Skip to main content

Class-action lawsuit over 2011 MacBook Pro GPU issues extended to Canada

Following a petition with thousands of signatures related to GPU complaints and a class-action lawsuit filed in the United States, another class-action lawsuit has been filed north of the border against Apple Canada over the same GPU issues affecting some 15-inch and 17-inch 2011 MacBook Pro models equipped with an AMD graphics chip.

The virtually identical class-action lawsuit was filed in Canada by Montreal-based legal firm Lex Group Attorneys and argues that certain 2011 MacBook Pros suffer from a design and manufacturing defect that causes graphical issues such as severe screen distortion, pixilation, graphical artifacts, and ghosting, often rendering the notebooks unusable.

According to official court documents, the defect stems from lead-free solder used to connect the AMD GPU to the logic board of the affected MacBook Pros. The lawsuit argues that customers were forced to pay up to $600 in out-of-warranty replacement costs, and that Apple ignored and failed to reimburse owners faced with these out of pocket expenses.

Apple did offer a free video card replacement in the United States for some mid-2011 iMacs exhibiting similar symptoms, though the cards in the MacBook Pro are different, and recalls as a whole are rare. The most recent was in August, when Apple offered free battery replacements for some iPhone 5 models that were deemed to have defective batteries.

Apple has still not provided comment on either of these lawsuits, and given that it generally remains tight lipped on matters such as these, it might not ever provide any official word regarding the cases. If the class-action lawsuits are won, affected customers across Canada and in select parts of the United States could be entitled to a settlement.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Comments

  1. It’s about time that Apple extended warranty on all Macs to 3 years standard and iOS devices to 2 years. This will affect the bottom line to a degree, but their gross margins can take it, not to mention the extended amount of goodwill and intangible value they’ll buy with such a move.

    I’m a shareholder so I take these kinds of suggestions very seriously and don’t recommend Apple throw money and caution to the wind on principle.

    • originaldub - 9 years ago

      I just can’t see that happening at all. Wasn’t Apple fined in Italy and a few other countries for warranty/Apple Care issues? I feel the extended warranty price is expensive however it has saved me from buying a new laptop on two separate occasions now – it certainly would be nice if they did adopt a longer warranty period.

    • runnerofmarathons - 9 years ago

      buy applecare

  2. MACTECHca (@MACTECHca) - 9 years ago

    About time! I have one sitting here with this very issue that’s been a brick since it was just over a year old.

  3. silas681- - 9 years ago

    All very nice for the yanks and Canadians, and the rest of the world?

    As I have said before I bought three 2011 MBPs speced to the max when they Ame out. All failed with the same issue within warranty. Waiting for the next GPU failure!

    • Joe Rossignol - 9 years ago

      Where are you from?

      • silas681- - 9 years ago

        England!

      • standardpull - 9 years ago

        Shockingly, some countries don’t follow US law. England is one of them. You will have to pursue Apple using England’s legal system. The system in England does afford a bit more legal protection to the average citizen, at least when it comes to being shot in the head by fearful or paranoid gun advocates while in the vicinity of candy-toting children.

    • The UK and the EU has a mandatory 2 year warranty in law, and Apple do adhere to this, i have had my 5S swapped out using this, with no issue whatsoever… Also had an iPad 4 done at 18 months with the same law and no issue… Apple has the best possible adherence to the law, by that i mean they will sort it, usually with no arguments…! The last swap out for the 5 s was simply an overheating i had on 1 occasion that i wanted checked, and within 5 minutes, i had a new phone…!

  4. atimoda - 9 years ago

    I have one with this problem. Bought it in Brazil. Failed 3 times after the warranty ended. All the 3 times i got 3rd party to fix it for about R$ 300, because autorized retailer asked R$ 2.500 (about U$ 1000) to change the motherboard.

    So sad =/

  5. Howie Isaacks - 9 years ago

    It is very un-Apple to totally ignore a problem like this. It sometimes takes a lot of complaining to get them to acknowledge a problem, but they usually come through. This situation is different. It look like they have decided that this ins’t important. I had a late-2011 MacBook Pro and it never had issues. I believe that this was an early 2011 issue.

    • Very unapple to ignore hardware problems? No, it’s very much Apple to ignore problems until they are forced to admit they exist. I doubt they’ll say a peep about the fact that this is a widespread issue until they have to show up in court. There’s also no excuse that they can’t have a standard 3 year warranty right out of the box on machines that’s cost $3,000 damn dollars. But they won’t. Why? Because they don’t care about their customers, they are just like every other company and profit is their #1 goal. I have a MBP affected by this and I’m sad to say that this will be my second and last MacBook because I simply won’t pay $3,000 for another one of their damn machines if it becomes a useless brick three times in it’s very short life, two of them outside the paltry warranty that I had to by after the fact. Apple is NOT the leader in this area, they are very much the piss poor follower and it’s inexcusable for what they charge for their machines.

      • Howie Isaacks - 9 years ago

        I think you’ve pushed this a bit too far. You’re mad about your situtation, but it does not mean that this is the norm. I have had a couple of Apple laptops that had to have multiple repairs. Both times they were replaced, and both times with a better model than before. As I said before, it takes a lot of complaining but they usually come through. They always have for me. I’m really disappointed that they have ignored this issue with the early 2011 MacBook Pros, but it has not put me off buying their products. One factoid that seems to get swept under the rug is that the chief cause of this problem is that Apple had to change the soldering material in their laptops due to some dumb regulation imposed by the EU. I agree that they should have a longer warranty, and I think that AppleCare for a MacBook Pro is way over priced. I buy AppleCare to avoid having to pay for major repairs. Since I replace my laptops ever 2-3 years, they’re always in warranty while I own them.

