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Oct 19, 2011 12:39 PM in response to Pennisiby y2kiddo,YAY! I'm glad I could help to save even one person.
Don't be offended...that is just GREAT customer service..."the customer is always right", "err on the side of caution", and all those good sayings. All you people who have been badmouthing Apple, this story is a testament to Apple's good will.
RIP Steve.
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Oct 19, 2011 1:41 PM in response to y2kiddoby deborah16,Well, what a surprise! Apple reports 85% growth for the year ending 24 September.
Strange then that many Macbook pro owners have been voicing their anger on Apples
support communities for many months regarding problems with their Macbook Pros purchased during 2010 and early 2011. These concerns have been totally ignored by Apple and owners have been frustrated and left wondering why Apple have not acknowleged that there is a problem with these Macbooks. How convenient then that on 12 October Apple released an Article MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010): Intermittent black screen or loss of video
Last Modified: 12 October, 2011
Article: TS4086


Symptoms
Apple has determined that a small number of MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010) computers may intermittently stop displaying video on the built-in display or on an external display connected to the MacBook Pro. In this situation, you may also see a restart warning message before the video is lost or the display turns black or gray. Affected computers were manufactured between April 2010 and February 2011.
Products Affected
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010)
Resolution
Apple is aware of the issue and is working on a solution. Keep your software up-to-date using Software Update -
Oct 19, 2011 1:53 PM in response to deborah16by Keith Walsh,With so many of the 2007 MBP's having graphic chip/logic board problems it's disconcerting to hear of similar isues with new machines. I would have hoped that these problems could get sorted out by now. That said the 2005 era iMac's also had tons of similar issues that were never sorted. (we recently also sent in a 24" intel iMac to have its graphic card replaced due to system freezing).
3 of the last 4 macs we have bought have all had to have their graphic cards and/or logic boards replaced.
I'm not sure what is going on with graphic chips these days. Do they just run too hot?
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Oct 19, 2011 3:29 PM in response to Keith Walshby y2kiddo,I'm not so sure this is a graphic card issue. I watched while a friend's MBP did this. It looked like a kernel panic...but no telling what caused it and Apple isn't saying yet.
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Oct 21, 2011 11:18 AM in response to sreenivasby rosss30,Just got off the phone with the service center they sent it to, and I'll be getting my dead MBP (late 2007 -- about three weeks shy of their four-year cutoff, 2.4GHz) back without being fixed, and $50 poorer for the privilege. Yay.
Same symptoms as lots of folks, machine got hot, crazy scrambled video, then just kind of died. Would power up but the screen would be all checkerboards/stripes and wouldn't finish booting. Took it to my local mac store, they couldn't figure out what was going on with it, and seemed only vaguely familiar with the "nVidia problem."
Here's the initial report from the technician:
verified video distortion and freezing while playing videos. faulty logic board. ran the NVIDIA GPU test all night, starting immediately after the unit froze while playing videos. unit passed the test and continued passing the test all night. problem is unrelated to the NVIDIA failure.
I asked them about it when I talked to them, specifically if they could get it to boot, and he said "yeah, if he could run the test, it booted" which is just bizarre, if they could get it to boot, but still diagnosed a logic board failure. I'll have to play with it when it comes back and see if I can eek anymore life out of it. It would be great to be able to de-register some of the software licenses off of it so I could use them on other machines. Thankfully I already had a fresh backup of the machine.
This is quite unfortunate, and is the last Apple product I'll buy, after a long history of good luck with their recent products (pre-intel iMac, new iMac, Mac Pro, iPods, etc., I even had a NEXT cube back in the day). Even if they had fixed this unit, my confidence in their build quality, quality control, and support response is shot.
Their support staff has been mostly friendly, but didn't seem particularly knowledgable of the history of the problem (or wouldn't admit it), and are pretty dismissive of the whole thing. They mostly wanted to get rid of me and weren't interested in listening to any arguments from me about the issue.
Evidently I could get the machine fixed for $385, here's their second reply:
flat-rate mail-in cost is $385. this is less than the cost of the logic board alone and will cover any hardware that needs to be replaced. need approval to facilitate repair.
