It's hard to say at this point whether we should point the blame at NVIDIA, Apple or right in between the two corporate campuses, but it seems that an uncomfortable amount of
17-inch MacBook Pro owners are having some serious issues with their GeForce
9600M graphics card. For those unaware, there is actually a
9400M in there too, but word on the street has it that the random green lines and nasty artifacts are only showing up when the more potent card is kicked into action. Most folks are saying that a reboot solves the problem momentarily, but eventually it returns to bother, annoy and sadden new owners. Anyone else out there pulling their hair out over this? Here's hoping a firmware update is all that'll be needed to bring closure to yet another
NVIDIA-Apple related fiasco.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: We just got word from an NVIDIA spokesperson, who had this to say: "Our understanding is that Apple is investigating this, and if they need our help we will certainly support them. But right now it's unclear what the issue is, so jumping to conclusions at this point is premature." We'll keep you posted!
posted Mar 5th 2009 9:48PM
Why are we shelling out $$ to be the guinea pigs?
Thank god it wasn't a Windows PC having that problem, otherwise it would've been Windows' fault not Nvidia's!
No, if it was a Windows PC no one would care.
What next? Macs catching fire??
Blasphemy I say! Apples are perfect!
All the problems I've had with my Ubuntu Dell have been the result of nVidia's crappy manufacturing.
Combined with Dell's crappy support, it's a horrible synergy.
I have furniture made out of repair return postal boxes. These four over here I have my whiteboard on, like a planning table of sorts..
Well, if it were a windows PC it would have cost, what, a thousand dollars less?
It's hard to point a finger at this point in my opinion.
It could be NVIDIA's fault for releasing a chip to early or it could be Apple's fault for pushing NVIDIA to mass produce a chip before it's really ready. Or a combo of the both.
I am just sick of this. It's not like this is the first laptop Apple's produced. Just do it right the first time. Not all press is good press....
Only people new to the whole apple ecosystem are crazy enough to buy into the first batches of _ANY_ of their new products.
This is almost not news, considering how notorious they are for doing things like these.
Sucks though, it looks like memory corruption or some kind of display signaling problem. That thing is integrated too, sucks to replace it...
@Shenanigans
"i" dont want to hear any more of your Shenanigans...
A- AHAHAHA!
@iGoon
Turn off your text to speech app and you don't have to hear me anymore.
I've been an Apple fan for awhile and an owner/ user for two years. I am tired of the pricing, lack of speedy updates, and issues. OS X is superior for my use but I can't justify buying the hardware anymore.
Wait till you spend your hard earned money ($3,000) on something that starts going bad within the first week of use.
@Shenanigans sounds alot like the vista/intel fiasco no?
@Shenanigans: I think it's pretty easy to say that Apple should have ensured that the NVidia components they selected actually worked before shipping. This is unforgivable on a laptop that costs so much more than the equivalent from the competition.
This seems to be typical of the poor quality of Apple products in general - it's difficult to point to a single Apple product that doesn't have serious problems like this. The latest Cinema Displays have similar graphical issues and then there's the melting power adapters, mooing fans, discolouring cases, dodgy RAM, hit-and-miss trackpads, cracking iPhone cases, crap iPod headphones, expanding batteries, cracking hinges, overheating Macbooks, etc., etc. God only knows why anyone would pay a premium for such poor product design and you really have to wonder why sites like Engadget continue to push Apple's products when they are so badly made. Apple users are always banging on about how great Apple's customer service is and how happy Genius Bar staff are to replace faulty products but you have to ask why people are spending so much time returning their stuff in the first place.
And in case you want some proof that Apple produce the least reliable laptops:
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Squaretrade-888128.html
Here Apple find out why increasing sales so your market includes the general public as well as fanboys is both a good and a bad thing - on one hand you make more money, on the other hand your customers are much less inclined to forgive you when you balls up.
It is very clear; If you buy an Apple you deserve what you get, get that extended warranty and that season bus pass, coz you are goona need to visit that genius bar, a lot.
@kccboy2004
Are you serious? That's an incredibly horrible thing I say. Only bad people deserve bad things to happen to them. Choosing Apple over Dell doesn't make anyone a bad person.
Jesus, fanboys, go die in a fire. It's not a Mac OS X or a Windows issue:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/02/nvidia-says-significant-quantities-of-laptop-gpus-are-defectiv/
Uh, Dale, your article is from over six months ago and refers to the previous generation of laptop GPUs at that time not the 9600s.
