ATI Radeon X1600 GPU problem

Yes, I'm in the UK, but no I hadn't thought of that as an approach. Thankfully I've not had anyone I'd reccomend a Mac to have theirs dies yet, but I'm getting very used to hearing "but I thought Macs were supposed to be reliable...?"

What does the Sale of Goods act say?

Hi James,

The Sales of Good Act can be a help to UK customers as something that is expensive should be expected to last a reasonable amount of time and be durable. At the same time though its a bit ambiguous in its wording. So for the price I paid for the mabook Pro at nearly 2000 GBP I would expect the Mac to last somewhere in the rgion of 10 yrs as that is reasonable considering the price. had it been 100 GBP then 2 yrs could be interpreted as being reasonable. Thats why I think its reasonable that the MBP should have lasted longer than 5yrs 8mths. Apple would argue differently of course. There is the option of going to court but it can be a long drawn out process. My other arguement is that it is not reasonable to charge a customer 400 quid for a piece of electronics thats 6 yrs out of date. This is the problem with Apple. they dont stand by their hardware in the same respect as say the German company Miele do. I can buy a Miele washing machine and it be guaranteed to work for at least 15-20 years. Now thats standing by your product becuase they charge slightly more for it but honour the expensive price tag. Apple over the years seem to have forgone QA in favour of those billions of dollars profit.

James Ive included a link for more info on SOGA 1979

SOGA 1979

Would be very interested to hear from anyone that has used it successfully.

Just another point if Apple offered replacements for the nVidia problem then its only right they offer the same for the ATI issue. As it i very clear that it is an issue.

Hello. This is Carl... originally from Austin, TX when I bought my laptop, and I have the ATI Radeon. But I have the SAME heat-related problem as the rest of you. I'm really upset as well. Now I live in the SF Bay Area, not far from Cupertino, where the mothership is based for Apple. I'd LOVE to shout my feelings through their halls of my displeasure with that failure.

I own THREE MACBOOK laptops. 2 PRO's.. The one exhibiting the problem is the 17" all-silver model.. I HAD a big fat, high res monitor attached for the ATI to drive off computer; but NOPE... Now it's just a dust collector.

I noticed if I turn down the intensity to the LOWEST or next-to-lowest setting, it will hum along without locking up. But you can BARELY see it... Grrrrrrrrrr.... This stinks.

I have more than one ex-coworker that works for Apple, in both hardware and software, and It sounds like a weird place to work. Maybe that explains why they're so out of touch with accountability. i.e. A team of 5 people, where only 2 can talk about their work to each other, but not the other three... Well that's an internal communication problem, IMHO... So, you could extrapolate out that, they may have issues within similar on a larger scale... or worse.

Best of Luck to us all...

Regards,

Carl

Particularly given that the £400 you'd be paying for six year old equipment would be susceptible to the same fault. I don't have the money or time to put lots into any kind of legal effort, but I'd happily contribute what I can if it can be done collectively. My MacBook Pro is effectively now just a jukebox. It's holding an iTunes library that's too big for the old PowerBook I've managed to borrow in the mean time. The driver solution in this thread stops it crashing, but the lines on the screen make it completely unusable for anything else.

hi

i own mbp with ati x1600 128mb graphic card in it. its 2007 core2duo version.

sorry to hear your story, mine goes 5 years with little trouble.

battery needs replacing, superdrive wont install fable 2 game cuz it has 4 cds. but other than that, everything works perfectly.

I upgraded the ram to 3GB, and installed Lion. operate smoothly.

Good for you. That sounds like about the same model as mine, only mine's 256MB. I was very pleased with it until this issue arose (which was well under five years in my case). Apple had replaced both the battery and mains adapator under warrentee. And, obviously, I accept that in some cases things go wrong with electronics. But I think there's enough in this thread and elsewhere on the Internet to show that this is a broader problem. It might not develop in every machine they made, but it seems common enough that it could be called a general fault with the model.

Apple made it very difficult for me to login... refused to reset my account told me my own birthday was wrong, and never sent any reset email... what retards.

anyways. i have been re-flowing X1600's and have reballed a few. i usually do Nvidia reballing so its not new for me. just more difficult as this chip is larger.

i can be contacted at 760-399-0101 my name is justin and i work in desert hot springs california so it would need to be shipped there. i would charge 140 if an apple with this issue walked into my shop door but ill work on pricing with you because i know shipping isnt cheap. im thinking about $80 - 100 usd. as of now im getting 80% with reballing success. turnaround time is about a week, as i want to fully test it, and doing the work itself can be timeconsuming aswell apple puts a alot of screws and assembly/dis-assenbly is timeconsuming. also sometimes the chip gets fried and needs replacing.. i ordered an extra one to have onhand but its coming from china 😟

desktops having the x1600 have the same problems as the laptops. i recently got one in that had some nice artifacting and odd triangles of gray on the desktop.

