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Apple Finally Acknowledges and Addresses ATI X1900 XT Issue

Exchange completed!

Well, I have one of those "old" Mac Pros that came with the video card in question. I've had random issues like those described, and thought many times of replacing the card but never did.

Made an appt with the Genius Bar, brought my card + serial number and got a GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB in return.

'net seems to think it's a better or at least equal card, so no complaints here.

The smaller profile fan does seem quieter, but that's hard to compare not side-by-side.

They did not however provide a PCI blocker slot, which they should have I think. The ATI is a dual height, the new one single, so now there's a nice space :). Will have to pick one up, or try to go back to the Genius Bar perhaps...
 
DudeDad said:
I have the same question....my card had a strange problem..no video after reboot, but after several it would come back. Until 2 weeks ago. No video. I shared the screen from my MBP and it showed a blank screen. Took the card out, bought a new one (4870 HD) from Apple and it works fine (much quieter, too). That was on the 16th. 12 days later, this announcement is made. I called Applecare and they said to take the card to an Apple store and they will refund my purchase. I asked if they would do it even though I did not have the correct serial number. He said "yes." I'm not convinced this will go smoothly, but I'll try today and report back. My guess is that they will punt me back to AppleCare....
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UPDATE: Knowing the insanity that is my Apple Store, I called and ran my situation by the person who answered....she knew nothing and put me on hold. She came back and said "Bring in your MBP"...I told her it was a Mac Pro, and....NO. Long story short, spoke to a manager, gave him the article number of the Apple post, talked to his tech guys and agreed to reimburse $250 (that is as high as they can go, even though I paid $349 for the replacement they sold me 2 weeks ago when my card failed). Not bad, in my book. Made a Genius Bar appointment to do the paperwork.

My advice if your card doesn't have the right serial number (my did not): be persistent and tell them it's BS that it took this long to acknowledge a problem. Good luck!
 
DudeDad said:
UPDATE: Knowing the insanity that is my Apple Store, I called and ran my situation by the person who answered....she knew nothing and put me on hold. She came back and said "Bring in your MBP"...I told her it was a Mac Pro, and....NO. Long story short, spoke to a manager, gave him the article number of the Apple post, talked to his tech guys and agreed to reimburse $250 (that is as high as they can go, even though I paid $349 for the replacement they sold me 2 weeks ago when my card failed). Not bad, in my book. Made a Genius Bar appointment to do the paperwork.

My advice if your card doesn't have the right serial number (my did not): be persistent and tell them it's BS that it took this long to acknowledge a problem. Good luck!
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2nd UPDATE: went to the store....the guy said that since I purchased a new card two weeks before they announced the problem, he refunded my full amount($349).
 
It would be interesting to hear the conversation between AMD and Apple - how much did AMD hold back from Apple? Were Apple being told by AMD that the issue was related to drivers and software bugs? its interesting we have here bashing Apple whilst ignoring that a heck of a lot of conversation happens behind the scenes that we aren't privileged to. How long was it before the truth came out about the failure of nVidia GPU's? how long was nVidia adamant that the problem was with OEM's not abiding by the specifications?

Before people jump off into the deep end - take a deep breath and realise that not all the information is available or will ever be available.
 
For what it's worth, I binned my card a few months back and replaced it with a 4870 bought from the online Apple store. I called Applecare (I'm NOT in warranty, obviously!) gave the guy the article number of the post and my web order number for the 4870. He read it, went away, came back on the phone a couple of minutes later and said no problem, passed me over to someone else who took a few details and sent me a template to fill in with bank details. I had a reply from him a day later telling me that the refund had been authorised and the money would be back in my account in 4-6 weeks. The exact same process happened when I requested a refund for the HD that failed in my MacBook even after I'd binned the original drive.

I for one can't fault Apple on their customer service on this one. To me, the fact that they took so long to acknowledge the fault is irrelevant, and as macintoshtoffy says, we don't know the full story. AMD make the card, so the buck stops with them. It's the outcome that I'm interested in, and it's a good one for me. I think if a lot of the people on here bitching about it just calmed down and focussed on getting a solution to a broken card, rather than focussing on being annoyed at Apple, they'd be OK. And if you rant and rave at Apple employees they're less likely to want to help you. Be nice to them, point them to the article in question if they don't know about it already and just create the possibility of getting a replacement or refund.
 
StudioGuy said:
Well, I have one of those "old" Mac Pros that came with the video card in question. I've had random issues like those described, and thought many times of replacing the card but never did.

Made an appt with the Genius Bar, brought my card + serial number and got a GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB in return.

