New MacBooks said to have issues with maxed out RAM, faulty NVIDIA GPU
By Donald Melanson 
posted Dec 9th 2008 2:54PM
posted Dec 9th 2008 2:54PM
While most of the complaints about the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros have focused on things like the screen or the absence of a certain much-loved port, it appears that another problem has been bugging some folks that went ahead and maxed out the RAM on their shiny new laptop. Apparently, loading 4GB of RAM (either from Apple or a third party) has caused at least a few MacBooks and MacBook Pros to freeze up randomly which, for the time being at least, can only be remedied by dialing things back to 2GB or 3GB of RAM (something tested by jkOnTheRun). While Apple isn't saying anything publicly about this just yet, one member of the Apple support forum claims to have heard from an Apple engineer who says that Apple is, in fact, aware of the problem and that a software update is on the way to fix it, possibly within a few days.
In related MacBook news, The Inquirer is now reporting that the new MacBook Pro's NVIDIA 9600M GPU suffers from the same so-called "bad bump" problem that has plagued previous generation MacBook Pros (and provided plenty of fodder for The Inq) which can, in some cases, lead to blank screens and other video errors. It's not clear, however, if the problem affects all MacBook Pros or just a bad batch, although there does appear to be a somewhat sizable number of complaints cropping up.
Read - jkOnTheRun, "MacBook fussy memory situation- maybe 4 GBs is too much"
Read - the Inquirer, "Inquirer confirms Apple Macbook Pros have Nvidia bad bump material"
[Via Electronista]
In related MacBook news, The Inquirer is now reporting that the new MacBook Pro's NVIDIA 9600M GPU suffers from the same so-called "bad bump" problem that has plagued previous generation MacBook Pros (and provided plenty of fodder for The Inq) which can, in some cases, lead to blank screens and other video errors. It's not clear, however, if the problem affects all MacBook Pros or just a bad batch, although there does appear to be a somewhat sizable number of complaints cropping up.
Read - jkOnTheRun, "MacBook fussy memory situation- maybe 4 GBs is too much"
Read - the Inquirer, "Inquirer confirms Apple Macbook Pros have Nvidia bad bump material"
[Via Electronista]
Please refrain from 'bag of hurt', and 'it just works'...
Please?
Damn, I was gonna go with the second option.
Ah well.
Faulty GPUs from NVIDIA (Again) and problems with RAM (I've never encountered in another laptop ever)
Apple's quality is going from bad to worse
Another reason I stopped buying Apple in 2005.
It just works when it's a bag of hurt.
RoboDan - You just said the faulty GPUs were from nVidia, and in the next sentence you complain about Apple's quality.
Well which is it? nVidia or Apple? It can't be both. If it's a faulty GPU, how is that Apple's fault?
And the RAM problem is valid but it looks like it can (and will) be fixed in software, so I don't really see the big deal there.
Apple buys the faulty GPUs and sells them as faulty, therefore it is their fault for it.
You would not complain to a dairy farm if your cheeseburger has mold on it, you take it to McDonalds.
Who chooses the GPU?
So you guys think Apple knew the GPUs were faulty when they bought them?
Really? And you think nVidia is not responsible for testing their own products, that it should fall to Apple to determine whether a GPU is faulty before agreeing to use them?
Seriously?
Duh. Of course. It is nVidia's fault for making faulty components and it is Apple's fault for selecting the faulty components for their faulty products.
@ Zak:
It's called Quality Control. Look it up sometime! It's supposed to be done by the supplier and the receiver.
It just hurts.
"that it should fall to Apple to determine whether a GPU is faulty before agreeing to use them".
Bluntly, yes it is. It's called internal QA and is part of any proper corporate governance programme.
I see. So you all believe QC only applies to Apple. Obviously the chips were bad when they left nVidia's plant, how is that not nVidia's fault? Is nVidia excused from their QC responsibilities simply because Apple is involved?
I love how something that happens before Apple is even involved with it is still somehow Apple's fault. That's some grade A logic right there. Everybody appears to know that it's nVidia's fault except you guys.
@ZAK
Can it, dumbass.
Isn't "you pay more for quality" how you Apple Zealots justify spending more for an Apple product? The money goes to make the system better, right?
They're the system integrator; it's their job to make sure everything works right.
Apple just proved once again, they're just like all the other hardware companies out there; not perfect.
Zak wants to change the perception of Apple having top quality components to the reality that they have components like anyone else. I'm not arguing.
