Macbook pro 17 inch is having video card failure Nvidia 330m

Yep - same problem here. Fine on Intel GPU but video freezes after the MBP has spent some time running on the Nvidia card (e.g. watching videos or running Windows 7 in a VirtualBox VM).

Apple has control of the entire technology stack so they should do better....

First, hope you folks acquired the AppleCare warranty extension. Always considered it a worthwhile investment with portables, and these tales of woe certainly make me feel vindicated.

Second, have you tried visiting an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider? IIRC, there were some NVIDIA chipset batches that turned out bad and there was a recall, just don't recall the specifics. What I do know is that there was a bootable auto-running stress test the service centers had which was run on suspected computers and would provide a service number if the test failed. So if the magic number popped up, the Mac woould be automatically accepted and repaired for free. My previous MBP, a Feb'08 model came out clean, but a friend's didn't and that got him a free repair.

Third, have you run the extended Apple Hardware Test? Let it run for as long as possible, this sometimes tickles the failure and you get an error number you can report to Apple.

Yup, I have the same here, leading to a hardware problem with the logic board.

However I don't just get the black screen, my computer just goes dead.

The light for power sometimes dims, sometimes the computer doesn't charge.

I can get black screen even after just entering in login password.

Hardware test says it's the logic board.

I'm running a 2.53 i5 17inch with the NVIDIA 330M.

As I was writing this the first time, my computer shut off on its own. I'm running a Macbook Pro 13-inch (mid 2010 as well). Sometimes the computer will shut off when I'm completely in the middle of doing something, other times it will restart. There is no warning. My computer is always plugged in when this happens. It's getting pretty frustrating.

Add me to the list...

2.3 ghz i7 quad, Macbook pro, 8gb, OSX 10.8.2, 15in Early 2011, AMD Raedon 6750m.

Randomly powers off. Awhile back I was having random freezes with beeping which signals bad memory.

Have you guys replaced/upgraded your memory?

K

I have a mid 2010 MacBook Pro 17inch 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 8GB solid state running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and have recently begun having problems with the screen going black. Usually it will restore if I close the laptop for a couple seconds and reopen it. I have had a couple grey screens occur that require a reboot. The computer will become very hot if I am running several screens at once but the black screen doesn't seem to be related to the heat. Sometimes it occurs when I have very little happening. Today the page I had open froze and became unresponsive. After several attempts to close the window or even move it the screen went black. I have had several black screens today and they are becoming more frequent. I thought when this first happened that I had too many windows open at one time as I had 8 or 10 in my dock but it does it regardless. Then thought perhaps the computer needed service. Tonight I decided to see if others were having the same problem and lo and behold ............... I am just past the 3 years and never got the extended warrenty as I bought a SS so as to have a reliable machine. I thought that my added info could help to eliminate or broaden the understanding of the problem. Any help?