New MacBook Pro's have bad nVidia chips says Inq

[MH01]

I am sure that apple will sort something out. A revised driver will hopefully fix the issue.

Myself I returned my MBP cause it was still in the 14 day refund period and as i used it to run games, It was unacceptable to spend $3K and have random crashes.

Apple have been great about it and the the customer sales rep also agreed that it was not acceptable.

Frankly i am surprised that Apple continued with nvidia after the 8600 fiasco. There should have really been thorough testing before shipping the new chips. All they needed to do is run some games on high settings to see what would happen.

I know that some people say that they have not experienced these crashes. I would suggest that they load up a relatively new game and push the settings up to max to stress the GPU and see if it crashes. Sure you may have never had the crash if you run games on medium settings etc.

 

[hajime]

Whether it's true or not, my Early 2008 has been doing just fine, thank goodness. And, as for next notebook purchased, it won't be a MBP. So, I'm safe for now either way!

Please don't be happy so soon. Mine did not go bad until a year after purchase.

 

[MH01]

I have a new 2.53 MBP (had an old 2.4 MBP (8600) previously, and a Dell M1530 w/ 8600 before that) and have never had problems with any of these machines. I play World of warcraft (on both OSX and Vista) and have never had any problems regarding black screens or overheating. I use laptopvideo2go drivers on the vista side of things. I also play Flatout2 on OSX and a plethora of other games on Vista.

Both of my bosses also have 2.4 MBPs (new unibody) and play WoW & Vanguard on Vista and have had no issues.

Everyone can go ahead and blame every possible issue with their machine on the Nvidia Chips, but theres no way every MBP or even a good majority of them have bunk chips. Apple would have made a move away from Nvidia if the problems were severe, not added more of their chips to their laptop line.

On world of warcraft, can you turn everything onto max (4xaliasing) including shadows on max and play the game for a while. If it does not crash in your normal session (say hour) then there is a difference between your 2.53 and mine. With everything set on high i can crash the MBP within 20 min.

 

[freejack]

I was sent a replacement for a machine that was exhibiting the BlSOD issue. Although the new unit did not freeze, the games I tested it with felt slightly choppier. It may be possible that apple is lowering the clock speeds on the 9600s to compensate for the heat.How can I check the gpu clock/memory speed?

 

[chaos86]

Sounds to me like this all comes from Windows having no control over the fans in the MBP.

I had a video card crap out because I left it in target disk mode in summer and the fans stayed at base speed and the thing baked. Literally burned myself picking it up, and since then the computer would have graphics glitches or freeze if it got over 50c on the GPU.

My limited electronics knowledge tells me that the combination of extreme heat, enough to soften solder + thermal expansion and contraction = loose connections = problems.

From what I've read, most of the Windows Vista users with problems here report finding their computers getting very hot. What I'd like is for someone over at SMCFanControl or Fan Control to port the app over to windows, or even if someone made a SMC hack to keep the fans at 5000 instead of 1500 when running windows. Bottom line: When you run software like windows without the drivers to control your fans, things get very hot, and when things get very hot, they melt.

 

[fleshman03]

Here we go again...

 

[petz0ldt]

Yeah, I too have Applecare and I'll cross this bridge if/when I get there. Right now I'm beating the crap out of my Late 2008 MacBook Pro with plenty of gaming. If I can't get it to fail within the 3 year Applecare period even with frequent 90C GPU temperatures, I'll be OK with whatever happens after that period.

i bought a unibody mbp as soon as they game out along with cod4. I noticed that mine was getting pretty hot too so i dled an app to monitor the temp which like you say went into the 90s while gaming. Ive had problems with overheating while gaming before in other notebooks(pcs) even though it hasn't crashed on me yet i downloaded smcfancontrol and before i start playing i simply set the fan speed to 5000rpm and the temp stays around 65-75c.

Bad bumps or not notebooks generate a lot of heat these days (especially the mbp) and im sure the heat leads to a lot of the crashes and video card problems people are seeing.

 

[chadder007]

A proclaimed NVidia engineer on one forum said "NVidia didn't resolve crap" and were still producing the chips with the faulty design flaw.
Now I believe him....

 

[Dicx]

10.5.6 fixed the problem for me from the very first seed. At least the overheating problem. No more black screens of overheating. Fans kick in and everything is ok. It does do a firmware update (2 restarts after installing) so it could be that or simply a more refined driver.

So when Apple releases it is anyone's guess.

 

[137489]

Gaming Only issue?

very rarely do I play games... are we suggesting that this problem is only a problem if gaming? I mean if I was to buy a new MBP (provided I have the money after Christmas) for work, my likelyhood of experiencing this is greatly reduce and may never happen?

I am using my whitebook for work now, but after loading all my Virtual machines, and all my personal stuff.... Even apple says I am pretty much maxing out my 2.4 ghz 250gb, 2gb ram. They said I am using a machine for something that it was not designed for, and suggested a newer macbook or MBP. Appearantly, they said Memory is the only component that is user upgradable and will not void warrenty and told me i was better off going to Crucial and getting more memory for $50, rather than pay Apple $300 to upgrade my machine.

