Class Action lawsuit for Late 2013 nMP's

[FutureExMacUser]

Greetings,

Long time lurker here. Does anyone have any info on any class action lawsuits going on with the Late 2103 nMP's? I'm on my 4th 12core and have had it with apple. The 12k that I lost on the computer is nothing compared to the jobs that I had to forfeit because of the D700's...

Thank You Guys

 

[Ph.D.]

What do you hope for from a class action suit, a $5 App Store coupon? Aside from lining the pockets of lawyers (the whole point of class action suits in 99% of cases), that's about all anyone is likely to get out of one.

You could, of course, sue them yourself. If they have replaced the whole thing three times already, then you are unlikely to prevail. Nevertheless, if you do sue, be sure to demand a nnMP as a replacement!

Maybe, as you say, it's time to move on.

(Edited to remove the word "No." But don't get your hopes up.)

 

[ActionableMango]

Apparently there is. I simply typed "class action lawsuit Mac Pro" into Google and found this:
https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit...s-action-says-mac-pro-defects-render-useless/

 

[FutureExMacUser]

What do you hope for from a class action suit, a $5 App Store coupon? Aside from lining the pockets of lawyers (the whole point of class action suits in 99% of cases), that's about all anyone is likely to get out of one.

You could, of course, sue them yourself. If they have replaced the whole thing three times already, then you are unlikely to prevail. Nevertheless, if you do sue, be sure to demand a nnMP!

Maybe, as you say, it's time to move on.

(Edited to remove the word "No." But don't get your hopes up.)

Ha, app store coupon... I've never sued anyone in my life, not my style. Just frustrated as I use this for motion picture work, which is my living. I've had it repaired three times, and a whole new unit a month ago. How am I unlikely to prevail? It is a know graphics card issue. Do you own/use the nMP? (not being sarcastic)

I would LOVE to move on, just this industry has its hands tied with apple. Windows is still too shakey. I know a lot of people still holding onto their cheeze graters in town because of that reason.
[doublepost=1489442004][/doublepost]

Apparently there is. I simply typed "class action lawsuit Mac Pro" into Google and found this:
https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit...s-action-says-mac-pro-defects-render-useless/

This is new, thanks.

 

[poematik13]

Unfortunately a class action lawsuit, while able to be formed, won't really get anywhere because Apple already offers a repair program for the specific AMD GPU's in the 2013 Mac Pro that were defective.

Your options are to keep going through new repairs/replacements until you get a good unit, or you can move on to a different system like most of the people here. I had my D500's die on me too and they replaced them and now my mac pro has been fine for the past 2 years and still going strong

Also, if you were actually professional you'd have your insurance cover you for the loss of work as a result of your "jobs that I had to forfeit"

 

[FutureExMacUser]

Also, if you were actually professional you'd have your insurance cover you for the loss of work as a result of your "jobs that I had to forfeit"

I've already tried in the late 80's,90's, and recently. Not in any of the clauses by the three major ins companies unfortunately.

 

[greenmeanie]

He has no clue about Windows either because quite a few pro's already left for it.

 

[NY Guitarist]

I would LOVE to move on, just this industry has its hands tied with apple. Windows is still too shakey. I know a lot of people still holding onto their cheeze graters in town because of that reason.

The market for cMP's in LA is insanely overpriced for this very reason.

Also, if you were actually professional you'd have your insurance cover you for the loss of work as a result of your "jobs that I had to forfeit"

If you're a small shop, one man band, or independent contractor equipment failures will kill your business. Not sure what kind of insurance covers losing 'first call' status with those who hire.

 

[MacStu09]

Ha, app store coupon... I've never sued anyone in my life, not my style. Just frustrated as I use this for motion picture work, which is my living. I've had it repaired three times, and a whole new unit a month ago. How am I unlikely to prevail? It is a know graphics card issue. Do you own/use the nMP? (not being sarcastic)

I would LOVE to move on, just this industry has its hands tied with apple. Windows is still too shakey. I know a lot of people still holding onto their cheeze graters in town because of that reason.
[doublepost=1489442004][/doublepost]
This is new, thanks.

I think you should re-assess the market. Many Mac users are still in the mindset that the current version of Windows is "Windows Vista," and are becoming way behind the times in the production world. Windows has been solid since the 7 sp's. Whoever told you it's "too shakey" clearly hasn't touched another computer in the past 5 years.