@ Decoy:
haha! Awesome! You just turned the tables on Zak... Now looking at all his old comments about Apple using "special" components have suddenly gone up in flames!
@ Zak:
Grade A logic... right... so you mean to say, if you are the middleman selling toys, and your supplier sells you toys manufactured using lead-based color, you aren't liable?
You should really be arguing for Mattel in that case!
Apparently no one is doing QC these days
except testing cheese for mold is a heck of a lot easier than testing a GPU for defect that only occurs sometimes. Faulty chip design is one of the hardest things to find. In fact you'd probably be surprised to find out that a lot of the defective CPUs manufactured are actually working products are are still sold in china and Taiwan ( for a lot less that the good ones ). If you recall AMD actually created the X3 from a defective X4 batch. For Apple or anyone else to test every gpu chip that they buy would cost way too much and hence noone does it. Nvidia really dropped the ball this time.
As far as apple goes, it's their own fault for integrating everything on to the motherboard. Now they'll have to replace everything including the CPU. I bet that'll really rain on their parade.
@Zak:
...and when Nvidia, ATI (now AMD), and other companies failed to release drivers for Vista when it first came out, you guys all jumped on the "Microsoft is crap" bandwagon.
Now that Apple failed to screen for faults, they established the precedent that it's not 3rd party faults but, it's the fault of whoever's logo is on the product. Apple even made commercials advertising this!
Screw Apple. Let 'em burn in hell.
I want to see what iEye says about this story.
Are you sure about that?
no, he is just kidding.
No complaints its just a feature.
iEye or Zak or Clak or most of the guys with the 'i' in their name... the comments would be in the same vein! ;-)
@tpadekar
iGor doesn't think so.
iGuess i'M not one of those most iGuys. :)
@ iGor
I never said that there couldn't be any exceptions to the rule, did I?
Welcome to Engadget! ;-)
But, but, it looks good so who cares!
Those who buy to use it, and not to stare at it, sir.
My 4 Gb MacBook Pro shows neither symptom. Interesting to see how a technical glitch that may or may not have been recognized brings out the Apple haters. I do have one complaint which is battery life. In sleep mode, the laptop loses about 30% of its juice over a day (using the 9800 GT card). Otherwise, its been great.
@ Pavlindrom : that's a minority (an invisible minority i'd say)
Mac User is much much more rare than Mac fanboy or Mac consumer
Thi is going to result in a mini engadge war. Saying that it doesn't surprise at all.
The high price of Macs with sub standard parts. Nothing new
Apple requires more advanced engineering and innovative designing than other PC manufacturers (this is what my dad, who works for Intel, says). Apple really pushes hard on them to get new designs that are compatible with their machines. That said, Windows based PCs FTW. I like how we can add RAM no problems. Vista has its problems, but that's only because it's designed to work with a variety of hardware setups.
@Dan
Works at Intel - sounds like the marketing department at Intel, am i right?
Mac = standard parts, standard errors..
No one needs more than 640k of RAM anyway...
I know, really... jeez...
What, 4 Gigobyte of rams? Im still on 8MB on my 486DX overdrive.
I think the real one was 64k but nice one there :)
Yea, it's 64k... though hell, the new processors actually run on less than that even.. thought the core chip only used about 50kb/core
This is what happens when you don't install multiple antivirus programs on your Mac computer.
Steve Jobs goes out of his way to come out with songs for the ads, maybe he should go out of his way to make sure his Macs have better quality control
Apple ads are OK until the music kicks in. The nano advert is okay but the music makes me want to put steve jobs voodoo doll through the screen.
Advertising advertising advertising, fix Vista.
Advertising advertising advertising advertising advertising advertising advertising advertising advertising, fix Macbook advertising advertising, make fun of Microsoft for advertising, advertising.
Decoy wins the internets today.
Might as well put it all in advertising :D
whoa, Im getting deja vu
Please getting sources from The Inquirer. Those guys can't even get grammar right, let alone mass slander and just nonsense.
Yeah but your a an apple troll. Mass slander this aint.
You must work for them since punctuation and sentence structure isn't high on your list.
Yeah of course I am.
Whatevs, fanboy. I own one of these suckers and it locks up constantly. And after being an Apple hater my whole life, I thought I might give one a try this time after seeing that the graphics hardware they packed into it wasn't two generations behind, for a change. To make matters worse, I made the mistake of trying to support a small local downtown merchant instead of a place with a better return policy -- there's no way Apple could burn me badly, right?
To get burned like this....let's just say I'll be blasting quite a few Kool-Aid drinkers in posts from now on.
