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Its based on tests and presenting symptoms

On a general note:

What will probably happen in my case is i'll buy AppleCare when my 1 yr warranty is almost up in fall next year, as i want to avoid buying a new machine till Rev B of Nehalem laptops start shipping. In other words, i intend to buy a Display, AppleCare & keyboard and just keep this for a year or two depending on how fast Apple lets loose Nehalem laptops. If it breaks within this timeframe i'll just drop it off and get it fixed

In the meantime...knock on wood its working fine


But they said "not in the faulty batch" -- if they can say that, they should be able to tell us explicitly which ones ARE in the faulty batch. Unless they're transparent about this, I will continue to assume that all these are defective and might fail prematurely.
 
Ugh, my friend's MBP just died in this fashion. It's right in his exam times, and I recommended that computer to him back when he bought it. No good :mad:
 
The first time I heard about this I thought, well maybe it's just some Macbook pros that have faulty Nvidia cards. I have a 2.2 MBP with the 8600m GT 128Mb card bought in June 2007.

Well yesterday it finally died on me. No symptoms just a black screen and no dignal to the external display. Everything else worked though. I could adjust the volume and the keyboard back light and was able to sync my iPod.

So I called apple and explained in detail what had happen with my mac and what I have tried to fix it (resetting PMU, PRAM etc.). At first they said that it would not be covered by warranty. A few determined sentences later he apologised for his mistake. Apple support told me to haul the MBP to service for repairs. But why did he say that "they will have to do a few tests to determine that is a warranty repair"?

I'm a computing engineer student so I'm that much of a noob around computers. Could apple try and sliver their way out of repairing it under the 2 year extended warranty with a water damage etc issue? I surely hope not. My mac has been very well taken care of and has never left my house before today.

Another thing that came in to my mind was. They replace the logic board with a new one that has the same Nvidia 8600m GT, so are all of the repaired Macbook Pros destined to fail again after another 1-1½ years?
 
Seeing as this thread is growing thought I would post a positive reply for once! :)

Got my Mac Book Pro last November 07, have to say that I have had NO problems at all with the graphics. I was pretty worried when I read the news about the Nvidia faults but it has been flawless. I have connected it loads of times to my HD telly using the DVI and this too has been perfect every time.
I have played games on it too like the Crysis demo in Windows XP and Quake Enemy Territory in Leopard, both of these run fine.
So I would have to agree that it is some and not all chips which are affected. I feel a bit sorry for Nvidia as they said it was suppliers fault and not there's?
 
Seeing as this thread is growing thought I would post a positive reply for once! :)

Got my Mac Book Pro last November 07, have to say that I have had NO problems at all with the graphics. I was pretty worried when I read the news about the Nvidia faults but it has been flawless. I have connected it loads of times to my HD telly using the DVI and this too has been perfect every time.
I have played games on it too like the Crysis demo in Windows XP and Quake Enemy Territory in Leopard, both of these run fine.
So I would have to agree that it is some and not all chips which are affected. I feel a bit sorry for Nvidia as they said it was suppliers fault and not there's?

It can fail at any time without showing any symptoms beforehand.
 
Maybe it's just the Inquirer brainwashing us that all the 8600 are faulty. Nvidia did say that just a few batches were affected. People thought that they were lying, but maybe it's the truth!
 
Maybe it's just the Inquirer brainwashing us that all the 8600 are faulty. Nvidia did say that just a few batches were affected. People thought that they were lying, but maybe it's the truth!

If they can say that it's just a few batches, then they'll know which batches and can tell their customers. The fact that they haven't told anybody which batches are affected means they don't know and are just hoping for the best. It would be in their own interest to come out and say exactly which batches, no?
 
I've had my MBP since June '08 and have yet to have problems. A friend of mine had a pre-penryn MBP that just crapped out on him though. He said the computer would turn on but the display remained black. So, I let him know about the faulty GPU's. He's going to take it in soon, so at least he'll have it fixed. Unfortunately, I feel like mine's a ticking time bomb waiting to fail when I need it most :p
 
You know what, someone I know had his iBook's graphics crap out on him so all he had was a blank screen. It can happen to any computer any time and not just these nVidia batches. Granted, just having an 8600 would have me expecting it sooner or later...

Who knows if its just a few batches or all of them; either nVidia or the Inquirer is lying and they both have motive to. nVidia obviously doesn't want to do a total recall (yet their rep has taken a beating here so whats the dollar value on that?) and I wouldn't even have heard of the Inquirer w/o this debacle so as long as they have more extreme bad news people will keep visiting their site and mentioning their name. This nVidia thing is the best thing since sliced bread for their hit counts.
 
Maybe it's just the Inquirer brainwashing us that all the 8600 are faulty. Nvidia did say that just a few batches were affected. People thought that they were lying, but maybe it's the truth!

Nvidia also told Apple that the MBP's weren't affected by this issue, which Apple later determined was a lie. Nvidia has zero credibility on this issue, as far as I'm concerned.

And 'just a few batches' doesn't really jive with Apple saying MBP's manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008 are potentially affected. Seems like an awful lot of batches for such a wide range to be having defective GPUs.
 
Maybe they are trying their best to avoid a recall.

Right, but if it really were just a few batches, it would be in their interest to say so and tell everybody that the problem was fixed. It's pretty obvious that all are affected, otherwise why would Apple say that all MBPs with the chip could potentially be affected?

Regardless, neither Apple nor Nvidia is being forthcoming about the issue and I'm sure they have good reasons not to be. Just like we have good reasons to be concerned that are investments will fail prematurely regardless if get them fixed during the extended warranty Apple has offered.
 
Apple support told me to haul the MBP to service for repairs. But why did he say that "they will have to do a few tests to determine that is a warranty repair"?

I want to know what these tests are too. As I posted in another thread, our MBP had all the classic symptoms, but they cleared up after 10.5.5.

But if its a hardware issue to do with soldering etc, presumably this can't be fixed via software, right? Our machine passed these tests, but they still replaced the logic board, as another genius in another store recommended it.

So my question is how do machines that did have the symptoms manage to get cured, and then pass these tests?
 
Now the Inquirer is bashing the 9600m GT cards using bad bumps. Will this cycle never end! I'm done selling and rebuying mbps. I havnt had a single issue with my new unibody mbp bought in mid november and will just keep it until it just dies~
 
There are problems with the 9600s but it could be software related. The 9600 overheats and blacks out. It's fine when the computer is rebooted. As Nvidia and Apple have some sort of deal, I'm sure Nvidia will make sure they supply Apple with good batches after what has happened.
 
While we await Apple to fix this incessant gpu annoyance, I think it's best to use a laptop cooler or smcfancontrol to help dissipate the heat for now, in order to curb the gpu overheating issue.
 
For the past month and a half I've been playing fall out 3 in 6-8 hours straight at a time and left 4 dead 5-6 hours at a time as well with no black screen issues or overheating (mbp actually runs pretty damn cool).

I know the inquirer sliced opened the 9600m gt to check the bump but could nvidia have a mixed batch of the good bumps mixed in with the bad bumps to get rid of the old supply? I wouldnt be surprised if they did that.
 
For the past month and a half I've been playing fall out 3 in 6-8 hours straight at a time and left 4 dead 5-6 hours at a time as well with no black screen issues or overheating (mbp actually runs pretty damn cool).

I know the inquirer sliced opened the 9600m gt to check the bump but could nvidia have a mixed batch of the good bumps mixed in with the bad bumps to get rid of the old supply? I wouldnt be surprised if they did that.

Remember just because your computer isn't exhibiting symptoms doesn't mean its not bad...it also doesn't mean its not good either. Some here have had their cards fail without any warning.
 
Remember just because your computer isn't exhibiting symptoms doesn't mean its not bad...it also doesn't mean its not good either. Some here have had their cards fail without any warning.

But so far only the 8600m gt cards have been failing with no one reporting the 9600m gt failures. I guess only time will tell.

But honestly I'm not too worried because Nvidia has switched to new solder/substrate since the 8600m gt production line mid this year.
 
But so far only the 8600m gt cards have been failing with no one reporting the 9600m gt failures. I guess only time will tell.

But honestly I'm not too worried because Nvidia has switched to new solder/substrate since the 8600m gt production line mid this year.
I can't see NVIDIA pulling the same thing on the 9600M GT, I'd imagine that Apple backed them into a corner and made damn sure of it before basing an entire line of notebooks off of NVIDIA's chips.
 
Hi Mac users!

I have been following the 8600M GT issue for a very long time! Even before Apple publicly admited the issue! I have read many articles and forums but I don't have a very clear ideia about the whole issue, especially about the specific symptoms and replacement procedures!

