Remember last July when Apple posted this knowledge based article telling owners of the last generation MacBook Pro (till Sep 2008) to bring in their laptops if they experience any graphic problems due to faulty Nvidia chips? Looks like the problem might extend to the newer unibody MacBook Pros with the NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics chip.
In this article from The Inquirer, they bought a 15″ MacBook Pro right after the announcement and did some scientific CSI work and showed evidences that the 9600M chip displays similar bad bumps that forced Nvidia to get a huge one-time charge to cover worldwide recalls of faulty MCP and GPU products used in notebook systems.
It suggests that there are 15-inch Macbook Pros being sold with ‘bad bumps’, the same materials that brought down so many HP, Dell and Apple parts, both laptop and desktop. For some odd reason, Nvidia really does not want you to know this.
These bad bumps reportedly cracked under constant high temperature and causes the chip to fail. And we all know how hot the MacBook Pros can go. Mine can sometimes goes up to 70+ degree Celsius.
While Apple has not responded to The Inquirer about this issue and there has yet any reports about widespread graphics failure, The Inquirer’s advise is not to buy the 15″ MacBook Pro.
At the moment, the simple answer is: avoid the 15-inch Macbook Pro. While there is no assurance that the high-lead bumps will cause a failure, given their history, we cannot recommend that you take the chance.
Apple and Nvidia need to clearly mark which machines have the ‘bad bumps’ so consumers can decide for themselves. Given that Nvidia claims to be transitioning from high-lead to eutectic bumps, it is only a matter of time until the high-lead inventory is depleted, and the MacBooks are safe to buy.
My advise is IF you really have to buy, make sure you get the Apple Care just in case the graphics chip decides to die after the first year’s warranty.
(via Cult of Mac)