'net seems to think it's a better or at least equal card, so no complaints here.

The smaller profile fan does seem quieter, but that's hard to compare not side-by-side.

They did not however provide a PCI blocker slot, which they should have I think. The ATI is a dual height, the new one single, so now there's a nice space :). Will have to pick one up, or try to go back to the Genius Bar perhaps...
Click to expand...

Please! When was the purchase date of your MacPro? I bought mine in 2006, with that very card model (and number) and they won't cover it.
 
Born to perform.

To make a better computer, only quality components and materials will do. That’s why every Mac contains a hard drive, memory, graphics processor, even a power supply specifically chosen to give you the best performance possible. And materials like aluminum and glass (in iMac and MacBook Pro) or rugged polycarbonate (in MacBook) keep all those high-performance components safe and sound.
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seriously?

macs use garbage generic ram, just like every other manufacture, its not even heatsinked or running at a competative clock speed, 1066MHz is the slowest freaking speed for DDR3, the base standard is 1333 while other desktops run 1600 or even 2000

graphics? lowest end crap, show me 1 mac that comes with an up to date Fermi card that has at least 1GB of video ram, laptop or desktop...(im talking GTX460 or above)

hard drive? sorry OSX doesnt even support SSD's properly (no trim support among other things) also the crappy spindle drives you used are refurb'd from seagate or WD.

what a freaking joke, and you pay a high premium for this low end stuff
 
pr5owner said:
seriously?

macs use garbage generic ram, just like every other manufacture, its not even heatsinked or running at a competative clock speed, 1066MHz is the slowest freaking speed for DDR3, the base standard is 1333 while other desktops run 1600 or even 2000

graphics? lowest end crap, show me 1 mac that comes with an up to date Fermi card that has at least 1GB of video ram, laptop or desktop...(im talking GTX460 or above)

hard drive? sorry OSX doesnt even support SSD's properly (no trim support among other things) also the crappy spindle drives you used are refurb'd from seagate or WD.

what a freaking joke, and you pay a high premium for this low end stuff
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You have to understand that probably at least 50% of all Mac users on here are brainwashed and believe anything and everything Steve or Apple tells them and assume everything else they can think of that is positive (i.e. It MUST be the BEST because it's by Apple). As you say, the truth is they cut corners, use slower stuff to prevent overheating in tight cases like the iMac and package it all in a pretty case (what good is that with a massive monitor reflection staring back at you?) and tell you it's the BEST. I like OSX, but saying it's the "most advanced operating system in the world" is LAUGHABLE when it doesn't even have OpenGL 3.x in it (let alone 4.x or something state-of-the-art custom). It only supports a tiny sub-set of the available hardware out there and yet STILL is plagued with bugs (I get at least as many crashes from OSX as Windows). I like the GUI interface (for the most part; I don't like it's not customizable for squat, though) and I like that so far there isn't tons of spyware and any known viruses like Windows has to put up with so it's great for shopping/banking/etc. for the moment. I also like Logic Studio which is Mac only. But pretending Macs are the absolute best in EVERY area just isn't rational given the facts of the matter. They do many things well, some better than Windows, but in other areas (graphics/gaming/choice of hardware/amount of available commercial software), they lag behind. I guess that's why I also have a dedicated Windows PC here (mostly used for gaming and video encoding) and Windows installed on my MBP with Boot Camp. OSX simply doesn't do it all.
 
Drexus said:
Please! When was the purchase date of your MacPro? I bought mine in 2006, with that very card model (and number) and they won't cover it.
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@Drexus,

My purchase date was Dec 14, 2006. If yours came with the X1900 XT card too, and it has the specified type of serial number, there should be no issue - the recall is listed on Apple's website. Yeah, the Genius's didn't know about it, that's ok, but I brought in a copy of the web page and emailed them beforehand with the TS number, so they got up to speed just fine.

I guess try a different Apple Store, or AppleCare?

Best of luck.


@hassiman, they gave me a 8800XT 512 MB. The Genius said that was the replacement model. They even had a tech note of taking out the X1900 and replacing it with the 8800XT. Seems just fine. The usual high speed action for 1-2 seconds after wake, but quiet after, just like the X1900 did for me.
 
I got more back for my X1900XT than I paid for it.

I went to the genius bar with my Mac Pro's serial number, the faulty graphics card, the URL on support.apple.com and the Apple Store receipt for the $400 replacement card I bought in 2008.

