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Apple Admits Nvidia GPU Defect In Some MacBook Pros
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Oct 11, 2008 12:33 PM
from the theya-culpa dept.
from the theya-culpa dept.
bigwophh writes "The brouhaha over defective Nvidia mobile graphics chips keeps rolling along, even months after the initial headlines have faded. Despite Nvidia's promises that Apple's GeForce 8600M GT-based MacBook Pros had dodged the bullet and were immune from the defect, Apple now counters that it wasn't, in fact, so lucky. 'In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, Nvidia assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected.' The units in question are the 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro notebooks with Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT GPUs, built between May 2007 and September 2008."
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Mobile: Laptops With Certain NVidia Chips Failing 310 comments
Eukariote writes "An estimated 18 million laptops with NVidia G84 and G86 graphics chips sold in the past one and a half years are experiencing high failure rates. Various laptop models from multiple manufacturers (Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others) are affected. NVidia blames it on bad chip packaging causing thermal failure. BIOS updates that turn the laptop fan on more frequently or permanently have been released by Dell and HP. The cynical interpretation is that this is likely to only delay the problem until the warranty has expired."
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Charlie Demerjian was right in the end? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Too bad Apple got rid of the quality control but kept the price level.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple probably got to know the short term future plans of both companies and Intel had the better one for Apples kind of products. Sure I would had preferred if they said AMD, but there is no denying Intel is ahead now and AMD don't do as good notebook chips and that AMDs high-end desktop ships use a lot of power.
So as of right now I think their decision was right. I'd rather complain on other decisions than AMD vs Intel.
And since both are x86-chips they always have the benefit of being able to change I gue
Re:Charlie Demerjian was right in the end? (Score:5, Informative)
Yup, at least about the G84 and G86 chips being universally defective. There's a long thread [apple.com] on the Apple discussions forum full of people who experienced these failures. It got so long that people's browsers were timing out, so the moderators closed it and opened a follow-on thread [apple.com].... Somebody on the thread put together a spreadsheet on Google Docs [google.com] with almost three hundred affected machines.
The failure symptom is that the internal display dies completely and the external display fails over to the integrated chipset. A check of video hardware shows that the video chip is an Intel chip because the NVIDIA chip is no longer detected.
Assuming that only a small percentage of people who experienced this failure are listed on that spreadsheet, that represents a staggering number of component failures as a percentage of unit sales. Figure that Apple sold about 6 million notebooks (best guess) in that 1.5 years. I'd bet that only about 5% are MBP, which would be a total of 300k units (ballpark). That means that this one thread alone represents a failure rate of one unit out of every 1000 units sold. However, because most people don't even know about discussions.apple.com, much less seek out a particular thread and post in it, that estimate is probably way low....
What scares me is that there is no clear evidence that NVIDIA has fixed the problem. Thus, there is no reason to believe that the replacement chips won't fail after another year once they're outside the warranty extension period.
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Price Drop? (Score:2, Troll)
Maybe used MacBooks are in for a bit of a price drop, considering that they are ticking time bombs.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Pros. Macbooks use the intel on board chips which while sucky for gaming, have now proven themselves to not be mini-USS Enterprises.
Because of the self-destruct? Dude, even I think that's stretching for a reference.
Re:Price Drop? (Score:5, Funny)
mini-USS Enterprises
...
They don't have a captain that wants to sleep with the blue chick?
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They have already dropped. I've seen 9 month old Macbook pros going for $500-600 on craigslist, which is unheard of for Macs.
My MBP was already burned by this issue... (Score:4, Interesting)
Luckily, I had AppleCare at the time and Apple just kept the HD intact. This only happened two months ago, and I had only purchased AppleCare a few weeks beforehand.
When I called about the issue, they claimed that they hadn't heard of the problem before. I wonder what happened in two months for them to change their tune?
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Re:My MBP was already burned by this issue... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the techs find the problem, replace the part, the engineers have to go over all the failed parts to figure out what's causing the failure.
For instance, the hinges on the DV9000 HP laptops were defective. The techs replaced it, made note of it, engineers went over notes techs made, decided to do a recall. The techs do most of the grunt work and are usually the first to find and report recurring problems. (We do have internal email in these depots, so techs can send in observations to the engineering staff.)
