Problem with MacBook Pro Nvidia Graphics card - Page 2

Yes they are a reputable company, well thought of in many circles. Also the new MBPr is getting fantastic reviews. So I guess everything is going well. I had read some grumbling about Apple switching back on the new unit and I was just curious. Seems in looking at all the different ones out there AMD and NVidia pretty much are running neck n neck. I'm not in the market for a laptop now that I have an iPad; it pretty much serves all my portable needs and a lot less to carry around I might add. Thanks for the info

Apple gave me a new replacement computer because of the NVIDIA graphic card issue due to my computer having multiple repairs and continued graphic failures. I had a 15-inch Macbook Pro with the bad NVIDIA graphic card. Apple replaced it with a brand new 15-inch Macbook Pro. Yes, I am a happy Apple customer. But I do understand and feel for all the customers who have had the NVIDIA issue and who have not fared as well as me.

My 2008 Pro failed less than 3 months ago and was diagnosed by an Austin Apple store as having the graphic card failure. Apple replaced my logic board for free to fix it. I also had Apple replace my hard drive before I brought it home because a genius said it was beginning to fail. It wasn't long afterward that I had the same graphic problems and took it back to the same south Austin Apple store, which again diagnosed graphic card failure on my computer and replaced the logic board a second time. 

Not longer that, I had the same problems show up a third time: no video, distorted video, the computer screen spontaneously dimming at times, geometric designs periodically popping up for a few moments and filling my entire computer screen, and other issues. I took it back to the same south Austin Apple store and got a jerk genius. He looked and saw I had two graphic card failures and right off told me that was not the problem again, though he clearly saw there were major video problems with the computer. He said the issue was Safari and he reinstalled it. That did not work. Then he said it was operating system and he wanted to keep it yet again overnight and reinstall it, though the operating system had just been reinstalled by Apple. He told me geometric designs suddenly popping up on my screen was normal and everything was normal, and that the video issue was probably just a minor thing. He said because Apple had installed new graphic cards with a NVIDIA fix on them in my computer, and it certainly wasn't the graphic card. He was very protective of Apple and basically telling me it was not Apple's problem. I decided I didn't trust him with my computer and told him I didn't want to give it up right now to get it fixed and left with my poorly working computer. When Apple sent me a customer survey to follow up on the visit, I gave the genius a scathing review. I was a most unhappy Apple customer.

For more than 2 months after that I basically had no video. I dealt with the dimming computer screen, geometric designs popping up on my screen, etc., just because I did not want to deal again with Apple. As my 90-day warranty for the last replaced logic board was nearing its end, I took my computer to the Apple store in north Austin, which is closer to my home. Here I got great service. The genius ran diagnostics and tried to fix the video and could not. I said I wanted a replacement computer because of the continued problems and that I was aware of the Seattle small claims court case where Apple reps testified that all the NVIDIA graphic cards available to repair computers with this issue were all defective, meaning, in essence, that a bad NVIDIA card would be replaced with another bad NVIDIA card when a repair was made, resulting in an unreliable repair. I said that meant Apple could not reliably fix my computer. I was very nice and matter-of-fact about it.

The genius looked at my history of multiple graphic issues in less than 3 months and went to talk to his manager, and they both came back and told me Apple was giving me a new computer. The manager said my continuing problems with the computer were unacceptable to Apple and a new 15-inch Macbook Pro replacement would be provided me. Truthfully, I was stunned, and asked them to repeat that. The genius and manager made me feel like a very valued customer and couldn't have been nicer. I was charmed.

I left the store less than 30 minutes later with my new Macbook Pro, joyfully shocked. Yes, I'm a happy Apple customer and will sing its praises to everyone I meet, but I get I'm a lucky customer on this issue. I’ve read the tons of complaints from Pro users left with broken computers because of the NVIDIA defect and feeling Apple left them high and dry. I think Apple needs to address the NVIDIA issue in such a way to take care of all its customers who unknowingly bought  defective computers and are finding their computers  dying prematurely. Apple is better off with happy customers. 