    • jdws1 - 9 years ago

      Sorry Howie, mine is a late macbook pro 2011 and became only useful as a brick after a year and a half. Apple is good when it comes to glitz and glamour of the genious bars and eye candy advertising but they lack in integrity when it comes to standing by the product and the consumer who has put them where they are today. I will want a complete replacement, no re-soldered logic boards. Apple has been doing that already with no success.

    • Ryan Gravador - 9 years ago

      I have a late-2011 Model also, actually the higher-end model with the high-res anti-glare widescreen display. Failed and crashed on me without even having it for three years. Even the Apple “geniuses” said that I have the high end model and quoted me $300 to get it fixed. And we all know that they replace it with a faulty graphics card so the crash will repeat itself.

      I’m very disappointed in Apple. I worked hard to get this machine and they failed me.

  6. Jes Gagnon (@JesGagnon) - 9 years ago

    Yay for them, but I have an iMac with the same problem, and it was just outside the iMac recall, so I’m basically screwed. Really disappointed that this is even a problem, let alone that they’re not fixing it. Soon I will have a lovely 27″ iMac that’s completely useless.

  7. vmax - 9 years ago

    Mine broke once and I had apple care so it was replace for free. But now that has expired, I am worried it will break again. There is still a lot of life left in this MBP.

  8. Pascal Engels - 9 years ago

    I have one of these machines at home, in Belgium. A few months ago it stopped working. First I had a pink overlay on the screen. Hours later, it failed to boot. I looked up the serial, and ineed, 2011 Macbook Pro with the AMD CPU… No more warranty. How would I approach this in an attempt to get it fixed?

    • Stef Klaassen - 9 years ago

      I’m in the same situation, Pascal. I’m also from Belgium and mine got bricked a few months ago. I bought a new one though, which messed up my plannend financials for this year, since that macbook was supposed to live for at least another two years…

      • Marcel Janse - 9 years ago

        Hi guys, I also have a Late 2011 MBP 15″ and I’m also living in Belgium. My Mac died on me several weeks ago, first a few crashes and then suddenly a black screen and no sign of life in it anymore.
        My machine was less then 3 yrs old, but, of course, out of warranty..
        Apple suggested me to pay €700 for a new logic board, which -as it turns out- would provide me with the same issue over and over again..
        So then I had it reflown by an expert in Schelle, near Antwerp and I’m extremely satisfied.
        He knows so much about this stuff it hurts your mind!
        If you Google “D3us 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card” you’ll find his contact data when u hover his account name (when you’re logged in!).
        This is a guy with soldering experience since the ATARI age! Highly skiled and for a mere €125 you machine is as good as it was planned to be by Apple.
        If you check out the very long post on page 701 of that forum (hint: just change the ?start value to 10500), all details are explained why this all happens and why this solution works good.
        Good luck everyone. Don’t expect anything from Apple. Tens of thousands of people have been reporting these problems for 2 years now and only a handfull are satisfied with a replacement by a new model. But most are left hanging… :( Crapple….

      • Pascal Engels - 9 years ago

        Hi Marcel,

        Thank you for that information!! I Googled it as you advised and mailed to the address shown when hoovering the D3us nickname. I hope he can fix my Macbook as well! :-)

        Stef, if you want I can let you know how things went in a few weeks.:-)

      • Marcel Janse - 9 years ago

        Good luck! I’m a B.Sc. Mechanical Engineer and I have the privilege to watch him perform the entire operation. VERY educational! Because of that, I can tell you that he is not “hobby level”. He knows EXACTLY what he’s doing and has fixed machines running (that he can still verify) for over 4 years already. Once he gets your machine in his hands, you can pick it up roughly 2 hours later if no hardware is actually damaged. They have great fries at the end of his street, around the corner, so it’s easy to kill some time :-D
        Good luck, if you dare to trust a stranger; go for it! Google “Xbox – PS3 – Laptop Reparatie Reballing Belgie” for more info..

  9. JJ Wong (@Subybe1108) - 9 years ago

    I was having so much problems with MacBook Pro 15″ bought earlier 2011, I bought Apple Care, ever since beginning of Jan 2014, I was in the Apple Store once a month, they kept waving me away after simple diagnostic. Battery was draining, I had to charge it 3x/day, they fixed it by, dimming my screen to darkest “Save Battery Power”, took out my keyboard lights, told me I shouldn’t have any new page extensions use only 1 page. The battery still had problem, and the screen was blinking out watching movies, the technician blamed it on “My Movie is in another language than English”. They refused to do anything for me. Now there’s recalls on all 2011 MacBook Pro except mine which was earlier 2011. I have to pay, I wrote to Alberta Gov’t Consumer affairs to file a complaint, she said “it only applies to certain model and Apple has a right to refuse my request and therefore I have to pay out of pocket. she mentioned my macbook is compared to a Car-Wear and Tear” Thanks AB Gov’t. iPhone 5 I must have done 5 exchanges due to battery problems,; I am so done with Apple!!
    If the Montreal lawsuit goes, I’m #1 girl petitioning in Edmonton. Apple MacBook is compared to “GMO Apples” in the USA and now now Canada.