2011 Macbook Pro GPU Failure Repair, Disable AMD and Boot Again!

5/26/2020

Hey Everyone, this is a fun one. Apple's 2011 Edition Macbook Pros had this awful underlying fault with the AMD GPU (graphic card) that caused it to fail, and thus your Mac wouldn't boot. It was such a prevalent problem that Apple issued a recall, but in classic Apple fashion they only "fixed" it if you experienced the failure, actually they only replaced the logic board with another having the same underlying GPU fault -- just to buy time to get out of the warranty period. Thanks Apple.

What the problem looks like:

Your Mac boots to 3/4th the way and shuts down, restarts, hangs on a grey screen.
Your Mac displays pink or green lines in the display image.
Your Mac randomly shuts off and reboots.
Your Mac runs extremely hot to the touch.
Your Mac needs many tries to boot up.

Here's the Fix:

Reset the SMC.
1. Shutdown the Mac.
2. Plug it into power.
3. Hold down for five seconds then release: Left Shift + Ctrl + Option + Power
Reset VRAM.
1. Boot the Mac and hold down the keys: Command + Option + P + R
2. Continue holding the keys till you hear two chimes.
Shutdown / power down the Mac.
Boot into User Recovery, hold keys during boot until you see the apple logo: Command + R
In the upper menu select "Utilities" and then "Terminal"
In terminal disable SIP, type and hit return: csrutil disable
Type and hit return: reboot
Boot into User Recovery (again), hold keys during boot: Command + R
In the upper menu select "Utilities" and then "Terminal"
Disable AMD GPU, type and hit return: nvram fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9:gpu-power-prefs=%01%00%00%00
Enable Verbose Mode, type and hit return: nvram boot-args="-v"
Type and hit return: reboot
Boot into Single User, hold keys during boot: Command + S
Mount Root Drive, type and hit return: /sbin/mount -uw /
Make Directory for bad AMD Extension, type and hit return: mkdir -p /System/Library/Extensions-off
Move the AMD Extension, type and hit return: mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMDRadeonX3000.kext /System/Library/Extensions-off/
Update the change, type and hit return: touch /System/Library/Extensions/
Type and hit return: reboot

At this point the Mac will restart twice. First, it will run a bunch of text past, this is normal and will only happen once. It will chime and reboot again and run different text past, this is also normal and will happen on every reboot (it's quick). Finally, the Apple logo will appear and the boot will finish. Your mac should work normally now.

If you want to disable the verbose mode (scrolling text at boot) after you've verified the fix is working do this:

Boot into single user mode (Command + S) and then type: nvram boot-args=“”
Click return and then type: reboot

You're welcome. If you need help, we charge $25 for the fix, done in 20 minutes. Call or text us.

33 Comments

Sam

2/15/2021 08:26:10 am

Tried your way to disable gpu on my MBP 2011, did not work. Restarts with apple logo on grey screen and 0 progress bar.

Neik

6/1/2021 05:48:00 am

This happened to me too. Is there a fix

Juan

6/5/2021 03:17:53 pm

This is happening to me too

Matt

4/7/2021 10:51:14 pm

Hello. Just wanna say that after 10 years my 2011 15" macbook pro GPU finally died. was using it 1 day then it suddenly turned off.... whenever i would turn iit on, i'd get stuck on a white screen.

Thank you SO MUCH for this fix. i managed to revive my laptop. It always shows the text screen every bootup, so it kinda increased my boot time by like 5-10 seconds give or take. but at least my laptop is working again :)

Trevor Lamb

5/1/2021 07:09:35 pm

Boot into single user mode (Command + S) and then type: nvram boot-args=“”
Click return and then type: reboot

Your MacBook Pro should now startup without defaulting to verbose mode.

Melvin

10/4/2021 09:52:41 am

I just tried this and my screen has been on the Apple logo for the past thirty minutes.

What do I do?

Berg Martins

4/8/2021 06:10:07 am

Hello,
1 year later, but I just now found your site; will this be a permanent solution or will have to be repeated if the MacBook is shut off?
Thank you

Jezz

4/16/2021 04:34:26 am

Followed to the letter, now my Mac won’t start at all. Text just stops. No auto restart, nothing! Thanks!

EMS

6/3/2021 03:46:57 pm

we updated the steps, try again.

Aprinto

5/21/2021 07:00:46 pm

Opposite with this tutorial, how to ENABLE the AMD graphics card as second cards?

Unbendablestraw link

8/11/2021 05:00:43 pm

You should be able to reset everything by resetting your SMC and VRAM again.

You may also need to restore any drivers that were moved around in the OS, or reinstall the OS.

Carl

6/9/2021 09:41:05 am

If it doesn't work, you have an ATI GPU. You need to replace AMD*.* by ATI*.*

8/11/2021 04:59:03 pm

8/11/2021 05:00:06 pm

Ugh, replied to the wrong comment, does this site work or is it just me?

Jacek

8/19/2021 11:29:01 am

Hello !
I tried to move the graphic card file but I get the message : "No such file or directory"
I tried with both : AMD and ATI. My Mac is a 2011 15inch , with a 512Gb graphic card

Berg Provetti

8/20/2021 10:03:08 am

Same with me; I'm stuck :(

Kyle

9/5/2021 12:02:55 am

Hi Jacek,

I initially had the same issue. I restarted the process. It is my assumption the initial step 6 was ineffective after a restart or reset of the nvram (as it was with me). Apologies if the explanation offered is poor or doesn't make sense - I am new to Mac so it could equally have been pure luck it worked on the second occasion

Berg

6/13/2021 06:14:44 pm

Followed all the steps, exactly as instructed; Mac was hanging at the Apple logo; now, it starts with the scrolling texts and stops at the gray screen, won't start at all; is there a way to reverse this, back to the Apple logo hanging, so to try something else?

