My (my daughter's) 2008 MBP's video card (the infamous 8600M GT) died recently. I was fully aware of the recall on this card, so I brought the machine to an Apple Store, fully confident that the card will be replaced free of charge. To my amazement, I was told that this will cost me $310, because the computer is no longer under Apple Care! Just now I checked apple.com and the original KB article (TS2377) has beed replaced with a new one, stating that the free replacement program ended on December 7. 2012 -- two days after my visit to the Apple Store. I'm going back and won't leave until they agree to repair the machine free of charge. I have a Genius bar work order showing I was there on December 5th. Clearly, Apple is in the wrong!
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Apple refusing to fix a 2008 MBP with a failed NVIDIA 8600M GT
- Thread starter akadmon
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You should be able to get it repaired for free. It's not like you showed up two years after the end of the program and as long as you have a work order for the same issue before the end of that program, you should be fine. Apple is usually very willing to work with its customers on this type of thing.
Give AppleCare a call and speak with them. They may be able to set up a Genius Bar appointment for you with added notes to instruct the geniuses to repair it for free, no questions asked.
Give AppleCare a call and speak with them. They may be able to set up a Genius Bar appointment for you with added notes to instruct the geniuses to repair it for free, no questions asked.
I suggest calling AppleCare directly. I've had Geniuses claim repairs weren't covered under a warranty extension when they actually were. I talked with the manager and he said the same thing. I was pretty upset, but instead of being a jerk, I just called Apple explained my problem and they offered to repair it under the warranty extension.
Just back from the Apple Store.
The machine turned on just fine (i.e., no problem with the screen), and I'm thinking "aw-no -- just what I needed, a non-reproducible issue!". Thankfully, after about a minute the screen flickered and went blank, and the girl genius proceeded to hook it up to an external monitor, telling me that if the machine works with the external monitor, then there is no problem with the video card. That's actually what happened the first time my daughter brought the machine to a different Apple Store on Tuesday-- they hooked up an external monitor and it worked, so they told her that the issue was with the backlighting in the MBP (which I suspect was a bs excuse, to avoid replacing the logic board). This time no such luck (for Apple) -- no image on the external monitor. I'm thinking, good -- they better fix the damn machine now. But not so quick. The genius whips out an external drive with a sticker on top of it "Graphics Processor Test" . She tries to reboot the machine, without success, and tells me that the problem is clearly not with the video card, because a certain light patterns did not show up during boot on the the front of the machine. At this point my blood is about to start boiling, and I have the genius try rebooting one more time. This time the machine boots up OK. The genius proceeds to run a test, and after a few minutes a big FAILED pops up on the screen.
Long story short, I am going to have the machine fixed by Apple for free (new logic board). But if I didn't have proof that the machine was brought for a potential video card issue on December 5, I would have been out of luck (and $530), given that Apple has officially discontinued the NVIDIA recall as of this past Friday. And chances are my daughter, had she come to the store herself, probably would have believed whatever the genius told her, and would have walked out empty handed. It's good to have a stubborn, burly looking dad who reads Macrumors (hence was aware of the problem with the NVIDIA card) and who won't take "no" for an answer!
The machine turned on just fine (i.e., no problem with the screen), and I'm thinking "aw-no -- just what I needed, a non-reproducible issue!". Thankfully, after about a minute the screen flickered and went blank, and the girl genius proceeded to hook it up to an external monitor, telling me that if the machine works with the external monitor, then there is no problem with the video card. That's actually what happened the first time my daughter brought the machine to a different Apple Store on Tuesday-- they hooked up an external monitor and it worked, so they told her that the issue was with the backlighting in the MBP (which I suspect was a bs excuse, to avoid replacing the logic board). This time no such luck (for Apple) -- no image on the external monitor. I'm thinking, good -- they better fix the damn machine now. But not so quick. The genius whips out an external drive with a sticker on top of it "Graphics Processor Test" . She tries to reboot the machine, without success, and tells me that the problem is clearly not with the video card, because a certain light patterns did not show up during boot on the the front of the machine. At this point my blood is about to start boiling, and I have the genius try rebooting one more time. This time the machine boots up OK. The genius proceeds to run a test, and after a few minutes a big FAILED pops up on the screen.