I thought the reason Apple was so stingy about their OS only going on their hardware was so that they would never ever ever ever have any hardware problems?
When you have only a couple hardware bases, how can this possibly happen.
Will this inconsistency switch some of the people who fled to Mac after Vista return to Vista?
Doubt it since if they had problems with Vista, I doubt they would be upgrading their Macs to 4gb of ram.
> I thought the reason Apple was so stingy about their OS only going
> on their hardware was so that they would never ever ever ever have
> any hardware problems?
You are wrong.
apparently
No no no chuck, it was so they can overprice their hardware, not so they wouldnt have any hardware problems. Its all about the money.
Profit has a lot to do with not allowing OSX to install on other machines, but the real pull for Apple products has to do with the performance of their systems. Every mac user touts the fact that their systems run smoother. Well, this is true because the people at Apple can tweak the operating system so it works with all of their components.
The reason why some people complain about Vista is because it is a multi-brand distro. Microsoft does not have the time nor the resources to make every single system (of Dell's, HP's, Gateway's, Asus', Acer's, Toshiba's, Compaq's, etc) extremely stable like Apple does. Once you realize the magnitude of the work Microsoft has done to ensure that their OS is as compatible as can be through service packs and small updates, you begin to realize that they have done a tremendous job. The benefit of a Window's based computer is that they sell for much, much cheaper.
Apple was now in the same situation that IBM was a few years back. I believe that they had their own operating system (or language) that they only installed on their machines so that they knew that it would work properly.
Why do I get the feeling that this article would've read a little differently had it not been an Apple product in question?
The tone of the article is very, well, toned down. If this was a Lenovo or Sony issue I am sure the article's tone will be more severe.
If it was Sony, Engadget would've had a field day.
Id much rather engadget start treating all companies like they do apple and not start treating apple like shit too.
At least you get to complain about it here, you'd have to "audition" over at gizmodo. and chances are if you auditioned a comment (how ridiculous does that sound?) complaining about the same thing you'd get the AX.
hey I was thinking the article was harsh
big j is right on. I got banned earlier this year for calling out a writer for regularly posting political crap on a tech blog. Never laid an eye on their site since.
Where's the Engadget-style snide quip that would have accompanied this article if this had happened to any other manufacturer.
Like if it had been about my XPS with NVIDIA GPU issues?
Glad I'm holding out until they fix the bugs and pack this thing w/ USB 3.0.
Maybe, just maybe, they'll make the bezel around the screen thinner (bumping the screen size to ~14 inches, and hopefully increasing resolution, too). Oh yeah, better viewing angle and an option for a matte screen wouldn't "hurt" (pardon the pun?) either.
That said, the build quality of the all aluminum enclosure, and the overall dimensions of this thing, are just about perfect for me.
given those requirements, apple will probably produce the notebook with everything you want in about....never. fixing the bugs? sure eventually. usb 3.0? probably ~2010. the other things? you will probably get one or two, but thats if you're lucky.
lol buying revision 1 apple products
Business as usual? If people will buy it, a business will sell it. Does the item work as advertised? That doesn't matter. The letter of the law is always in favor of the company, so any consumer lawsuits will be considered "frivolous" and be automatically dismissed by the courts.
since when is a first revision design absolutely perfect? apple's or other's
making a perfect first rev design isn't profitable anyways, what incentive is there for someone to upgrade from a rev a design to a rev c or d? also, all those people who principally don't buy a product until it's at its 2nd or 3rd revision wont ever buy it if its perfect at rev a and never moves up to rev b.
sometimes i think companies put in these problems on purpose to give a false sense of advancement. take the ipod for example: i wouldn't be surprised to learn that apple had a full video capable ipod in the labs while steve jobs was on stage talking about how great the 2nd gen is. then slowly the trickled in the "improvements" to get people to buy the same ipod twice or three times over.
*bump8
I haven't had problems with this on mine, but I have had problems with the backlit keyboard working in reverse. Of I cover the sensor (or enter a dark room) the screen dims like it should but the keyboard dims as well when it should actually get brighter in the dark. Anyone else seen this? Its like the old MBA problem a while back that was fixed with a software update.
theres nothing wrong with your macbook. user error.
the keyboard should get dimmer in a dark room. it needs full illumination in low light, but if its dark it only needs partial illumination to see the keys, full illumination in a dark room would be too bright; just like the screen.
