Apple with Nvidia - Defective Apple Laptops

The much welcomed Apple Macbook Pro laptops have recently been detected with faulty Nvidia graphic processor. Apple Inc. acknoweldged the defect in its blog posted on Thursday.

Surrounded with numerous complaints of distorted/no video in recent months from the Macbook Pro users, Apple carried an investigation to find the real problem. Ironically, Nvidia, one of the world's leading firm in visual computing technologies, has been blamed for the reported video problems.

Based on its investigation, Apple confirmed that the GPU, Nvidia's GeForce 8600M GT, equipped in most of the Macbook Pro laptops is faulty. It also anticipated that Macbooks manufacturered between May 2007 and September 2008 may have used the defective parts.

Standing against the allegation, Nvidia spokesperson Derek Perez said, "Our analysis shows that a failure in an Apple MacBook Pro notebook is remote."

In July, Nvidia disclosed problems with an older version of its graphics processor in "significant quantities" on laptops to the public. A shareholder has also filed a lawsuit against the company blaming it for withholding information on the scope of the chip flaws deliberately. As a result, Nvidia's stock plunged 31 percent from $18.78 on July 2 to $12.98 on July 3. But soon after a month, the company set aside a $196 million reserve to cover costs associated with addressing the problem.

Apple stated that "Nvidia assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected."

However, Apple is not the first one to determine the bad Nvidia graphics chips. A number of other OEMs, including Dell and Hewlett-Packard, have also identified similar problems with Nvidia's graphics chips. While, Hewlett-Packard has confirmed 24 different HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario notebook models to have benn affected with faulty Nvidia chips, Dell also has identified 15 models in its Precision, Latitude, Inspiron, Vostro and XPS lines.

Pertz said, "Apple, like other OEMs, decides on their own how to handle their warranty and repair programs, based upon their own quality standards. Regardless, we stand by our products, thus the reason why we set aside such a large reserve, and we have and will continue to work closely with Apple and their customers."

Nonetheless, Apple has offered users an extended warranty and free repairs on the affected laptops. In case the user has already got the computer serviced for this issue, the company has decided to reimburse the service charges.