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:

1. 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
2. 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. 
3. Shutdown / power down the Mac.
4. Boot into User Recovery, hold keys during boot until you see the apple logo: Command + R 
5. In the upper menu select "Utilities" and then "Terminal"
6. In terminal disable SIP, type and hit return: csrutil disable
7. Type and hit return: reboot
8. Boot into User Recovery (again), hold keys during boot: Command + R 
9. In the upper menu select "Utilities" and then "Terminal"
10. Disable AMD GPU, type and hit return: nvram fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9:gpu-power-prefs=%01%00%00%00
11. Enable Verbose Mode, type and hit return: nvram boot-args="-v"
12. Type and hit return: reboot
13. Boot into Single User, hold keys during boot: Command + S
14. Mount Root Drive, type and hit return: /sbin/mount -uw /
15. Make Directory for bad AMD Extension, type and hit return: mkdir -p /System/Library/Extensions-off
16. Move the AMD Extension, type and hit return: mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMDRadeonX3000.kext /System/Library/Extensions-off/
17. Update the change, type and hit return: touch /System/Library/Extensions/
18. 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:

1. Boot into single user mode (Command + S) and then type: nvram boot-args=“”
2. 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.

Every now and again (very often) we find stock Apple Fusion drives that are acting up. You might want to tear the fusion apart and put them back together again to know it's formatted correctly.  Here's how you do it:

Split Fusion Drive

• Boot into the recovery partition -- From a powered down mac, power it up and hold the command-R keys together before the chime, release when you see the apple logo. The boot will be slow, please wait...
• From the top menu select "Utilities" and select "Terminal."
• In terminal type and hit return: diskutil apfs list
  • ​This will list all the apfs disks connected to the Mac. 
• Look for the word "Fusion" and note the disk# eg. "disk0"
• Type the command and hit return: diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk0
  • ​**Note the disk# should be the one you noted from the list. 
• Terminal will now spilt the fusion disk into its two parts.

Repair / Build Fusion Drive 

• In terminal type and hit return: diskutil resetFusion
  • Terminal will show you the two internal disks and ask if you want to proceed.
• Type and his return: Yes
• The fusion drive will be rebuilt. You're ready to reinstall macOS or whatever you want. 

You're welcome. Having trouble? Contact us, details to the right >>