Long story short, I am going to have the machine fixed by Apple for free (new logic board). But if I didn't have proof that the machine was brought for a potential video card issue on December 5, I would have been out of luck (and $530), given that Apple has officially discontinued the NVIDIA recall as of this past Friday. And chances are my daughter, had she come to the store herself, probably would have believed whatever the genius told her, and would have walked out empty handed. It's good to have a stubborn, burly looking dad who reads Macrumors (hence was aware of the problem with the NVIDIA card) and who won't take "no" for an answer!
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I'm glad you stuck with it. It's really luck of the draw with the Genius Bars, and especially with this issue. My 2008 MBP was doing OK, but the system profiler showed the PCI lane width (or what ever it's called) as being x1, when it's supposed to be x16. Since my computer was nearing its four year mark, I brought it to the Apple Store. They tried to do that GPU test, but for what ever reason it wouldn't work. Despite that, they said that they would replace the logic board free of charge. Since they didn't give me any problems over it, despite the machine not showing any symptoms and despite not being able to get a reading from their test, I think I got pretty lucky.
Let's hope the 8600M GT graphics card debacle isn't repeated on any Macs in the future...
Let's hope the 8600M GT graphics card debacle isn't repeated on any Macs in the future...
Dude.
Try taking a 4 year old machine back to Dell or HP and asking for a free replacement and see how far you get.
This machine is well out of warranty, and Apple really has no legal requirement to support it any more.
If they had announced a recall or repair program because that specific product was unambiguously defective, and they had previously announced a long-term commitment to fix that issue free of charge? I'd expect them to do the same thing Apple would. Which is try to avoid paying for it, then do it when called on this.
The ridiculously high failure rate of the 8600-based MBPs is really sort of a sore point for Apple.
Slightly off-topic here...and knock on wood as I've not needed any repair on my mbp's.
However what's the best way to be notified or know when there's a recall like this? Simply by registering my machine with apple?
However what's the best way to be notified or know when there's a recall like this? Simply by registering my machine with apple?
Actually, both Dell and HP were affected by the same recall, and they didn't fix the affected machines, they no questions asked replaced them with newer models.
nVidia actually acknowledged the issue and started the replacement program well past the 1 year warranty of the original machines that shipped with that GPU, so I'm guessing that the answer to that is yes, out of warranty replacements could've occurred.
My friend had the XPS 15 with the nvidia GPU and they just replaced his PC. He was extremely happy.
Not sure Apple won't just upgrade your system for you like HP and Dell did. It was a way of saying thank you I guess.
Congratulations and kudos for being persistent!
Be sure and test the MBP thoroughly when you get it back. For example, make sure that the MBP has a serial number and that the webcam works.
When I picked mine up just a few months ago, I had to send it back 3 times and was in the store waiting for an hour and a half. First time, no serial number, second time, wouldn't start up for me or for Genius, third time, no webcam.
And remember that the logic board replacement has a 90 day warranty--so don't hesitate to take it back if a problem shows up within that time period!
Also, post your experience to the following thread:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/MacBookPro_video_failure.html#storytop
The thread documents that the 4-year extension is from date of purchase!
Edit: but now xlr8yourmac.com is acknowledging Apple's doc with cutoff date. Which I don't think would stand up in court if you can document your purchase date and the 8600M failure...
Be sure and test the MBP thoroughly when you get it back. For example, make sure that the MBP has a serial number and that the webcam works.
When I picked mine up just a few months ago, I had to send it back 3 times and was in the store waiting for an hour and a half. First time, no serial number, second time, wouldn't start up for me or for Genius, third time, no webcam.
And remember that the logic board replacement has a 90 day warranty--so don't hesitate to take it back if a problem shows up within that time period!
Also, post your experience to the following thread:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/MacBookPro_video_failure.html#storytop
The thread documents that the 4-year extension is from date of purchase!
Edit: but now xlr8yourmac.com is acknowledging Apple's doc with cutoff date. Which I don't think would stand up in court if you can document your purchase date and the 8600M failure...
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I suppose I should count myself lucky, because it will be 5 years in February since I bought this MBP. Anyway, the last version of KB article, right before it was changed to say the replacement program has ended as of December 7, made no mention of it being limited to machines that were purchased 4 years or less prior to being brought in for service.