Just to clarify my last post: I had three graphical failures with my computer before I got the replacement. My 2008 Pro failed in spring 2012 and was diagnosed by an Apple store as the NVIDIA GPU issue, and I was given a free replacement logic board. That replacement failed and I was given  another free logic board replacement. When I had more graphical failures during the 90-day warranty period of the last logic board replacement, I was given a replacement computer. Original logic board plus two replacement logic boards all apparently failed. I will say that the Apple store did not definitively say my GPU had failed the third time when it gave me a replacement, though the graphical problems were the same problems I'd had all along. The Apple store manager just said I'd had enough problems - three computer failures of the same nature - to warrant a replacement.

Last year I had my 8600m GT graphics card replaced under the 4 year extended warranty program. I bought my 15" MBP in August 2007, and the Nvidia card was replaced last June, 2011. Of course it was replaced with the same defective unit and my replacement card started failing this past March again, less than a year after the warranty replacement, but outside the 90 day warranty. The failures weren't too bad, mostly weird looking widgets etc but are starting to get worse and now are throwing windows server crashes all the time (as a result of the nvidia card). I got it replaced in Pasadena Ca, but have moved to Colorado since, and took it into the "genius" bar in Boulder, Co on Sunday and was told i was out of luck, except for a flat $300 fix. Of course, the "genious" kid didn't really give me the time of day, just looked up my history and then told me in more ways than one that apple wouldn't honor the previous repair.

Am i really out of luck? Is there anyway around the 90 day warranty, especially if they were knowingly replacing the part with another defective part? I realize that 4 years out of a computer is average, but i expected more when I shelled out $2000 for my MPB. 

Originally Posted by CharlieTheCat 

Am i really out of luck? Is there anyway around the 90 day warranty, especially if they were knowingly replacing the part with another defective part? I realize that 4 years out of a computer is average, but i expected more when I shelled out $2000 for my MPB. 

Tell your story to the manager, say you know full well about the problem and how all defective units are simply being re-replaced with more defective units, and that you'd like another replacement, as this is unacceptable.

Or you can e-mail… forget his name; you'll have to look it up on Apple.com… the VP of customer relations, tell HIM your story, give him case numbers and whatever, and one of his associates should get back to you like that.

The 8600M fiasco never should have happened, and they should have just given all users brand new 320M computers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AppleProUser 

I bought my first ever MacBook Pro in late 2007, and I'll be honest I really liked it until it died on me out of blue. Upon talking to Apple Technical Care Rep, Visiting the Store and again talking to Apple Care Rep they all conluded that unfortunately my MacBook Pro had the defective Nvidia that Apple and Nvidia bothk new and both companies very smartly decided to address the issue only for those users whose machines died early in their life cycle and left others sitting on the ticking time bomb to explode in the matter of time.

Maybe both these companies saw this as a money making opportunity?

I always heard good feedback and had a positive customer service experiece until I ran into this problem. Today when I visited the apple store in Yorkdale Mall in Ontario Canada rep was like "Graphics card dies on you if you want it to be fixed you need to pay $525+, otherwise you are wasting my time kind of look". Very BAD experince. I am just 4 months above the timeline that Apple and nvidia had decided to fix it, if you are lucky enough to have it gone bad in period of 4 years they will fix it for you.

At the time of purchase I even purchased extended Apple Care/Protection Plan that itself costed me around $300+ additional, if I remember correctly that time I spent close to $2800 on this MacBook Pro purchase, which comes around 2-4 Windows Laptop, depending which brand and configuration you buy.

Since my first purchase I have bought various apple products including software and hardware, including all OS that were released since then until now. Recently being my new iPhone 4S.

If Ihave to go the path that Apple reps are asking me to take, it comes pretty close to $800 per year expense with owning this Apple MacBook Pro, which is beyond my understanding.