I too can be added to the list. I have a MacBook Pro A1211 Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz with 128 MB VRAM, and the ATI chipset is exhibiting the scrambled video problem now too. This clearly is a defect in the manfacture of the machine when you look at how many people have developed this issue over time.

I own 20 brand new Macs for my business, and I am really dissapointed as of late in Apple's customer service. Apple really needs to wake up and address this before it becomes a big embarrassing issue.

Hi Shawn,

Yes it very much is a problem and a problem that Apple wont acknowledge Im afraid. This is pretty poor on Apples part and they should hang their heads in shame. They should be offering fixes instead of trying to rip of their cuatomers who purchased 2000+ dollar premium notebooks only to have them blow out after 4 years. Its unacceptable.

I took matters into my own hands and I have rebaked the logic board. There have been many successes of this on the net and Im hoping I can be added. You should google it and the process it involves. Basically stripping the logic board out and sticking it into an oven at 375 F or 190 C to reflow the solder. Dont be put off delving onto your Mac either. iFixit is your friend when it comes to repairing this! 🙂

I shall report back in the next few days to let you know of my success or failure. At the end of the day what have we got to lose?? Apple dont want to so we must help ourselves! Fingers crossed!

I think APPLE is awesome; and we should buy more computers from them; no matter what the consequences. I hope this is viewed as constructive. Let's see how long the posting lasts.

Hi all,

also just developed this issue on april 2007 macbook pro. Whats the best course of action. Lots of mention of removing ATI drivers earlier in the thread. Is this still thought of as a solution? Or are we stuck waiting for apple to acknowledge this or using the SOGA 1979 act in UK which has been mentioned??

Interesing that it happened on two machines manufactured in April of that time. Perhaps its something to do with that batch. First things first, I think it would behoove you to take it to the Apple store and see what they diagnose so it is recorded in their database. Second, removing the ATI drivers will leave you with a hobbled system that has very limited graphics capabilty (lower than a regular MacBook from the era).

Conversely, you can try baking your logic board, which has already been mentioned, but I doubt that would be a sanctioned remedy, nor is there any indication of whether it is entirely safe or if it will stand the test of time.

It's time for Apple to step up in this matter and issue a recall of all affected machines.

I will definitely go to the apple store to get an assessment.

Has nobody been to the small claims court yet

to argue under the sales of good act?

Update:

Well I stripped down the late 2006 MBP C2D and baked the logic board. Rebuilt and voila its working again. How long it will last is anybodys guess but since I or my partner cannot afford to purchase a new logic board then for the price of a few tech tools such as a T6 torx driver and a 00 /01 Phillips head and some new Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound, a few ramikins as strip trays I have to say i have performed a better job than any Apple tech could do.

Once I stripped down the board it was full of dust all around the heat sink fans etc. And I mean caked in it. A shaving bush and hoover soon cleaned up the case and fans and now the MBP runs cooler than it ever did.

My advice is purchase said tools strip your MBP down and get cleaning. This will ultimately help the MBP from overheating. You would be surprised at how much accummalates. Looking at the design of the MBP you can see its a pretty bad design in that the logic board sits on top of the heatsinks. Much better to have the heatsink on top for easier access but hey ho. More importantly its the application and poor quality of the thermal compound used by Foxconn that is the culprit.

Its layered on thick. Really thick. Apple should really think about using the pre cut thermal paste layer stickers that come with the likes of desktop Intel processors heatsinks and processors to eliminate this problem. In future any Macbook I buy will be stripped immediately and the correct application of thermal paste applied. It really is a dog awful job Apple does applying this very important element.

A a bonus i stripped down my 5 yr old Blackbook and gave it the same treatment. It runs 10 degress cooler than it did before at idle. It cools down quicker and in part should extend the life of the notebook. Stripping these things down is easier than your lead to believe as I mentioned before iFixit makes it very easy.

As a side note for anybody that fancies fixing their own MBP be sure to remove the little plastic screw blocks and the top of the logic board before baking the board and be sure not to cook it longer than 7mins 30secs at exactly 375 deg F (190 eg C) to avoid damaging other parts of the board 🙂. For anybody that needs further advice PM me and Ill send you the exact links I used. Have confidence and you too can save 500 bucks for a logic board (which isnt guaranteed to be a new board but a reconditioned one) and doing the repair yourself is a much better job than you will get at any Apple Store which in time you will end up with th same problem.

Further to the poster about using SOGA in the UK and small claims courts. may be worth a try. I was initially going too but my experience of this is that its a long drawn out process and has no real bite due to the spineless people that claim to fight for your customer rights.