I've never seen that particular screen, however I know the Genius Bar uses Tech Tool Deluxe (that's included with your upgraded AppleCare subscription) and there is a video test that will fill up your vram and run it through a few tests just to see if it works right. It simply covers your entire screen with a number of color patterns.
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Apple says some MacBook Pros affected by faulty Nvidia chips
- Thread starter HiFiGuy528
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I've never seen that particular screen, however I know the Genius Bar uses Tech Tool Deluxe (that's included with your upgraded AppleCare subscription) and there is a video test that will fill up your vram and run it through a few tests just to see if it works right. It simply covers your entire screen with a number of color patterns.
Interesting. It sounds like they ran the standard vram test to try to diagnose my GPU. It was exactly as you described. The odd part is the vram test has been around for quite a while. They told me that this test was brand new and my MBP was the first machine they had run it on. (that location) They went as far as to say they received the testing equipment on Monday. Sounds like they fed me a bunch of bull.
Ugh. This is not encouraging. I would demand that Apple replace that GPU, especially since at least one person here was offered a replacement for a machine that was showing no symptoms.
I think I'm going to sell my beloved MBP and buy a new one. Yeah, I'm just giving Apple more money, but it might be the cheapest option for me in the long run. It will be really hard to part with my matte screen.
Ok - Follow up - I just dropped my MBP off at the AppleStore for a Superdrive replacement. I spoke with another Mac Genius and asked him about the test they run on nvidia 8600M Gt's. He said it is a new diagnostic that checks the vram as well as GPU/Logic board revisions. So, yes it looks similar to the normal vram test but is indeed new and designed specifically for testing the 8600M.
My Macbook Pro (June '07 revision) recently had its logic board replaced. According to the System Profiler:
GeForce 8600M GT:
Chipset Model: GeForce 8600M GT
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0407
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3175
This is what it shows post-repair. Quite certain that it's exactly the same part according to the system profiler I saw before the repair (and what's been reported on the forums as a defective part).
After about maybe, 10-12 months of ownership, I started using a dual monitor setup with a VGA LCD monitor I've had for a while.
Basically, I started to notice that anything with transparency (such as the editing tools in iPhoto and Quicklook) were freezing up. Then blue checkerboard patterns started to appear.
I received "graphics channel timeout" messages whenever I checked the system logs after restart.
Afterwards, I reformatted the harddive and did a clean install of Leopard. The graphics problems got worst. Disconnected the second monitor... still problems. Anytime it went into a "flurry" screen saver, it started to freeze and blue checkerboards.
Finally, called up AppleCare... told them my situation and they told me to run TechTools Deluxe.
This happened:
![]()
Click for full size
I couldn't even boot into TechTools Deluxe. They had me send it in for repair without question. I DID manage to get TechTools working much later... it kind of unwillingly boot in... and TechTools didn't detect anything. I take TechTools analysis with a grain of salt. I think it's beyond what it can detect (and from my experiences, the Nvidia problem clearly is).
Even with the repair, I still have some issues with selecting multiple files to preview via QuickLook. It freezes and gives me a "graphics channel timeout" message in the console logs. This is reproducible and the first sign that something was wrong when I had graphics card failure. Might be a coincidence... and a software flop on the OS end... might not... still persists in 10.5.5.
I personally think the 8600m processors are ticking time bombs waiting to fail.
GeForce 8600M GT:
Chipset Model: GeForce 8600M GT
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0407
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3175
This is what it shows post-repair. Quite certain that it's exactly the same part according to the system profiler I saw before the repair (and what's been reported on the forums as a defective part).
After about maybe, 10-12 months of ownership, I started using a dual monitor setup with a VGA LCD monitor I've had for a while.
Basically, I started to notice that anything with transparency (such as the editing tools in iPhoto and Quicklook) were freezing up. Then blue checkerboard patterns started to appear.
I received "graphics channel timeout" messages whenever I checked the system logs after restart.
Afterwards, I reformatted the harddive and did a clean install of Leopard. The graphics problems got worst. Disconnected the second monitor... still problems. Anytime it went into a "flurry" screen saver, it started to freeze and blue checkerboards.
Finally, called up AppleCare... told them my situation and they told me to run TechTools Deluxe.
This happened:
Click for full sizeI couldn't even boot into TechTools Deluxe. They had me send it in for repair without question. I DID manage to get TechTools working much later... it kind of unwillingly boot in... and TechTools didn't detect anything. I take TechTools analysis with a grain of salt. I think it's beyond what it can detect (and from my experiences, the Nvidia problem clearly is).
