NVIDIA Graphics Chips Investigated as Cause of MacBook Pro Failures

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The NVIDIA G84 and G86 graphics chips are being investigated as the cause for some HP and Dell computer failures, according to The Inquirer on Friday. Apple MacBook Pros also appear to have the problem based on the Apple discussion forum.

The problem manifests itself at bootup when the MacBook Pro screen goes blank.

NVIDIA has denied that there is a problem, but the Inquirer claims to have sources that say all the parts are bad and suffer from a defect in a substrate material when going through the power up/power down heating and cooling cycle. Because desktops and notebooks go through different cycles, with desktops tending to remain on, the problem has affected different computers at different times.

The Inquirer has labeled the problem a cover up and will eventually cost NVIDA big bucks, perhaps US$200M.

According to Jason OiGrady and David Morgenstern at their Apple Core blog, Apple has not acknowledged the problem yet either.

The Apple Core bloggers point to the Apple Discussion Forum thatis buzzing with the issue.

John Martellaro

John Martellaro

John Martellaro was born at an early age and began writing about computers soon after that. He is a former U.S. Air Force officer and has worked for NASA, White Sands Missile Range, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Apple. At Apple he worked as a Senior Marketing Manager, a Federal Account Executive and a High Performance Computing manager. His interests include skiing, chess, science fiction and astronomy. You can follow John on Twitter at twitter.com/jmartellaro.

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