Slashdot Mirror
Macbook Owner With Defective GPU Beats Apple In Court
New submitter RockoW writes "A few years ago, Apple sold defective computers of the MacBook Pro line. They had the defective Nvidia 8600M GT GPU. In this case Apple refused to take the computer back and issue me a refund. Instead, they promised to replace the 8600M GT boards when they failed, up to four years from the date of purchase. Three years later, the MacBook Pro failed and they refused to replace it. This guy took them to the court and won by their own means."
If Apple promised to replace parts they knew to be defective for up to four years then they'd better step up. The court costs far outweighed the costs of replacing the GPU in his MacBook (and probably 100's of others). The cost of the bad press? It seems Apple has always been willing to test the patience of their customers' loyalties.
Apple charges top dollar for their hardware.
You would feel bad about "picking on them" for why?
Apple is responsible for the products it supplies. It is up to Apple to seek damages from Nvidia, not the consumers.
I remember that slogan. Not too long ago even. Before that it was "Think different" and buy the most common mp3 player on the planet. I dislike apple because I dislike marketing, and Apple is like an avatar of marketing; the essence of style over substance given form.
Apple got slammed in court for one simple reason: they guaranteed replacement for 4 years. 3 years in, they reneged on their promise. Simple, blatant double talk.
The customer had the documentation to prove his case, and he won.
Because Apple is the company which promised to replace his laptop up to 4 years after the date of purchase if it failed but then refused to replace it 3 years later?
Sure, the problem is with the GPU, but since Apple itself *promised* to do something for a customer, they should respect their own words.
This is a huge problem for almost every manufacturer. Take a look at the HP DV series of laptops for example. Why are we picking on Apple and not the GPU manufacturers here?
maybe because Apple reneged on their promise. That's reason enough.
Nvidia settled a class action lawsuit about these GPUs.
(link: http://www.techspot.com/news/43614-customers-get-shafted-in-nvidia-class-action-suit.html)
cool story bro but apple sold it to consumer and the boards were only replaceable by apple and only available through apple..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I did in warrantied repairs for an Apple authorized service provider for two years. I can't tell you how many of these repairs apple picked up the tab on. I have never seen another computer company take as much responsibility as they have on this issue. The repair to replace the logic board that contained the defective GPU was a $1700 repair from a third-party authorized repair center and I did an average of 2 to 3 a week for 2 years.
Try stacking up those numbers against any other computer companies defective products in what they did to fix them
Because they admitted in court that it would not cost them anything to fix it, nVidia was paying the bill, but they still refused and they didn't even have an argument on why they were refusing. They just wanted to make it hard for their customer. RTFA, the description of how the trial went is comedy gold.
I've had enough horror stories with with Apple products around me to not be surprised, it seems that for every iphone they replace no-questions-asked they void the warranty on a few iMacs just to balance it out. Since the average apple customer thinks Apple can do no wrong, these incidents usually don't generate any fuss.
Good for the OP!
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
This is a huge problem for almost every manufacturer.
And Apple is one of the few who gets apologists jumping in to defend them by pointing this out.
Because it's up to Apple to replace the Apple hardware. They are then free to seek damages from the GPU manufacturer.
Don't be so blind. The customer purchased the computer AND an extended warranty from Apple. The GPU manufacturer said to all parties they will foot the bill for the defective hardware. The repair was free for Apple, but they decided to take this customer to court just because. Then, in court, they lied to the judge, saying that the hardware was different, etc. Apple is usually good with warranties, but notoriously for forcing their way on everybody, be it for good or bad. In this case, they were wrong, and behave like morons, and drag one of their customers to court. It is infuriating.
This is a huge problem for almost every manufacturer. Take a look at the HP DV series of laptops for example. Why are we picking on Apple and not the GPU manufacturers here?
Because this story is about Apple, not HP or Nvidia. RTFA.
dunno, but if I bought a lotus from lotus and it blew up I'd complain to lotus - not to the company that was contracted to do the piece that broke. it's not like brembo(or whatever) is responsible to consumers for toyotas brake problems..
toyotas brakes fail and people don't go complaining to brembo..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Because this is Slashdot. Apple is that evil bad nasty walled-garden company that makes products those filthy commoners like...
