Apple suggests Nvidia is dishonest about GPU failures

[azza21]

It is not only Dell customers who have been suffering with the GPU failures in there notebooks (i was one of them), apparently Apple are now accusing nVidia. More unwanted publicity for nVidia from another major company.

Cupertino (CA) – Apple took an unusually hard shot at Nvidia’s credibility yesterday: Apple said that it found that GeForce GPUs used in some Macbook Pro systems are failing, while Nvidia “assured” the company that the supply to Apple was not affected by what appears to be a GPU packaging issue.

From the Apple website:

“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.”

Apple said that buyers of Macbook Pro 15” and 17” models with Nvidia’s 8600M GT GPU may see “distorted or scrambled video on the computer screen” or “no video on the computer screen (or external display) even though the computer is on.” The affected notebooks were manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008.

The company said that “if the Nvidia graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within two years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.”

Nvidia’s stock followed the general market trend this morning and was down more than 5% to $6.56. Nvidia’s market capitalization has dropped to about $3.66 billion – down from about $10 billion when the GPU issue was made public.

The problems apple mention are rather similar to the problems i had with my Dell XPS notebook. Why do nVidia keep denying an ever so apparent problem, there attitude towards the whole GPU problem is a joke. Lucky enough for me Dell sorted my XPS notebook out straight away but with regards to nvidia, well the less i say about them the better.

TG DAILY article

[G0ldBr1ck]

Poor NV just cant catch a break lately. You got to wonder thow if the Mac's are actualy failing at a unusual rate or if Apple is just taking advantage of the curent problem and pointing fingers at normal failure rates.

[Bo_Fox]

The RoHS specification just needs to be fixed (or ditched in the garbage), that's all...

[Monkeywoman]

considering that the new Macbooks that will be out on the 14th will also have Nvidia GPU's, apple either doesn't care about the failures enough to go to ATI or Nvidia is paying them to use their GPUs and chip sets. it doesnt make any sense.

[zanzabar]

other companies have little to no problems, u just have to not use the cheapest solder and back fill


anybe this will get apple to go with via or ati like back in the day, or atleast give the option

[MarlboroMan]

damn NVidia... I have a notebook from asus dated Dec-07. It uses a 8400GM. Its working fine right now, but anyday at anytime its possible to have a gpu failure... thats not good at all....

no more nvidia!

[Clairvoyant129]

This is why I won't buy any more Nv GPUs, those dishonest ****s. I have a Vaio SZ680 with a 8400M GS with all my school work! I mean it's working well at the moment but who knows? It could fail in the future.

[WRC]

i'm sure nvidia is trying to sort things out,you can always buy laptop with ATi cards in anyways

[G0ldBr1ck]

Its not realy that big of deal for the consumers, well not as much as some let on. The OEM's are taking care of the failed parts for there customers and replacing them with good GPU's. If your realy that woried about it then stress the hell out of the card (run furmark or somthing) heat it up and cool it down a bunch and if it survives then good chance it will always be fine and if you do kill it then RMA.

[Shintai]

The RoHS specification just needs to be fixed (or ditched in the garbage), that's all...

Ye sure...why dont you eat lead too...its so harmless...

[cegras]

Wow, nvidia took a straight nosedive. It's really getting dragged through the cowpats now.

[GAR]

In this bad economy, lets hope they can recover.

[Decami]

lol, this thread should be called "we hate Nvidia, do you?" All this Nvidia banter, and over what? an 8600m that may be affected, some investigation they did. Some of you even declaring not even going NVidia ever again because of it, LOL. As if no other GPU company has ever had a problem or will.

[zanzabar]

lol, this thread should be called "we hate Nvidia, do you?" All this Nvidia banter, and over what? an 8600m that may be affected, some investigation they did. Some of you even declaring not even going NVidia ever again because of it, LOL. As if no other GPU company has ever had a problem or will.

its more than the 8600gt, its all 8700 and lower, and for a business grade product having more than a few failures in the 1st few years cant be tolerated, and having the gpu maker say one thing then keep expanding the defective parts as they die is a bad idea. from what ive been seeing the failures are from high temps (80c+) and in a laptop thats unreasonably low for the wattage that the 8700 and lower use especially if that means that the cooling was underspecified

[metro.cl]

Wasn't this obvious? if the chips had "issues" why wouldn't apple be affected?

[T_Flight]

damn NVidia... I have a notebook from asus dated Dec-07. It uses a 8400GM. Its working fine right now, but anyday at anytime its possible to have a gpu failure... thats not good at all....

no more nvidia!

WOW! So you haven't had any problems yet your bailing?

Using that logic you should never use a computer again because it might fail at anytime. No more Intel, no more AMD, no more Asus, no more PC's, and no more notebooks. That'll fix 'em!

[RaZz!]

lol, this thread should be called "we hate Nvidia, do you?" All this Nvidia banter, and over what? an 8600m that may be affected, some investigation they did. Some of you even declaring not even going NVidia ever again because of it, LOL. As if no other GPU company has ever had a problem or will.

indeed. i really don't like all that bashing nowdays. seems like all the amd phenom bashers do the same but this time on nvidia instead.

[zanzabar]

think of the 680i, i would consider this the same, once u use it for so long it will fail at the temps that its cooling puts it to, but then there are some good ones


and having a high death rate is never good, the phenom dosnt perform as well as the intel on integer performance it dosnt break (crashed with the TLB in specific cases but they dont break)

[Reinvented]

I just recently purchased a MacBook Pro a few weeks back, and it's worked well. Configured nicely, and I even bought some extra RAM and gave it 4GB's. Very nice.

But, as I look a bit more on the apple discussion forums, there are quite a few people that do have problems. But again, when people would post problems, it's very unclear how heavy their usage is and/or was.

For me, I'll play an occasional game of Warcraft 3, or even watch a lot of videos. At certain times, and under those conditions, it seems as if the fan to cool the GPU and CPU, doesn't really do it's job "well" enough. Yeah, that could be the problem. I think that's more likely than 2 million or more defective chips.

Not saying it's impossible, just a bit more likely that under certain conditions it's prone to fail more (ie those heavy uses). I will also say that it's not very acceptable, and I'm actually thinking about returning this one, and getting one of the new ones when they come out. Considering the fact, that it may be better. Yeah, it does worry me that my 2 grand investment may be defective, but at least Apple is making good on it. As far as Nvidia, I'll still use their products. Just not much faith in their mobile segment.

Edit: They even released a list of the specific products. So, I'm guessing ones like mine aren't affected, or have a chance of being affected.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377?viewlocale=en_US

[generics_user]

i recently rma'd my mums macbook pro, bad graphics, maybe because of these broken chips, luckilly you can extract the hardisk and put it into a macbook without any reinstalls needed with OSX until the RMA is done (and apple rma is really slow )

seriously if these chips don't run at 80C+ over long periouds of time they're a bad design because notebooks get very hot


next time nv better makes use of more robust packages like ati did

[G0ldBr1ck]

When AMD/ATI were looking to be in vary bad shape, I decided to support them by purchasing there products and recomending there products to customers because its in all of our best intrest to keep them in play. I know allot of others did the same, im thinking now its time to support the green team again. Saying that your not gonna buy NV because they are having problems is only hurting them further. Its up to us the "informed consumer" to look past our brand favoritism and give our support where its needed.

Im guilty of bashing NV for things they are doing that seems like they are trying to pull one over on us but its starting to look like they are just doing every thing they can to keep some good products on the market, things are looking a bit grim for NV and now with Intel jumping on the bandwagon it could get allot worse.

[YukonTrooper]

indeed. i really don't like all that bashing nowdays. seems like all the amd phenom bashers do the same but this time on nvidia instead.

I think it's OK to bash, as long as it's justified and within context, and as long as people don't start flinging internet fireballs at each other; although, many people do. Fortunately, most of them are 16-year-old fanboys engaged in a never ending piss war, and the rest of us with our heads screwed on properly don't have to worry about it.

It's OK to bash Phenom like an unloved, redheaded stepchild, because it's the most ungifted piece of crap that has ever crawled out of AMD's vagina.

[safan80]

Poor NV just cant catch a break lately. You got to wonder thow if the Mac's are actualy failing at a unusual rate or if Apple is just taking advantage of the curent problem and pointing fingers at normal failure rates.

they did it to themselves.

[JumpingJack]

Poor NV just cant catch a break lately. You got to wonder thow if the Mac's are actualy failing at a unusual rate or if Apple is just taking advantage of the curent problem and pointing fingers at normal failure rates.

Don't feel to sorry for them ... their plight is of their own making.

[Sr7]

How clueless do you have to be to sit there and say "OMG NV needs to handle this!"

It IS handled. THEY announced the problem, and took responsibility. They took the charge to fix YOUR laptops if they go bad. They're not denying anything.. Has anyone figured out this isn't a conspiracy yet? No one is denying the problem.. it's just that it's already handled via support via replacement, no questions asked.

Do you really believe NVIDIA wouldn't release the info of affected chips? It's the OEMs who don't want affected chips to be named, and want the ability to announce their products that are affected on their own.

Ya, I'm sure NVIDIA is hiding all this info from the OEMs and risking every future design win they could get from them..