MacBook Pro NVIDIA Chips Affected Too by Failures?

Any news on a recall on this issue ? The refurbs are very attractively priced right now. But even at a good price, I don't think it would be worth the risk if Apple doesn't do something about the issue.
 
Riemann Zeta said:
I really hope my machine doesn't die, but I must contend that the GPU always runs hot. The diode temp is around 55-60 deg in Mac OS, but 75 deg in Windows 2008 (doing nothing). I don't remember ATi's mobile parts running that hot while idling. And of course, NVIDIA has neither said nor done anything about this--they just quietly acknowledged that all of our machines (and all the other x86 laptops out there with contemporary NVIDIA GPUs) are ticking time bombs and aren't going to do a bloody thing about it. With some of the really big Dell gaming machines, the GPU comes on a replaceable daughtercard, but anyone with a laptop under 4kg is SOL. I really wish Apple would have gone with ATi--NVIDIA's mobile chips have always sucked in terms of energy efficiency because NVIDIA basically just uses underclocked bin-failed desktop chips for mobile parts--but I think that those days ended with the AMD takeover (Intel would be pissed).

Maybe NVIDIA should stop releasing a bigger, hotter, 1000 Watt, jet-turbine-cooled, big-mo-fo-ho-pro GPU model every other week and focus on getting those chips and drivers to actually work, instead of just theoretically working. In general, computer companies need to learn that when chips run hotter than holy hell, a "cross your fingers and hope nothing blows up" approach is not the way to go. Intel learned that with the Pentium 4 and its 115W thermal output and Microsoft learned it with the Xbox360 "Red Ring of Death."
Click to expand...

I think nvidia and apple need to keep on releasing proper professional kit.
 
Thing is, it wouldn't be a problem had I built my own PC, as I could replace the card.
Click to expand...
Little more difficult to do that with a laptop, no? Moreover, most laptops (aside from the behemoth 'mobile desktops') don't have replaceable GPUs.
 
lilstewart said:
There are tons of issues with macbook pro's with the 8600 having scrambled text, etc being displayed.

i am one of them. two machines i have had that have 8600's in them have done that. also, 2 of my friends have had the same thing happen to them.

the 8600 is ****, i'm sorry, but it simply sucks.
Click to expand...

I've been saying this for weeks. All 8600M's are affected. GS, GT, it doesn't matter. If it's an 8600M it is affected. Problem seems exacerbated if you use the GPU heavily.

I had an HP laptop with 8600M gs that got the scrambled display, and a friend's HP laptop with 8600M gs did the exact same thing. In both instances, the logic board was replaced under warranty. The problem was definitely the video chipset, because I could still SSH into the machine and everything appeared to work just fine from a remote console.
 
jjahshik32 said:
This is why I'm selling my mbp right now and just opting for a nice mac pro desktop.
Click to expand...

I'd like to do this aswell but this would force me to immediately buy the Mac Pro because I don't have another computer and I don't want to buy it now because its still the old generation from january

Edit:
I decided to apply AppleCare to my MBP instead of going the Mac Pro route.
My MBP is already every once in a while showing the scrambled screen. As soon as I can be sure Apple can't replace it with todays tech anylonger (when Penryns are long outdated) I will take it to them and get shiny new tec with 16 cores in January 2011. This way I can take the most profit out o Apple ;)
 
lupin..the..3rd said:
I've been saying this for weeks. All 8600M's are affected. GS, GT, it doesn't matter. If it's an 8600M it is affected. Problem seems exacerbated if you use the GPU heavily.

I had an HP laptop with 8600M gs that got the scrambled display, and a friend's HP laptop with 8600M gs did the exact same thing. In both instances, the logic board was replaced under warranty. The problem was definitely the video chipset, because I could still SSH into the machine and everything appeared to work just fine from a remote console.
Click to expand...

wait? the graphics is what is causing scrambled text? i am getting it in safari, firefox, and now itunes?!?!?
 
My GPU hasn't died yet, but it does seem to go a bit wonky when I connect an external display--the screen will occasionally enter a "blue fade in/out" loop, as if it having problems detecting the external display. I can't help but wonder if my MBP (which is only about 3 mos. old) is on the verge of death. I have AppleCare, but still, it is creepy that my laptop could go at any moment. Also, what happens when it does die? Since all NVIDIA GeForce 8 series chips are faulty pieces of sh*t, then won't the replacement be just as likely to fail?

