Nvidia switched to lead free solder while retaining the same potting material. This led to a mismatch in thermal expansion coefficients which caused strain with repeated thermal cycles and eventually some of the solder bumps just broke. You could use a toaster to melt the solder again and reconnect them but that didn't fix the underlying problem.

My 2011 MPB 15” suffered from the Nvidia GPU issue. It was so bad my computer wouldn’t boot properly and the Apple Geniuses kept denying the claim because it couldn’t finish a test.

Anyway, it was still my longest lived Laptop. My Sony VAIOs were great but I liked that Mac better.

I pulled the logic board out and baked it in the oven and it lasted another 7 months before needing another bake. By then I moved onto a newer macbook.

By 2011 it was AMD(ATI) not Nvidia. I had one that failed but Apple did the replacement for free.

I am certain AMD like most responsible vendors (Seagate) also worked with Apple to correct the issue. Nvidia's issue was that it told all of the laptop vendors to just deal with it. It's why they are hated by other vendors and AMD/Intel worked hard to keep them from creating x86 cpus.