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

Well finally happened to me yesterday after performing the new Mac OS X Updates (mostly airport updates).

It would boot but the screen wouldn't turn on. After a SMC reset it came on and I thought that was the end of it and went to bed. The next morning, the screen wouldn't turn on again; connecting an external display didn't help.

No symptoms, no reprise, just stopped working. Good thing I keep good backups.

Its at the Apple Store right now, I've been quoted a 2-3 day turn around time. I'm not looking forward to a refurbished logic board though. Good thing I have Applecare.
 
It happened to me a few days ago, video card "disappeared" but everything boots, can switch VoiceOver on and have it read out that I have Intel Integrated Graphics when I go into System Profiler. (2.2GHz/July 2007)

However, when I took it in to "Apple" in South Africa they'd never heard of this problem. After much harassing and pointing them to websites they said they'd "have a look, but no promises". Certainly makes the waiting much more fun :rolleyes:
 
I just stumbled across this thread and it really worries me. I bought a MBP in August 08 with AppleCare. So far no problems but Im a college student and 4 years down the road, Im not going to be able to afford any major repairs...

Are there any preventative steps I can take? Any way I could request an upgrade now or something?
 
drummer22 said:
I just stumbled across this thread and it really worries me. I bought a MBP in August 08 with AppleCare. So far no problems but Im a college student and 4 years down the road, Im not going to be able to afford any major repairs...

Are there any preventative steps I can take? Any way I could request an upgrade now or something?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately not. There is a good chance that it's going to fail or it might not even fail at all. From what I've read, the quickest way to "kill" your GPU is to fluctuate the temperatures from hot, cold, hot, cold...etc. If you're not stressing out the GPU, then the GPU has a good chance at surviving after the 3 years of AppleCare and possibly further past that.
 
Whats the best way to fluctuate your temperatures? Right now my GPU Diode is running at 50 degrees or on average about 15 degrees hotter than everything else.
 
I have a late-2007 Macbook Pro 2.2, 128MB 8600M, with 4GB RAM. No issues so far (*knocks on wood*), and I have played many games on it -- mainly Supreme Commander on Boot Camp :)

Any particular games to test it hard, and would it be harder on the card with Mac games or PC?

I bought Applecare until fall 2010, hopefully it will be enough! I am kind of pissed though, since I planned on passing on the computer to my Fiancee (she has an older Macbook now she'd like to upgrade from). Now I am not sure whether to continue with that plan, or sell it a month before the warranty expires to get rid of it!! :confused:
 
emikshe said:
I have a late-2007 Macbook Pro 2.2, 128MB 8600M, with 4GB RAM. No issues so far (*knocks on wood*), and I have played many games on it -- mainly Supreme Commander on Boot Camp :)

Any particular games to test it hard, and would it be harder on the card with Mac games or PC?

I bought Applecare until fall 2010, hopefully it will be enough! I am kind of pissed though, since I planned on passing on the computer to my Fiancee (she has an older Macbook now she'd like to upgrade from). Now I am not sure whether to continue with that plan, or sell it a month before the warranty expires to get rid of it!! :confused:
Click to expand...

I played mainly windows games like AOE and Company of Heroes. Card died last November. Replaced logic board under warranty. But I just didn't trust the system anymore so I sold the nvidia based 2.2 SR MBP and went back to my older ati based MBP.

Cheers,
 
Got my laptop back and its definitely a refurbed logic board, they even had the old serial number sticker on the RAM slot.

Anyways the system seems to run fine and my fans seem to kick in earlier (read its louder now :(), we'll see how long this one lasts. I'm so glad I bought AppleCare :cool:
 
DaLurker said:
Got my laptop back and its definitely a refurbed logic board, they even had the old serial number sticker on the RAM slot.

Anyways the system seems to run fine and my fans seem to kick in earlier (read its louder now :(), we'll see how long this one lasts. I'm so glad I bought AppleCare :cool:
Click to expand...

Is your serial number intact in system profiler?
 
