Early 2011 17" MBP Gray Screen

hey all. I have run into this issue lately and have tried many, many solutions to this problem, but still nothing.

when I say many, I have attempted to do the following:
i have reset the PRAM & SMC

i have disconnected all peripherals

i have removed the hard drive and done a fresh install on an external HDD (this resulted in something of a positive experience where i ran the initial OSX setup, entered language, etc, and the machine rebooted a couple of times as expected to complete installation. ultimately though, it now goes to gray screen with no user information input) this install was done by booting from the network and downloading OSX Lion from Apple.

when my machine goes past the initial apple logo and then goes to a more subdued gray screen with a mouse pointer on the screen. sometimes this changes to the color wheel, sometimes not. everytime though, the vid card fan kicks into high gear after about 5 minutes of sitting like this. i haven't performed any hardware upgrades since dropping more RAM in it around June 2016.

I'm not sure where to go from here. i had originally thought something on my HDD had become corrupted, but i eliminated that by doing a fresh install over the internet (right?). i thought maybe there was a bad sector or something on the internal HDD, but eliminated that by installing Lion to an external drive and booting from it. this being my first Mac, i am at a loss. am i looking at some other hardware failure? is it a possible firmware issue (and if so, how in the world can i update it if i can't even get to a login screen)?

i am probably going to try a Linux or Win7 install to eliminate OSX file corruption from the mix today.

i am looking for other thoughts/assistance from Mac users with more experience than i.

thanks in advance!

say hello to the infamous dead GPU, Time to bake that logic board, mine did the EXACT same thing, Wouldnt finish loading into OSX. I tried W7 as well and no luck... I would reccomend swapping out the HDD just to be sure

The 2011 models with discrete GPU did have an issue with a potentially failing GPU. The symptoms don't sound quite the same tho (and I should know since we had several dozen of these Macs serviced by Apple). See if it's the storage. If it's the GPU, the free repair on that ended in December.

sigh. i was hoping that it wasn't the GPU as i had thought that there may have been an issue with it a while ago. if they identified an issue with the GPU, one would think that they shouldn't put a time limit on it to die. kinda like a vehicle recall....granted it's a different situation (vehicle safety vs. laptop functionality). i would expect a $2200 machine to last more than 5 years though.

technically i did swap out the HDD as the install was on an external drive. so i may have already eliminated that type of hardware failure.

so, baking the logic board....i have read/seen something about it before. is it an easy fix? when i see tutorials online, they tend to gloss over the issues encountered. i would like to hear from first hand experience on these types of things.

once again, thanks for the feedback/input so far!

Baking it will usually get it operable for long enough to pull the data off of it but it is by no means a permanent fix.

i just watched a vid on youtube that basically said to suck it up and pay the $300 to get it fixed. when they fix it with the same faulty board to stress-test it until it breaks again. after a few times of this they will replace it with a new machine. in some of the comments, i saw that the new boards they are using to do the replacements are better quality and do not have the issues that the original ones had. does anybody have experience with this? that said, i wonder how likely they will allow for the part to be replaced under the extended program that ended in Dec 2016. based on my experience with the genius bar thusfar, i am not all that hopeful that this will occur....

looks like the vidcard might indeed be the problem. ugh. another trip to the genius bar..... anybody have any success w/ Linux or Win7 on a MacBook pro as the only OS on there? Ubuntu 16.04 seemed to run fine on the live disc last night. I'm not going to pay a tone to have the logic board replaced, so it may be down to another OS that will only use the integrated graphics or parting it out and selling what's good on it.

Don't pay apple to repair it. They do shitty reflow jobs on existing boards or toss refurbs in there. Talk to Louis Rossmann. I'm in no way endorsed or sponsored by him, he just does AMAZING work. He does all my low level laptop stuff.

Apple did cheap fixes to shell out as little money as possible to repair these and it's sad.
https://www.rossmanngroup.com/

Is Apple still fixing them? I thought they went vintage so unless you live in California or New York they wont fix it.