Things are looking really bad for NVIDIA right now. They've desperately tried to cover up the widespread G8X overheating issue ("chipgate" anyone?), but they can't keep it under wraps forever. NVIDIA stock has lost half its value in under a month, they are being sued by a number of other companies and I bet that a massive failure-related lawsuit by PC manufactures (mainly Dell, HP and Apple) is soon to come. I'm betting Intel will swoop in and buy NVIDIA once their cash supply is depleted and the stock drops to single-digit levels.
 
My MacBook Pro failed as well!

Hello!

I had posted a video on YouTube showing the video problem I had with my MacBook Pro, and my viewers pointed me to this post.

Well, my MBP is in for repair at my local Apple store. I guess they will swap out the logic board -- for another one that will have the same problem in due time. Oh well...

Here is the link to my video, should you want to watch it. It is littered with bad tech jokes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y0xqzm2neY

Regards,

Alfred
http://www.Alfred.TV
 
Nice video. :) Hope you're up and running ASAP.

The Apple store had my MBP for about 10 days. They'd have had it longer if I hadn't have called to check it was ready, because they sure as hell didn't bother to call me.

They replaced the logic board. This managed to confuse a lot of the software, so I spent a day on the command line and in Google trying to get it to recognise my TimeMachine backups and my :apple:TV, and just connect to the Internet.

Also, they managed to do something to the battery. My MBP would shut down without warning when the battery got down to about 40%. AppleCare were pretty arrogant about this issue and didn't want to send me a new battery, but eventually my better-than-average technical knowledge and persuasion skills eventually won through.

So now I'm 100% fixed, great. But if I wasn't such a geek, I'd could be sat here with an MBP in a very sorry state, despite being "fixed" by Apple.

I love Apple as much as the next fanboy, but this is my first real experience of "what happens when things go wrong", and I have to say it was pretty piss-poor.

SL
 
superleccy said:
Yes. Me. :(

My MBP (see sig - 8600M) is in the Apple Shop having its logic board replaced now.

The machine suddenly decided to stop producing a display - either on the built-in screen or on any external display. Other that that, the machine works fine. I was able to access it in Target Disk Mode.

Are these the symptoms that are consistent with the Nvidia faliures being reported on?

SL
Click to expand...

I just had this exact same problem. I was rebooting my 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro with the 8600M GT after a session in Boot Camp and lost my display and the ability for my MacBook to use my 30" Cinema Display.

The computer was running otherwise in all other capacities, but I had a black display no matter what I tried.

I took mine into the Apple store Genius Bar. They confirmed my suspicion that it was the graphics card on the logic board, but denied that it's related to the bad batch of Nvidia Graphics Processors.

Unfortunately, I neglected to purchase AppleCare in time. I'm just over 13 months since I bought my MBP. It's a $300+ repair to get the logic board replace by Apple. I've been without my MBP for almost a week. The support center lists the repair as complete and in transit. Hopefully, I will get it back tomorrow.

But it irks me to pay $300 dollars to repair my MacBook if it's failing due to a bad batch of Nvidia processors.
 
The Inquirer aren't full of crap in this case - Apple is!

daskindt said:
I just had this exact same problem. I was rebooting my 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro with the 8600M GT after a session in Boot Camp and lost my display and the ability for my MacBook to use my 30" Cinema Display.

The computer was running otherwise in all other capacities, but I had a black display no matter what I tried.

I took mine into the Apple store Genius Bar. They confirmed my suspicion that it was the graphics card on the logic board, but denied that it's related to the bad batch of Nvidia Graphics Processors.

Unfortunately, I neglected to purchase AppleCare in time. I'm just over 13 months since I bought my MBP. It's a $300+ repair to get the logic board replace by Apple. I've been without my MBP for almost a week. The support center lists the repair as complete and in transit. Hopefully, I will get it back tomorrow.

But it irks me to pay $300 dollars to repair my MacBook if it's failing due to a bad batch of Nvidia processors.
Click to expand...

