[Pao|o]

I received an email from "Settlement Administrator for NVIDIA GPU Litigation" and I was wondering if other MBP owners also received a notice.

This is in connection to the NVIDIA GPU problem that caused "Distorted or scrambled video on the notebook computer screen" and "No video on the computer screen even when the notebook computer is on"

Macs that are affected by this are the following

"Apple MacBook Pro (15-inch & 17-inch)" bought from "May 2007 – September 2008"

Now my MBP is not exhibiting these problems of late but I am experiencing a pixel-thick vertical red line running from the top until the bottom of my screen. Would this be covered by the claims?

URL of the claims site is at The NVIDIA GPU Litigation - Home Page

[Waragainstsleep]

Probably not. Lines of pixels are usually due to faults or damage to the LCD panel or the LVDS data cable. Its not impossible though.

[Big Mac]

Yes, we received the same message (although I was surprised by the email adress they found to send it to since It wasn't the one associated with the purchase of the MBP). I've seen the tell tale minor graphics corruption incidents that are a prelude to covered failure, but it is taking substantially longer for the full symptoms to manifest versus my brother's identical model MBP. I don't know if the problem will be found by the diagnostics that would be run because right now the problem is very infrequently seen right now, and even when it manifests it is quite minor. But I've seen this before and absolutely know this to be a prelude to much more significant and consistent symptoms.

As for the settlement the remedies and covered period aren't entirely clear based on the email that you reference. Most likely we'll take advantage of the four year extended coverage period from Apole to get a repair from our local authorized service provider.

[Waragainstsleep]

Lines of pixels are not generally considered to be distortions or scrambled graphics though. Typically the screen will go screwy all over. It might go away, it might not. Eventually the GPU stops kicking out video altogether. Apple should be happy to run their test for you though.

[Big Mac]

Oh, I'm not talking about lines of pixels. This is whole window corruption for brief periods of time. I've seen it multiple times now when opening a new tab in Safari when Safari is set to the favorite places view. The window briefly goes multi-colored with tetris looking small shapes before drawing correctly. This was the same behavior my brother reported on his identical Penryn MBP months before it malfunctioned more seriously (abnormally high fan noise at idle and poor game performance) and got a motherboard swap under the Apple led recall.

[shifuimam]

Isn't this about the 8600GT that was in 15" and 17" non-unibody MacBook Pros? Apple's been covering that for several years now, IIRC.

It doesn't manifest itself as lines of pixels - either the screen goes all wonky across the entire screen, or it goes completely black and the machine stops powering on correctly.

A line of stuck pixels is damage on the LCD and wouldn't be covered.

[Remxed]

I had this problem on my 2007 MBP about 2 years back. I had to pay $300 at the Apple store to get it fixed. I believe the description on my receipt said they replaced the entire logic board. Do you think I would able to file a claim in my situation?

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Isn't this about the 8600GT that was in 15" and 17" non-unibody MacBook Pros? Apple's been covering that for several years now, IIRC.

It doesn't manifest itself as lines of pixels - either the screen goes all wonky across the entire screen, or it goes completely black and the machine stops powering on correctly.

A line of stuck pixels is damage on the LCD and wouldn't be covered.

Those aren't the only possible symptoms of this defect. It's a more widespread phenomena than just complete distortion or no image at all.

[Waragainstsleep]

Most of them fail completely pretty fast in my experience. And I have seen plenty of them.


If you paid for a replacement when your machine was under 4 years old you should be due a refund,

[Merkava_4]

My 8600M GT machine is in Apple right now getting a new logic board. The symptoms I had were extremely fuzzy fonts which made it very difficult to read. In addition to that was an extremely distorted view across the whole screen which resembled an extremely coarse screen resolution. It was terrible.