Joao Paulo

7/2/2021 02:37:50 pm

This worked, tks!
However, I have Windows installed in the bootcamp driver and it is not loading - I guess I have to disable the Radeon card there, too?
Any hints on how? Tks!

neil taylor

7/12/2021 08:48:47 am

Is there still anyone providing services for a fee? If so, how do i arrange to have someone to disable AMD on my macbook?

Kathleen Adams

7/16/2021 01:35:56 pm

Guy said above $25 fix, but didn’t say steps to get
It to them. That said, there are several places that do the fix for $85 -$95/hr and $249 for one place and another for $195 if I can remember correctly amd you ship to them. I’m trying to find another one I found wirh instructions similar to this one. I will come back ans repost when I find it but it seems like I did what this site is recommending and it initially worked but started messing up again because it would boot to the AMD card. One thing I do know is that Om not going to pay for them to replace the logic board with a new graphics card must to have that card go bad too. It’s not that the logic board gets damaged it’s the graphics card. I have even seen videos where you just open up the thing and repair it yourself using tools that heat up but there is a programming one and that’s what I am looking for again jere and will post it if 8 find it. Good luck everyone! Tjis is my 2nd MacBook Pro and both of them crashed due to the aluminum body and tightness causing overheating. Not sure why they don’t just go back to the rubberized one they had before the alumibody. I happen to think it’s pretty heavy compared to my Windows laptop.

Rajah

8/13/2021 11:44:08 am

If in the uk use the company Evlikom.co.uk as they are Mavericks at this specific issue. Hope this helps people looking to get this sorted

Douglas Carroll

7/25/2021 12:49:11 pm

This really works, I was able to revive a late 2013 15" MacBook Pro that was tossed in a recycle bin with the note "Not Working" taped to the front of it. After many weeks of trying to figure out the issue I found this site and tried the directions here...magically the machine came back to life and is running a fresh install of Catalina perfectly.

Not Working...Ha!, I say!

Thanks for the write up!

:-)

Trent

8/5/2021 09:37:16 am

Would this work for a 2011 27 inch iMac with the same problem?

Neil Taylor

9/16/2021 05:14:03 pm

For those of you where the above method did not work, I am on a 2011 Macbook Pro. I had a tech out here, but the machine was too far gone for any success on his part I decided to just load Ubuntu and use for linux box. As soon as i finished i decided to take the original install DVD for Snow Leopard and reinstall to see if graphics would work there. After four months of trying, including attempting to reinstall, i come up with Snow Leopard. Took the next step to Yosemite and from there i'm back to High Sierra. I've intentionally restarted several times in the past hour plus restarts for updates. I suspect the linux install wiped something off the disk that prevented my reinstall from DVD previously from successfully booting up.

9/18/2021 07:30:50 pm

Problem recurred already;-( What's worse is booting up on a second disk with the Ubuntu is now not working also:-(

Levi

10/17/2021 08:48:17 am

Short Story: I need to turn my graphics card back on. How do I do that, once I've disabled it?

Long Story: Over a year ago my Macbook's AMD GPU died. I shut it down and fell back on the Intel GPU. Jump ahead to last week, when the Intel GPU died. To solve this problem I bought a new-used Macbook, and transplanted the hard-drive from the old one into the new one. The new one I no background information on. I have no idea if the AMD GPU is even functional. I am assuming it's shut down because of the transferring of the hard-drives. How can I reactivate it?

Manish

10/26/2021 11:09:58 am

My macbook worked with this fix until I tried updating the latest version of 10.13.6 Update 5. All steps redone - It now goes till last step at apple logo appearing and fan makes extreme noise and reboots - this is now endless loop. Kindly help me out at [email protected].
Please brother.

Jordi

11/14/2021 12:57:58 pm

I had exactly the same issue, it worked and updated my mac and now it doesn't work anymore can't even redo the steps anymore. Have you found any solution?

Neil

11/18/2021 05:55:17 pm

Jordi I'm in the same boat! My 2011 early MBP had Yosemite. Chrome stopped working on it so I upgraded to High Sierra. After I did that it worked just fine except it wouldn't be able to wake up from sleep. I did a NVRAM reset and now the screen is just black. I think I need to reset the setttings so it knows the GPU is disabled. Anyone know how to do this?

jim

12/24/2021 02:09:28 am

I need to disable AMD Radeon 6970M on a mid 2011 27" iMac. What steps or modifications to the above procedure can I do to accomplish the disable?

12/30/2021 09:59:56 am

Hi all, I found a solution to boot loop after the latest update. The solution is to use another macbook to open the faulty one in target disk mode. Just press T while booting the faulty one. Now in the functioning mac use the folder to access and retrieve your data. Just go to System Extensions folder and manually put the AMD3000.kext to another Extensions-off folder. (Make one if it's not there).

Voila. Reboot normally.

Ask for any help. [email protected]

Bryant Stephens

1/3/2022 07:20:08 am

I have a one of these machines that chimes but the screen doesn’t start. Would this be this issue?

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2011 Macbook Pro GPU Failure Repair, Disable AMD and Boot Again!

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