apple Discussions, a petition that gathered several thousand signatures, the attempted class action lawsuit, and now Apple's acknowledgement more than makes up for that in my opinion.
I've got two numbers for you.
2015 - 2011 = 4 years
Embarrassing.
Why you seem to be concerned with any other numbers is beyond me.