Q: display anomalies

I am trying to find answers to why my MBP has started booting up with an alternating gray stripe, then migrates to various color changes and, finally after "warming up" starts displaying normally.

Do I have a screen problem or a video card problem?

You have what sounds like the exact same problem I have. You have the Nvidia 8600M GT GPU right?

If my MBP starts up from cold it takes a few attempts to get it running (alternating lines on the screen, blue/green/red casts, distorted boxes on screen) but once the GPU hits about 40C it runs ok, when it gets too hot the anomalies come back and in fact crash the machine.

In your case Apple will replace your machine with no questions asked (if you have the same model as me), see here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377

I am out of luck as my machine should have a 2.2ghz CPU yet I have a 2.4 so it's had a logic board swap at some point already. I am using SMCFan to try and control the temp and it seems to be running ok other than the startup problems, I've not done anything too strenuous with it though.

I just came off the phone with a very helpful and attentive german representative of Apple in Ireland, he confirmed that Apple is aware that certain problems with the X1600 driven MBP exist, however the amount of problems are not that high to justify a recall or extended repair program. Apple is reading this thread, all known problems will be forwarded to the respective engineers for further discussion.

Although he personaly is in the position to decide wether or not to give me a free repair, he apologized for not being able to do so as his hands are tied due to the fact that Apple simply is not acknowledging our MBP issue as a big enough problem.

My conclusion is that we are stuck here in a dead end as we simply would need more MBP X1600 users to report to apple before they can act.

Reading Cybermorphs post, I wonder who made the decision in his case based on what grounds? Obviously his MBP was as dead as all ours and though he was given a fresh new 2009 MBP, Obviuosly there's no consistency in Apples decisionmaking
... now with Apple upgrading their MBP range, let's hope that there is a slight chance some of the surplus (then old) 2009 MBPs will make it to us as a sign of courtesy ...

The main difference for me was that instead of speaking to a "product specialist" who are second in line and review these kinds of issues and relate them to Apple engineers, I spoke to a "customer relations" person....they come more from the customer service angle rather than the repair angle from what I understand. And for whatever reason this one (in the U.S.) looked at my repair history and determined that it was excessive. He wasn't concerned so much about all the technical side of things, but instead made a decision from a "customer relations" perspective. He was the first and only person in this department I have spoken to and the only one that provided success. Try calling back and asking your first contact person about putting you through to one of these types of people rather than a product specialist. Again be sure to email all info before hand. Don't know what else to say to help, except that it took me about the 5th call or so (and Im on my 2nd logic board which also had 2 fan replacements, and my keyboard replaced.) hope it helps and I really hope all you people with the same issue get this resolved.

Cybermorph,

What type of explanation/tactic/argument did you use when speaking with the customer service representative?

I too have a MacBook Pro with the ATI Radeon X1600 card and I am experiencing the same issues as everyone else in this thread. The logic board on my unit has already been replaced twice, along with the optical drive, bluetooth module, and two batteries. My unit is no longer under warranty. After speaking with multiple product specialists and a customer service representative, they keep repeating that they aren't aware of any issues with this card or product and don't have any record of anyone else having this issue. The best they said they could do 'as a courtesy' was cover the cost of the parts and I would have to cover the cost of labor for the repair. I replied I wasn't interested in a repair, as this has already been repaired twice and the issue will just happen again. I will be calling back. Thanks.

jdubphoto: sounds like you're having better luck than I initially had before this replacement....I even asked about a lower cost repair to no avail. But basically I guess I got a sympathetic first line agent who looked over my repair history as well as all the links to this site/other sites and the law firm litigation site (all available on this post) He thought it was excessive and I agreed that I knew it was out of warranty, but was just hoping something could be done to help me out without me having to pay for a replacement logic board (about thousands bucks) which would make no sense. I was polite but suggested I really didn't get much value for my $2400 purchase with all the problems I have had. I dropped the suggestion that even if I could get a repair at cost or something or a refurbished logic board or anything so that my MBP wouldn't become a very expensive brick.

He was sympathetic, suggested I talk to a customer relations person who might see about some way of resolving my frustration. That person came on also looked at the repair history (not sure if he looked at the web links or not) I gave him the same story, that I just wished there was something could be done to make the MBP usable as it was barely usable now...I was polite, said Apple has always been helpful, that I wished I had bought AppleCare but was talked out of it by friends who said I would never need it, and again the value I've gotten was limited was there anything, anything that could be done to help me. He went off for a few minutes, then came back with suggestion would I like a new one.

viola, hope it helps. Sounds like you have a really good case, more repairs than mine. I had been turned 4 or 5 times before and had even just called a couple weeks before. Just keep at it. Maybe call once a month and include attention to the links and note any additional people who have made postings on this site.

hope it helps
good luck

A modest proposal:

The complaint: My MBP is a couple of years old. It suffers a design defect exposed when the ATY video chip inevitably overheats (and it suffered another possibly contributing/triggering defect, the Chernobyl battery syndrome). Once triggered, the defect compromises fitness for use with increasing frequency/severity, including constant crashes + data loss (not just limited to the display artifacts which portend crashes).

Mitigation: Caveat emptor. We could claim reliance upon seductive advertising, but we didn't rush out to buy a Sham-Wow, we're acculturated to "advantageous presentation" i.e. corporate bovine excretia; our eyes were as open as our wallets. Moreover: we enjoyed SOME utility from MBPs, defects were not evident for a year or two from purchase. What's the depreciation curve on a notebook... 40% per year, realistically? So what's the true cost of a botched year 3/4/5 in a (generous) 5-year estimated lifetime... $1000, tops. A decent arbiter would ratchet that down for (partial) utility nevertheless enjoyed during the botch years.

Aggravating factors: the Khafkaesque pretense and imperious silence of Apple. Someone isn't getting it: I also purchased two MacBookAirs, a TimeCapsule, two AirPortExpresses, three iPhones, four iPods, countless iTunes, two years of MobileMe family-pack and I shudder to think of how much software (Apple: proof of purchase is available). I'd buy another MBP this afternoon if I wasn't put off by mismanagement of the issue at hand. The faithful are suffering doubt, yet Apple has the opportunity for revival via...

A reasonable remedy: Apple should
1. Acknowledge the issue and apologize for frustrations endured.
2. Value the spectacular customer loyalty implicit in this thread (all of us could have simply reverted to PCs and kept quiet).
3. Offer a time-limited voucher for $500 redeemable towards either repair or any Mac purchase, at owners' option (if a qualifying test is necessary, the defect is readily demonstrable in a LMIRescue remote session under marginal stress (watch a video, launch Google Earth, place a Skype call, open iPhoto; a less invasive option would be to exchange an emailed "About this Mac" snip for a reply-emailed voucher).

Calculaing the ratio of cost to goodwill so generated is left as an exercise for Apple. As risk/reward propositions go, I doubt there's competing development, advert, investment or acquisition opportunity that can compete with this one in respect of containable costs + instantaneity of certain benefits.

Or - leave the issue to fester, Blackberry/Dell/MS could use a break.

Schooner

I concur! Excellently written... but I don't think only a $500 credit for repair will be sufficient. Mine was suffering symptoms within the one year warranty, but I was encouraged to wait for system updates to help with the situation. Shortly after my one year warranty expired, it became more and more useless with artifacts, screen freezes and ultimately now just shuts off. It's now pretty much 100% worthless as it will not last around five minutes. I want a complete replacement or reasonable credit (much more than $500), especially since I've heard that repairs only give you the same faulty ATI GPU!

I'm totally with you above. My MBP is dead, useless alloy. The Apple Relations person told me, that he is really sorry, but they don't have enough records that would justify an extended repair. I missed to tell him I don't want a repair in this case: Last time I checked Repairs will improve things and make them working again ... not so in our case where we get replacement parts with the same faulty ATI gpu.
I mean, one of us having the problem is a single isolated case that can happen within the realm of possibilities. However nearly 100 of us (proactive users) sharing the freezing issues with the exact same symptoms is fact enough that this is a design flaw (even more so if you can exactly replicate the problem after a repair) this should be sign enough for both apple and lawyers.
So it seems we are totaly stuck here: The only way forward we have is paying for a repair as all our MBPs are way out of waranty, however:
- As mentioned above, a repair program with a replacement of the same faulty parts is a logical no-go as it simply does not help due to the fact that it is a design flaw: Dozens of users keep reporting about consistently identical symptoms and errors even after repair, so I allow myself to call this a design flaw what it obviously is for known reasons.

- If I dropped the MBP, fair deal: My fault, I pay for repair. If I scratched the screen, I pay for repair, my fault. usual car maintenance: I pay. But why should I pay for something that is solely ATIs fault? Another logical no-go here.

Even if I'm totally desperate and would cover the costs myself a repair just won't help as we simply get the same faulty parts installed! THIS is the Main issue her

What is the solution here?? I don't blame apple, I don't curse neither do I shout. I simply want a working MBP for wich I paid 2000$ three years ago. I expect apple notebooks to work longer than that.

So, what are we up to?

- Not repairing our MBP will leave us with a mostly dead block of alloy.
- A repair will not get us a working MBP, even if we pay for it
- As there's no solution, we obviously have to accept our fate.

so the only logical solution is a replacement, however, this is nothing Apple is considering (one exception) .... Checkmate!

LX97 not sure what you mean by "replacement parts" as the only replacement authorized by Apple is a new Logic Board and I think you can get a newer one without this ATI chip. That should work.

But there is a site on ebay that has 70% success rate on these chips. I've posted link earlier. They charge $300. I was going to send mine there before I finally got a replacement from Apple.

cybermorph wrote:
LX97 not sure what you mean by "replacement parts" as the only replacement authorized by Apple is a new Logic Board and I think you can get a newer one without this ATI chip. That should work.

<snip>

@cybermorph: i'm 99% certain that is incorrect. i believe the logicboards are not interchangeable... can anyone confirm or deny? i don't have time to look it up - but i seem to remember that the ATI MBP's were all Core Duo whereas the nVidia ones and after were all Core 2 Duo's - and those logicboards are definitely not interchangeable. at least according to Apple.

Does anyone here have any ins with the media industry? Even technology blogs or anything of the sort? My hope is to shine some media attention on this obvious violation of consumer rights. Maybe if we get this story boiling in the media spotlight, Apple will be more inclined to help us. E-mail me at arctictheory@gmail.com if you can provide any help in the matter.

bennettvonbennett wrote:

cybermorph wrote:
LX97 not sure what you mean by "replacement parts" as the only replacement authorized by Apple is a new Logic Board and I think you can get a newer one without this ATI chip. That should work.

<snip>

@cybermorph: i'm 99% certain that is incorrect. i believe the logicboards are not interchangeable... can anyone confirm or deny? i don't have time to look it up - but i seem to remember that the ATI MBP's were all Core Duo whereas the nVidia ones and after were all Core 2 Duo's - and those logicboards are definitely not interchangeable. at least according to Apple.

This is correct. I inquired and Apple reps confirmed that there's no possibility of upgrading our faulty ATI gpu MBPs with the Nvidia logicboard ... so we are stuck!
I want what I paid for in 2006, a working MacBook Pro, I'm not accepting mine to simply die with no possibility of making it work again. This is a clear legal case for both Law firms and any Better Business Bureau.

Soon Apple is having hundreds of 2008 MacBook Pros in stock after the current range upgrade, so why not give some of them to the 100 most persistant of us and avoid having both a class act and bad publicity if we intent on going more public.

Again, I don't blame a large corp like Apple to stick to their books and wait for the case to grow before they react and acknowledge something, seems like we know more in this regard than them. I just want them to wake up and do something in our favour .. it could be so easy and yet the chain of commands seems to hamper them from making decissions in our customers favour.

I'm glad to see everyone here isn't giving up on this issue. After spending hours and hours on the phone with a number of product specialists and customer service specialists at Apple, the reply I got over and over was that Apple is unaware of this issue and don't have a high enough number of documented cases to consider it a legitimate issue at this time. Whether or not that is actually the case, who knows. But I do suggest that every person that is experiencing this issue to take their MacBook Pro into Apple, or even better, an outside certified Apple repair center and have it tested so that you have verifiable proof that you indeed have an issue with the video card, video chip, and or logic board. And then file a case with Apple and get a case number. There's certainly no chance Apple is going to do anything if it's just a bunch people saying that they have the same problem if it's not actually diagnosed and documented.
And when I spoke with product specialists, customer service, etc. I brought up this discussion board and a number of other forums and offered to send links, but none of them had any interest and replied that this discussion board or any mention of this issue existing on the internet would not be considered proof that an issue actually exists.