MacBook Pro: Distorted video or no video issues

Symptoms

In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected. If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within two years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

And here’s the best part:

Resolution

Apple is issuing refunds to customers who may have paid for repairs related to this issue. Please contact Apple for details on the refund process.

When I last spoke with Apple Care and they offered to courier my laptop to a specialized repair centre, the woman insisted she was doing me a special favour because my laptop was out of warranty, even though the original problem occurred while it was still under warranty and had never been properly addressed.

This time, though, it came back with a brand new display and appears to be working perfectly. I think that the issue may have been related to a faulty inverter board, but whatever it was it’s fixed now. Here’s hoping it doesn’t die again!

The Apple Repair shop gave back my MBP with a broken iSight. I got the laptop back on Thursday only to have to return to the store again today and ask them to look at it.

The guy who repaired my MBP happened to be at the shop and offered to double check the connection.  I returned in an hour to find that it wasn’t as simple as the iSight connection to the logic board but more likely another faulty logic board (or part soldered to the logic board, or display). Basically another major fix.

I’ve been without my laptop for 20 days since August 7th and it has affected my efficiency at work and even my quality of life!

I phoned Apple Care UK about the issue and argued for a new laptop since this will be the third major repair, and usually in these cases they’ll replace it. But, since it’s a Saturday and Customer Service only has limited staff, the most they could offer me was to have a courier service pick up the laptop and run some sort of diagnostic check on the entire thing to determine if it’s likely to fail again. If it is, they’ll issue me a replacement.

On the official Apple website, it says,

Includes extensive graphics enhancements.

Max just informed me that there was a page located here that said this firmware update would fix the overheating issues with my Santa Rosa MacBook Pro. How a software update can fix a hardware glitch is beyond me, but did you notice that the page no longer exists? Does this mean that they decided it wasn’t actually a fix?

This is what happened to my laptop. It would do this more often when I had the external display hooked up and when I was running lots of programs (the laptop was hot). Usually I was using A/C power. This would be resolved after a forced reboot, but would keep happening until one day the display just wouldn’t turn on.

I bought my Macbook Pro (a refurb because I was broke) in September of last year. My original warranty had nearly worn out when I started having problems with my graphics card, the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT. First the screen started to go funny blocks of colour. Then I occasionally had trouble getting the display working from sleep.

Then one day it stopped working. Bummer. But these things happen, right?

My colleague, Max, pointed me towards online forums where other MacBook Pro users were having the exact same problems. We* were able to diagnose the problem fairly easily, and I took it to the Apple shop.

The problem is with the graphics card being crappy and overheating. We were able to connect remotely and discover that my beloved laptop wasn’t recognizing the graphics card for what it was, but as an integrated Intel chip.

Because the graphics card is soldered to the logic board, the whole dang thing needs replacing which is essentially a new laptop, right?

Wrong. Two weeks later the exact same thing started happening again, which we half-expected based on customer complaints in the forums.

So now my laptop is in getting fixed again and I am trying to work on a Dell, which would be alright if I didn’t keep trying to use Apple shortcuts and having random things happen…

* by ‘we’ I mean Max. I just stood around.