No. I'm a Mac user, and Apple has always done the right thing if something went wrong with the hardware on my computer, but in this case they were wrong. They went back on a promise, they should be held responsible.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Same thing with my MacBook. The HD failed after 4 years ( no extended warranty). I was looking up how to replace it myself as I thought 4 years of constant use was reasonable. I came across an Apple support article that depicted the exact failure messages I was getting stating to bring in the laptop. So I made an appointment at the nearest Apple store and pasted the article in the ticket. They replaced the HD free of charge. They could not replace it with the same HD model or OS version so they upgraded both.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
That's strange... I had this exact same problem and Apple replaced my motherboard for free when the time came. I wonder why they denied it for him?
Not an excuse. They are a "premium luxury" brand. If they couldn't do right by the customer with the parts they had on hand then they should have given the customer a better replacement.
THIS is what separates the real "quality" brands from the ones that are just over hyped by mindless consipicous consumers.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You've got it backwards.
It's the shills and apologists that breed haters.
If there were less mindless hype surrounding Apple, there would simply be less of a story here. Although if Apple just lived up to their supposed reputation there wouldn't have been any story at all.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Thats the problem. The lawyers made millions and all Apple got was a $10 coupon off thier next nvidia purchase.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
In my case, the GPU wasn't at fault, it was Apple's faulty application of heat sink compound that caused the chip to fail.
Actually, they did... it just wasn't a very good argument.
Their argument basically amounted to the company simply adhering to its own policies... although admittedly the article was sketchy on what policies those were that would actually deny the repair.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Apple breeds haters by being evil. The haters hate evil, see? Apple is just a high concentration of evil, that is why it attracts haters.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
The terms of the class action suit were not favorable for the consumers, as your link states. For replacements from HP, everyone got the same Compaq budget 15" notebook, which retailed at around $270 at the time that the notebook owners received their replacements. Many of the consumers, including myself, had purchased notebooks which cost well over $1000. It is argued by some, that since prices have lowered since the initial purchase, the replacement notebook was comparable to the one initially purchased. This was untrue in my case. It also doesn't take into account that many of these notebooks were unusable during the years it took for a class action lawsuit to take place, and replacement notebooks awarded.
In my case, it is basically as if I purchased two $1200 notebooks, and didn't have them shipped to me until 3 years later. By the time I got them, I found out they weren't even the correct specs. Since it was 3 years later, I could have gotten much more for $1200.
The suit pitted the consumers against nvidia themselves, bypassing the computer manufacturers. I don't think this was an appropriate action. The manufacturers share some blame. They took the payoffs from nvidia to replace the GPUs under warranty, until the warranties ran out and it was all swept under the rug. At the time, the manufacturers knew the replacement parts were a time-bomb waiting to fail. They didn't care, because nvidia was funding them to do the repairs anyway. So, the manufacturers were making money by *not* replacing the GPU with a non-defective GPU.
In the case of HP, they lied about replacing the GPU with another defective GPU, and slapped a 90 day warranty on the service work. When I complained to them, and the BBB, they lied and said they replaced it with a different model GPU. My own eyes and lspci spoke a different story.
that hamburger....i think you are using it wrong
In TFA, the author noted that one of the ironies was that Apple said in court that Nvidia would pay for the replacement. However, the thing that struck me was his revelation that he had received lots of contacts from people who have also had the same kind of failure and have paid Apple or trashed their machines. It seems pretty obvious that the reason Apple probably spent more than the cost of satisfying this guy's claim was to prevent a precedent's being set in a large class-action suit against them.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Agreed. After probably spending $50k on apple products over the years this makes me not want to another thing from them.
They have become too big and profitable for their own good and as a result don't seem to care about the customers who made them that way. Classic biting the hand that feeds them.
Wow, a top of the line lemon. Good job!
I find it sad that I actually want to applaud you on here for managing to distinguish your personal anecdotal experience from the given situation and make clear, sound judgements based on available information. Did you RTFA too??
original article, sorry for the fucked formatting.
[quote]
A few years ago, Apple sold me a $4,000 computer with a defective graphics chip/logic board. The defective part was the Nvidia 8600M GT GPU, and when it was discovered that the machine was defective, Apple refused to take it back and issue me a refund. Instead, they promised to replace the 8600M GT boards when they failed, up to 4 years from the date of purchase.
