Graphics and Total Meltdown- NVidia Related?

I've recently heard about how the 8600M series graphics cards from NVidia are potentially faulty. Well, I got up this morning and tried to wake my computer from sleep. I turned on the external monitor (Mac) and all I get is what you see in the picture below. The pointer seemed fine for about 20 seconds and then it completely stopped moving. Nothing on the screen except those weird polygon color... things. I opened the laptop and disconnected the monitor and the laptop screen wouldn't come on at all (it usually does when i do that). I closed the lid and the computer would not go to sleep and I tried this a couple of times. It seemed too hot at the power cord area, so I unplugged it. Then I tried the power button and it would not turn off. By this time, the computer was getting hotter than normal, even hotter than when I've been playing video games. 10 minutes later after trying the power button 4 different times (this time I held it down), the computer finally shut down. When I turned it back on, it was working a-ok except that the resolution was now set on 1680x1050 rather than the default 1920x1200 which was what I had it set on. I went into the hardware utility and the start-up diagnostics said that everything was working fine, even though things hadn't been working fine. Has anyone experienced this or heard of this before? Should I expect it to happen again?

I would take it to the Apple store, but I seriously doubt that they would find anything wrong with it. I really need it to do this again so I can take it to the Apple store and get it replaced soon. I'm leaving for college in a month and I'll be several hundred miles from the nearest store, so I can't really afford to have this happen and be a permanent or frequent thing nor can I afford to not have my computer for a few days or weeks. Or worse, have the computer do this in the middle of writing a term paper...

that image def looks like a graphics card overheating. Since it is working ok now it doesn't sounds like there was any obvious damage but that is not saying there wasn't any. I would give a call to apple and see what they have to say about bringing it in for service.

Take it to Apple today. Tell them what happened and show them the screen shot. Don't wait for it to happen again. If it gets too hot it could damage the cpu and logic board as well. Let us know how it turns out. Good luck.

Well, it looks like I'm going to the Apple store tomorrow. A few minutes ago when I went to play some music, I discovered that the sound was turned up to half-way. I didn't do this, I had the sound set at 2 bars before the "event."

Note: Most of what I am posting in here is just a reminder to myself in case I forget to tell the Genius bar people something.

Tell the Apple store nVidia have brought out so called drivers for Windows XP and Vista which do not seem to do a lot other than make fans run full bore right from the word go. Google faulty nVidia 8600M Graphics Cards for more info.

There are pages and pages of reports on Google.

Any news from Apple?

Stress Test it, open a game and max out the settings and go for it. Chances are if its faulty it will fail.

rich6490 said:

Stress Test it, open a game and max out the settings and go for it. Chances are if its faulty it will fail.

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I would advise against this. With the reports indicating these cards are prone to overheating, trying to make it work as hard as possible is just tempting fate.

It's sort of like smacking a lion on the butt just to prove that it really is dangerous! Don't do it! Let Apple do their thing and take a look at it.

Unfortunately I haven't taken it in and it probably won't be until Friday when I can get around to it.

Stress Test it, open a game and max out the settings and go for it. Chances are if its faulty it will fail.

Click to expand...

I tried this, but the funny thing is that now it won't do anything heat-wise. It went up by 5 degrees (145 F) and that was as hot as it would get. I do want it to go out because I don't think that Apple will find anything wrong with it, nor would they do anything. If it goes out, I can just take it in and demand a new one. The people at the local Apple store aren't very good at their jobs, so I don't want to waste my time driving over there and waiting for nothing.

Like I said in my first post, I'm about to be hundreds of miles away from any Apple store so I can't have a computer that dies on me. If this one's going to do it, it needs to do it now so I can get it fixed and trade computers with my mom for this first semester until a permanent solution is put into place.

Just wondering if you got a chance to take it in to Apple. If so what did they say?

Actually, I did go earlier today and I was told what you'd expect to be told. They can hold onto it and try to replicate the problem which would take 24-48 hours and possibly another 3-4 days to get in a new part to fix it. All that and I wouldn't get anything. No loaner computer, no form of a refund, no nothing. Of the 16 hours that I'm awake every day, I spend 15 on this computer, so not having it isn't an option. Did I miss something here? Doesn't paying $3,400 for a computer warrant getting $3,400 worth of customer satisfaction and service? I know this isn't Apple's fault, but they should at least do something to ease things for us. I also wasn't very happy with the "Genius" that was helping me. I'm sure it wasn't really him that I didn't like, but more of Apple's training. He basically told me he was going to do what Apple trained him to do to fix it and that was it, there was no going out of his way to help me. And he wasn't very logical when I explained the flickering my external monitor was doing. If Wrigley Field is satisfaction, I'm wandering around Yankee Stadium by myself right now. I did, however, get $140 off of ACPP with a student discount. That is a pretty good discount, especially for a student who is more prone to "accidents."

Now I've got 3 questions that I would be very grateful for answers to:
1. When I went in, I expected him to plug my computer into something that would run diagnostics and tell him if something had happened or not. Is there no log system on the computer that would allow them to do that? Was I expecting too much there?

2. Is there some sort of association out there (maybe BBB?) that might help me get what I want from Apple or should I just wait until some large lawsuits are filed against them or NVidia?

3. If the GPU does overheat and I get it on video doing that, would that count as "replicating the problem?" Could I just take that video in and demand a new computer without the wait?

Oddly enough, since I've been home from the Apple store, the CPU and GPU have been running between 5 and 10 degrees cooler than usual and I'm not doing any more or any less than I usually do when I'm using the computer.

On another note, I asked him if he had any "insider information" about whether or not any fix was in store for this problem and he said Apple hadn't told him anything.

That is too bad that they were not more helpful. I would keep using it normally and if it does it again take it back in and ask to speak to a manager. Tell them what is going on and demand that the computer be fixed or replaced within 24 hours. That seems like a reasonable request to me, unless the Genius bar is just extremely backed up. Good luck and I hope you get it fixed.

Hey mate,

Having fought with the Apple Store geniuses on more than one occasion (three hard drives went bad in my powerbook 12", but weren't replaced until they either were completely dead or I could get them to make the airplane jet engine sound at the store), I sympathize.

I had a similar problem with my 15" macbook pro, only not quite to the same extent. In my case the video memory got jumbled, and things on screen were drawn using stuff that wasn't from the right area of the screen. Here's the image:

http://skitch.com/kattkieru/epge/leopard-graphics-borking

And here's the thread that helped me on Apple Discussions:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6927251#6927251

Strangely, they replaced the logic board and the screen for me overnight. I think this issue is something Apple knows about, and if you use the right arguments then they'll do something about it. I'd highly recommend talking it through over the phone with a specialist before taking it in to the store; that way you have a history before you get there. You should also know, though, that recently I experienced a similar graphical glitch under 10.5.4, so while the logic board swap seemed to fix my problem for a while I'm starting to think that the fix was temporary.

An EE friend of mine thinks most of my macbook pro's problems are timing-related. If you really want to watch your machine crash, compress video in quicktime while bittorrenting a linux ISO, listening to music in iTunes, copying files on an external USB hard disk (not Firewire), and also have an external video monitor plugged in at the same time.