Also have a 17 in. 2011 mbp, There is a workaround to get it working with the on board video bypassing the failing video card, but it doesn't seem like a long term fix.
Sounds interesting. Do you have a link where this is explained?
A friend claims I can temporarily fix my video card by 'baking' it, whatever that is.
https://gist.github.com/cdleon/ae1542279598fe80f527400cc354a...
is a pretty good exlanation.
I agree, though. My old 2011 MBP was fantastic. A few months ago the video card finally died, otherwise I'd still be using it. Modern macbooks barely seem to have any keyboard keys anymore.