So are all MBP owners with the 8600m GT cards screwed?

[bartzilla]

Then next thing I realise is that my MBP has a faulty GPU in it. I don't want to go back to PCs because of the operating system, but if anything else goes wrong I think I will have to go back. They now say they are replacing the bad GPUs but is unspecific as they could be replacing bad ones with more bad ones. Great impression you have made Apple. I'll have a lot of good things to brag about being an Apple customer wont I!!!

Yes, go back to PCs because Apple were deceived by nvidia and hence used a batch of faulty GPUs. Go back to Dell... oh wait, they got rooked by nvidia too.
Or what about HP... uhhh they got taken too. Toshiba? zomg they use the 8600m too, what is going on here?, what about lenovo... oh dear. Who are these nvidia guys, they do seem to get everywhere eh?

I think I've uncovered a flaw in your rant uhh plan.

 

[JavaWizKid]

bartzilla, not all of the problems may be Apple's fault, I have just had a bad run with Apple's products so far and cannot afford for anything else to go wrong. If I went back to PC's at least they are customizable and I can avoid dodgy graphics cards, unlike Apple which give you very few spec options (apart from the Mac Pro).

 

[Eddyisgreat]

I'm not acting stupid, I'm just expressing my experience with Apple so far. Do I sound like I was saying, "ZOMG MY MAC ISNT WORKING OMG I HATE U APPLE!!!!!"? Many people seem to have a good experience with Apple and I'm not one of them as you read. Also, I have NOT ONCE gone into an Apple store and argued with anyone, I was polite and willing to listen, same for the phone. So please don't jump to conclusions as you may have not had any difficulty with Apple.

Never did I address you personally or say you were acting stupid. Also, don't assume I havn't had any run-in's with AppleCare, because I have, and utilizing the manner I have described here, received top notch service.

I'm simply saying that Apple owes no one anything. If Apple really wanted to screw us over, they could state that, like hard drives, there is a mean time to failure imposed on the 8600 GPU's, in which case could be two years. We can hoop and hollar that any decent laptop should last more than two years, which would be more or less true, but there is no guarantee on any hardware that states a specific time frame that the device should work. The warranty as I see it is provided as a good faith effort for customer satisfaction (who would buy with no warranty?) but in no way a guarantee of the life I should be able to get out of the machine. Honestly, I keep my machines in good condition, and expect them only to fail under natural disasters but the very definition of premature failure is VERY subjective. Your definition of premature failure may be "if it breaks before I throw it away" while some individuals will state three years minimum for most components. If its been set in stone, i'd love to see it.

I agree that they made the appropriate choice in extending the warrenty, but if you(anyone) will be making any outstanding requests (late revision replacements, extended warranties, freebies) it would be best to keep a calm demeanor and explain your situation.



Thanks , though.

 

[bmwpowere36m3]

I've had my machine (SR 2.2Ghz) for about a year now and there has only been a couple instances when I got some odd (single pixel) lines across the screen or something like the characters got distorted upon scrolling down a page (viewing in safari). So that's not what bothers me, however very often when I wake-up the machine the display is very "washed-out" and I'll need to put it back into sleep and wake it up again or reboot it. THen the display returns to normal.

Is this a sign of a failing GPU? Thanks.

Help

 

[magallanes]

I'm simply saying that Apple owes no one anything.

Im a customer, hence Apple owe me a non-defective product or at least a product able to last for their lifetime period (lifetime is not equal to warranty time). For example, a common harddisk comes with a 1 year warranty and the lifetime is 5 year.


@bmwpowere36m3 :yes, it is the mentioned trouble, just call tech support.

 

[PDE]

For those who bought their MBPs in the EU: you should be fine given that this is an issue that existed from the beginning. That means you're covered for three years under EU consumer law because the product had an inherent defect from the beginning. Usually it is difficult to show that an issue existed at purchase, but in this case that should not be a problem.

 

[bartzilla]

I'm simply saying that Apple owes no one anything. If Apple really wanted to screw us over, they could state that, like hard drives, there is a mean time to failure imposed on the 8600 GPU's, in which case could be two years.

I'm fairly sure that Apple "owe" MBP customers a computer that is free of known defects. They'd be in an especially difficult position if it could be shown that they "knew" there was a problem a while back but kept on selling the same old stuff until they had a replacement.

We can hoop and hollar that any decent laptop should last more than two years, which would be more or less true, but there is no guarantee on any hardware that states a specific time frame that the device should work.

