Sorry, making a right hash of this, but I reckon it's worth knowing. Apologies to the admins for adding threads uneccessarily.
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And again: Let's get some stats on failures of the 8600M GT in the MacBook Pro
- Thread starter Denarius
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Hmmm, not a large enough response to be categorical about it, but 15 replies and only two of them a fail I think I can celebrate my MBPs first birthday without too much worry for the future. 
The MBP's didn't start using the 8600M GPU until mid-2007, so aren't the 2-3 year Yes and No options kind of irrelevant?
Hmmm, absolutely, but then I'd heard so many people banding around this 'up to 3 years' theory that I thought it'd be interesting to see whether anyone ticked it.
As I have had mine for less than the six months, and as the card in question still appears to work, I clicked on the relevant button. Warranty and Applecare strike me as the way to go on this one, should anything go pear-shaped; that way, despite whatever innate flaws exist in the product, one is still covered.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Lol
C'mon people! How can you have a 8600GT for 2-3 years?? Apparently there are people here online who can time travel.. No I'm joking, time travelling isn't possible ofcourse, I'm sure they have a very special relationship with Jobs, and he gave them the MBP with 8600GT even before the 8600GT chip was invented... But hey, Jobs can do anything right?
C'mon people! How can you have a 8600GT for 2-3 years
?? Apparently there are people here online who can time travel.. No I'm joking, time travelling isn't possible ofcourse, I'm sure they have a very special relationship with Jobs, and he gave them the MBP with 8600GT even before the 8600GT chip was invented... But hey, Jobs can do anything right? 
Actually I think its very relevant (even if the OP had no idea) because then it shows whether computers fail even w/ ATI. Obviously they can, but on these type of threads some people seem to think that w/ NVIDIA you're 100% doomed but w/ ATI or some other company you're foolproof.
Thing is if someone doesn't game or use the GPU then it will be fine.
What causes it is what I did for the first time with my MBP last night and that was play Flight Sim in windows, everything HOT like 80+C hot and then sleeping it straight away.
THATS what causes it.
HOWEVER, I do have graphical corruption running dual screens/dual 3D... I dunno if thats driver or GPU, its fine on just the external or 3D on one and 2D on the other.
What causes it is what I did for the first time with my MBP last night and that was play Flight Sim in windows, everything HOT like 80+C hot and then sleeping it straight away.
THATS what causes it.
HOWEVER, I do have graphical corruption running dual screens/dual 3D... I dunno if thats driver or GPU, its fine on just the external or 3D on one and 2D on the other.
Okay, in that case, the poll results actually look quite bad at the moment.
32% of respondents that have owned a 8600M for 6 months or longer had a failure.
50% of respondents that owned an 8600M MBP for longer than a year had a failure (although some of these may actually be pre-8600's)
By comparison, all 3 people claiming to own a MBP for 2 years or more (and thus wouldn't have an Nvidia chip) have never had a failure.
Of course this isn't a very scientific poll... Still, it's less than reassuring.
(Incidentally, I was in the 'No, less than 6 months' category).
The poll re-read you must.
Look again, only 22% of all respondents have had failed GPUs.
It actually looks quite good the way I read it.
No, I was being quite specific in what I was saying. If you exclude people who've had a MBP for less than 6 months (which is kind of early to be experiencing GPU issues), you've got 19 people with no issues so far (15 between 0.5-1 years, 4 between 1-2 years). On the flip side, you've got 9 people who've had a problem (5 between 0.5-1 yr, 4 between 1-2 yrs). That's 9 out of 27 people in the relevant window, or 33.3%. And again, after one year of ownership, you've got 50% of the respondents having problems. Those aren't good numbers, IMO.
And even a 22% rate of GPU failure doesn't sound good to me. That's more than 1 in 5.
Of course you can find all sorts of reasons why this poll is faulty (people with GPU issues might be more likely to click on the thread and participate in the poll, for instance). But, as it stands, I think the current numbers would make an open-minded person LESS reassured.
Sorry, guess I should have read your post a little closer.
