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NVIDIA GeForce 8600M and 2007-08 MacBook Pro Saga

September 10th, 2009
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The video card in my MacBook Pro died, and I mean dead! But it wasn’t due to anything out of the ordinary on my behalf. Although, I have been doing a great deal of video editing.

On Tuesday at 3:36am, after spending the whole night editing a lot of video footage and doing a little graphic animation, I finally resigned to take myself to bed. I shut down my laptop as usual and placed it in its carrying case. Later that same morning at about 7:40am I arrived to work and set my computer out and turned it on (black screen). My adrenaline kicks in and my heart literally goes from 0 to 60 in all of a few seconds, so to speak. All I could think was, “Work goshdarnit, work!!” as if shouting, “Don’t you die on me!” Anyway, I put my ear to the machine and could hear it functioning and booting as usual.

In a panic I rushed to a co-worker’s classroom to borrow a dongle to see if maybe my laptop got confused and didn’t come out of the secondary display mode or something–it didn’t work. Neither my laptop screen nor the secondary display showed an image or any sign of illumination. I flew, or so it seemed, to see an on-site technician and he concluded that my video card may have gone kaput. “Kaput” echoed in my mind and I imagined an Apple Genius saying…

No Warranty!

Back in my classroom, I plug an ethernet cable into my MacBook and my MacBook Pro and opened Screen Sharing to see if the rest of the computer is, in fact, okay, and it was.

Fast-forward to that evening and I’m on the internet feverishly typing all kinds of combinations of search terms: Black screen, gpu, macbook pro, external display, snow leopard, firmware, you name it. When I was about to quit my searching and give up on finding any other possible fix that didn’t bring me to believe my video card died, I came across this in my final search:

MacBook Pro: Distorted video or no video issues
Last Modified: May 29, 2009
Article: TS2377

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. If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within three years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

What to look for:

  • Distorted or scrambled video on the computer screen
  • No video on the computer screen (or external display) even though the computer is on

Specific products affected:

  • MacBook Pro 15-inch and 17-inch models with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processors
  • MacBook Pro (17-Inch, 2.4GHz)
  • MacBook Pro (15-Inch, 2.4/2.2GHz)
  • MacBook Pro (Early 2008)

These computers were manufactured between approximately May 2007 and September 2008

One can only imagine that I literally leapt for joy after reading through this article, especially since I have no Apple Protection Plan and my laptop is well beyond it’s 1-year warranty.

I called Apple support, in spite of not having complimentary phone support, and confirmed the authority of the article. Yes, it is an official apple.com article, but I had to be sure. I spoke with two people, the second of which patiently and kindly asked very pertinent questions about my computer’s technical symptoms and agreed that it meets the criteria of the article. A box is being mailed to me and if all my detective work is confirmed, it will be fixed, FREE-OF-CHARGE!

But even after all this I wasn’t absolutely sure that my MacBook Pro is suffering from the symptoms outlined in the article above. So I made sure to look up my computer’s specific make and generation to see if it does have the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M graphics processor. It in fact falls into the category of MacBook Pros that were shipped with the faulty NVIDIA graphics processor. But more importantly, I went back into the Screen Sharing application through my MacBook to try to launch Final Cut, and a window immediately popped up saying to some effect–I can’t remember–that I need to have a video card or processor of some sort to run Final Cut.

For now I am calm and somewhat relieved, but still anxious.

So stay tuned and I’ll keep you updated on what is up with this whole repair and it’s process. *crossing fingers*

Stay synced!

Apple, Tech, Video Editing , , , , , , , ,

  • Aimee
    Same problem, same model. Working late in CS3, shut down, then the next morning, without warning, no display on screen or external monitor. Sounds of life from within, so it had to be the graphics card. The guy at the genius bar told me that they couldn't just swap it out because it was integrated, so they would have to replace the entire motherboard. Mine was shipped out last Wednesday, and its status is also "waiting for part."
  • Aimee
    Edited to add: The genius also told me 5 days, which I think is their standard reply. (Overnight to the TX repair facility, 1-2 days diagnosis & repair, overnight back to MA.) It's now been 5 business days, but it looks like I need to settle in for a longer wait.

    I did have them image my hard drive before they shipped it from the store. That $150 makes the $300 time machine look like a good investment. (But that ball is in my employer's court.) At least I'd backed up my base files, if not all of my links/packages, so I can work on a colleague's iMac on a few of my projects.
  • About the Time Machine. Yes! It's a worthwhile investment. Not only does it regularly back up your Mac, it allows you to literally go back in time and select files from previous backups that you may have since deleted or modified. When ever you may have the moolah to spend on it, I would highly recommend it.

    Thanks so much for your feedback on this. I was wondering if there were more people out there with the same issue, and now I know. So I'm glad I could help!

    -David
  • Same exact thing to the "t" indeed! In fact, It took approximately two weeks as of yesterday for ship off, repair, delay for parts, and ship back. I certainly hope it won't take that long for you because I was beginning to feel the hurt in my projects by the end of the first week of waiting. So I'm hoping for a speedy return of your Mac! :)
  • stuthompson
    Hi,

    Where are you on this?

    I'm having problems with my MBP (same specs as yours). Although my problems are different issues than yours (namely no video on second monitor), and I can live with them for now, it is a concern. I do lots of GPU-heavy tasks and am nervous this will push the apparently fragile nVidia chip over the edge. Then, I'd lose my Mac for an extended period. Worse than no Internet!!!

    So, I was thinking of getting my MBP into the shop before disaster strikes, as it is demonstratively defective.

    How long will the repair take? Do they actually replace the chip? Or??? Anything else interesting to report?

    tia,

    Stu
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