A photo of the graphical issue taken from the petition calling on Apple to launch a replacement program. Raj Dsouza/change.org After successfully battling a class-action lawsuit last year, Apple is finally acknowledging a long-running issue with MacBook Pros' graphics hardware and has begun offering free repairs, MacRumors reports.

The lawsuit was brought against Apple in late 2014 by customers who said the MacBook Pros they purchased in 2011 had severely defective graphics cards and that Apple should be forced to pay for the repair.

It clearly was not an isolated problem, as a Change.org petition calling on Apple to issue replacements for affected models has been signed almost 40,000 times.

Apple successfully had the lawsuit dismissed in January, with the judge ruling that the "plaintiffs have failed to allege that Apple's logic boards were unfit for their ordinary purposes or lacked a minimal level of quality."

But Apple seems to have had a change of heart. The company announced Thursday that it would repair affected products free of charge. There is no indication of how many MacBooks Pros have been affected by the issue over the past four years; Apple says only that a "small percentage ... may exhibit distorted video, no video, or unexpected system restarts."

The program began Friday in the US and Canada and will begin February 27 elsewhere in the world. It will run until February 27, 2016. Customers who have experienced the issue can take their devices into Apple Stores (and authorised retailers) or call up and order a postage-paid box to send it in.

The affected models are: