Q: display anomalies

Just want to add my name to the ever-growing list of people with the ATI Radeon X1600 display /crashing problems. How frustrating. I've owned Macs since I bought an LC in the early 90s. My dad had a //e when I was in high school. We also have 2 iMacs in our house right now. This issue actually has me rethinking my allegiance to Apple after 25 years... Sad.

I spent the last two hours:

- Calling Apple to no avail (Out of waranty, nothing we can do, we know the issue, sorry)
- Dissasemble my MBP, clean out old therman crease, replace with new one.
- Making space in my freezer
- Nesting my MBP in the freezer
- Formating the HD, installing Mac OS 10.4 from the DVD that came with the MBP back in summer 2006, NOT installing any updates so far.
- Installing smcfancontrol first thing after OSX bootet.
- Monitoring idle temp

- Waiting for the first crash .... god knows how long that's gonna last

I'm not sure it's luck or what. So far my MBP did not crash/ show anomalies. The coin I use is not copper. I just want something solid to press the chip. Test I've run so far are CineBench R10, Quicktime10 with 720p trailer loop, also been using the unit for browsing whole day. I will run 1080p MKV movie on Plex later when I settle my work. So far multiple shutdown, sleep/wake, restart no issue.

I kept SMC Fan Control at 3k RPM. Temperature highest is 65˚C. I'm located in Malaysia.

I'll post some screen later.

Keep at it LX97....at least you got a recognition of the problem. I never did yet I am now enjoying my new Macbook pro. Seriously, call back every week if necessary and speak to a Customer Care Administrator. Give your whole history.

Glad to hear hippo@wei, how often did you have the issue before hand? Mine can go a few days without a hitch then spend 20 mins screwing up and work fine again after that. Mind you, I have the Nvidia 8600M GT issue. Which do you have?

Can you run any recent games? Maybe a demo of one? Something to really test the thing.

Thanks for the update anyway, would be interested to see how you get on with the 1080p video.

interesting - the real test would be to turn off SMC Fan Control and stream some HD video from the net... for me that was a guaranteed a crash after about 20min max.
this has me thinking tho about using strips of copper sheet placed in between the GPU chip and the heat pipe - possibly there's not good contact between them - thermal paste might not be enough to transfer all the heat when it starts to get really hot down there...
just an idea.
b

Here's some screen when running some test:
Cinebench R10 rendering test
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2578/4071053505f967991d1cb.jpg

Dual screen, second screen is 40" samsung FullHD TV.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2774/40710564857b1a578c99b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2661/40710568299a92d61c25b.jpg
TV running 1080p MKV movie. Internal LCD running AVI in Quicktime X. Running for 2 hour no issue so far. Before this my screen will freeze as soon as it get stressed even just running iMac intro video at Apple.com.

I'm not here to please anyone. But I'm happy that my MBP works now, be it any reason that fix it.

Thanks for posting that, an awesome looking render too I might add Do you have the ATI chip or the Nvidia?

Looks like I might be trying this myself. I don't know if the pressure is keeping the BGA connection stable or if it's just effectively transferring the heat but it certainly seems to have worked for you so well done!

Yeah thanks Hippo' if this does work then we might have another way to prolong the use of our failed or failing Apple product... and whilst i share in the joy of someone being able to keep their MBP up and running, lets not forget the real issue here. The early MacBook Pro's with the ATI X1600 graphics chip are a poorly designed, poorly manufactured Apple product that uses mis-matched, sub-standard or wrongly configured components. This is not to mention the battery failures, power supply cord melt down, sub-quality LCDs etc. So lets not forget: http://www.sfmslaw.com/pages/cases.php?id=752

By the way... about what thickness is that Coin???

Cheers, John

I used a local currency 10cent coin. Diameter around 1.9CM, thickness about 1mm.

Until today it still boot up fine. For those who want to try, be warn that don't hold me for any damage done on your unit. I do have to force the screw back in, and bending to the logicboard to reach the screw hole due to the extra thickness.

Thanks for the technical specs on 'the coin'... i wonder if something just under the 1mm thinkness would be better, less stress on the logic board... may be Bennetvonbennet's idea of thin copper sheet cut to size...

Hey, may be we sould apply for jobs at Apple... designing the new MBP's!?!

John0

Oh, forgot to ask... what thermal paste did you use, Arctic Silver 5?

I just tried this and noticed the logic board flex. I then removed the coin and placed a small piece of copper I happened to have laying around on the heatsink and it still flexed. The piece of copper was only about 1mm.

Just to warn those thinking of trying this, when your logic board really heats up there's a possibility it'll start desoldering components and looking at the logic board there is a dense population of surface mount resisters and caps on there. Not good.

I'd also like to point out that my MBP has the Nvidia GPU which is known to have internal issues which I now believe to be the case, the ATI chips may well have the same issue but more likely a BGA solder problem.

There are services on ebay which resolder the GPU on a professional BGA rework station so I'd recommend ATI sufferers go that route if they get no joy from Apple, Nvidia users need not apply.

As for me, I guess I need to save up for a new logic board

Like I said, I might just be lucky.

The grease I use is from Cooler Master.

joel123

I was going to use these guys off ebay; they seem to know what they're doing. They said they have a 70% success rate on the ATI chip issue and they've isolated it to a solder/BGA issue.

http://computers.shop.ebay.ca/Computers-Networking-/58058/i.html

$300 if they can fix it. If they can't they will send your computer back. you just pay shipping.