Black screen. NVIDIA 8600M graphics card failure?

Hello,
You should call apple as soon as possible. I often heard from people that they got their Mac repaired at no cost if they were out of warranty a couple of days.

Lucky you.

I too am that lucky. No less then a month before my warranty goes out, I too have got this problem. With all the Googling I have done, I have concluded that it is in fact the Nvidia cards. And it's not limited to yours and mine 8600, but every other card they have made. Even the newest ones I suspect.

Thankfully I got this problem before it goes out. Will be taking it to Apple promptly tomorrow morning to get it fixed, and by AppleCare!

kevjmo wrote:


Rumors are that NVIDIA had known about this problem for quite some time and had done nothing about it. Apple should end their relationship with this company over this unless NVIDIA offers to replace my video card at no cost. I would like to see this problem resolved quickly.

If you bought a MacBook Pro at around June/July 2007 then this problem will most likely be yours as well.

Actually this is not really my problem, but my husband has one of the MBP first generation Santa Rosa with a Ge Force 8600M card and I believe it is starting to fail. I bought my husband a Samsung 245T monitor and hooked it up to his MBP - it worked just fine, but after an hour the monitor was going black then coming back on intermittently for about 15 minutes, then it was fine again for around another hour before black screening again. I have never had a graphics card die on me before so I'm unsure if this is one of the symptoms.

I hooked my MBP (with the Radeon x1600) and I've been sitting in front of it for around 7 hours today and it hasn't blacked out once, leading me to believe that perhaps it's a problem with his card. Also, I am using all the same cables etc., as my husband's set up, except I'm not using his Apple bluetooth keyboard.

When using the screen on his MBP there are no black outs, it's only happening when the external screen is hooked up. Initially I thought it was a problem with the screen, but my MBP works just fine with it.

What do you think? Should we take his MBP to have it looked at or wait until the screen goes? We have Applecare.

It sure sounds like I'm having the same problem.

white power light, optical drive, and fan all go on.
Nothing from the screen, and no startup sound (but I think it was muted when it went to sleep last)

tried:
zapping the PRAM and SMC, no change
starting from install disk, spins disk but no other change and now I can't eject disk
attaching external monitor via DVI port, no video output

Mine is a May 2007 macbook with OSX 10.4.11. I'm still under Applecare, so if it's a fried logic board, I should be ok, but sounds like it could also be the graphics card.

If anyone has resolved this issue, please post.
Thanks

akshauer,

GPU is located on the logicboard. so if they need to replace the logicboard, the GPU will get replaced as well.

Im was/am experiencing similar issues with a MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, NVidia GeForce 8600M GT. Purchased 7/27/07

Screen went black a week ago. Boots fine, except the screen is black. DVI out doesn't work either. I took it to Apple, and they are replacing the part, I assume a faulty NVidia video card(the replacement part is probably an entire logic board), but while the part is on order, since all of my work is on the computer, I took the MacBook Pro home....naturally I continued to mess with it, in complete denial that I'd have to let it leave my side for at least 2 days in repair....

This somehow worked....don't know if it's a permanent solution..... and just to be safe, I am still bringing the MBP back in to the mac store once the new logic board arrives, but thought I'd share....

On my other working mac, I downloaded 9f23 nvidia video drivers install on the nvinstaller.com downloads page....target firewired my faulty MBP to a working mac(hold 't' at boot)....ran the 9f23 installer and selected "choose different install location", and chose my mounted firewired MBP hard drive. After the install was complete, I rebooted my MacBook Pro and wow it works! I'm not sure this is a permanent fix, but I thought it interesting that with supposedly faulty hardware I was able to jump start it with a software tweak. I wonder if these MBP video card failures could have been prevented and can be stopped by a simple software update to the drivers? Can anyone else experiencing the issue with a MacBook Pro/NVidia 8600M confirm this fixes it?

Hi, I had the same exact problem: no video after going to sleep. I tried your fix, installed the Nvidia drivers via Firewire and the display worked right after rebooting! But then I did one last test, meaning I closed the lid and reopened it: no video at all. I rebooted with no luck. I even reinstalled the drivers, but it did not help much. I am wondering if I should reinstall Mac OS because it may be a software problem, and the nearest Apple Store is 1h30 away...

Anyone know what GPU they are replacing the bad ones with? Mine is getting repaired at apples repair center and will be back to me in 7-10 days. Do they replace them with the newer version or are they using some kind of a revision of this GPU?

OK same here.....my fix only worked temporary. But now I have permanent video, rolling back to Leopard 10.5.4. You need video to reinstall the OS so use the firewire trick to get the video kickstarted. Insert the OS CD and boot from CD by holding 'c'......I did not do a clean install...just archived and reinstalled Leopard 10.5.0 and downloaded the 10.5.4 Combo. But do we get the Logic board replaced anyway??? I think Im going to drop mine off over the weekend.

My Macbook Pro has been experiencing graphics issues for the past couple of days. I ran the apple hardware test and it said that there are errors with my video controller, so that means that my nvidia graphics chip is also defective.

Fortunately, there is an Apple knowledge base article about the issue:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377

From the article:
"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. These computers were manufactured between approximately May 2007 and September 2008."

I am experiencing the same problems as you guys, I have spent hours on the phone to technical support et all and finaly got to talk to someone who understands the seriousness of this.

I bought this computer because of its pro tag, Its expensive concidering the hardware involved so it natural to assume you are paying for quality. Turns out not so. My Macbook pro is a refirb and as such should have had any hardware problems like this resolved alread, at least according to apple themselves: "Each Apple Certified Refurbished Product: Each Apple Certified Refurbished Product:

is fully tested (including full burn-in testing).
is refurbished with replacement parts for any defective modules identified in testing. "

How can my Nvida product pass these tests.

Oh by the way Apple are still selling MBP's with this Graphics card!

http://store.apple.com/ie/product/G0F28B/A?mco=MjE0NjE5MA

This one is gonna run and run and could get ugly when people start to pass thqt 2 year mark.

My MBP has seemingly now fallen victim to the NVIDIA 8600m graphics card failure as although the machine boots and I can log in, the screen is black and and does not illuminate. I've connected my MBP to another monitor and nothing. As the graphics card is gone would I be able to view my desktop if i used a VNC client such as 'Chicken of the VNC'? - Would just need to figure how to turn on Remote desktop by using a combination of spotlight, key tabs, returns and the space bar etc. Any suggestions. How could this be achieved in 'Terminal'?

Since my previous laptop was stolen I have enabled an 'open firmware password' so cannot get to my Hard Drive using 'Target disk mode', or can I?

I would like to create one last 'Time Machine' back up before sending my MBP to be repaired, but time machine is turned Off. Any suggestions on how to turn 'Time Machine' on to create a back up? Remember I can not seen the screen.

Thanks

To the last poster, On one of the other discussion pages about this (there are a lot) someone mentioned using a function of speech to help guide them through the menus.

Apparently the computer is functioning fine so if you enter your passwords etc you should be able to use keyboard shortcuts and fn keys (i dont know how but this guy said he did it) to activate a speach program that you can use to access the nessesary settings. ie turn off all passwords/securities. Then you can do a t boot.

Hope this helps sorry if its not specific enough.