My genius saw the same $250 cap, and called up the Apple Customer Relations people to figure out how to process the refund. While on the line with them she saw that the card was still in the Apple Store system and so she could just process it as a return herself. She felt that the $250 refund would be unfair given how much money I paid for the card and how poorly Apple handled the whole situation. She processed it as a return for $399 plus tax, even though I had only paid $397 total for my original.

If you can convince the genius to do the same thing, it might be to your benefit. This Apple Genius has singlehandedly restored my faith in a company which has given its users (and me, specifically) the shaft far too many times. Good luck, guys!
 
smartperson said:
If you can convince the genius to do the same thing, it might be to your benefit. This Apple Genius has singlehandedly restored my faith in a company which has given its users (and me, specifically) the shaft far too many times. Good luck, guys!
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She'll probably get fired for it knowing how Steve thinks.... :apple:
 
Great. My Radeon X1900 XT ceased to function about a year after I bought it. I kept the dead unit around for a few years, but eventually just threw it away. Replaced it with a GeForce 8800, which incidentally was also faulty and failed a few months ago. I was forced to replace this with an ATI Radeon 4870 which Apple charged me $200 more than the PC version would have cost, and the card isn't even fully supported on my Mac Pro.

I feel like Apple owes me some friggen money here.

:mad::mad::mad:
 
Hello,

I have a ATI X1900 graphics card, which has graphics distortion problem, but it does not have 'V6Z' on the serial number. Does that mean that I can't get the graphics cards changed?
 
lockerstone said:
Hello,

I have a ATI X1900 graphics card, which has graphics distortion problem, but it does not have 'V6Z' on the serial number. Does that mean that I can't get the graphics cards changed?
Click to expand...

It's the same problem, I suggest trying. Even though you might be out of warranty and not covered by this particular program, I wouldn't be surprised if they replaced it for you. I would call AppleCare first, then the Apple store, and definitely record the name of the people you talk to, as well as the date and time of the calls. Ask them what they need too. They might ask you to bring in your computer, or just the card.
 
I have a genius bar appt. for tomorrow at the Glendale, CA Apple store. Not sure if they can do the exchange tomorrow or whether the part needs to be ordered. Is everyone getting the 8800GT as a replacement?

The only problems I have noticed with my x1900 are sparkles/dancing pixels with a Dell 3007WFP monitor. Usually this occurs after the video card has been taxed. I replaced the DVI cable and went through a couple of monitor exchanges until the problem seemed to occur so infrequently that I decided I could live with it...now I think maybe it was my video card all a long.
 
holmesf said:
Great. My Radeon X1900 XT ceased to function about a year after I bought it. I kept the dead unit around for a few years, but eventually just threw it away. Replaced it with a GeForce 8800, which incidentally was also faulty and failed a few months ago. I was forced to replace this with an ATI Radeon 4870 which Apple charged me $200 more than the PC version would have cost, and the card isn't even fully supported on my Mac Pro.

I feel like Apple owes me some friggen money here.

:mad::mad::mad:
Click to expand...
Man, read my post not 8 posts above yours. You can probably have some money if you want it.....
 
How do I know if I have this issue? I've had my machine since August 2006 and everything seems to be working great. I've noticed some weird things when trying to game.. like, for instance, Doom 3 doesn't play above 10fps in certain areas even if I have all the settings on lowest. That shouldn't happen with an X1900 XT. But other than that, if everything seems to be fine, do you think I have a defective card?
 
bombardier.v2 said:
Man, read my post not 8 posts above yours. You can probably have some money if you want it.....
Click to expand...

I got optimistic after reading your post, but I literally have almost no records of my purchases to back me up. The Apple store online will only show my purchases back 18 months. Any tips?
 
StephenCampbell said:
How do I know if I have this issue? I've had my machine since August 2006 and everything seems to be working great. I've noticed some weird things when trying to game.. like, for instance, Doom 3 doesn't play above 10fps in certain areas even if I have all the settings on lowest. That shouldn't happen with an X1900 XT. But other than that, if everything seems to be fine, do you think I have a defective card?
Click to expand...

The problems with this card aren't about speed. The problems involve random corruption of the video, green lines, black lines, psychedelic color cycling, areas that are black or filled with static, or geometry that has spikes or holes when it normally doesn't on a properly functioning computer.
 
holmesf said:
I got optimistic after reading your post, but I literally have almost no records of my purchases to back me up. The Apple store online will only show my purchases back 18 months. Any tips?
Click to expand...
OK, I'd try calling AppleCare. Explain your situation, and if you bought it from the online store there's a good chance they'll have a record of the purchase. You've got nothing to lose but your time to make the call.
 
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