Are the iMac NVidia 8800 GPU's defective?

[gehrbox]

Recently NVidia reported that significant quantities of its laptop GPU's are defective.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/02/nvidia-says-significant-quantities-of-laptop-gpus-are-defectiv/

Do you think that the 8800 card option in the new iMac's will be effected when all the information becomes available?

 

[Entopia7]

I believe that the iMac uses a specialized desktop GPU and therefore not included in the defective units. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[thecrackerjack]

My iMac with the Nvidia seems to work quite fine.

I am rendering video at 70fps and playing DOD via STEAM and no issues are notable.

 

[minik]

I think it's too early to tell.

This 3.06Ghz iMac is my first Mac with nVidia GPU, sigh.

 

[Muncher]

I believe that the iMac uses a specialized desktop GPU and therefore not included in the defective units. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

It's a problem with firmware, I think. Even if the firmware is different, it should be built off the same code.

That said, apple does some funky stuff concerning fans, with the imac fans already set on the bare minimum. If we haven't seen major problems by now, it probably won't happen.

 

[m1stake]

I believe that the iMac uses a specialized desktop GPU and therefore not included in the defective units. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

The iMac uses an MXM slot, which is a laptop slot, for it's graphics card. It is the 8800M specifically, although the Apple website does not mention it.

However, it's too early to tell if the iMacs have been negatively effected.

 

[kenned]

I think i've read that the issue should be heat, because they created the cards in materials that doesn't handle the heat correct. So the only thing they'd change in the drivers would be making the fan hit earlier.

 

[bob vansteel]

from what i've read and heard, almost all of the affected chips were sold only in laptops, and all that is needed to fix most of them is a firmware fix/tweak, but if your gpu goes bad before they come out with the update, nvidia is offering replacments.

 

[gehrbox]

from what i've read and heard, almost all of the affected chips were sold only in laptops, and all that is needed to fix most of them is a firmware fix/tweak, but if your gpu goes bad before they come out with the update, nvidia is offering replacments.

The iMac is one of the few desktop computers that uses laptop components. When they say laptop, I take it they are referring to laptop components, not necessarily the implementation of the components.

 

[QCassidy352]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

I believe that the iMac uses a specialized desktop GPU and therefore not included in the defective units. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

The "8800 GS" in the iMac is just an 8800M GTS. So it is just a regular laptop part, rebranded.

 

[jjahshik32]

I wouldnt worry about it if you have a 8800M GS or a 8600M GT card because sounds like the dell 1330 and dell 1530 are the ones plagued with the 8400M GS card gpu that is the defective one.

 

[kevinbal]

Not to resurrect a dead, old thread, but my 8800 card just went on my iMac this morning.

Here's the kicker: its 2 weeks out of warranty. No idea if this is related to the issues plaguing the 8X00 series of chips, but I'd love to know if any other users have had the same issue crop up.

 

[kevinbal]

Followup to this: Brought it to the Genius Bar, they confirmed my own diagnostics that the graphics card went (from the artifacts on the screen, which turned into a garbled mess of lines, which then turned into a KP).

Interestingly enough, the Genius offered to repair the machine free of charge even though it was outside of its original warranty. I really expected to have to fight a bit to get that, even was prepared for the 'deal' of buying AppleCare to get the repair done.

None of that, he took it right in to be repaired in 5-7 days turnaround.

Does Apple quietly know about issues with the 8800 in the iMacs?

 

[ROFISH]

Sorry to bump, but my 8800 is on the fritz and is out of warranty. Glad to see it's a common issue and hopefully my repairs are free.

 

[SaSaSushi]

Sorry to bump, but my 8800 is on the fritz and is out of warranty. Glad to see it's a common issue and hopefully my repairs are free.

There has been no such recall on Apple's part that I know of regarding the 8800. I suspect that his free repairs had more to do with the machine being just 2 weeks over the one year limited warranty and a very kind Apple Store Genius. I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

About 2 years ago I had a 20-inch Intel Core Duo iMac that had a GPU go bad 6 weeks out of the one year warranty and I ended up paying $550 to replace the logic board.

I bought AppleCare for my current iMac.