Apple customers should decide what graphic card they want: NVIDIA or AMD/ATI and I am damn sure that Mac users will choose AMD/ATI. If you want to change something write to sjobs or we should create petition.
 
xiaobaizhu said:
Got my mac back today with a replaced logic board and GPU

will post back if i encounter any problems with the 2nd rev =)

Chipset Model: GeForce 8600M GT
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16 ( I had x8 before i got the replacement if i not wrong, any idea what it means? )
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0407
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3175

Details of my new card
Click to expand...

New card? My machine is from 2007 June and has the same Nvidia values. And it's dead.
 
limo79 said:
we should create petition.
Click to expand...

Does absolutely nothing. No one reads them, no one cares.

If you do a class action lawsuit, you'll get their attention. You can't possibly WIN it, so you'll be out whatever money you spend, but it will get their attention.

They have already settled this problem with replacements; they're not going to do anything more.
 
randfee2 said:
I noticed some strange pink dots that were appearing all over the screen. I thought it might be a driver issue or something but then they quickly became more and more. The computer (at least the screen) froze. I hit reset and the pinkish dots were on the start screen as well. Then suddenly rectangular artifacts during bootscreen and then kernel panic.

All of the reports I've read so far indicate that with the official bug, the display just turns black but the computer boots up fine. Well, mine does not anymore. I figured it must be a graphics glitch since it looks like a graphic problem but I can't even boot the machine anymore (kernel panic).
Click to expand...

I had the same crap (magenta pixel islands and freeze) and the hardware test resulted a VideoController error. I took it to the official Apple service shop and that p.o.s. there told me that it's only half dead, the screen should be black and a different error for the 1 year warranty extension, so won't repair it for free, I should play full screen video on it, maybe it will die in a couple of weeks. I told them to F off then called the shop where I bought it, they gave me a support phone number in Greece and I "talked" them to give me an "exception number" so the 1 year extension is ok they will repair it for free.

Anyways I don't trust this crap anymore, I will sell it and buy a laptop with Ati card.
 
My Summer '07 SR MBP display went completely black a few weeks ago. I never play games on it, using mostly office apps, Web, and email -- but the display still went south.

The logic board replacement was covered under AppleCare and took a couple of business days, longer in elapsed days because it died at the beginning of a weekend.

Unfortunately, the MBP died at a terrible time -- right before a trip, and I couldn't wait for a replacement. So I wound up getting a MacBook Air, which most of the time actually feels much faster than the MBP (presumably because of the SSD).
 
ehlfg said:
My Summer '07 SR MBP display went completely black a few weeks ago. I never play games on it, using mostly office apps, Web, and email -- but the display still went south.

The logic board replacement was covered under AppleCare and took a couple of business days, longer in elapsed days because it died at the beginning of a weekend.

Unfortunately, the MBP died at a terrible time -- right before a trip, and I couldn't wait for a replacement. So I wound up getting a MacBook Air, which most of the time actually feels much faster than the MBP (presumably because of the SSD).
Click to expand...

Congratulations on the MacBook Air, it is a lovely machine. Are you going to sell your MBP when it gets repaired, or keep it as a secondary machine?
 
Yes, the MBA is a wonderful machine. For most of my day-to-day use, it's much nicer to use than my MBP. I hadn't realized how nice it was before this.

I haven't decided yet what to do with the MBP. I might keep the MBP for desktop use, as the MBA does bog down a bit when I use VMware with lots of apps open. I normally use an external monitor, but sometimes the extra MBP screen real estate would be handy in portable use. I'm also still not used to the glossy screen.

Adding an SSD to the MBP did also cross my mind.

But this is getting far off-topic for this thread...
 
DaLurker said:
Well finally happened to me yesterday after performing the new Mac OS X Updates (mostly airport updates).

It would boot but the screen wouldn't turn on. After a SMC reset it came on and I thought that was the end of it and went to bed. The next morning, the screen wouldn't turn on again; connecting an external display didn't help.

No symptoms, no reprise, just stopped working. Good thing I keep good backups.

Its at the Apple Store right now, I've been quoted a 2-3 day turn around time. I'm not looking forward to a refurbished logic board though. Good thing I have Applecare.
Click to expand...


The same thing happened to me. With no warning, the screen just would not turn on, external display wouldn't work, etc. Got it into the Apple Store, they sent it in and replaced the Logic Board. That was about 6 weeks ago, and within the last week, I've been experiencing another problem.