Three years later, the board failed, and predictably, Apple refused to replace it. Instead, they used the fact that the machine wouldnâ(TM)t boot (due to the failed logic board) to deny the repair. Not only that, but in addition, they tried to charge me a hefty sum of money to have it replaced, knowing full well that Nvidia pays for the full repair cost.
Three and a half months ago, after having my repair denied, I announced on this very site that I was going to sue Apple. Reading these lawsuit threats often, many people assumed that I was bluffing or blowing off steam, but true to my word, I did exactly what I said I was going to do. I sued Apple.
I did not take this step lightly, however. In the months following the announcement, I did everything in my power to keep my dispute with Apple out of the court system.
First, I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. In their rebuttal to the BBB, Apple blatantly lied about the diagnostics they had run on my computer, and the BBB promptly closed the case, leaving Appleâ(TM)s âoeA+â rating intact.
Next, I spoke with Apple Executive Services ⦠three separate times. Each time, I was told that âoeWe value each customer and hope that they have a positive experience with Apple, and are sorry that you did not have this experience, but you will get nothing.â ⦠or something to this effect.
After that, I sent a demand letter to Apple via certified mail. I informed them that if I did not have my issue resolved within 10 days, I would sue.
Only then, after Apple failed to reply, did I file a Small Claims lawsuit.
Last week, the trial was held.
I arrived at the King County Courthouse shortly after 8am, and about forty five minutes later, the clerk performed roll call. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Apple had sent not one, but two people to represent the company. When Apple told me that I would get nothing, they really meant it.
After calling roll, and before calling the docket, the clerk went down the case list and asked each litigant if they would be willing to try mediation. Mediation keeps cases out of the court system, and keeps the outcomes confidential. This is especially beneficial to companies, as having judgements issued against them by customers is bad PR.
Always one to exhaust all good-faith remedies before resorting to more drastic measures (really, nobody can say I didnâ(TM)t try my hardest to stay out of court), I agreed to try mediation, and to my surprise, so did Apple.
Since everything said in the mediation room is confidential, I cannot go into details about what happened there, but I will tell you that it failed (for the same reason that everything else failed), and the case was sent back to the courtroom.
In retrospect, I am glad that mediation did fail. After seeing that Apple sent two guys ⦠two guys who were in continuous contact with Apple legal via text and cell ⦠I knew that I was outgunned, outspent, and out-everything elsed. $500,000,000,000 vs. $37 and a pack of chewing gum is not a fair fight. Because of this, I offered settlements that were ridiculously favorable to Apple and unfavorable to myself, but even these were rejected. Thank goodness that they were.
After failing mediation, shortly after 11am, we were called before the judge, sworn in, and I read my opening statement. I said basically everything Iâ(TM)ve been saying on this blog for the last several months. I stuck to the facts, handed my exhibits to the clerk (several printed pages), an
Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans. No-one sees motorcycles
"wouldn't boot" is pretty general... Apple's Repair Extension Programs cover specific models, for a limited additional duration, that are demonstrating specific symptoms which are being caused by a very specific problem.
We get people in from time to time with a computer that has an REP on that model, and they're expecting Apple to cover something else out of warranty. And we get people demanding we "fix" the computer simply because there is an REP on that model even though it's working fine. That's not how REPs work. (we had a school show up with a panel van FULL of emacs that were listed on an REP, we tested ALL of them and repaired TWO)
If it powered on, and chimed (possibly after clearing pram to turn the volume back up) but showed no video, and could be heard to boot up (hdd access) and possibly even get interaction from it (turning volume up and down and hearing the reply) and external video was also dead, THAT should be covered and I would be surprised if they didn't cover it. All AASPs were given a special tool to test the computer and verify the problem also, and this test could be run after the video was out, OR before it was out, and could identify a computer that was beginning to fail, even if the symptoms were very minor or infrequent. If it was demonstrating symptoms, this test should have been run on your computer. Users tend to put off taking computers in for service, so only about 3% of the machines I saw with this problem still had usable video by the time they checked them in.
However, if it failed to turn on, or failed to post at all, no, that's not the issue the REP was for, that's not a video problem, and you were not entitled to coverage by this REP. I also ran into a couple that were having "no video" problems but that didn't fail the special test app, those users had to pay for their repair because it was the same part, but not the same cause.