If that's really a legally reasonable point of view for where you live then thank god I live in the EU.

 

[Eddyisgreat]

I'm fairly sure that Apple "owe" MBP customers a computer that is free of known defects. They'd be in an especially difficult position if it could be shown that they "knew" there was a problem a while back but kept on selling the same old stuff until they had a replacement.

Do people not read anymore?

I did not say Apple does not owe us a working machine. I'm saying, for all of those individuals who want things such as free warranty extensions, free hardware upgrades, freebies of any kind (as expressed in this and another thread) should approach staff in a friendly manner. Nothing more.

But I guess "bitch n' moan till' I gets mine" has become the "in" thing to do these days.

 

[ShepUK]

For those who bought their MBPs in the EU: you should be fine given that this is an issue that existed from the beginning. That means you're covered for three years under EU consumer law because the product had an inherent defect from the beginning. Usually it is difficult to show that an issue existed at purchase, but in this case that should not be a problem.

It's up to 6 years under the UK sale of goods act, depending on the "reasonable expectation" of the product's life. The MBP is a high-end laptop, and a small claims judgement would certainly err towards the top end of this timescale.

Basically, if you live in the UK, print out the tech note, file it away, and keep on truckin' as if nothing had happened. If you're unlucky enough to be hit by the GPU problem, then Apple's admission is your passport to compensation for a good few years...

 

[bartzilla]

Do people not read anymore?

I _was_ going to let your comment below go, but seeing as we're being snarky now..

I did not say Apple does not owe us a working machine.

I'm simply saying that Apple owes no one anything.

Uh... dude.... so what are you saying above then? You can see why I might find it a little confusing huh?

I'm saying, for all of those individuals who want things such as free warranty extensions, free hardware upgrades, freebies of any kind (as expressed in this and another thread) should approach staff in a friendly manner. Nothing more.

Absolutely agree. Banging the desk in front of some store employee over something that isn't their fault is rude and only alienates the one person who you want to try and get on your side, so they can find a way to get the nice customer what they want.

For the little that my opinion is worth, I think apple could fairly easily allow their extended replacement/repair period for the GPU fault to run after whatever warranty a user has purchased. So a minimum of 3 years cover w/o applecare to 5 years with.

 

[JavaWizKid]

So if the replacement GPU is faulty as well, am I suppose to just let my MBP die after the extended warranty is up? So I pay £1300 for a notebook which I intend to use for 5 years plus and it ends up dying just over 2 years of use.

 

[MoeOz]

1.Announcment 10.10.08
2.security update 10.10.08
3.MBP dead after the update 10.10.08

do i miss something here

PS:4.Last day in my warranty 10.10.2008.

 

[bartzilla]

So if the replacement GPU is faulty as well, am I suppose to just let my MBP die after the extended warranty is up? So I pay £1300 for a notebook which I intend to use for 5 years plus and it ends up dying just over 2 years of use.

I suspect that the GPUs now being produced are not faulty. If you read the inquirer's set of stories about the whole sorry mess, they detail a change to the manufacturing processes nvidia made "for no reason" (according to the inquirer story). I'd imagine the fix was in at that point.

Also, as I see you using the British Pounds Sterling currency sign, I can point you at:
http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/consumers/fact-sheets/page38311.html - we have more protection as customers here in the UK than some businesses would like us to think. Of course, enforcing this might be a pain in the hoop but there wouldn't be any fun in this if you didn't have to do some of the work yourself.

 

[JavaWizKid]

bartzilla, I thought it said Nvidia changed the solder in future products to avoid failure, leaving out the bad 8600. Please say I'm wrong

 

[sonictonic]

Why is this thread still open? Apple, finally, is addressing the issue. If you have the problem, go talk to Apple about it. This thread is huge and should be locked already.


Maybe I just need to unsubscribe...

 

[bartzilla]

bartzilla, I thought it said Nvidia changed the solder in future products to avoid failure, leaving out the bad 8600. Please say I'm wrong

I don't think anyone here knows. My read of the inquirer article is that it implies that they have a new manufacturing process for the old products, e.g. old batches of chips might be bad but new ones should not be. But that's just my interpretation of an article on the inquirer that is someone else's interpretation of a pretty dense and hard to follow nvidia technote, so I'd be very careful about relying on that.

 

[JavaWizKid]

So no announcements today, so what now, do we just presume that the replaced cards will be fine?

 

[Dreamer2go]

wait i have a question
I have the June 2007 MBP with 256MB 8600M GT
so this card is defected?

I've been playing WoW in this machine for 1 year, and playing some extreme/intense graphical games like COD4 and TF2 in bootcamp...and now Spore in Mac.

The graphics card runs fine so far....and it's defective? I'm confused.

 

[alphaod]

1.Announcment 10.10.08
2.security update 10.10.08
3.MBP dead after the update 10.10.08

do i miss something here

PS:4.Last day in my warranty 10.10.2008.

So you didn't buy AppleCare?

 

[magallanes]

wait i have a question
I have the June 2007 MBP with 256MB 8600M GT
so this card is defected?

I've been playing WoW in this machine for 1 year, and playing some extreme/intense graphical games like COD4 and TF2 in bootcamp...and now Spore in Mac.

The graphics card runs fine so far....and it's defective? I'm confused.

AFAIK :All 8600m gt are defective, not just MacbookPro but also Dell and other manufacturer. This product can die anytime, may be a month or a couple of years.

 

[JavaWizKid]

Apple is still selling the 17" MBP with the Nvidia GeForce 8600m GT in it. They know it is faulty and shouldn't sell it or a law suit will be passed against them. So I guess this means that newly produced 8600s will be fixed?

 

[mooncaine]

I don't get all of this craziness going around... My MBP is still going strong and I've never had a problem yet. as a matter of fact I'm currently exporting my final cut project as I'm typing this and its cooking hot but shows no signs of a near catastrophic failure.

It's great that it's not happening to you, but it could be that you don't run apps that heat the GPU much. I've cooked FCP compressions often on my MBP, but the times I notice it getting hot are when I'm using a 3D app or playing a game. It gets hotter when blender is up and showing me lots of real time meshes. It really cooks when I log into Second Life.

I don't think the heat's been a prob for my MBP (purchased June 2006), but it's gone through 2 batteries in that time. As I write, I await the 2nd battery replacement. This time, the battery didn't simply fail to charge; instead, it began to bulge, warping the MBP case and causing a number of related problems (unable to click on trackpad or its button; HD files corrupted because power abruptly lost a few times... or was the battery pressing on the HD, too?)

actually this may be a good thing, when/if my MBP dies say two years down the road, then apple just may send me a brand new current gen MBP to replace it.

They may say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

 

[mooncaine]

I don't get all of this craziness going around... My MBP is still going strong and I've never had a problem yet. as a matter of fact I'm currently exporting my final cut project as I'm typing this and its cooking hot but shows no signs of a near catastrophic failure.

It's great that it's not happening to you, but it could be that you don't run apps that heat the GPU much. I've cooked FCP compressions often on my MBP, but the times I notice it getting hot are when I'm using a 3D app or playing a game. It gets hotter when blender is up and showing me lots of real time meshes. It really cooks when I log into Second Life.

I don't think the heat's been a prob for my MBP (purchased June 2006), but it's gone through 2 batteries in that time. As I write, I await the 2nd battery replacement. This time, the battery didn't simply fail to charge; instead, it began to bulge, warping the MBP case and causing a number of related problems (unable to click on trackpad or its button; HD files corrupted because power abruptly lost a few times... or was the battery pressing on the HD, too?)

actually this may be a good thing, when/if my MBP dies say two years down the road, then apple just may send me a brand new current gen MBP to replace it.

They may say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

 

[JavaWizKid]

I asked one of the staff at my local Apple store about the "bad" GPU in the old MacBook Pros and he went on about some rubbish so I asked about the 17" MacBook Pro and its "bad" GPU and he told me that its a revised model and the GPU should be fine in it. To be honest I don't think he had the slightest clue what I was talking about. I then said WHEN my MacBook Pro's GPU breaks, will the replaced logic board's GPU not die early, and he said yes. Then again he's not an Apple Genius not that the Apple Geniuses are geniuses anyway.

 

[mct74]

I asked one of the staff at my local Apple store about the "bad" GPU in the old MacBook Pros and he went on about some rubbish so I asked about the 17" MacBook Pro and its "bad" GPU and he told me that its a revised model and the GPU should be fine in it. To be honest I don't think he had the slightest clue what I was talking about. I then said WHEN my MacBook Pro's GPU breaks, will the replaced logic board's GPU not die early, and he said yes. Then again he's not an Apple Genius not that the Apple Geniuses are geniuses anyway.

I asked the Genius at my local Apple Store about the revised 17" MBP's GPU and he flat out said that the defect in the GPUs could still be in the revised models. As a result, I just picked up the 15" 2.53Ghz MBP...