Anyone know these fact for sure? Cause right now I am happy with my whitebook, but with only 2gb ram - having 2-3 virtual machines open at once really started to drag it down. Looking at specs, there really is not much difference between a MB and a MBP until you start going out of my price range and start moving closer to the 3.0 ghz end.

 

[andiwm2003]

is there anywhere a statistic that say what percentage of early 2008 MBP failed because of the GPU? after 8 month there should be enough data. it could be anything from 0.01% up to 10%.

then we could compare how many unibody MBP's fail (in spring when there are enough MBP's sold and used) and see if there is an improvement.

but as long as we don't know the chances for a MBP to fail it's a pointless discussion because if it's 0.01% i won't worry. if it's 10% then we have a "fiasco".

 

[Dicx]

very rarely do I play games... are we suggesting that this problem is only a problem if gaming? I mean if I was to buy a new MBP (provided I have the money after Christmas) for work, my likelyhood of experiencing this is greatly reduce and may never happen?

I am using my whitebook for work now, but after loading all my Virtual machines, and all my personal stuff.... Even apple says I am pretty much maxing out my 2.4 ghz 250gb, 2gb ram. They said I am using a machine for something that it was not designed for, and suggested a newer macbook or MBP. Appearantly, they said Memory is the only component that is user upgradable and will not void warrenty and told me i was better off going to Crucial and getting more memory for $50, rather than pay Apple $300 to upgrade my machine.

Anyone know these fact for sure? Cause right now I am happy with my whitebook, but with only 2gb ram - having 2-3 virtual machines open at once really started to drag it down. Looking at specs, there really is not much difference between a MB and a MBP until you start going out of my price range and start moving closer to the 3.0 ghz end.

Really it is a problem with the fans not kicking in at the right time and the GPU and CPU overheating and shutting down resulting in a black screen with audio skipping. The gaming just brings it on faster. So if you are just a surfer with normal workload in theory you shouldn't see it.

 

[MH01]

Sounds to me like this all comes from Windows having no control over the fans in the MBP.

I had a video card crap out because I left it in target disk mode in summer and the fans stayed at base speed and the thing baked. Literally burned myself picking it up, and since then the computer would have graphics glitches or freeze if it got over 50c on the GPU.

My limited electronics knowledge tells me that the combination of extreme heat, enough to soften solder + thermal expansion and contraction = loose connections = problems.

From what I've read, most of the Windows Vista users with problems here report finding their computers getting very hot. What I'd like is for someone over at SMCFanControl or Fan Control to port the app over to windows, or even if someone made a SMC hack to keep the fans at 5000 instead of 1500 when running windows. Bottom line: When you run software like windows without the drivers to control your fans, things get very hot, and when things get very hot, they melt.

Its not just windows. Ive ran cinebench 10 on os x and the CPU would hit 105 degrees Celsius, with the Fans only hitting 6K + after 95 degrees, much too late. This happens on both OS X and Windows. Also apple is responsible for the Bootcamp drivers for the new notebooks. I hope there is an update soon.

 

[MH01]

I was sent a replacement for a machine that was exhibiting the BlSOD issue. Although the new unit did not freeze, the games I tested it with felt slightly choppier. It may be possible that apple is lowering the clock speeds on the 9600s to compensate for the heat.How can I check the gpu clock/memory speed?

I think you might be onto something. The first model I had was the 2.8, although it crashed under gaming it was nippy. I got a replacement 2.53 as I could return it to the Apple shop incase anything was wrong, and it sure felt sluggy compared to the 2.8....alot more then the 12% speed diff. Though was more stable on the same games.

 

[parapup]

I shuddered when Apple announced that it was going to use NVidia chipsets for its laptops.

When I was a Windows user in the past I had the occasion to own NVidia chipset based motherboards and NVidia gfx cards.
The motherboard was a pile of crap, they just couldn't release an IDE driver that wouldn't result in data corruption. The graphics cards were good but then their drivers became less and less stable and the vast majority of my crashs were caused by their graphics card drivers.

My experience exactly - I wouldn't touch any computer with a ten feet pole if it has a Nvidia chipset and 2 *new* Nvidia GPUs in it. I much prefer Intel chipset and ATI cards in my machines. Nvidia GPU may be a workable thing based on the model and driver fixes but the chipsets are horrible and nothing can be done about them.

 

[peterdevries]

If this is true, I think Apple is going to go with a different chipset and graphics card in the future.

That's what I though when the previous model MBP had a faulty NVidia card. I sold it to get rid of the risk that it would fail at some point, assuming that in the new model this would be resolved. And now we are having the same discussion all over again.

 

[Mercellus]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

I can't see this as being true, not after Apple just switched their entire notebook line to NVIDIA chips, seems like they'd b shooting themselves in the foot if there were GPU defects again.

