puckmunch's comments

They are neither red nor blue, disproving your statement.

For what it's worth, Hewlett-Packard had a very similar problem with a line of theirs using the same GPU (and the same lead-free solder), and Microsoft's Red Ring of Death is fundamentally the same problem.

The fact that you can only get a discrete GPU'd MBP now if you buy the most expensive model while the Iris Pro is capable of doing <i>everything</i> a discrete GPU did indicates that Apple's cut their losses with this technology. The motherboard's fine. The decision to accede to EU environmental mandates was the point of failure.

No one in the industry sufficiently tested leadfree solder in GPU BGA mounts before going into production and to be fair, it was a year before people started noticing failures. Apple's dismal head-burying response only made it worse.

The issue isn't that EU-mandated tin-alloy solders are cheap, it's that the solder balls aren't solid and non-lead solders are brittle. For components that don't undergo constant radical thermal shifts, this is a nonissue. For the only ball grid array-mounted component on the board (the GPU), this is a recipe for eventual failure.

If the balls were factory tested for solidity this would become far less of an issue. Industry papers on the manufacture of solder balls indicate they are not; when those balls were lead, it didn't matter because lead's not thermally brittle.

Apple stopped using the word 'laptop' when they were still struggling with trying to put a G5 in a portable computer that didn't require jet engine fans.

Discrete GPUs are soldered to boards using ball-gate arrays, a technique which was invented with lead solder balls in mind. The patent holder died before the EU mandated non-lead solders.

The reason this matters is because the process by which those solder balls are made does not check for the presence of voids in them. At least 10% of these balls (regardless of composition) x-ray as having voids.

GPUs go through the most radical thermal shifts of any surface mounted component. Lead has a sense of humor about that kind of temperature change; tin alloys do not and begin to crack after a sustained number of shifts. This happened on my 2011 MBP which was not used for gaming.

It's worth noting that the iMacs made the same year, where the discrete GPU was a replaceable daughtercard, had a voluntary recall for exactly the same reported video problems. The irony here is that the average cost of having a GPU reballed is about $150US, with a high rate of reliability compared to reflowing. Part of that reliability comes from reballers refusing to use anything but lead.

The EU is directly responsible for this problem but Apple is responsible to its users and with a cash reserve outstripping the US Treasury's, could have absorbed the cost of repairing these MBPs easily.