My point is if part would have gone bad due to any other issue or mis-use I am ok to take the hit, but if Apple knew about bad part I would have expected Apple to correct it for all identified serial numbers.

Instead of taking care of the issue Apple is trying to hide behind Nvidia and blaming them for the problem, I DID NOT buy Nvidia product I bought Apple and I want Apple to take care of this issue.


If anyone of you are going through the same issue please chime in, if you are one of those who is sitting on the ticking bomb take this as a piece of advice and make sure you take regular backup.


I AM RETHINKING ON MY DECISION TO WHETHER TO SHIFT TO APPLE OR STAY WITH MY MORE RELIABLE WINDOWS BASED PC, ATLEAST THEY ARE CHEAPER TO FIX AND WORST CASE JUST BUY NEW ONE THAT WILL COST LESS THAN APPLE REPAIR COST.

The exact same thing happened to me. I purchased mine in 2007, June... and it went bad. They released the official publication on apple.com saying they acknowledged the defect, of the May 2007 manufactured devices... and they would fix them, if they were in the 4 year timeline... IN september 2011. When I pointed out that they released this after many of these computers were already 4+ years, they basically told me to screw off, OR pay 300 dollars.

Originally Posted by wtf12srs 
Customers unite to send Apple a message regarding their lack of Apple care

Four years of out of warranty service on the defect. There was no "lack" of anything. No news station is going to pick this up. No lawsuit is going to be allowed. 

You want to be dumb enough to destroy your possessions, feel free. You'll be left without a computer. What are you gonna do, go to DELL?! HA!

I was apparently "out of the cutoff period" by 8 days. 8 Days. The machine started having issues on Sept 17 while on vacation and ended up completely failing on Oct 3rd. I decided to look into what was happening and see if MAYBE I could repair it when I found this massive GPU issue. I scheduled time on Oct 8th in hopes of getting it repaired. Apple told me...after looking up all my information via my Applecare info...that I purchase on Oct 31st. Which means I was out of luck by only 8 days.

NOW...to any one on here that says...it was out of warranty, tough luck. I get that. Out of warrany is out of warranty.

HOWEVER...I have a problem for two major reasons.

1) I bought Applecare. Which meant that I registered that MBP with them. So they KNEW every thing about me...email...phone...address...what I bought...when I bought...etc. AND they knew I had a machine that MIGHT have the GPU issue. So why not send out some form of letter to allow me to understand, completely, that this issue might happen and if so....well hey we're being nice to fix it FOR FREE.

They didn't. But they were more than happy to let me know I was 8 days out of luck.

Car companies do this on regular basis. I got a letter about an issue with a car that I had traded off. Turns out the issue that the car MIGHT have had...mine did...AND if so they would gladly repay me for the cost. I didn't even buy that car new or still own the car...but some how they knew how to get in touch with me and let me know that if it happened please let them know.

Interesting that Apple, a genius among computer companies, can't be bothered. Of course they can send me email receipts on purchases.

2) This is the issue that REALLY gets me! They issue the notice on July 2008...apparently after researching this. And yet they continued to sell these machines. I bought mine Oct 2008. 2 months after the fact.

I don't know it's frustrating and disappointing. I've been an Apple fan since my 7200 in college. I've literally spent 1,000 on Apple. I've always had good luck. But this is really stinky.

Originally Posted by jbfatcats 

1) I bought Applecare.

The warranty on the GPU was extended for all owners.

They did, at least twice.

They did. At least twice.

If a product is bad, it's bad. Time should not be an issue for replacement if the defective part is the cause for failure of the unit. The 4 year limit is not fair practice if a manufacturer defect is the only reason you are stuck with a dead computer versus a working machine.

I don't buy into the concept of planned obsolescence or a 4 year life cycle for a $2000 dollar device being acceptable. People have been acclimated to it with the way ipods die directly outside of warranty, but that doesn't make it right. I have other laptops that still run fine, like my 2001 Titanium, and a couple of other machines. It should be the customers choice when they decide to stop using a machine, not that a company feels 4 years is long enough for a machine to work. 