I run into this in my MBP last week:
http://pwp.netcabo.pt/0425250301/displaybug1.png
http://pwp.netcabo.pt/0425250301/displaybug2.png

I have run "Apple Hardware Test" and no problems where mentioned!
I have checked Console for any related entries and nothing!

Could these be related to the 8600M GT issue?

Thanks for your help!
 
my guess

My guess is you have a bad card. If you crank up some graphics game and see that kind of thing after a period of hard use (game or other graphics intensive action) then it's almost for sure the card going bad. It's not impossible that it's an isolated programming problem with that application but then it would be independent of time and it would not occur with other programs. If other graphics intensive programs like warcraft of call of duty cause the problem after playing an hour or two then you can bet it's the graphics card. I'd back it up fully and get it sent to Apple for repair. Then I'd sell it or give it somebody you don't like.
 
NVIDIA, logic board problem

This December my Mid 2007 MPB suffered a logic board death. I brouht it
to the next ASP and they changed the Motherboard ( NVIDIA Problem ). Well
I didn't have to pay the change (guarantee). But only 2 days later my mac book was dead again. Wow! Ok, first of all, the earlier the better.
I tried to run a ASD, but it doesn't boot anymore. Neither from the Leopard disk nor from the backup. I started my wifes MacBook and connected my MacBook Pro by the "important" target mode. The disk works well. Then looked up the
panic log (Library/Logs/PanicReporter). There was the following report:

Tue Dec 30 13:17:19 2008
panic(cpu 1 caller 0x001A4A55): Unresolved kernel trap (CPU 1, Type 14=page fault), registers:
CR0: 0x80010033, CR2: 0x00000000, CR3: 0x01470000, CR4: 0x000006e0
EAX: 0x00000000, EBX: 0x5f842e40, ECX: 0x00000000, EDX: 0x06ed1804
CR2: 0x00000000, EBP: 0x47eeb508, ESI: 0x068cbc00, EDI: 0x464c5004
EFL: 0x00010246, EIP: 0x5f6300f2, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0x00000010

Backtrace, Format - Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x47eeb2f8 : 0x128d08 (0x3cc0ec 0x47eeb31c 0x131de5 0x0)
0x47eeb338 : 0x1a4a55 (0x3d2524 0x1 0xe 0x3d1d48)
0x47eeb448 : 0x19aeb4 (0x47eeb460 0x1 0x1bb2b203 0x0)
0x47eeb508 : 0x5f63f18b (0x464c5004 0xb 0x0 0x5f62ef0a)
0x47eeb538 : 0x5f63d600 (0x464c5004 0x47eeb570 0x0 0x1a37c0)
0x47eeb818 : 0x5f63181a (0x0 0x600d600d 0x7022 0x47eeb848)
0x47eeb8d8 : 0x5f7c1b33 (0x46595564 0x4d2 0x5f7e89dc 0x6e766461)
0x47eeb9c8 : 0x5f62c402 (0x46595000 0x0 0x47eebad2 0x80)
0x47eeba28 : 0x5e2d9133 (0x6945000 0x0 0x47eebad2 0x80)
0x47eebb58 : 0x5e2da813 (0x6945000 0x5e2ddcac 0x47eebbfc 0x4)
0x47eebc18 : 0x58339875 (0x6945000 0x1 0x0 0x47eebdd4)
0x47eebc78 : 0x5833306b (0x6945000 0x0 0x0 0x6945000)
0x47eebc98 : 0x38c421 (0x6945000 0x6690370 0x6690370 0x0)
0x47eebce8 : 0x3b2886 (0x6945000 0x6690370 0x6690370 0x0)
0x47eebd48 : 0x18d4d2 (0x6945000 0x6690370 0x0 0x0)
0x47eebdb8 : 0x12b4c3 (0x6904380 0x6904a98 0x47eebdf8 0x11e042) Backtrace continues...
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.NVDAResman(5.0.4)@0x5f62b000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.2)@0x58126000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(1.4.7)@0x5e2d2000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(1.4.7)@0x5832b000
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(1.4.7)@0x5e2d2000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.2)@0x58126000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(1.4.7)@0x5832b000
com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(1.4.7)@0x5832b000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.2)@0x58126000

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.10.3: Wed Jun 27 23:29:36 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.23.3~1/RELEASE_I386

It seems, that's also the NVIDIA graphics problem. But shure a logic board problem.

Now my question: Is there a possibility to identify the revised logic boards, that doesn't have these problems anymore? I want to be sure, that my asp doesn't assemble a defective logic board again.

thanks for your replies
 
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