Although you are correct that fanboys should have combustible accidents.
Maybe its trying to kill itself because it knows it will never get to play a game.
(sorry had to do it)
that argument has been invalid for like 3 years brah
i'l help you out, never gonna play a game before it becomes outdated and all the other platforms.
why game when you can blog about ilife and starbucks
@OziD: So are you still waiting for the first Gears of War, brah'? 'Cause that game is going on 2 years from being announced for a certain OS and not actually being released.
Yup, Monkey Island , Return to Monkey Island and Revenge of Monkey Island "ARE" over 3 years old... perhaps it was trying to play GTA 4 and had a stroke.. Ooops... GTA on a Mac? ROFL COPTER TAKES FLIGHT
Stop being lame, guys. Ever since Intels became the best CPUs, suddenly better than the the previously-most-awesome, Power-PCs, and since Apple invented the dual-boot system, and then invented the multi-button mouse, people have been happily running PC games on their Macs.
@chispito
marathon was a great game, so was starcraft. but seriously, macs cant even run steam natively. you shell out the 120% apple tax to buy a mac, then shell out another 50 to buy a copy of windows?
REALLY?
Chispito,
Inaccurate.
Macs do NOT natively run games.
Macs that you purchase a Microsoft WINDOWS license for now possess the capability to run games.
As kangbp.nyc pointed out, you guys are paying the ridiculous "Apple Tax" first of all, then shelling out at least another $100+ for a Windows license on top of that, just to play what we PC/Windows users get to play natively for hundreds upon several hundreds less and with better performance to boot.
@kangbp.nyc:
"macs cant even run steam natively"
That's because Gabe Newell's being a fucking dick about it. If he actually explained why Valve and Apple aren't cooperating rather than leaving a vague "we talk, they talk," maybe I'd be slightly more sympathetic.
And if Steam would support OSX, what would you do? Launch it and look at Steams game library of which 95% are not for OSX?
@kangbp.nyc&Hamidxa
You would do well to learn from your lesson in sarcasm so that the next time you comment you don't look so stupid.
So to recap: If this is NVIDIA's fault, they'll fix it, if this is Apple's fault, the warranty will cover it, and, even though this hardly relates to the original posting, Apple computers can run any game a regular PC can (for a price) exactly the same as said PC would be able to do. Did I miss something, or was it a total waste of my time to read all the replies to MED's comment?
The question is if it's a bad batch of cards or the laptops themselves; based on NVIDIA's history though, it seems more likely the problem is on their end.
But the 9600m, as well as quite a few other models of 9xxxm series cards are humming along quite nicely in other manufacturer's notebooks, running windows and/or linux.
Then why aren't the 15" MBPs affected? Are laptops from other manufacturers using the 9600M affected?
I'm a long-time Mac user who thinks that it's Apple's fault. I just don't see how it could be Nvidia's card when the 15" MBP's screen suffers no such effect.
This looks very similar to the problems I've had with nVidia 8400M GS on my Dell XPS M1330. They replaced the motherboard twice so far within the year. I cannot believe that such shoddy products are being released. My next computer will definitely have an ATi card.
The green lines mean it just works.
haha i left that comment on someone facebook today after she said a program wont work on her mac.
I love apple, but can't they release a computer that doesnt have graphics problems with the first models???
Anyone of you clever posters actually have the machine in question? Halfway down the posts and zero information content so far....
I have a unibody MBP 17" and it doesn't get hot at all. Even sitting on a blanket it barely gets warm. So I don't think it's heat problems.
@nikster
Have you tried turning it on again?
Artifacts generally point to an overheating issue. Faulty fan, faulty thermal paste, faulty contact between heatsink and chip, take your pick.
Faulty thermal die substrate engineering..
maybe apple needs to chill with the "thin" thing if it cant handle the cooling problem
I get very similar symptoms when I overclock my 9500GT, although the temp doesn't seem to be drastically high. If the cards in the Mac running at standard speeds then I'd also go with overheating being the cause.
I also think it probably because of overheating
But then my 7600GT had artifacts because it was just not made with possible cheap components
it could also be power issues, apple trying to engineer the thing for 8 hour battery life. The 9600 chip may be getting too much or not enough voltage.
Maybe I'll put off ordering one of these for another couple of weeks then.
Just restart it again, if it still does not work take it to the Genius Bar
imo
if the "geniuses" that built it couldn't get it right, what makes you think that the "geniuses" at the "genius bar" can figure it out?
they'll just give you a new one with the same problem. Its a genius solution.