My 2008 MBP's logic board just failed so I'm basically out of luck since the recall program ended January 7th. And the resale value is barely above the cost of replacing the logic board with the same part which is known to fail, so it's a bad investment.

It's a given that the power supply will fail. Instead of designing the unit so the weakest part (the wire with the magsafe connector which should cost $20) can be replaced, you need to buy an entire replacement unit for 4 times the cost. This is a cash cow for Apple. Mine failed, but it was expected so I priced it in as part of owning a Mac laptop.

I had the display replaced after that failed 6 months after I bought the machine, luckily that was still under warranty.

My superdrive failed, outside of warranty, another part which has a high likelihood to fail on the MBP, so I just don't have a usable drive in my laptop for the past year. Not a big deal if the core machine still worked.

At this point I'm going to do a bake since it's just an aluminum paperweight and not worth putting any money into so if I can breath a bit more life into it it's worth a shot. I 've been an Apple user since my Powerbook 100  (it still runs), but I can't see investing in another mac again. Not with how the company culture has moved away from core qualities of a machine that is internally sound versus a fancy chassis filled with substandard components. My IBM Thinkpad, my Viao which are both over 6 years old have never had any issues, so saying that a computer lasting 4 years is great is simply not true. Plenty of computers last a lot longer than 4 years and a premium product should be the front runner in terms of reliability, not at the bottom of the list.

Originally Posted by Fudomyo 

I don't buy into the concept of planned obsolescence or a 4 year life cycle…

Should have stopped here instead of continuing with conspiracies.

You could always pay for it.

Goodbye. If you want to make up reasons for problems that aren't true, even in the face of being told exactly what the truth is, go ahead and buy something else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil 

 

Should have stopped here instead of continuing with conspiracies.

 

 

You could always pay for it.

 

 

Goodbye. If you want to make up reasons for problems that aren't true, even in the face of being told exactly what the truth is, go ahead and buy something else.

Every problem I listed is true and has been experienced by many other people who bought this computer. (as I discovered by trying to find out why my computer died)

The admission by Apple that they had sold a defective product isn't something that anyone is making up here, so why are you making it your mission to shoot down anyone who talks about it?

Rather than using inflammatory words like conspiracy to build a straw man argument, either accept the fact that there are issues with this computer, or provide evidence to the contrary. The only thing that matters to anyone is getting value for their money or not.

Why should I pay for something I already paid for?  That is the bottom line.

If you don't see how illogical it is to say "you could just pay for it", I really don't know how to explain it any more clearly.

I work hard for my money. I get paid for doing good work. If I buy something that comes broken in the box why should I accept that as normal?

Rather than being demeaning, perhaps you could explain why this is acceptable.

Originally Posted by Fudomyo 
Every problem I listed is true and has been experienced by many other people who bought this computer. (as I discovered by trying to find out why my computer died)

Indeed. I myself have this model and have experienced problems. What you are claiming, that this whole thing was by design, is off.

Correct, Apple has acknowledged the faulty Nvidia chips.

You were given four years from purchase date to take it in and get it fixed. That's plenty of time for any excuse.

New user here (PC builder, no less), just read through the whole thread- very interesting. Figured I would add my story...

My GF has a Macbook Pro, circa May 2008 with a Nvidia 8600M GT GPU. She has just recently been experiencing problems with her display. Some background: she leaves it on 24/7, and is in sleep mode except mornings (~8-9AM) and evenings (~5- 12AM).

One evening she pops it open and the display is blank- no video. I power the Mac down and I grab one of my Viewsonic monitors with a DVI to VGA adapter, plug it into the Mac, and power the Mac on to see if it's actually putting out any video... surprisingly the screen comes to life and all is well.