Even with the repair, I still have some issues with selecting multiple files to preview via QuickLook. It freezes and gives me a "graphics channel timeout" message in the console logs. This is reproducible and the first sign that something was wrong when I had graphics card failure. Might be a coincidence... and a software flop on the OS end... might not... still persists in 10.5.5.
I personally think the 8600m processors are ticking time bombs waiting to fail.
Just to confirm, your GPU Specs report exactly the same as mine (on a MBP with replaced Logic Board from Aug 2007)
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/6430577/
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/6430577/
[/QUOTE]
I personally think the 8600m processors are ticking time bombs waiting to fail.[/QUOTE]
Agreed.
Oct 13 http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/index.cfm?newsid=23121
"Perez said that the $196 million charge Nvidia took two months ago would cover the additional cost of any reimbursement to Apple. "Yes, Apple falls under that amount," he said.
Both 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models are included in the potential free repair. The symptoms, said Apple, include no video, or distorted or scrambled video. Only MacBook Pros with the GeForce 8600M GT processor manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008 are affected, the company said.
However, all MacBook Pro models now for sale on Apple's online store still contain the GeForce 8600M GT processor.
Customers can take their notebooks to an Apple retail store or authorized dealer for evaluation and repair, or call one of the company's support lines . Users who have already paid to have their MacBook Pro's video fixed will be issued refunds.
A month ago, Nvidia was hit with a lawsuit that accused the company of violating U.S. securities laws by concealing the existence of the chip defect."
I personally think the 8600m processors are ticking time bombs waiting to fail.[/QUOTE]
Agreed.
Oct 13 http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/index.cfm?newsid=23121
"Perez said that the $196 million charge Nvidia took two months ago would cover the additional cost of any reimbursement to Apple. "Yes, Apple falls under that amount," he said.
Both 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models are included in the potential free repair. The symptoms, said Apple, include no video, or distorted or scrambled video. Only MacBook Pros with the GeForce 8600M GT processor manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008 are affected, the company said.
However, all MacBook Pro models now for sale on Apple's online store still contain the GeForce 8600M GT processor.
Customers can take their notebooks to an Apple retail store or authorized dealer for evaluation and repair, or call one of the company's support lines . Users who have already paid to have their MacBook Pro's video fixed will be issued refunds.
A month ago, Nvidia was hit with a lawsuit that accused the company of violating U.S. securities laws by concealing the existence of the chip defect."
When did you have the repair done? Before or after Apple supposedly got a hold of these "Rev. 2" 8600M GT chips?
can anyone else confirm if apple is ready, willing and able to replace the logic board on a system that hasn't exhibited any of the symptoms of imminent failure?
Think about what you're saying there for a moment.
can anyone else confirm if apple is ready, willing and able to replace the logic board on a system that hasn't exhibited any of the symptoms of imminent failure?
I made an appointment to take mine in to a Genius Bar on Saturday. I am going to request that they repair it, even though it is not exhibiting symptoms. I'll report back to let everyone know how it went.
I got my repair back and would like to tell you what they did. They replaced my logic board with the rev. 2 board, they seemed to tighten the hinge for the display because it was getting a little loose, also they clean the outside case and display so it looks new. The winning noise with the brightness is gone. and seem alot cooler. I still got to do more testing but im sure its fine now, I will post results later on.
here's the system profiler. ROM Revision is the only one different.
Chipset Model: GeForce 8600M GT
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0407
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3212
and seem alot cooler. I still got to do more testing but im sure its fine now, I will post results later on.here's the system profiler. ROM Revision is the only one different.
Chipset Model: GeForce 8600M GT
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0407
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3212
Apple really needs to come out and tell customers that the replacement GPUs are fine and that they are made using a different manufacturing process/different materials. If they don't, we have to assume that they're the same as before. Rev 2 is probably just for the logic board, not the GPU. Is there anything that identifies the GPU as being different from the previous ones?
The ROM version from weemanpow3 is up from the one posted by jedivulcan. That probably is what lets you know the different GPU versions. I'll have to check my MBP from 06/08 when I get home from work this morning.
I just got my MBP last week from ebay. I bought the AppleCare as that is my standard practice (I usually replace my Macs after AppleCare runs out) so, personally, I'm not sweating bullets over this. However, I can sympathize with owners who don't have that option.