It's only happened twice so far, but the screen will freeze with thick vertical lines of "static" looking swatches. From the sounds of it, it's yet another graphics card problem. According to my System Profiler, I still have the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT. They must have took out the bad graphics card, and put one of the same back in it.

It's only done it twice within the past week. Should I take a picture and take it into the Apple store? I'm still under Apple Care...Or should I just wait until it dies completely again? Assuming that is once again the problem, who knows how close it is to going out. How many times do I have to send it in to get the graphics card (Logic Board) replaced before I'm entitled to a replacement? I switched to Apple about 19 months ago, and until the video card went out about 6 weeks ago, I have had absolutely zero problems.
 
Dannyd534 said:
they should give us the new 9600GT's to replace our ****** 8600's
Click to expand...

It's not as easy as that...it's not a graphics card in the desktop sense. It's a chip soldered onto the motherboard and integrated into the design of the thing.

The next time mine dies, I'll be asking for a brand new MBP...I didn't pay $2000 for a timebomb.
 
Teej guy said:
It's not as easy as that...it's not a graphics card in the desktop sense. It's a chip soldered onto the motherboard and integrated into the design of the thing.

The next time mine dies, I'll be asking for a brand new MBP...I didn't pay $2000 for a timebomb.
Click to expand...

i saw some people that upgraded to the 8800m gt.
Is the 8800m gt a timebomb?.

AFAIK the 8800m gt is way better that the 8600 and 9600. I love my MBP, i love real matte screen and i love to have normal video connector but its sux to known that my machine will fail anytime (and because Murphy's law, "anytime" will be in the worst occasion possible).
 
magallanes said:
i saw some people that upgraded to the 8800m gt.
Is the 8800m gt a timebomb?.
Click to expand...

I've never heard of that happening. You're not talking about Apple laptops are you?

As to whether the 8800 is affected, I'm not sure. Maybe look back to those original articles on the Inquirer that broke the story (although they're a little over the top sometimes)

EDIT: Actually, looking back through the thread, it looks like it's just G84 and G86 parts that are failing.
 
What is the likihood of having a failure?

I have a 2.2GHz SR MBP which I purchased in July 2007. I don't play video games on the machine, however, I do rip videos which tends the get the machine hot. Is it inevitable that the GPU will go south during say a about 5 years of ownership? I ask because I see a lot of people with GPU failures on this thread. I have Applecare so I'm covered for another 16 months, however, I did upgrade the HDD in my machine. If I did have a problem, would I have to open the machine again to reinstall the old HDD?

THanks
 
Just wanted to warn other Macbook Pro / Nvidia 8600M GT readers that Apple will not definitely cover a video adapter failure, despite what they say in tech article TS2377. I took my June '07 17" MacBook Pro in to the local Apple Store a couple of weeks ago when my Nvidia display crapped out. Definitely this issue--display was black, external display was black, but booted into target disk mode no problem.

The Genius booted it from a special external drive which ran some hardware tests, then he connected the drive to another Mac and showed me that the diagnostic log indicated that the relevant Nvidia display adapter was not found. Since the 8600M GT wasn't found they couldn't cover the repair under the "extended" warranty outlined in TS2377, and I had to pay out of pocket. Of course the 8600M GT wasn't found--it had died!

So now it's back on my desk, complete with refurb logic board. Calls to Apple to try to get the repair cost refunded have gone unreturned for two weeks now, so I don't think anything's going to happen on that front, but at least others can learn from my experience.

The main lesson: if you have an 8600M GT equipped Macbook Pro be sure to get it in to Apple at the first hint of a problem (I'd suggest running Apple Hardware Test frequently). If you wait until the display adapter dies completely you're at the mercy of the local Genius as to whether or not it gets covered.

And, yes, I'm planning to sell my MBP before it happens again. I went through two replacement logic boards on my old iBook G3 (remember that fiasco?) and this smells like the same sort of runaround. That makes two out of the last three Apple laptops that I've bought that have been dogs (my PB G4 is still going gangbusters); I still think Apple's software is great, but they're not exactly winning me over with their hardware execution, nor their erratic (and in my case downright bad) customer support.
 
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