[ZDNet] MacBook Pro graphics chips failing prematurely - Overclock.net

bowman · 3 Weeks Ago

Quote:

It appears that the current crop of MacBook Pros seem to be suffering from a premature failure of their Nvidia graphics processors. According to a piece on The Inquirer “All Nvidia G84 and G86s are bad” and MacBooks Pro’s with either the Nvidia 8600GT GPUs are prone to failure:

The short story is that all the G84 and G86 parts are bad. Period. No exceptions. All of them, mobile and desktop, use the exact same ASIC, so expect them to go south in inordinate numbers as well. There are caveats however, and we will detail those in a bit.

Both of these ASICs have a rather terminal problem with unnamed substrate or bumping material, and it is heat related. If you ask Nvidia officially, you will get no reason why this happened, and no list of parts affected, we tried. Unofficially, they will blame everyone under the sun, and trash their suppliers in very colourful language.

The symptoms are no video output but the computer still boots. After the problem occurs and you attach an extrnal monitor the system profiler lists the graphics card as an Intel X3100, instead of the GeForce 8600M GT that it should (pictured).

It’s difficult to say what Apple will do, they’ve extended warranties for dud batteries, so its conceivable that they would something similar for this but they haven’t yet acknowledged the problem, so who knows.

The Apple Discussion Forums are buzzing with the issue and someone has started a spreadsheet for affected users here.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=2108

oregonducks45 · 3 Weeks Ago

OMGGGGGG nvidia's failing chips are in macs omggggggg seriously come on this affects every computer with those gpus in them and dell has released a "fix" i believe that it either makes the chip run cooler (unclocks it) or makes the fan work harder (more battery used seeing as these are mobile gpus) not sure but either is not a perfect solution i am sure that once nvidia owns up to this issue that apple will fix the affected computers just as every other manufacturer will

-iceblade^ · 3 Weeks Ago

why would nVidia have to own up for apple to fix it?

bowman · 3 Weeks Ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by -iceblade^

why would nVidia have to own up for apple to fix it?

Nvidia's chips are the cause of this problem, not Apple.. HP, Dell and others have the same problem with these chips. Nvidia continues to dodge the issue and put the burden on OEMs though, I wonder how long they can keep it up until it comes back and bites them.

Sparhawk · 3 Weeks Ago

yeah, apple (or any OEM)can't do anything but replace them with more faulty ones. Until nvidia fixes the problem or issues a recall.

darksideleader · 3 Weeks Ago

mac books with ATI IGP's soon? mabye.

ElMikeTheMike · 3 Weeks Ago

Yay another hateful Mac thread in the works.

voice · 3 Weeks Ago

Solution: Discontinue business with nvidia until they get their act together (if all the OEMs did this at once it'd be a real blow) and use ATI chips instead.

trueg50 · 3 Weeks Ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by bowman

Nvidia's chips are the cause of this problem, not Apple.. HP, Dell and others have the same problem with these chips. Nvidia continues to dodge the issue and put the burden on OEMs though, I wonder how long they can keep it up until it comes back and bites them.

Because Apples MacBook Pro's cooling solution is extremely poor.

With the Pro, the sacrificed performance, reliability, and product life for style.

My friend is a super Half-Life 2 addict, and if he leaves it on a table like a normal laptop, it will start throttling / crashing after 1-2 hours tops. He has to elevate the back and use a 90-150 CFM table fan to cool it, and even then it doesn't last as long as it should.

All that coupled with possibly a weak GPU design (like the recent issues Nvidia has been having) is a bad combination.

Quote:

Originally Posted by voice

Solution: Discontinue business with nvidia until they get their act together (if all the OEMs did this at once it'd be a real blow) and use ATI chips instead.

When ATI forgot about the mobile market every one moved to Nvidia; I doubt any one will be going back due to some reliability issues.

oregonducks45 · 3 Weeks Ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by trueg50

Because Apples MacBook Pro's cooling solution is extremely poor.

With the Pro, the sacrificed performance, reliability, and product life for style.

My friend is a super Half-Life 2 addict, and if he leaves it on a table like a normal laptop, it will start throttling / crashing after 1-2 hours tops. He has to elevate the back and use a 90-150 CFM table fan to cool it, and even then it doesn't last as long as it should.

All that coupled with possibly a weak GPU design (like the recent issues Nvidia has been having) is a bad combination.

When ATI forgot about the mobile market every one moved to Nvidia; I doubt any one will be going back due to some reliability issues.

there may be some cooling issues that apple could fix but this is not an apple issue why cant you see that. it has happened on dells as well is their cooling any worse than apples? it is nvidia's problem and their problem alone.

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[ZDNet] MacBook Pro graphics chips failing prematurely

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