Windows has been far more reliable than MacOS in all of my pro apps usage in the past year. So much that I've completely abandoned MacOS for anything but personal use. (I do still prefer it as my personal OS.) But for pro usage? Windows, hands down. Far more compatible, reliable, and expandable (if using a non-Apple PC.) If you've been stuck with D700's all this time, depending on what all you do, it'll be a whole new world when you finally get to use modern high end graphics solutions.

 

[pat500000]

i would sue Apple for having Tim Cook as CEO.......emotional disturbance.

 

[ActionableMango]

Windows is still too shakey.

I've moved about 90% to Windows 10. I have some complaints to be sure, but none about reliability. It is rock solid.

One thing I'm particularly impressed with is being able to update drivers, even serious ones like graphics drivers, without having to reboot--and it actually works.

 

[jeff7117]

Greetings,

Long time lurker here. Does anyone have any info on any class action lawsuits going on with the Late 2103 nMP's? I'm on my 4th 12core and have had it with apple. The 12k that I lost on the computer is nothing compared to the jobs that I had to forfeit because of the D700's...

Thank You Guys

It would be worth some time to get to know Windows. Many former users, myself included, have switched without much hassle. Unless you need FCPX, it would definitely be worth some time to research a Windows based workflow. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

 

[FutureExMacUser]

It would be worth some time to get to know Windows. Many former users, myself included, have switched without much hassle. Unless you need FCPX, it would definitely be worth some time to research a Windows based workflow. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

You know your right, I've just invested so much time with apple it's all I know now. I've contemplated having a high end hackintosh being built out of frustration. However, I was warned it would not be without a few hickups every once in a while. The thought of going full windows just never crossed my mind. Most of the DIT's here in Los Angeles are still all mac based. Resolve is the usual program we use for rendering and grading. It is not uncommon for me to process up to 10TB a day on some higher profile spots.

Any particular workstations you'd recommend? Or would you go full custom?

 

[jeff7117]

Any particular workstations you'd recommend? Or would you go full custom?

I would avoid a hackintosh at this point. You're locked into older Maxwell Nvidia cards without any support for the newer series 1080 and 1080ti cards. It's not supported by Apple or the hardware vendors. I'm not saying it can't be done, but in the "my machine has to work every day for me to get paid" world of Post, a Hack is a bad idea. You're really just delaying the inevitable switch to PC anyway.

As for the workstation route, you have plenty of options. There's Dell or HP. They usually have great customer support with next-day hardware warranty replacement on most parts. However, you mentioned that you were using Resolve, and you can't configure a Dell or HP workstation easily with the fast GeForce cards needed for rendering. Most will come with Nvidia Quadro or ATI fire cards.

I would recommend going through a custom vendor such as digitalstorm, boxx, maingear or puget systems.

Yes some of these are "Gaming PCs" but you're really getting a machine capable of holding 3 or 4 GPU's with up to a 10 core CPU or even single Xeon chip and 128 gigs or more of RAM. These vendors also make workstations and have great reputations along with excellent warranty coverage. There are also quite a few system build threads on the liftgammagain forum covering grading systems.

While many of these systems won't be cheap, you should be pleasantly surprised what kind of system you can get for nMP prices.

If you want more information about going through the actual switch to PC, this 3 part series from school of motion would be a good place to start.

 

[Daniel Reed]

Greetings,

Long time lurker here. Does anyone have any info on any class action lawsuits going on with the Late 2103 nMP's? I'm on my 4th 12core and have had it with apple. The 12k that I lost on the computer is nothing compared to the jobs that I had to forfeit because of the D700's...

Thank You Guys

Apple like many computer and appliance makers revise their devices over the course of the lifecycle.
In the case for Apple they tend to do so to improve performance; whereas, other vendors due it to cut costs.

Compare the performance of supposedly identical spec nMP models from 2013~14 to those from mid 2015~17
The local SSD is MUCH faster, by at least 400MBytes/sec for both read/write.
The D700s, at least in my benchmarks are about 5~10% faster

Now compare the internals:
You'll notice the boards look a bit different as well.

Unfortunately, Apple does ZERO promotion aimed at the tech savvy or creative.
Thus most falsely believe the nMP has remained unchanged since 2013.
And many nMP buyers thought D300s were acceptable options.