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Re:My MBP was already burned by this issue... (Score:5, Insightful)
Luckily, I had AppleCare at the time and Apple just kept the HD intact.
I learned the hard way that you cannot leave your hard drive in the computer when you send it in for repairs. In retrospect, it was stupid of me to send my hard drive with irreplaceable items on it, but it is a mistake only made once.
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Re:My MBP was already burned by this issue... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, that really lowers my blood pressure. Instead of an annoying blue with circa 1995 text on the screen. It's soo much better. Still can't figure out why my (GeForce 8600M) MacBook Pro will go on kernel panic rampages - every couple of weeks, Bridge will KP the laptop. Cleaning out the caches seems to work, perhaps it's just the dead goat and the candles in the pentagram.
But I really appreciate tasteful screwups.
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Re:My MBP was already burned by this issue... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Hoping for the best, expecting the worst (Score:3, Informative)
CoconutIdentityCard [coconut-flavour.com], an app that tells you when and where your Mac or iPod was manufactured, says my MBP was made between January and July 2007 in Shanghai. I wish it was more specific about the date, so I'd have a better idea if my machine is affected.
At any rate, I've been having some repeated video issues with external monitors as of late; a CRT recognized as an LCD and only able to match internal LCD's resolutions, regardless of mirroring settings, and a BSON (nothingness) when disconnecting from DVI, necessitating a hard power-off. I was (and still kind of am) really hoping it wouldn't be affected, as I don't have a worthy backup machine to use while this is in the shop. It's a 15" 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo with the 256 MB GeForce 8600M GT.
At least it's still within the included first-year AppleCare. It's possible this could be handled like the issue of the failing logic boards in iBooks, when Apple replaced the logic board if it was within a certain serial number range, regardless of warranty coverage. Hopefully all affected MacBook Pro owners will get the same treatment.
Re:Hoping for the best, expecting the worst (Score:4, Informative)
FYI: You can tell what week your machine was manufactured by reading the serial number. They're in the format of:
XXYYYZZZZZZ
WW is the factory code
YYY is the last number of the year, and the week of the year of manufacture.
ZZZ is the portion that is incremented per-unit.
Parent
I suspect that Apple is Not Happy. (Score:2)
I wonder if this broke too late to affect the probability of the macs-with-nvidia-chipsets rumors?
The most important question (Score:3, Informative)
How to Diagnose This GeForce Problem (Score:5, Informative)
Re:"brouhaha" (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I really don't have an issue with the word "brouhaha". It's something journalists roll out to sensationalize a story. Much like "beleaguered" or "oft maligned".
However, this story headline has a much better version of that tactic... "admits". Which implies that there was either denial or that they have been accused of something and are now confessing. That may not be the exact dictionary definition, but that's the implication when using the word - particularly in this context.
Based upon the story, the correct word is "claims". It is Nvidia that will be in a position to "admit" there's a problem, because they are the ones that "claimed" there was no problem with Apple systems while Apple is now "claiming" Nvidia's statement to be false.
Again, these are not strictly dictionary definitions nor are they exact legal jargon. They are based upon the implied meanings of those words when used in everyday language.
As an aside, my favorite use of that tactic is when the word "alleged" is rolled out. Basically, anything can be "alleged", but journalists roll it out when they want to cast doubt on an issue.
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
beer
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if you don't have one with an issue how does it matter? It's not like they will replace all notebooks if they still work. If you have the issue return it no matter what if they are affected or not.
But seems rather obvious everyone buying the chips can have the issues, why would any brand be immune since the manufacturer is the same?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, you're pissed because you procrastinated until the last days of your warranty, and you ended up being late. And then, they told you to call them (with the hope that they might be able to do something for you) and you don't want to call them because you're lazy.
I don't love Apple and I think their prices are way too high for what you get, but c'mon man, that's stretching it. You screwed up. Don't blame Apple for your stupidity.
Re:Turtleneck drops the ball on this one (Score:5, Interesting)
How easily the world forgets the iBook G3 graphics chip defect....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook#Quality_issues [wikipedia.org]
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