Apple Initiates Repair Program for 2011-2013 MacBook Pros With Video Issues

Thursday February 19, 2015 2:44 pm PST by Juli Clover

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.

macbook_pro_video_repair

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.

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!)

Related Roundup: MacBook Pro

Tags: #mbp2011, Repair Program

Buyer's Guide: MacBook Pro (Buy Now)

Related Forum: MacBook Pro

Top Rated Comments

Traverse

153 months ago

Once again Apple demonstrates why they are the leader of the pack when it comes to tacking care of their customers. This is why we love Apple. This is what the Sony's of the world just don't get selling high-end devices but providing lousy support and aftercare.

Umm, not a leader. A leader would have acknowledged the problem when the problem started to occur. They've waited too long and I assume many people have already ditched their failed systems and purchased new ones.

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.

Score: 68 Votes (Like | Disagree)

venom600

153 months ago

Once again Apple demonstrates why they are the leader of the pack when it comes to taking care of their customers.

Are you delusional? They denied it for years and only just now did it after being hit with multiple class action lawsuits. That's not first class service, it's a move to avoid getting a huge settlement thrown at them in court.

Score: 56 Votes (Like | Disagree)

danielsamuels

153 months ago

Once again Apple demonstrates why they are the leader of the pack when it comes to taking care of their customers. This is why we love Apple. This is what the Sony's of the world just don't get selling high-end devices but providing lousy support and aftercare.

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?

Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)

l.a.rossmann

153 months ago

Once again Apple demonstrates why they are the leader of the pack when it comes to taking care of their customers. This is why we love Apple.

This is a joke. Apple has been raping customers charging them to repair their own defective junk for almost four years now! These have been failing since 2012. I had to upgrade from a standard rework station to a $8000 semi automatic optical alignment BGA rework machine just to keep up with the amount of these that were coming in everyday with the same problem.

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.

Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Traverse

153 months ago

Once again, do you have the actual numbers?

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.

Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)