The next day, same drill- no display. Hook it up to the monitor, this time nothing. Start at step 1 again: turn off Mac, connect monitor, turn on Mac. Sure enough, attempt #2 is successful! Super, but going downhill.

Today I come home earlier than the GF, and attempt to wake the Mac... HD spins up, display is a no go. OK, been here before: hook up monitor, boot up, no display. OK, do it twice. Nothing. Third time is the charm (playing statistics)... no dice still. White flag is up when the GF arrives. She hits the power and with her magic Mac fingers, the beast awakens!! Great! Until the next time.

She is using it as I type this entry on my trusty, 8-year-old, handbuilt, forged, polished, PC. OK, maybe not forged or polished, but the other adjectives are true.

So this problem drove me to this forum and this post. A new logic board seems like the catch-all problem-solver, but no thanks for 9 bills (http://www.ifixit.com/MacBook-Parts/MacBook-Pro-17-Inch-Model-A1229-2-4-GHz-Logic-Board/IF187-058?utm_source=ifixit_guide&utm_medium=guide_intro&utm_content=required_items&utm_term=macbook_pro_17%22_models_a1151_a1212_a1229_and_a1261).

Ebay guy seems legit for $170 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/MacBook-Pro-A1260-A1229-A1226-A1211-logic-board-REPAIR-/230633002794?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35b2cc572a#ht_2688wt_983), however does anyone on this forum have experience with this eBayer? Are there any other viable options I can look at?

Thanks in advance for the help. I'll be sure to post back results if I go with the eBay fix, or otherwise - all based on your responses.

Thank you to Tallest Skil for the links!

I had to join to reply to your insensitive and ignorant comments. 

As many times as you might repeat that Apple notified customers twice about this issue, it is not true.  I purchased applecare with my 2008 macbook pro and had discussed problems numerous times. Never was I told about a logic board issue.  Also never received ANY correspondence from apple regarding this issue. It should not have been difficult considering I had applecare on the computer. Fortunately, I talked to an exceptional senior advisor at applecare when my Nvidia crashed  (this is after taking the computer to the genius goons  at the Apple Store who fed me with so much misinformation it was sad. I received a new logic board and no only is the display back up and working but issues with the trackpad were also resolved.

I also have a MBP purchased in Dec 2007, ordered online and shipped, purchased AppleCare so they had my info, I have not moved. I have never received any notification about a faulty part, it should not be my responsibility to scour the web for possible recall information on a product, why would I think my brand new MBP would have an issue? I have received recall information in the mail for my car, why didn't apple go to the same lengths to notify it's customers?

Originally Posted by HappyAcresKY 
I also have a MBP purchased in Dec 2007…

Then you've had five years of use. Time to move on.

Wonderful! Now they'll be able to run the test again. Don't expect anything, though, even if it comes back 'Nvidia'.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil 

 

Then you've had five years of use. Time to move on.

 

Wonderful! Now they'll be able to run the test again. Don't expect anything, though, even if it comes back 'Nvidia'.

I don't appreciate your condescending tone. 

I just left my genius appointment and they are fixing my MBP at no charge to me. It would not boot so they couldn't run any tests but I went in prepared and stated the facts. It wasn't easy but I am determined... was there for an hour and 15 min, talked to a 'genius' and 2 managers. 

Originally Posted by HappyAcresKY 

I just left my genius appointment and they are fixing my MBP at no charge to me. It would not boot so they couldn't run any tests but I went in prepared and stated the facts. It wasn't easy but I am determined... was there for an hour and 15 min, talked to a 'genius' and 2 managers. 

Good. Congrats.

Well this just happened to my old laptop. I first found out about this at this time. I don't ever recall hearing about this before. It is the GPU failure for sure. I luckily had the MBP set up for remote screen sharing and could run it remotely without it's screen. The system report shows integrated graphics and no Nvidia card at all. I am way past the deadline of course so doubt that I will even try since they would probably not do it. At least it still runs without the screen...