17" MacBook Pro, early-2011: should I avoid?

[Baldung99]

I know about the GPU problems these have, though I've still not been able to figure out if it's a manufacturer/board defect or just overheating. I plan to heavily mod this thing enough so that overheating stops being such an issue (I've done similar hackery before). I'm a bit worried the GPU is on its way out since there's already a green line of dead/stuck(?) pixels on the screen height-wise, it's obvious on some of the attached pictures.

It's not exactly cheap, so I'm wondering whether that line could be a GPU issue or just a display issue.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I know about the GPU problems these have, though I've still not been able to figure out if it's a manufacturer/board defect or just overheating. I plan to heavily mod this thing enough so that overheating stops being such an issue (I've done similar hackery before). I'm a bit worried the GPU is on its way out since there's already a green line of dead/stuck(?) pixels on the screen height-wise, it's obvious on some of the attached pictures.

It's not exactly cheap, so I'm wondering whether that line could be a GPU issue or just a display issue.

My understanding has always been that it's an overheating issue. That the AMD Radeon HD 6000 series should've never found its way into that unibody enclosure because that unibody enclosure never provided enough cooling. Then again, the one model of 2011 Mac mini that had a Radeon HD 6630M had similar issues. As did the 2011 iMacs with their Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs. So, it may have also been manufacturer related as well.

I do know that the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M used in the 2012 15-inch Unibody MacBook Pro and its Retina counter-part had issues in the Retina version, but not the non-Retina version due to the GPU being fine for the former enclosure, but not the latter one. And Apple did conveniently lump Mid 2012 and Early 2013 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros in with Early and Late 2011 model 15 and 17 inch MacBook Pros all for video issues.

That being said, I wouldn't mess with an Early/Late 2011 15-inch or 17-inch MacBook Pro. That GPU will fail inevitably and any replacement board will have the exact same prognosis at best.

 

[Fishrrman]

"It's not exactly cheap"

So... you're gonna buy a 12-year-old MBP that is already exibiting known defects, that is "not exactly cheap"?

And you're asking for advice...?

 

[TheHareBear]

I had one of these until about three years ago; I had the main board replaced once under the Apple program. If you search you can find programs and low-level config to stop it running off the external GPU at all (otherwise can not boot depending on how far the problem has gone). They don’t work 100% and sometimes it sneaks back and then you’re back to safe booting and command line hacking to recover a bootable system.

But… just buy something else that has ongoing MacOS upgrades and no unavoidable creeping death. I’m sure you can look at Facebook marketplace or gumtree or whatever to get a machine you can inspect and get at a fair price. Can’t be less risky than buying one of these which could fail tomorrow if it heats up too much?

if you do buy it then consider taking it to bits and redoing the thermal paste yourself and cleaning the fan vents fully; these steps are mildly scary due to the easy ability to break some of the internals but did make a big difference to the temps for me.

 

[TheHareBear]

That’s possibly a GPU issue. See what happens if it’s switched to the internal GPU with something like gfxCardStatus.

If you’re thinking of using an external monitor you’re going to have to do the low level hacking to try and disable the external GPU permanently.