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2011 Macbook Pro graphics problems

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Electronics Skills

How to Apply Thermal Paste

How to Apply Thermal Paste

5 - 20 minutes

Moderate

My Problem

Macbook Pro's display won't wake up after sleep, restarts when awake and while sleeping. Typical issues many Macbook Pro users are having with the i7 model. When rebooting, display comes up segmented and it doesn't get past first portion of startup without leaving display white. Reset SMC, PRAM, everything everyone else has tried. Sometimes this brings system back to life but usually need to boot from backup drive before it magically starts again. Rebuilt system, still problems so trying the thermal paste repair.

My Fix

The removal of the motherboard went surprising well, even the two ribbon cables came off and went back on easily. Cleaned off old paste following directions and applied ample amount of new paste. Put everything back together and am testing. It started back up but it usually would run for a week before messing up again. At least it wakes from sleep properly so far. I'm not going to try and re-ball the CPU and GPU, that's out of my comfort zone. I've monitored the temperature levels and after the first day they seemed to drop down so hopefully the paste is helping.

My Advice

In hindsight, don't buy a Macbook Pro, especially the i7 from this time period. This particular model just ran too hot. Of course they came out with a lower powered CPU the in 2012 and I don't believe these have the same problems.

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