In reality, D300s are as detrimental to creative pros as a 5400RPM HDD is to casual iMac users.

Apple should just stop the nonsense of even offering these incredibly bad options.
And a GPU upgrade program would resolve a lot of nMP headaches.

But all this is academic.


Unfortunately, Apple fan speeds in general are often 30-100% lower then they should be.
AND Apple STILL appears to use the same poor thermal paste - turns into more of an insulator
But this effects all Macs - and Dell uses the same junk compound

Here's my recipe to basically never have hardware problems/glitches on nMP

1. Replace the CPU/GPU thermal compound w/ arctic silver
2. Lay nMP on its side in a cradle,
3. Point a small fan at the "bottom" - Vornado Zippy is great and rather quiet
4. Install smcFanControl
5. Create at least two fan control profiles: 1300RPM for casual use, 1800RPM for full loads

The above may be applied to most Macs w/ position changes to step #2 and RPM settings in step #5

For example, MBP laptops pretending to be workstations:
Take the bottom panel off, put it in a vertical stand, and point a fan at it.

For iMacs there is an additional step: Don't turn up brightness past 10 bars.
Running iMacs near or at full brightness pumps out a ton of heat and reduces performance.
From my use of monitor calibration scopes, I find most Mac displays are best between 8 to 9 bars.

Windows devices are not immune to major problems - especially thermal issues.
In the last 15 years I have yet to see a Dell non-server product not designed to fail.

 

[Theophany]

Windows is still too shakey.

Has had three borked Mac Pros.
Claims Windows is "shakey."

It never ceases to amaze me what ridiculous mental gymnastics people go through to convince themselves of things like this. Windows 10 is a very solid OS and there are an ever-shrinking number of professional apps that are MacOS only.

 

[FutureExMacUser]

Apple like many computer and appliance makers revise their devices over the course of the lifecycle.
In the case for Apple they tend to do so to improve performance; whereas, other vendors due it to cut costs.

Compare the performance of supposedly identical spec nMP models from 2013~14 to those from mid 2015~17
The local SSD is MUCH faster, by at least 400MBytes/sec for both read/write.
The D700s, at least in my benchmarks are about 5~10% faster

Now compare the internals:
You'll notice the boards are look a bit different as well.

Unfortunately, Apple does ZERO promotion aimed at the tech savvy or creative.
Thus most falsely believe the nMP has remained unchanged since 2013.
And many nMP buyers thought D300s were acceptable options.

In reality, D300s are as detrimental to creative pros as a 5400RPM HDD is to casual iMac users.

Apple should just stop the nonsense of even offering these incredibly bad options.
And a GPU upgrade program would resolve a lot of nMP headaches.

But all this is academic.


Unfortunately, Apple fan speeds in general are often 30-100% lower then they should be.
AND Apple STILL appears to use the same poor thermal paste - turns into more of an insulator
But this effects all Macs - and Dell uses the same junk compound

Here's my recipe to basically never have hardware problems/glitches on nMP

1. Replace the CPU/GPU thermal compound w/ arctic silver
2. Lay nMP on its side in a cradle,
3. Point a small fan at the "bottom" - Vornado Zippy is great and rather quiet
4. Install smcFanControl
5. Create at least two fan control profiles: 1300RPM for casual use, 1800RPM for full loads

The above may be applied to most Macs w/ position changes to step #2 and RPM settings in step #5

For example, MBP laptops pretending to be workstations:
Take the bottom panel off, put it in a vertical stand, and point a fan at it.

For iMacs there is an additional step: Don't turn up brightness past 10 bars.
Running iMacs near or at full brightness pumps out a ton of heat and reduces performance.
From my use of monitor calibration scopes, I find most Mac displays are best between 8 to 9 bars.

Windows devices are not immune to major problems - especially thermal issues.
In the last 15 years I have yet to see a Dell non-server product not designed to fail.

I'd have to agree on the heat & fan speed issue. The remedy that I've found as a band aid fix is to run dry ac air
into the intake. Crude but works... Especially if your in the desert and it's over 100deg out (ambient). I've found by monitoring with istat, if you keep the temps below 138deg you lower the risk of cooking the trashcan. It's ridiculous on remote features that I have to travel with 2 spare 12cores...

Did you see a noticeable temp drop when replacing CPU/GPU thermal compound w/ arctic silver?