I think most of us would like to (and should easily be able to) keep using our MBPs for several years to come but Apple needs to extend these GPU failures for longer than just a year. Extend it for the life of the hardware, although the practicality for that is probably not very good. It will be interesting to hear back from phrasikleia to see if Apple will replace these by demand instead of waiting for the failures. I'm holding the position that there is a bad batch and not all 8600M GTs are faulty.
.I got my repair back and would like to tell you what they did. They replaced my logic board with the rev. 2 board, they seemed to tighten the hinge for the display because it was getting a little loose, also they clean the outside case and display so it looks new. The winning noise with the brightness is gone.
here's the system profiler. ROM Revision is the only one different.
Chipset Model: GeForce 8600M GT
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0407
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3212
I have ROM Revision 3212 too, bought my MBP in the last week of July of this year, a Penryn 15" 2.4GHz. It has not been taken back to the store yet, but I plan on taking the MBP tommorow to get it checked out due to warping issues.
Rom 3212
Just got a refurb with the same spec, Penryn 2.4 ad it also shows the same ROM 3212 version. After reading this thread, it was somewhat of a concern.
Just got the notebook yesterday and then read up on all these problems when it was in transit. I'm wondering if Apple has now gotten version two cards that will fail or not. Sounds like folks have gone through multiple copies of the same card that has been failing.
Maybe they won't want to tell us for obvious reasons.
What to do, what to do....
Just got a refurb with the same spec, Penryn 2.4 ad it also shows the same ROM 3212 version. After reading this thread, it was somewhat of a concern.
Just got the notebook yesterday and then read up on all these problems when it was in transit. I'm wondering if Apple has now gotten version two cards that will fail or not. Sounds like folks have gone through multiple copies of the same card that has been failing.
Maybe they won't want to tell us for obvious reasons.
What to do, what to do....
I bought the old MBP with applecare, so I will get at least get 3 years of use out of it. I plan on buying something new after that anyway so I'm not terribly worried about the video card.
What I am wondering - in 3 years after my warranty expires if there is a video card issue won't the parts be really cheap as with all old technology? Or will it be just as expensive since it might be hard to find 3 year old equipment? I'm new to Mac so I am not sure how the economics of repairing old equipment works for the Mac platform. I know with Windows I can find a video card for $15 that I paid nearly $200 for just a year or two ago.
Another thing - if all video cards are defective and over the next 2 years people are bringing their MBPs in for service, I am guessing the initial stock of 8600 cards will run out. Companies don't want to produce more items than are forecasted to be sold as that costs more money. And I'm guessing NVIDIA didn't forecast this many cards to be faulty so they probably don't have enough stock to take care of all the replacements. Therefore Apple will be forced to get more replacements from NVIDIA or offer some sort of alternative card. Either way I would think that they would not accept more defective cards from NVIDA and make sure that they get cards that work. The less labor costs Apple has to spend, the less money they will lose as a result of this issue. It just doesn't make business sense to keep replacing the machines with faulty cards. They may be doing that now for whatever reason but I think it would be a terrible decision to continue to do that over the next few years.
What I am wondering - in 3 years after my warranty expires if there is a video card issue won't the parts be really cheap as with all old technology? Or will it be just as expensive since it might be hard to find 3 year old equipment? I'm new to Mac so I am not sure how the economics of repairing old equipment works for the Mac platform. I know with Windows I can find a video card for $15 that I paid nearly $200 for just a year or two ago.
Another thing - if all video cards are defective and over the next 2 years people are bringing their MBPs in for service, I am guessing the initial stock of 8600 cards will run out. Companies don't want to produce more items than are forecasted to be sold as that costs more money. And I'm guessing NVIDIA didn't forecast this many cards to be faulty so they probably don't have enough stock to take care of all the replacements. Therefore Apple will be forced to get more replacements from NVIDIA or offer some sort of alternative card. Either way I would think that they would not accept more defective cards from NVIDA and make sure that they get cards that work. The less labor costs Apple has to spend, the less money they will lose as a result of this issue. It just doesn't make business sense to keep replacing the machines with faulty cards. They may be doing that now for whatever reason but I think it would be a terrible decision to continue to do that over the next few years.
It's a matter of supply-and-demand, of course. If the part really does get scarce, its cost will be high.
