We have never seen the French Refurb Store offering so many products, and it seems to be true for couple of EU Apple Refurb Stores too. All current products are available except the Mac mini. One can get a MacBook Air for 1399 Euro (clocked at 1.6 GHz), and the faster model at 1.8 GHz for 1509 Euro, however it does not sport a SSD.
The real bad deal crown goes to the Mac Pro Quad Core 3.0 GHz (old generation), announced at 2199 Euros, with a 60% discount on an overestimated original price of 5444.44 Euros!!
Shortest link to the Apple Refurb Store:
Refurb Store
As expected, we learned that MacBook Pro equipped with NVIDIA GPU are experiencing problems linked to the reported defective manufacturing NVidia G84 and G86 GPUs.
If this is not a massive wave, the 15" and 17" Santa Rosa MacBook Pro clocked at 2.2 and 2.4GHz are affected. Likely for most reported cases, the notebook was still covered by the warranty. Apple changed the logic board at no cost for at least one notebook for which the warranty was over. It would be good for Mac users that Apple decides to communicate about the problem. It might be difficult as it would then imply that NVidia did not ship small batches of defective GPUs only to HP and Dell, as the company keeps claiming it.
As Mac users, we should not worry too much as Apple has launched in the past extension program for previous hardware defect. In addition, EU regulation will force Apple to change the defective hardware at no cost without limit for warranty as there are clear report and statement indicating that defective GPU have been delivered to OEM.
It seems that NVidia is facing a major manufacturing issue with its GPU, and it might not be only limited to the previous generation G84 and G86 models (GeForce 8400 and 8600). The Inquirer
reports that it has collected information indicating that more recent GPU from NVidia, G92 and G94 are also affected by the same manufacturing problem. If you consider that the G92 is used in GeForce 8800GT, 8800GTS, 8800GS, most of the 9800 suffixes, and a few 9600 variants, while the G94 is basically only used for the GeForce 9600GT, one can immediately identify that most NVidia from the previous and current generation are harboring a manufacturing defect that will dramatically reduce their life time. The Inquirer indicates that four NVidia's OEM partners are now indicating that they are recording high rate of failure with G92 and G94 chips hardware, affecting both desktop and laptop cards.
In addition, the fix offered by NVidia, and released by HP and Dell as a firmware update for G84 and G86-based hardware is not really solving the problem, but rather makes it less likely to occur during the warranty period... NVidia probably forgot that in many countries, regulations force manufacturers to replace at no charge hardware identified as harboring an internal defect with no warranty limit. If NVidia has to pay for the extension programs to be launched for HP, Dell, Lenovo or Apple hardware, it might well cost more than the 250 millions USD budget assigned by NVidia to cover this problem. Some think that it could even send NVidia to bankrupt.
To conclude, NVidia by not clearly explaining in details the defect reported in its GPUs, it makes consumers and computer manufacturers not confident about its current or even future GPUs. With the current GPU from ATI/AMD over performing the current offer from NVidia, the company seems to be in serious trouble. How long will it last before we know the complete story, and how much computer models are really affected?
Microsoft
released an update for its Mac Office Suites. Office 2004 is now available as version 11.5.1 (15 MB) while the current Office 2008 is version 12.1.2 (160 MB). As usual such updates are released to improve security, reliability and performance.
• Office 2004, 11.5.1
This update contains several improvements to enhance stability and performance. In addition, this update includes fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. For more information about this update, please visit the Microsoft Web site
• Office 2008, 12.1.2
This update contains several improvements to enhance stability and performance. In addition, this update includes fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. For more information about this update, please visit the Microsoft Web site
