Chosen Solution
I had the dreaded GPU issue on my Early 2011 Unibody MBP 17" about 18 months ago, and had relegated it to the cupboard as too expensive to repair and got a second hand Air instead to tide me over until I got something better. Any way, long story short. Found an article recently that recommended taking Logic Board out and cooking it in the oven to fix the GPU solder. I did and my MBP now boots fine! Success. So very happy with that. The downside is that I broke the fan connector for the right fan clean off the logic board while removing the connector. I am debating re-soldering it, but this does come with risk (my fat fingers being that risk!), so was wondering whether I could connect the wires straight into the wires for the left fan. I appreciate it would mean they both came on together, but is that a problem? I don’t know if one sucks while one blows or whether they both do the same thing anyway. Any advice much appreciated. Update (01/07/2018) Thanks for the reply I have posted the pictures below. I did some Googling and people advise to solder with 0.5mm solder and micro tip. I’ve soldered before but many many years ago. I’d need to buy a soldering iron but that is low cost compared to taking this to a specialist to do.
There are folks with the skills to patch up your logic board if you feel that would be better. In the meantime can you post a few clear images of the connector parts and the logic board where it was mounted. That will help us help you. As far as tying the two fans together sorry you can’t each fan is managed discreetly and the load of two fans would damage the circuit.
