News for Friday, 10 October 2008

As we reported earlier, many MacBook Pro owners suffering from dead NVidia GPU were desperately waiting for an official program to cover such issues known to be linked to defective NVidia GPU. One of our readers, Flavio, let us know that Apple released an official statement as a TechNotes: note

MacBook Pro: Distorted video or no video issues
Dernière modification: 09 October, 2008
Article: TS2377
Symptoms
In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected. If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within two years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.
What to look for:

Distorted or scrambled video on the computer screen
No video on the computer screen (or external display) even though the computer is on
Specific products affected:
MacBook Pro 15-inch and 17-inch models with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processors
MacBook Pro (17-Inch, 2.4GHz)
MacBook Pro (15-Inch, 2.4/2.2GHz)
MacBook Pro (Early 2008)
These computers were manufactured between approximately May 2007 and September 2008
Products Affected
MacBook Pro, models with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processors
Resolution
If your MacBook Pro is exhibiting any of the symptoms listed above, please take it to an Apple Retail Store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) for evaluation, or call your local Apple Contact Center. Before visiting the Genius Bar at the Apple Retail Store, please make a reservation.
Apple is issuing refunds to customers who may have paid for repairs related to this issue. Please contact Apple for details on the refund process.
Note: If your MacBook Pro is not experiencing any of these symptoms, you do not need to contact Apple.

So all MacBook Pro based on GeForce 8600M GT might be affected, despite NVidia’s statement that only part of those GPU could be affected. Apparently, all affected models were manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008.
However, Apple is limiting the extended warranty to 2 years following the purchased date. This is most likely for US market, as in countries were hidden defects lead to no time limit warranty by the law, such official statement from Apple indicating a problem with some component will offer longer extended warranty to such owners. So if you have such machine in your hands, do not hesitate to check it carefully to identify such video issues.

While AMD recently announced its new corporate structure, separating CPU design from CPU manufacturing, Intel announced it will watch carefully this reorganization. Officially, Intel wants to know how AMD will behave with Santa Clara's patents for which AMD had acquired licenses. In theory, one could not transfer such licenses to third parties. For sure, such legal point might give some work for lawyers from both companies. For sure Intel will try hard to benefit from such leadership position, and will most likely not help AMD to recover from its current situation.

If some still doubted about the October 14th Special Event we announced weeks ago, it is now official as Apple starts to send invitations for the associated Keynote entirely dedicated to notebooks.

We will of course be there to provide a live coverage!

We already mentioned several times that we were unhappy from the lack of hardware updates, as recently Apple mostly communicate around iPhone and iPods.
The next Keynote will most likely mark the Mac come-back and should initiate a period of new hardware announcement, as new iMac and Mac Pro should follow. According to our information, all Apple notebook models will be upgraded, at different levels, but enough to justify the revision and reposition Apple offer in front of PC models. According to our sources, NVidia should be part of the event, as they accepted to keep secret some information on forthcoming products.
After notebook models, iMac and Mac Pro should be upgraded. The latest should be the first hardware model to sport the Nehalem, and the performance gap with current Mac Pro models might be significant.

Apple has just posted a security update 2008-007 via the usual software update or via direct download for: Leopard, Leopard serveur, Tiger Intel, Tiger PPC, Tiger serveur PPC and finally Tiger serveur Universal.
10.5.5 and 10.4.11are the minimum requirements

Security Update 2008-007 is recommended for all users and improves the security of Mac OS X. Previous security updates have been incorporated into this security update.