Ya who knows, just when you think its looking like a catastrophe every now & then a wack of people come on here and post how they've had no problems whatsoever. I think the bottom line is people not having problems aren't searching around forums looking to boast about it. They're too busy enjoying their machines to be bothered.
Ya who knows, just when you think its looking like a catastrophe every now & then a wack of people come on here and post how they've had no problems whatsoever. I think the bottom line is people not having problems aren't searching around forums looking to boast about it. They're too busy enjoying their machines to be bothered.
Spot on, I'd assumed that the results would tend to be skewed towards failure as the people who have had failures are more likely to say so. It's still quite a few failures, but nothing like you would have thought based on all the hype in the Inquirer report and the like.
Most of these polls are completely worthless anyway, since the MAJORITY of REGULAR people that view these forums are one's that have some sort of on issue with the device. Just like when I joined back over a year, since I was having problems with my MBP. So your results will be skewed (i.e. a higher % of failures than there really are).
I don't understand what everyone's problem here is with this. One if you have a new MBP and it breaks, youre under a warranty for 1yr. Second from the moment I bought my MBP I told myself I would by applecare just in case, since past experience has taught me something always goes wrong with laptops right after their traditional warranty period (old DELL, replace HD, LCD, keyboard 2x, video card, crazy).
So if youre smart youre covered for 3yrs, if you didn't get the applecare... TOUGH, seriously that's the chance you take. You bought a $2000+ laptop but don't want top fork over ~$250 for applecare... I don't feel sorry for you.
Obviously they won't recall it, because that would cost them $$$$. Since there keeping quiet on it, it must also mean that a small % of users are experiencing these problems and as such is cheaper to just replace those few computers.
Oh, yes running my MBP 1yr no problems...
I don't understand what everyone's problem here is with this. One if you have a new MBP and it breaks, youre under a warranty for 1yr. Second from the moment I bought my MBP I told myself I would by applecare just in case, since past experience has taught me something always goes wrong with laptops right after their traditional warranty period (old DELL, replace HD, LCD, keyboard 2x, video card, crazy).
So if youre smart youre covered for 3yrs, if you didn't get the applecare... TOUGH, seriously that's the chance you take. You bought a $2000+ laptop but don't want top fork over ~$250 for applecare... I don't feel sorry for you.
Obviously they won't recall it, because that would cost them $$$$. Since there keeping quiet on it, it must also mean that a small % of users are experiencing these problems and as such is cheaper to just replace those few computers.
Oh, yes running my MBP 1yr no problems...
As far as I'm concerned the scare story was stating that all of them were dud, this poll is about 1 in 5 and is more than likely skewed in the direction of failures for the reasons you have already stated. Also the sample set is pretty small so there's a fair bit of random error as well. nevertheless, I think it's clear that the issue, at the very least, has been greatly exaggerated based on the principal assertion being that they're all dud. Panic over as far as I'm concerned. From that perspective, I'm satisfied that this has been worthwhile.
As a final aside, I noted that this is still the graphics card used in the MBPs available on the Apple site to date, so if there was a problem as bad as what's been suggested they probably wouldn't still be using them.
It cracks me up the people who say "tough" to the people who didn't buy applecare. Tough? why? HP and Dell both extended their warranties by a year for anyone with this problem. Apple needs to step up and do the same. It's a $2000 laptop, not a $2300 laptop. You shouldn't be forced into buying an optional extended warranty for something that is a known design defect. Mine crapped out a couple days ago. I did not have apple care and had the laptop for 15 months. I'll post in the other thread about what applecare said, as that's where I put my first message about the issue.
Including people with the X1600 skews this poll. Posting this poll at a website that is hardly a cross section of the consumer market, and then titling your topic "...stats on failures of..." skews it even more.
This poll doesn't tell anyone anything, it's totally a totally unreliable way to collect information.
This poll doesn't tell anyone anything, it's totally a totally unreliable way to collect information.
I've had my MBP since March 2008, and haven't had any problems yet. If the graphic card fails, it fails. There's no point in stressing about it.