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Apple Admits Nvidia GPU Defect In Some MacBook Pros

Posted by Soulskill on 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."

5 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. My MBP was already burned by this issue... by lag10 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The video card just randomly died one day. No video on the attached screen or an external LCD with few options for backing up data.

    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?

    1. Re:My MBP was already burned by this issue... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That said, OS X kernel panics are the most tasteful of all operating systems I've seen crash - the screen fades to grey and a nice box (rounded corners and everything) appears in the middle telling you, in four languages, how to reboot the machine.

      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.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:My MBP was already burned by this issue... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you look in the console, you can find the stack trace for the crash, which usually helps pinpoint which module caused the crash. In my experience, most OS X kernel panics are due to third party kernel module (virtualisation one in particular), then ATi drivers supplied by Apple, faulty hardware and bugs in XNU, in that order.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  2. Re:Turtleneck drops the ball on this one by oblivionboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How easily the world forgets the iBook G3 graphics chip defect....

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook#Quality_issues

  3. Re:Charlie Demerjian was right in the end? by aliquis · · Score: 2, 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 guess (unless some contract binds them to Intel for some time.)