I won't say that every AASP and Apple Store does the right thing. I'm just sayin' how it's supposed to work, and how I make it work here. If you still think they didn't react correctly, call applecare (even now) and talk with them about it. I've seen them make things right for people outwards of 5 years after purchase, with a discount on a new machine for example.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Apple is responsible for the products it supplies. It is up to Apple to seek damages from Nvidia, not the consumers.
If you had bothered to read the article, you would have learned that it doesn't cost Apple a dime for the repair:
So, it costs Apple nothing for the repair, Apple promised to do the repair, and then Apple refuses the repair and sends two people to contest the lawsuit.
Apple is just being their usual asshole selves, but this time it is clearly obvious.
If I knew that video card 123abc had a record of failing I would avoid that video card in any product no matter who it was from. Then again I try to be an informed customer. Not everyone is. As others have stated, people go to the company they bought the item from when it fails.
Apple is a pain in the ass when it come to their stuff breaking. They have their own tools and tests that they run. For example: we have an iMac with bad memory. Memtest shows errors every time. We bring the under warrantee iMac to Apple to replace the memory. The Imac is fired up at teh Apple store. It fails to boot and only beeps. It is the memory beep according to the 4 Apple store people. A few more boot attempts, the iMac boots but has trouble booting from their USB drive. They take the Imac to run their memory tests on the iMac. A few days later they tell us the Imac is repaired. What was done? Nothing. They found nothing wrong. We take the Imac back. It has the same errors as before. Again, memtest shows errors. This time we just replace the memory ourselves. Now there is no issue. If Apple had used memtest they would have seen the errors. They have to use Apple approved tests. There are free tests for memory and other things that can be used. We can prove that the memory has bad sectors. According to Apple, that doesn't matter since their tests says otherwise. I did ask for a printout, screen shot, something of the test. They could not provide that. They also said that we could not run the test ourselves. When the other Imacs showed signs of the same problem (all bought at the same time). We ran memtest, again bad memory. We just replaced it rather then going to Apple. No need for the longer down time and the headache from the Apple repair people.
The one thing I don't understand is his comment that it might be difficult to collect the award. In the UK, you can get bailiffs in to seize goods to the value of the court award, or if you are feeling really evil, for amounts over £750 (about $1300) you can apply to have the company made bankrupt unless they immediately pay up.
It has been known for people with awards against major supermarkets to get the bailiffs to turn up at a large store one day, and either empty all the tills, or remove bottles of alcohol sufficient to cover the debt - usually much to the amusement of watching customers.
Is this not possible in his part of the USA?
Yes, Charlie is a known nVidia basher, but he backed up his findings in bumpgate. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1049921/inquirer-confirms-apple-macbook-pros-nvidia-bad-bump-material Google bumpgate and you will find many articles about Nvidia paying OEMs hundreds of millions for their faulty graphics chips.
That was blamed, but Apple was hardly the only manufacturer with this problem - my ASUS laptop had its GPU blow twice, once well after the problem was revealed and that chip actually lasted about a year longer than its replacement (unfortunately, the laptop was out of warranty by the second failure), so I personally feel the 8600M line was defective and prone to overheating and that nVidia was covering it up. The die shrink that was the same architecture but reduced heat had a MUCH lower failure rate (the 9xxx line) - in fact, the laptop I replaced my ASUS with (an HP) had a 9800M GT, and the GPU never was a problem (the laptop itself was a nightmare of problems, especially after the 1 year warranty ended - display failed, disk failed, fan sounds like a banshee [probably ball bearings], touch sensor went wonky and randomly disconnects the wireless and changes sound levels, etc).
Anyhow, nVidia can blame whoever they want, but I won't believe it. I know they wanted to save face and I certainly don't blame them for it, but everyone has a lemon once in a while, and the 8xxx line was nVidias. If it's any consolation, I've had more problems with ATI cards, though there it tends to be driver issues that are eventually resolved.
I'm amazed at how nVidia tried pawning this one on the OEMs, insisting nothing is wrong when thousands of HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Apple Laptops were having GPU blowouts.
The 8800 also gets lots of attention, but the Geforce Go 6150 and 7200 chips delaminate in huge quantities as well. My HP laptop was sent away once on warranty work when the wireless card dropped out (first sign of a failure). It's now dissapeared again and out of warranty. Surprising the lazy-man reflow actually works:
-Remove battery and HDD
-Turn machine on and wrap in blankets
-Allow to cook for a couple hours.
-Replace battery and HDD.