It sort of does make sense to replace them with faulty chips if that's all they have and if the warranties are all going to run out in 2-3 years. Faulty or not, they run a good chance of it lasting at least past the warranty, at which point it's off their books. Remember that the warranty starts from the day of purchase and does not get "reset" when a GPU repair is done.
By the way, my Penryn 2.4GHz from February also has ROM Revision 3212.
I agree, if that is what they have in stock they'll likely replace it with the faulty chips.
What I am trying to say is if when they usually release a line of MBPs, if they forecast that 3% of machines will need replacement parts and keep inventory relative to that amount of failures, that inventory will dry up much quicker than normal for this line. If these MBPs are failing at a much higher rate (i.e. 20%), the forecasted inventory will be gone much faster. They will therefore need to restock and the fact that they are still using NVIDIA in the latest "Unibody" lines probably means NVIDIA will be forced to ensure their relationship is strong. Therefore I can't see them continuing to manufacture replacement cards that are faulty; they will fix the problem.
If you bought your machine 1.5 years ago you're probably less likely to see a fix before your applecare wears out. Those of us who just bought machines probably have better odds.
Maybe I'm just overly optimistic and trying to justify my purchase that is arriving today
but I hope Apple gives me reason to keep faith in them.I'm planning on bringing my MBP into get checked out when I get it. How do you get the information for ROM version and all that stuff? Is that in the "About this Mac" section? I haven't used Mac much before...
Nope, that's not gonna fly...
Poster before you got it right in speculating that there is no new GPU revision from Nvidia for these.
Has Nvidia announced such? If not, there isn't my guess.
Which means that the earlier post is more likely accurate. Now we have confirm to February of someone with the same ROM version. That doesn't sound like a new board to me.
Since I just got my Macbook Pro yesterday, I watching and sorting through this like untold others. Love the notebook and the gestures, but concerned about the GPU.
Poster before you got it right in speculating that there is no new GPU revision from Nvidia for these.
Has Nvidia announced such? If not, there isn't my guess.
Which means that the earlier post is more likely accurate. Now we have confirm to February of someone with the same ROM version. That doesn't sound like a new board to me.
Since I just got my Macbook Pro yesterday, I watching and sorting through this like untold others. Love the notebook and the gestures, but concerned about the GPU.
I think the only reason they are doing what you describe (which I agree with) is that there isn't anyone (here atleast) with the access to the tools required to test the materials breaking point , such as the guys in California and China (nvidia) do. I'm sure if someone could come up with some conclusive evidence and know when exactly they will break, Apple and other manufacturers will have no choice to fess up.
It would be a(nother) PR nightmare
Yes, they could have. Depending on how nVidia works, if they update firmware over time then it's possible that the firmware might give a clue as to the age of the chip; if they ship one firmware throughout the lifecycle of the product, though, then it's completely meaningless.
I checked my MBP when I got home this morning and my ROM version is 3212. This is a 6-5/6-12 2008 2.5 MBP. I was always under the impression that the ROM is only upgradeable via hardware - it's a firmware that is hardcoded into the unit. If that's true, it's likely then that there is a newer chip out there. Then again, maybe I'm talking out of my neck!
Just had a nice polite chat with Apple Support....
So since I just received a MacBook Pro 2.4 yesterday, I called today to see what's what. They aren't giving any real answers to this issue. We all want to know if there is a new Nvidia card made to fix this.
Well they "pretended" there was one by saying my machine was get this, made in the 41st week, re: October. Of course I don't believe that as when I asked what is different then about the Nvidia card, they can't give you an answer.
Not one that makes any sense. There was mention of a "patch" and I just flung that down and said software isn't going to do it or it would have been done for everyone. Told the nice person on the phone they weren't getting the right support.
Bottom line: I have 14 days to decide.
It looks like we have our answer though. 2 years of replacements until this card(s) dies a horrible death.
Darn.
So since I just received a MacBook Pro 2.4 yesterday, I called today to see what's what. They aren't giving any real answers to this issue. We all want to know if there is a new Nvidia card made to fix this.
Well they "pretended" there was one by saying my machine was get this, made in the 41st week, re: October. Of course I don't believe that as when I asked what is different then about the Nvidia card, they can't give you an answer.
Not one that makes any sense. There was mention of a "patch" and I just flung that down and said software isn't going to do it or it would have been done for everyone. Told the nice person on the phone they weren't getting the right support.
Bottom line: I have 14 days to decide.
It looks like we have our answer though. 2 years of replacements until this card(s) dies a horrible death.
Darn.