I have recently run into this problem within the last week with my 15" MBP Purchased December 2008 (I didn't get to actually pick it up until January 2009). Anyway, I had been playing World of Warcraft, ended the program (and all my other programs), shut the lid and went to take a shower. I came out and tried to use the machine about 15 minutes later.
As fate would have it, I was about to use the laptop to show my dad the game (the concept fascinates him, as he is computer illiterate), among other things. When I opened the lid, nada. The fans started and that other sound that sounds like what I'm assuming is a drive starting right before the chime goes on (sorry, my I.T. days were spent working on PC's so I'm trying to describe)...the chime will not sound. I restarted and tried a number of other fixes I saw (PRAM, etc). The computer had had a loud fan at one point and at times had a tendency to get a bit hot, especially when playing WoW...I had found a fix for that on the internet as well and had taken my computer apart many many months ago to fix this, and didn't have any more problems until now.
I have noticed, and so has my fiancee, that the screen used to just go black for no reason while we were watching something (a movie, Netflix/other streaming video, etc) and sometimes even while I was just working on a Word doc. It would happen randomly...just go black, and then return to normal after a few moments. Sometimes when I was running lots of high res video, it would go black for a minute, then the screen would reappear as asleep and I'd need to enter my password.
There was once or twice when it took quite a bit of time to start back up and needed a restart. I was running a few programs and figured maybe it just freezed, and left it at that. iSight has a tendency to black out as well. In addition, I've got a few stuck pixels.
And even though the fan no longer makes a noise, the laptop runs (or well, was running) rather hot. I actually have a picture of the blister the bottom left on my thigh from burning me once. It was beginning to slow down as well. I don't have anything bizarre on my computer...just stuff any college grad would have.
I didn't have AppleCare (which would have expired anyway by now) so I never brought it in, as I was unaware that there was a serious, degenerating issue going on. I was sucked into the high-quality trend of Apple products and thought nothing would ever happen to my beloved MBP, generally working well for quite some time. I started using it a lot less as I was moving and whatnot, and now that I've started to use it again, I've begun to observe the same problems repeating. Oh, and then it just died.
Here's the problem.
I looked on my iPhone for help on this subject. I didn't come across this threat, unfortunately, but I did see a logic board as a possibility so I called Apple and attempted to speak with tech support. They charge a one-time fee of around $50 to speak with a technician. No joke. $50 just to talk to someone. Obviously I didn't pay. I spoke to another girl (presumably from Apple Care or Sales) to see if I could get some idea of the cost of a new logic board. She couldn't help me and told me to contact the nearest store if I wanted it looked at.
I was completely unaware of the problem with these video cards when I called and when I took my laptop in to the Apple store. I explained what had happened when the computer died. The kid (he was definitely not older than me, I am 22) I talked to finished my sentence for me practically. He goes, "yeah, we get lots of these in, let me take a look." He's been over this schpiel before, I can see.
He tried to zap PRAM and restart, then he took it to the back for no more than five minutes. He said I needed a new logic board and that because of the "condition" of my computer (it's a bit banged up, nothing awful, it's travelled and I've had to open it to tweak things and clean it) he would have to send it in for a general repair, as if the dents were so bad they couldn't reach the logic board? This would cost $1240 and so I may as well just buy the new version at $1299. The kid actually just told me I may as well buy a new computer. Smiled and walked away. From what I can tell, the logic board is attached to the bottom casing anyway, so wouldn't this be an automatic part of the job, and not something extra?
I could buy a used macbook pro, the latest version, for about $800-900 on eBay. But at this point it seems like a real risk. This is not my first Apple problem.
I was lucky. I paid about $1200 for this computer as they were coming out with the new black keyboarded ones for Christmas that year (winter 2008-2009). So it should still fall under the four year repair period. I am not about to pay the same amount to fix it or replace it, thoguh, if the cause of the failure is so obviously my GPU. Even if I didn't know about that, it's really not my fault if the GPU fries my logic board before I can have them test for a problem I didn't know about. Everything happened in such quick succession that I didn't even have a chance to go while it was still booting up.
I've already spoken to a few people on the phone and been told to buy a new, equally expensive computer that frankly may also fail on me.
Would it be worth it to bring it to a different Apple store (I live in an enormous city), and bring it up as a single NVIDIA issue and see what they do? And if they refuse to fix it because it's already fried (convenient, Apple), would I then have enough to call them with in California?
Maybe I could send the picture of my giant blister from the over heating, lol.
Any help would be appreciated.
thanks,
chreeper