Exactly the same problem with my MBP, but here in the UK it costs a mere £600 (approx 1,175 US dollars) for a new logic board.

I posted the following on the official Apple discussions, but hey, how unusual - it was removed within two minutes by the Apple mods (beginning my own quote) :

I've had the logic board replaced on my MBP twice in the past month, resulting in 3 weeks downtime while Apple Store staff were otherwise engaged bigging up the iPhone 3G. I'm a freelance designer and I rely on this one expensive laptop, so these lengthy in-store repairs have cost me vital working time.

My MBP failed again just last night - as with the past two failures, suddenly there was no video on the laptop or via external display. The MBP has always run violently hot and it seems pretty certain now that the faulty Nvidia GPU is the culprit.

I've had an Apple representative ringing me three times in the past week suggesting that I extend my warranty via Applecare, as my years cover runs out in about a week. In the UK this costs nearly £300 (approx 580 US dollars).

I deeply resent having to pay this amount to cover a serious hardware fault that could eventually result in a product recall.

At the Apple Store they'll replace the logic board with yet another with the same **** chip-set and unless I pay for the extended cover I could be stuck without a usable machine when the replacement board fails just as the last two have.

Nvidia have admitted the problem (to the tune of 200 million) so when Apple do the same? (end of my own quote)

Okay, I was ranting a little, which is against the Apple TOS, but I was alarmed by the speed with which this post was removed (with a nice little email notification which of course I couldn't reply to) and I haven't been able to post on Apple discussions since...

I think there's a MAJOR problem going on behind the scenes, and Apple, who I used to trust, are covering up in a very nasty way.

I feel like jumping up and down on my MBP, and trying to claim it on household insurance as a regrettable accident...
 
Apple should institute a recall of all MBP with the G84/G86 chips. I've had 2 logic boards replaced within 30 days of each other only to be replaced a with the same logic board. With the current new logic board (3 weeks) I am already noticing application crashes whenever the chip runs hot. So its only a matter of time before this logic board goes down for good.

I doubt very much that Apple will do a recall, especially with their messed up simultaneous launch of me.com, apps store and the iphone as they wouldn't want another PR blemish on their record.
Patrick
 
Are there any sure ways of knowing if your system is affected? I've been having some color issues with my screen and also some boot problems, does anyone know if there is a list of common signs/symptoms?
 
I just bought this computer and I'm having the text issues and the white bars on any flash driven videos. I placed the order for it 6/15/08... got it by the 24th... this is pathetic. :mad:
 
Our new one seems to be affected - assuming it is down to the nVideo chip.

Bought in April, but was the previous gen - so had a Leopard DVD to install, rather than preinstalled, so presumably from Q4 07.

Anyway, it's basically suffering from the garbled text, and white flashes as described here :

http://www.velumens.com/words/2008/0...h-macbook-pro/

It seems to be getting progressively worse - there was a fix involved by changing the sleep mode, that kind of helped, but doesn't any more.

And it used to only happen when running off the battery, but not any more.

Watching video on something like the BBC's iPlayer is really quite bad now, with all the flickering going on.

My current plan is to sit it out until the next revision comes out, presumably without these nVidia chips, and see what Apple have said by then.

I'm kinda hoping by then Apple's position will be untenable, and they'll simply swap it for a box, by which time they'll have sorted out the behind the scenes financial stuff and nVidia will pick up the tab.
 
Interesting times...

Just had an interesting time at the Genius Bar. My MBP was 10 days away from being out of warranty and as previously mentioned, I'd had the logic board replaced twice in the past month or so.

For one brief shining moment it looked like they were going to give me a full replacement then and there, BUT I had a liquid spill on this machine nine months ago, and having admitted that at the time (had HD and keyboard replaced) they insisted that the first logic board COULD have been damaged because of that.

I was encouraged by the Genius to call Applecare then and there, which I did, and I extended my warranty, but only on the basis that if any other major fault occurred, then I would get a completely new machine. I'm pretty happy with that for now, though I still think the extended coverage is overpriced.

If you're on AppleCare, it's apparently standard policy that if you experience more that two major hardware faults that are not demonstrably caused by user error, then you get a new machine. I now have that in writing!

