So, several weeks ago I left my room to shower and had my MacBook still on. I get back and the screen was black, so I assume it is just sleeping so I run my finger on the trackpad, press a few buttons and nothing happens. I decided to power it off and turn it back on. When I did I got a grey background, then noticed the Apple logo as a weird green color and the graphics were off a bit. It then went to a completely grey screen.

After some research, I saw that there is a known issue with the GPU on 2011 MBPs. I thought the GPU had gone out and I was screwed but as a last ditch effort I decided to try resetting the NVRAM and SMC (command, option, R, P) and (shift control option) if that helps you understand what I reset if I got the phrasing wrong. Anyways, after some trial and error with these resets I got my MacBook working again. Now it seems like my MacBook will stay working for a few days and then if it goes to sleep while I am away for a few minutes this happens all over again or I close the screen overnight and I wake up to the fan blaring! I then have some trial and error resetting SMC and NVRAM and then after a few tries and shutdowns/restarts, etc... it starts working again until it sleeps or I close the screen.

Long story short... Does this sound like the GPU issue with the 2011s? or something else? I assumed with the GPU went out I wouldn't be able to get it working again. Any ideas or suggestions. Im glad I can get it working but it is a pain in the ass taking 30 minutes to an hour to reset NVRAM and such and wait for it to decided to start working again...

It doesn't start working right away after I reset NVRAM... It seems like I have to keep trying multiple times resetting, restarting until it randomly goes to a normal boot up screen from the screen with the bad graphics and green logo or solid grey screen.

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Sorry for being so long winded.

Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide. As you can tell I am not super tech savvy so laymen terms are appreciated.