I searched for all court cases involving a company named Apple in King county, WA and I found one filed in small claims court. Case number 125-00818 was filed March 1, 2012 (which matches up with a blog entry he made). The details of cases aren't available online for free, they charge $0.25 per page here, and that's pretty much where I stopped. I'm not going to spend the cash to find out more.
bah.
I had the same failure arise with the Nvidia Geforce Go 7900 GS chipset in a Toshiba Satellite P105-S9337 model laptop. The laptop was out of warranty. In this instance, though, the graphics were a separate discrete board. After being fully ignored by Toshiba, I began looking for used, refurbished, or 'pre-owned' replacements. I had also modded the laptop to force the GPU fan to draw power from a nearby USB port, thus forcing it to run continuously in the hope of preventing symptoms. (It didn't, really.) I knew the chipset itself was essentially defective, but it's not a guarantee that every chip will fail, so I was hoping to get lucky. I found an eBay seller, a liquidation business, that was selling a whole batch of allegedly refurbished ones, and for much less than I had seen them previously. I purchased two. One of the two boards was still faulty, and the seller replaced it; the other one wasn't actually what I had ordered: in fact it was a Geforce Go 7900 GTX, a slightly upscale version and with more onboard VRAM. I discovered that it was compatible with my system, though I was concerned about the potential heat generation. I wound up keeping both, installing the replaced 7900 GS and keeping the 7900 GTX as a spare. Thus far the laptop has continued working, but I certainly suffered a substantial net loss over the whole affair, in actual material cost and labor and time. I wish I'd had the opportunity and courage to do what this fellow did, but since I has a system out of warranty it would have been more difficult.
I also had a similar problem with a cherished 21-inch Nokia CRT monitor years ago. Six years after I bought it, it failed. I wanted very much to get it repaired. I discovered that in the meantime Nokia had abandoned the display market, selling its brand name to Viewsonic and the manufacturing to another Finnish company. When I contacted Viewsonic, they told me there were no spare parts for it, and refused to replace it with an equivalent Viewsonic model (which I really didn't want). That Finnish company had apparently stopped making Nokia display parts, and Viewsonic refused to otherwise honor its obligations from acquiring the brand name. I even contacted Nokia and tried to persuade them to pressure Viewsonic, but nothing came of it. I didn't create enough of a public relations fiasco. I finally contacted numerous third-party repair services, but each one also told me nothing could be done as parts were not available.
You might be thinking to yourself, "Dude, it's six years old, what do you expect?" I happen to live in California, and this state has a so-called "lemon law" that attempts to force manufacturers to not... well, sell lemons! It stipulates that any product - not just the automobiles with which it's usually associated - with a manufactured cost over $100 should be repairable for a period of no less than 7 years from the date of manufacture. That means the manufacture is obligated to make available the parts and service materials necessary for repairs for those 7 years, and if not to otherwise make amends for failure to do so.
Obviously Viewsonic had failed to do that. Because of that lemon law I had an open and shut case, had I taken Viewsonic to court here in California. I didn't, but again I wish I had.
My point in sharing these anecdotes is that this is a consistent pattern of behavior with all manufacturers, not just one or two or a handful of them. It's endemic to the system we've allowed to take hold. It's this unfair system that makes consumers the inferior party in transactions with these manufacturers that motivated California's lemon law in the first place. It SHOULD be a Federal law applicable in every state. Better yet a globally recognized law.
It is possible to do that in many parts of the United States. There was a story about a couple sending the Sheriff to a Bank of America branch to seize assets to pay a court-ordered judgement that Bank of America declined to pay.
The specific rules probably vary by state and possibly by municipality.
After nVidia caused thousands of users to pay to repair their laptops or replace the computer,
If you had read the furfuraceous article, you would know that nVidia would actually refund the entire cost of the repair to the manufacturer. Only problem, Apple decided it was more fun to screw the customer anyway.
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
Really? Because the sheer volume of replacements that would have ensued would have damaged Apple's partner relationship with nvidia. There's your answer.
I'm typing this on a MacBook that Apple gave me. You see, my previous had failed and been repaired twice. On the third failure, they gave me a brand new machine. Not identical to the old one, but a brand new one. This is Apple's "three strikes" policy. If a machine needs a third repair, in warrenty or under Apple Care, just pick out a new one with the same size, hard drive, and memory as the defective one.
That's doing right.