I think you are mistaken. Correct me if I am wrong but there is no need for backlit keys in the light. Watch the video presented at the keynote. The lights go out and the keys light up. The screen and keyboard should be working oppositely from each other.
I HOPE that was sarcasm...
The light in the keys is to make it possible to see which is which, i.e. when there is enough light to read them you don't need it, when there isn;t you do.
yea, its like this:
lighting - keys - screen
----------------------------------
full - off - bright
low - bright - normal
dark - dim - dim
basically; the darker the room, the less backlighting is needed for both the keyboard and screen. the only exception is there is no backlighting needed at all in full light for the keyboard 'cause the keys are physical. otherwise the less ambient light there is the less backlighting is needed to overcome that ambient light.
Exactly
Ok so here is what happens. In full light there is full backlighting of the keys automatically. As I cover the sensor up more and more ie the room getting darker and darker both the screen and the kays work their way down to low brightness. The problem is that in full daylight I know the keys should turn themselves off and thats when they go up to max brightness.
THAT'S NOT HOW BACKLIT KEYS WORK
It's not like a screen: you see the marking perfectly fine in bright light. However, in dim light it's impossible to distinguish the letters. the light shines through the letters, making you able to see what is on each key
If you think there is something wrong with it take it to an apple store and have one of their "geniuses" with a high school diploma look at it and tell you there is nothing wrong with it.
Maybe it is all the Anti-virus programs or they need to turn the UAC back on. Nope, it has to be drivers that need updating.
;)
The "plug in" requirement sounds more like a cover up.
I've just had the first full freeze on a 1.5 year old MBP because the Nvidia card (8600M GT) with "NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception!" error in the console.log, sign of the dying GPU. Bravo Apple/Nvidia.
I HAD a couple of times (about a year ago) where I got the freeze-up and weird bits of the screen going wonky. I managed to snap a picture of it happening on my digital camera. They've extended the manufacturer's warranty by a year for this issue, so I figure I may just take it in before my year is up, getting the whole board replaced... Make NVidia pay, and hopefully extend the life of it out of warranty...
Yeah, I got one of the new Macbooks and I've been refraining from upgrading to 4GB of ram. However, it's a little more complicated than the write-up.
1. It seems like the RAM that Apple sells works fine. People have gotten it and it is reported to be Samsung RAM.
2. People have tried all sorts of RAM modules, from "Mac friendly" places like Crucial and OWC, and it's really hit and miss. People will be on their 3rd or 4th set before getting a set that doesn't cause crashes.
3. One person has said that they've picked up unbranded RAM from eBay with Samsung chips and they work. But only one person so far.
4. Hadn't heard about the 3GB of ram thing. People were getting 4, waiting to see if their chips caused crashing, and if so went back to 2. Never heard of anyone trying 3GB of unknown RAM and having it work.
Hopefully this fix will come soon and I can pick up some OWC ram. Best price right now for 4GB of DDR3 SODIMMs at $95. That is until live.com cashback search goes back to 30% with eBay (currently at 8%), then eBay is the best choice.
Is it just me or after;
Kris120890 @ Dec 9th 2008 3:01PM
Thi is going to result in a mini engadge war. Saying that it doesn't surprise at all.
Kris goes on to be the most likely reason for a so called 'mini engadge(t) war'?
Twat.
Yes Mr twat
I enjoy annoying apple users but then again I barely said anything yet to start a flame war.
Yet
I've had 4gb of ram in my MacBook from OWC and have had 0 issues.
Good to hear that, because I am getting the new MacBook with 4Gigs of RAM this Christmas....
@Jash
People are reporting that memory included from Apple works fine. Just *some* third party upgraded ram causes issues..
My macbook has 4 gigs of ram and I haven't had any issues with it, even when running memory intensive Mathematica code. I wonder how wide spread it is?
...Apple. It just works. But ONLY just. If you don't try to use it.
Yep.. just maxed mine out last week and I am getting intermittent freezes. Mostly when I wake from sleep. I hear 10.5.6 is suppose to fix this. I also heard I am going to poop gold bricks.
This is news I can use. I just bought a new MacBook Pro mainly for the added graphics. Lets hope whatever it is, it gets fixed.
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=127611
4GB ram in my macbook and no issues....
Whats that black port by the 'Superdrive'? It's not on the 13' Alu Macbook i'm posting this on, Pro only?
Kensington lock slot I think
On mine the kensington slot is on the other side by the USB's ect.
I have that same RAM problem with an LG laptop... But not if I max it out to four gigs of RAM only, if it goes ANYTHING over 1 Gig....