1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

News Apple to repair faulty Mac Pro graphics cards

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 9 Feb 2016.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

    Joined:
    4 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    17,066
    Likes Received:
    6,610
  2. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

    Joined:
    23 Apr 2009
    Posts:
    15,395
    Likes Received:
    2,992
    That's typical Apple [a lot of other OEMs too, though i've 1st hand experience of how apple can be] though - deny there's a problem, deny it some more, deny it a 3rd time, admit there might be a problem but only agree to fix it if you don't tell anyone...
     
  3. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

    Joined:
    4 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    17,066
    Likes Received:
    6,610
    When it was the MacBook Pro GPU dying, it took FOUR YEARS and a class-action lawsuit before Apple accepted culpability...
     
  4. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

    Joined:
    23 Apr 2009
    Posts:
    15,395
    Likes Received:
    2,992
    I've encountered similar during my time there... stories I probably shouldn't share openly...

    Lets just say I've seen enough that when anyone mention's apple's quality control/build quality i can't help but laugh... and the less said about their software [iCloud in particular] the better...
     
  5. Jimbob

    Jimbob Minimodder

    Joined:
    2 Jul 2009
    Posts:
    205
    Likes Received:
    7
    Have Apple ever used a GPU that didn't fail? Mabooks, iMac's and Pro have all had serious GPU problems.
     
  6. StoneyMahoney

    StoneyMahoney What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    10 Jul 2009
    Posts:
    287
    Likes Received:
    13
    Why does everyone remember it as the Macbook Pro GPU problem? It was a blanket problem with a crapload of Nvidia-manufactured GPUs also used in 39 models of laptops built by HP and Dell and resulted in a $3billion lawsuit against Nvidia. But nooooo, it's an *Apple* problem. They've been let down by another graphics vendor who can't reliably manufacture a GPU that remains within it's design spec temperature envelope during normal operation, but Apple take the blame and not a bad word is said against Nvidia.

    Update: Results of that lawsuit - Apple and Dell got the costs of all the repairs they did reimbursed by Nvidia, while HP shafted it's customers by doing a present-day-value replacement of systems they couldn't repair, resulting in a down-grade for all affected customers. And people say Apple get up to shenanigans!
     
    Last edited: 9 Feb 2016
  7. Blackshark

    Blackshark What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    13 Apr 2004
    Posts:
    135
    Likes Received:
    2
    Do you remember the days when you had a budget of 1500-2000 GBP for a new PC? I do. You simply could not buy a PC for a few hundred pounds. Today - the only people that spend that much are either gaming with multi monitors or have specific requirements beyond the norm.

    So Tech companies dont have the cash coming in, sure they make profit, but it is little on mass sales. Same goes for GPU, CPU and memory companies. When a problem occurs, they have sold millions, millions are affected.

    I dont like Apple, from the board (alive and dead) to the way they go about business, are some how allowed to use proprietary connectors on phones whilst every other manufacturer uses microUSB.... almost a total lack of RnD.... but its all been said, written about and even put in movies before.

    Since it is Apple, since these are premium machines, the above argument should be put aside. Apple has the money, then are not selling 299 GBP laptops. Their inability to accept errors they make would normally cause customers to look elsewhere, but it seems in their case the magic sauce keeps customers coming back.
     
  8. StoneyMahoney

    StoneyMahoney What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    10 Jul 2009
    Posts:
    287
    Likes Received:
    13
    So your argument is "System costs above $MAGIC_NUMBER therefore blame is arbitrarily assigned"? No. You're wrong. I get that you wish to irrationally assign the blame to Apple here because you hate them, you're a hater, and this whole situation is a great excuse to break out the haterade.

    And I get it, Apple are smug b*st*rds who need to be taken down a notch, but as much as we want this to be their fault, it isn't, and trying to pin it on them just makes you sound bitter and lets the real culprits get away with it - AMD have a production quality control problem and we can expect a whole bunch of other AMD-containing products to start showing issues too. Let's not let AMD hide behind the Reality Distortion Field like Nvidia did, huh?

    (Disclaimer: I own two Mac laptops and a Mac Mini because Apple make great computers, but iOS can go to hell! That's right, realistic Mac owners *do* exist!)
     