The Genius also quietly fast-tracked my repair as if I was on Pro-Care.

I tried quizzing him about Nvidia, but he was tight-lipped, saying "right now we can only say as much is said on the Apple web-site". That was as clear an admission as he could give that they do know that something is seriously wrong, and he gave me the strong feeling that there would probably be an announcement at some point in the future.

Re: symptoms. From what other laptop manufacturers have said, I'm not entirely sure that the graphic glitches (flashing, text errors etc.) are an actual fault in the GPU and it may be that this is a software/hardware compatibility issue which may be addressed in a software update.

The serious symptoms are initially, problems waking up from sleep (the laptop, not you), extremely high heat levels, especially when doing graphically intensive work or gaming and ultimately, no video output. The latter is obviously the fatal flaw.

According to MacWorld, "Nvidia will likely disclose more information about the chip-packaging problem when the company releases its second-quarter financial results on Aug. 12". If Apple are going to say anything, it will be after that date, so watch the sites...

The final, not particularly great news is that if you're in warranty or AppleCare, you're covered and it's worth making a case for a fast-track repair if you get a problem.
 
OT: Pro-Care?

Slow Andrew said:
The Genius also quietly fast-tracked my repair as if I was on Pro-Care.
Click to expand...

What is "Pro-Care"?

I have been somewhat worried about repair times for AppleCare because my laptop is my primary computer for work. With Dell laptops, I have next-day on-site service which has always had me up-and-running within 24 hours of a failure. I read other threads about being without a system for weeks while AppleCare fiddles around. As an enterprise users of a Mac, I can't afford to be down for weeks!!!
 
gwerhart0800 said:
What is "Pro-Care"?
Click to expand...

http://www.apple.com/retail/procare/

Following my recent Logic Board replacement (and the irreconcilable damage the delay has made to my current project), a fast track 'Pro Care" repair would have come in handy.

But I think that £79 per year is way too much in addition to £279 Apple Care (a whopping £437 over 3 years, or US$725 excluding tax), particularly since the "other" services in the ProCare package would be useless to me. I can set up, tune and back-up my machine perfectly well thank you. And the only time I ever needed to call on a "Genius", he turned out to be much less of a genius than myself, or indeed, the typical forum member here.

SL
 
superleccy said:
I think that £79 per year is way too much in addition to £279 Apple Care (a whopping £437 over 3 years, or US$725 excluding tax)
Click to expand...

Completely agree with you SL - my work was also severely effected by the long repair time for logic board replacement and I've also come across a few 'geniuses 'who were anything but (to be fair some are pretty good though).

I was lucky to get procare repair time without paying. Some of the geniuses are decent human beings, and if you make it clear that you're very unhappy, but that you know that it's not their personal fault, then they can speed things up considerably.
 
Slowly we drift off topic ...

Slow Andrew said:
Not as good as your Dell deal, but reduces the servicing wait from 7-10 working days (standard) to 3-5 days.
These are maximum service times. On standard terms I've had repairs last as long as ten days, and as short as three.
Click to expand...

Does Apple have the equivalent service to the Dell next day service? I can see that not having something like that would keep many in the business world from going with a Mac. The best of all worlds would be systems that never fail, but in light of the GPU snafu, I am very paranoid about losing access to my work systems because my laptop is gone. (My MacBook Pro is scheduled to be delivered next week and I will probably give up my Dell laptop the week after.)
 
One of my friends in NY had his screen with colored lines and black lines about 6 months back. He had about 3-4 months left on his AppleCare so he took it to the Apple store and they told him that they would just replace his laptop instead. He got a brand new MBP, with similar configuration and decided to pay for a few upgrades- large HD, more memory- and they transferred al of his files and programs to his new laptop for him.
 
Sun Baked said:
Which is basically what happened with the capacitor issue, and will likely be handled in a similar manner by Apple.

Don't think Apple expected to dust off that plan so soon.
Click to expand...

several posts on Appledefects.com indicate reports that Apple was purposefully underclocking and underpowering the GPU's on MBP's in order to reduce heat

the design of the MBP case is great, but considering the sever issues with heat and cooling, they need to address this in their next case re-design.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Back
Top