 

[surferfromuk]

Well I have two things to consider ;

1) Is this exclusively an apple Macbook Pro 15 issue or any computer with these chipsets?
2) If it's wrong somebody, Apple or Nvidia, will sue the Inquirer into oblivion for hundreds of millions, perhaps even billions of dollars of consequential losses. So they'd BETTER be right - pretty bold statement to make - really...

Which means ;

What exactly ? Apple have to honor a lifetime warranty on them ?

Whatever it is, it's certainly Trouble with a capital T...

 

[kingtj]

Right.....

I've been keeping an eye on this whole story since the beginning. As I understand the Inquirer's claims on the 9600 series GPU, they're essentially saying it underwent an abnormally large number of revisions before its release to manufacturers for use in systems. Some "informants" apparently told them that nVidia was struggling with heat issues with the chipset, and that's why all those revisions were needed. Supposedly, the current shipping GPUs have to be "hand selected" from the batches they made, because they're still coming out "marginal". Some barely meet the required specs, and others don't....

If this is correct, that would be pretty consistent with what new MB Pro owners are experiencing. Many systems work just fine for people, while others are able to see video problems when doing extensive gaming in Vista (which probably doesn't do quite as much power management with the machine as OS X does). Some marginal chips are being pushed just a bit "over the edge".

I believe the Enquirer ALSO claimed that yet another revision to the 9600 GPU was due out in the first quarter of 2009? It sounds like the "worst case" scenario we might wind up with here is a silent manufacturing change to the newer GPU rev. in newer machines. People who kill their GPU under the warranty period will wind up getting it replaced with the newer revision, and hopefully that'll solve the problem permanently. Others will be lucky enough to have a GPU that stays just within tolerances for heat and never gives them a problem in the first place.

Its all well and good to dismiss INQ's article to make yourself feel better but i think its important to keep the article's claims in mind. When the story broke about the 8600GT everyone was like 'yeah right...no way...BS' until a select few started having issues (and numbers grew) and eventually...Apple/Nvidia came out of the closet

Remember just because your computer isn't exhibiting symptoms after gaming a bajillion hours doesn't mean its not bad...it also doesn't mean its not good either...for your usage pattern. Some MBP Classic owners here have had their cards fail without any warnings/symptoms.

At the end of it all whats gonna happen is, IF it (GPU) breaks/dies and you're under warranty...you'll get a fix and repeat cycle until you're out of warranty

 

[Bubba Satori]

He's always grinding the axe against NV.

Yes, we should all trust NV because of their honesty in the past.

 

[brentsg]

Yes, we should all trust NV because of their honesty in the past.

The fact that there have been many problems in the past doesn't automatically make every future criticism true. This author coughs up new NV criticism columns on a regular basis. There is just as much reason to be skeptical of his material as there is to be skeptical of NV's performance.

 

[Maxington]

First Gen model mishaps.

NVidia is getting a ton of bad press lately...

 

[iAthena]

On world of warcraft, can you turn everything onto max (4xaliasing) including shadows on max and play the game for a while. If it does not crash in your normal session (say hour) then there is a difference between your 2.53 and mine. With everything set on high i can crash the MBP within 20 min.

Good to know. I hadn't done more than launch the game and rove around town a bit to test whether the problem showed up or not. I'll have to fly from one end of a continent to the other a couple times and burn some time before determining whether my laptop has the problem or not.

 

[brop52]

very rarely do I play games... are we suggesting that this problem is only a problem if gaming? I mean if I was to buy a new MBP (provided I have the money after Christmas) for work, my likelyhood of experiencing this is greatly reduce and may never happen?

I am using my whitebook for work now, but after loading all my Virtual machines, and all my personal stuff.... Even apple says I am pretty much maxing out my 2.4 ghz 250gb, 2gb ram. They said I am using a machine for something that it was not designed for, and suggested a newer macbook or MBP. Appearantly, they said Memory is the only component that is user upgradable and will not void warrenty and told me i was better off going to Crucial and getting more memory for $50, rather than pay Apple $300 to upgrade my machine.

Anyone know these fact for sure? Cause right now I am happy with my whitebook, but with only 2gb ram - having 2-3 virtual machines open at once really started to drag it down. Looking at specs, there really is not much difference between a MB and a MBP until you start going out of my price range and start moving closer to the 3.0 ghz end.

They wanted you to buy the more expensive machine. Nothing surprising there. The graphics card is irrelevant for what you are doing. You need more RAM.

You should definitely upgrade the RAM to 4GB if you are using multiple virtual machines.

2X2GB RAM that is compatible with your MB. $39.99, free shipping, and no tax from Newegg. I just bought this same set for my fiancée's HP notebook. Enjoy. I remember about a year ago when my 4GB upgrade for the iMac was $90 some but even then it was a great deal with a rebate. For $40, you can't go wrong.

 

[Piplodocus]

Dodgy GPUs that overheat when pushed hard, like in games?

Wahey! Just in time for OpenCL so Snow Leopard can keep crashing ALL the time when using the GPU for added performance!