  9. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

    Joined:
    4 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    17,066
    Likes Received:
    6,610
    My laptop is a MacBook Air. I use it as little as possible, because OS X absolutely does my nut in. I keep meaning to install something else, but never quite find the time.

    My next laptop will not be a MacBook of any flavour, I can tell you that much.

    Oh, and as for why Apple gets the blame: that's where the legal blame lies, from a contractual standpoint. Buyers of the faulty MacBook Pros had no contract with Nvidia whatsoever, and no legal redress for the fault. Their contract was with Apple, and it was Apple which held the responsibility for making things right. Instead of doing so - i.e. repairing or replacing the laptops and then seeking its own redress with Nvidia, with whom it holds a contract - it pretended the fault didn't exist. For four years. I know someone who had to pay (from memory) £400 twice to have the motherboard replaced on their MacBook Pro, because Apple insisted it wasn't to blame. That is, until the bad PR and lawsuits caught up to it, at which point it suddenly decided to launch an 'entirely voluntary' out-of-warranty repair programme for the issue.

    Yes, Dell had a similar problem with faulty Nvidia chips. That, likewise, was a Dell problem from the consumer's perspective, not an Nvidia problem.
     
  10. StoneyMahoney

    StoneyMahoney What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    10 Jul 2009
    Posts:
    287
    Likes Received:
    13
    I actually quite like OS X for certain things, I get stuff done stupidly fast with it (certainly much faster than with Windows) but it's totally horses for courses and completely unsuitable for any semi-serious gaming. Thing is, finding something that does game reasonably well and wouldn't drive me nuts knowing I could have finished task X half an hour ago on my old Mac.... grr....

    That's an overly-simplistic way of looking at it and only takes the Apple-customer relationship into account. You can bet serious money right now that Apple's lawyers and eyeing up AMD as well right now. They certainly did the same to Nvidia last time this happened and Nvidia swallowed all the costs. Regarding Apple's (and Dell's and HP's) reticence to publicly admit the problem - when you're about to sue someone on behalf of your customers for a ten-figure dollar amount, the most stupid thing you could ever do it put out a press release with "We admit there's a problem, signed Steve, Carly and Michael" for Nvidia's defense lawyers to brandish in court as proof you already admitted it's your problem, not theirs. After all, it's not like Apple et al can admit liability on Nvidia's behalf, is it?

    And yes, the whole innocent-until-proven-guilty thing works in conjunction with the whole never-admit-liability-until-proven-in-court concept and everyone's customers get screwed over until the law decides who's picking up the bill for the whole fiasco.... and people *STILL* lay *EVERYTHING* at Apple's feet without ever thinking about what's actually going on beyond "Boohoo my laptop is borked!"

    And yeah, I totally get it. I'd be pissed too. Just for God's sake, report it right, huh?
     
  11. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

    Joined:
    4 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    17,066
    Likes Received:
    6,610
    Yeah, I don't use Windows, either. Or do any semi-serious gaming.
    You don't appear to have quite parsed what I was saying correctly. Let's break it down.

    There is a problem with Apple's Mac Pro. (We can agree this, yes?)
    Customers who bought certain Mac Pros from Apple have faulty units. (Confirmed.)
    Apple bought certain AMD GPUs which are faulty (Unconfirmed - we don't know if this is a manufacturing fault or an assembly fault, so can't assign blame here.)

    The customers need Apple to fix the problem, because AMD has no relationship with the customer.
    Apple needs AMD to fix the problem (assuming it's AMD's fault, of course.)

    From the customer's perspective, and a legal perspective, this is an Apple problem which Apple needs to fix. The customer - and the law - doesn't give a rat's ass whether the money to fix the problem comes out of Apple's pockets or AMD's pockets: that's Apple's problem, not the consumer's.

    Let's put it another way. Imagine Ford releases a car with Recarro brakes in it, and a fault with a batch of brakes causes 'em to fail. Should consumers be chasing Ford for a repair, or Recarro? Should Ford keep quiet about the problem, despite admitting it internally?

    As for 'admitting liability,' what rot. Apple telling customers that there's a flaw in their Mac Pros that will break 'em and they can return 'em for a free repair would have no effect whatsoever on any case it may have against AMD. When Microsoft issued a recall for easily-damaged power cables, did it try to hide the problem? No, it didn't, and guess what: Microsoft doesn't make power cables, just like Apple doesn't make desktop GPUs. Still Microsoft's problem.