I appreciate that is cheaper than the $900 logic board replacement, but it's still same price I can buy a brand new Thinkpad SL410 for (and I have a few 5-10 year old Thinkpads that are still running just fine). Heck, I can do most of what I used the MBP for with one of the new netbooks that are even cheaper and super light. Why would I pay that kind of money for a machine that's going to break again immediately? The contact I talked to acted a bit offended that I didn't think this was the greatest deal in the world either. Whatever.
This has been a really unfortunate experience for me, and I'll now not be able to recommend in good conscience replacing our aging Windows machines here at work with macs like I had hoped. I hope their desktop systems are better quality and the top-of-the-line 2 year old Mac Pro sitting on my desk that I'm typing this on right now continues to work. -
Oct 24, 2011 9:25 AM in response to sreenivasby eduardofromtempe,Not a Mac user only Windows PC user but my nephew came back from Iraq where he bought this Mac on the base. I work on laptops just for friends and of course family, so first time looking at Macbook Pro. No video, no indications at all, so after pulling the logic board noticed Nvidia Graphic IC. Not a big fan of Nvidia, they tend to have heat issues with their product. Try to avoid them as much as possible. Anyway, sorry for the rant. I had a professional rework the board Nvidia IC, he reflowed the chip using a hot air rework station equipment.
It didn't fix it, still has a boot issue. I get no power on LED, no display. I do hear the hard drive spinning and the board gets warm so there is power going to the board. Not familiar enough with these boards to determine the cause. This design is so much more difficult to troubleshoot. I work on high end satellite commincation equipment at the manufacture level, even our designs are not a difficult to work on. I understand Apple is a leader in push'in technology but how much is it taking advantage of the populous for profit.
Does anyone have an idea on resurrecting this Macbook Pro.
Thanks!
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Oct 24, 2011 9:34 AM in response to eduardofromtempeby y2kiddo,Here's a link where apple explains what to do if you had this problem:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377
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partial quote from the article
If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within four years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.
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
Apple is issuing refunds to customers who may have paid for repairs related to this issue. Please contact Apple for details on the refund process.
- MacBook Pro 15-inch and 17-inch models with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processors
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Nov 14, 2011 2:38 PM in response to Peter Thorn1by jordanfrommoncton,They test with an external hdd
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Nov 15, 2011 10:33 AM in response to sreenivasby chrispy@mac.com,Is anybody still getting their MBP's fixed through Apple for free?
My MBP 15in is over 4 years old and just started doing this 4-5 months ago and now finally is stuck on the black screen of death. Took it to a genius bar yesterday and they verified I'm having the nvidia issue, but because I'm outside the 3 year window they'd have to charge me to fix it ($310). I declined as I wanted to see if it worked with an external monitor..it didn't..so I'm taking it again this afternoon and gonna try and speak to a supervisor (and show them all this info) and then I guess I'll try corporate.
So again, anybody been successful getting a free repair outside the 3 year window?
PS: I'm also trying the quilt suggestion from iFixit and will know in a few hours if it worked.
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Nov 15, 2011 10:49 AM in response to chrispy@mac.comby y2kiddo,chrispy, if you go to my previous posts, you will find the link to apple's page that explains the terms of fixing this nvidia issue...there is a 4 year window from purchase date, due to the class action suit. after that, apple wouldn't be able to get reimbursed from nvidia so you are probably out of luck.
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Nov 15, 2011 11:31 AM in response to y2kiddoby chrispy@mac.com,Sorry, I meant to say 4 year window, which I was outside of (I think I purchased in Aug 2007). I'm still gonna try and talk them into it and see what they say. Thx!
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Nov 15, 2011 12:41 PM in response to chrispy@mac.comby y2kiddo,well, if you have a broken logic board/chip and they won't fix it...here's a last resort:
MBP A1226 Logic Board last resort fix for nVidia video chip
http://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/9045/MBP+A1226+Logic+Board+last+resort+fix+fo r+nVidia+video+chip
which I am not endorsing, since I haven't tried it...but it might work and what have you got to lose?
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Nov 15, 2011 1:01 PM in response to y2kiddoby chrispy@mac.com,That's the same link I put in my "quilt suggestion" link above.
Try #1 for ~2hrs did not work. For a couple of people it took several tries so I'm trying it again. Fingers crossed.
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Nov 15, 2011 1:08 PM in response to chrispy@mac.comby y2kiddo,chrispy, sorry, I didn't realize that link was in your previous post...looks like you are ahead of me!