Nvidia bug also affects Apple notebooks

Apple has announced that some models of the MacBook Pro notebook series were equipped with faulty Nvidia graphics chips, the GeForce 8600M GT. While the chips have a high failure rate there is no health or fire hazard. In its support document, Apple describes the symptoms as a distorted or scrambled screen image or no image at all. The owners of affected notebooks are advised to contact Apple for a free repair even if the notebook's warranty has expired; should the notebook have already been repaired, Apple plans to refund the repair costs. If there are no symptoms, the notebook does not have the faulty chip – unlike the equally affected notebook vendors Dell and HP, however, Apple does not offer a precautionary firmware update.

Nvidia first mentioned the manufacturing problem in July. In the meantime, group action by Nvidia shareholders has revealed that Nvidia has already known about the problem at least since November 2007. Apple now reports that the affected notebooks were manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008, which is long after the problem became known. It could be that rather than change its production shortly before the introduction of the new generation of notebooks, Apple decided to pay for the repairs – or rather let Nvidia pay for them. The graphics chip manufacturer has put aside more than $200 million for warranty repairs of this kind.

(jbe)