Mac owners beware, all Nvidia 84 and 86s graphics cards are bad… or are they?
We’re upgrading our laptops here at DWC. In fact, we were about to sign the papers when we heard about this story in The Inquirer. (Thanks @inneralien) In a nutshell, the article claims that all Nvidia 8400 and 8600 series chips are bad, mobile and desktop. In our case, that affects the new MacBook Pros we have been lustily coveting. Laptops, since they tend to cycle more frequently, are apparently more susceptible to the heat related issue.
In a related article, Ars Technica downplays The Inquirer’s take on Nvidia’s publicly admitted issue, stating that only certain configurations will have potential issues, and of those, only notebooks are affected. From At:
Two weeks ago, NVIDIA filed a report (PDF) with the SEC stating that it would take a $150 million to $200 million one-time charge to cover “anticipated customer warranty, repair, return, replacement and other consequential costs and expenses arising from a weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of our previous generation MCP and GPU products used in notebook systems. All newly manufactured products and all products currently shipping in volume have a different and more robust material set.”
Apparently, knowing you have an issue and not setting enough money aside to deal with it will get you spanked by the SEC. If that’s the case, then it’s in Nvidia’s interest to file truthfully, and we can assume that most of us will be either unaffected or covered by Nvidia.
In any case, I think we’re going to hold out on getting new MacBook Pro’s just yet until Apple has an official word on this. Our business rep has only so far stated that Apple doesn’t comment on rumors.
I suppose AppleCare would cover something like this too, but who wants to eat the salad knowing that there’s possibly a hair in it somewhere?
links:
Ars Technica forum discussion on the topic
MaximumPC - Burning Question: Are All Nvidia G84 and G86 Parts Bad?
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