[doublepost=1489690814][/doublepost]

I would avoid a hackintosh at this point. You're locked into older Maxwell Nvidia cards without any support for the newer series 1080 and 1080ti cards. It's not supported by Apple or the hardware vendors. I'm not saying it can't be done, but in the "my machine has to work every day for me to get paid" world of Post, a Hack is a bad idea. You're really just delaying the inevitable switch to PC anyway.

As for the workstation route, you have plenty of options. There's Dell or HP. They usually have great customer support with next-day hardware warranty replacement on most parts. However, you mentioned that you were using Resolve, and you can't configure a Dell or HP workstation easily with the fast GeForce cards needed for rendering. Most will come with Nvidia Quadro or ATI fire cards.

I would recommend going through a custom vendor such as digitalstorm, boxx, maingear or puget systems.

Yes some of these are "Gaming PCs" but you're really getting a machine capable of holding 3 or 4 GPU's with up to a 10 core CPU or even single Xeon chip and 128 gigs or more of RAM. These vendors also make workstations and have great reputations along with excellent warranty coverage. There are also quite a few system build threads on the liftgammagain forum covering grading systems.

While many of these systems won't be cheap, you should be pleasantly surprised what kind of system you can get for nMP prices.

If you want more information about going through the actual switch to PC, this 3 part series from school of motion would be a good place to start.

Thanks Jeff, super helpful information and makes perfect sense. Much appreciated on the links! Are you a colorist or DIT?
[doublepost=1489691771][/doublepost]

Has had three borked Mac Pros.
Claims Windows is "shakey."

It never ceases to amaze me what ridiculous mental gymnastics people go through to convince themselves of things like this. Windows 10 is a very solid OS and there are an ever-shrinking number of professional apps that are MacOS only.

Hahaha, even in a forum you cant direct the comment @Me. It would be interesting to see your demeanor if you were 3feet from me. But your right, I'm going off past experiences from many years ago. There must be a reason why the top A-list collegues of mine are all still mac based making +300K a year. Clearly they are doing something wrong, lol
I am just echoing our shared sentiment on the trashcans and apples lack of product development on the workstations. But yes I will have to explore windows 10 to give it a fair shake.

 

[jeff7117]

Thanks Jeff, super helpful information and makes perfect sense. Much appreciated on the links! Are you a colorist or DIT?

Nah, I'm an animator / compositor but I've been working in post production for a long time (first post software program was AE 3.1). Really, I try to be as platform agnostic as I can. It's just another tool in the toolbox. Once I got over the whole "Apple ecosystem" argument, it was really easy to look at other hardware. I do work with a local colorist quite often, and he just switched to PC from a 5,1 and is really happy with the change. His machine was getting KP's on a daily basis, and it wasn't gonna be around much longer.

Good luck with those nMP's and shoot me a PM if you have any other PC questions.

 

[Daniel Reed]

I'd have to agree on the heat & fan speed issue. The remedy that I've found as a band aid fix is to run dry ac air...
Did you see a noticeable temp drop when replacing CPU/GPU thermal compound w/ arctic silver?

Temp drops for nMP were significant, but i don't recall the numbers ATM - at least 5C.
In a recent full teardown and thermal paste replacement for a 2013 iMac,
temps dropped by 35~40F idle and by 15~20F under full load.

CPU before and cleanup...

Thermal compound dried and bubbled up - showed less then best contact

Here is the CPU after it was cleaned up, prior to applying artic silver

Funny enough, I have an ac unit I'm working on rigging into my wind tunnel shelf

 

[Theophany]

Hahaha, even in a forum you cant direct the comment @Me. It would be interesting to see your demeanor if you were 3feet from me. But your right, I'm going off past experiences from many years ago. There must be a reason why the top A-list collegues of mine are all still mac based making +300K a year. Clearly they are doing something wrong, lol
I am just echoing our shared sentiment on the trashcans and apples lack of product development on the workstations. But yes I will have to explore windows 10 to give it a fair shake.

I pointed out the logical flaw in your argument. I didn't pass comment on your colleagues or what they do because I don't know (or care, funnily enough). If you want to be *that* guy on the Internet making thinly veiled threats and bragging about stuff nobody gives a **** about, be my guest tough guy.

But yes, perhaps you should actually try software before you say it's garbage. It's an approach that you can apply to all of life and it stops you looking like a moron with unqualified opinions. Hth.