    I stand by every word of the article and my follow-up comments. Apple's Mac Pros (and, prior to that MacBook Pros) are failing, and it's not alerting customers to the problem nor volunteering repairs. If it had been an internal cable fraying and shorting out, would you be laying the blame at Foxconn/Molex/whoever's feet?

    Remind me: who makes the Mac Pro? Who proclaims it as being a cut above the rest in quality? Who takes your money when you buy one? Who is legally culpable for any failure of hardware or crafstmanship during the product's lifespan? Does it begin with A, by any chance? End in 'pple?'

    If your MacBooks or Mac Mini broke tomorrow because of a faulty component, would you shrug and say "hey, it's not Apple's fault?" Would you ask Apple to repair it under warranty, or just buy a brand-new replacement 'cos, after all, it's not Apple's fault that they bought bad components - why should they be made to pay for a repair?
     
    Last edited: 10 Feb 2016
  12. rollo

    rollo Modder

    Joined:
    16 May 2008
    Posts:
    7,887
    Likes Received:
    131
    AMD can not afford to absorb apples costs they would kill the company. Nvidia lost a lot of money covering costs the last time.

    Apple is technically correct it's not there's Hp or Dells fault problem is with the gpu manufacture. Law says its there fault as its there product that they are selling.

    Same way if you brought a PC made by Sony your Intel CPU melts because it went out of spec that would be Sonys fault but not Intels.
     
  13. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

    Joined:
    30 Aug 2015
    Posts:
    14,851
    Likes Received:
    3,654
    You can't blame AMD for all of the reasons stated above.

    I am curious, however, to who designed the GPU that goes in this Mac and whether it can be found anywhere else (is it some sort of laptop GPU? or did Apple design it themselves?)

    It's like that age old blame game people played when HP put Nvidia GPU cores on their laptop motherboards and used rubbish ROHS solder. Every one was pointing the finger at Nvidia but they did not make the laptops nor were responsible for the soldering.
     
  14. StoneyMahoney

    StoneyMahoney What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    10 Jul 2009
    Posts:
    287
    Likes Received:
    13
    Actually, I parsed what you actually said, not what you didn't say - there's an awful lot of unspoken extra detail you've suddenly assumed everyone who read your rebuttal was supposed to have been able to pick up there. I also see you've never been involved in a car accidental. Ever wondered why the first piece of legal advice anyone ever gets is "Don't admit responsibility, ever"? Because in the eyes on the law, if you admit responsibility at any time, you'll have a much much harder time proving you aren't responsible afterwards. You've just thrown innocent-until-proven-guilty out of the window and have to work three times as hard to get the actual culprit in the frame. With $more-money-than-God-has at stake, would you take even the slightest risk the judge/jury/whoever might think along those lines?

    And yes, if my Macbook died, I would be pissed. But unlike the idiot sheep who seem to populate certain comments threads and post badly written, ill-conceived news stories for them to bleet about, I am capable of looking at the big picture, and I'm rather more worried about the AMD GPU in my gaming rig now. I'm pretty sure that's a far more pertinent issue right now for everyone visiting this site, but no, that seems a bit too difficult for you to grasp, right?
     
  15. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

    Joined:
    4 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    17,066
    Likes Received:
    6,610
    There really, really wasn't.
    And the relevance to consumer law here is... Nup, I've missed it.
    What the jolly heck are you talking about? Do you know anything about consumer or corporate law? For a start, there's no such thing as 'innocent until proven guilty' here. The Consumer Rights Act requires that goods are: of satisfactory quality; fit for purpose; and as described. The faulty Mac Pros are not of satisfactory quality; they are not fit for purpose. The legal responsibility for the fault is with the retailer, with whom the consumer has a contract. In this case, the retailer is Apple.

    Under corporate law, going public with a recall and specifically outing the AMD-supplied component as the source of the problem would strengthen, not weaken, any possible case Apple has against AMD.
    You have a FirePro graphics card in your gaming rig? You have evidence that FirePro graphics cards are suffering from the same problem outside Apple's Mac Pro range? Interesting, on both counts.

    If you dislike the news stories on this site, feel entirely free to go somewhere else. I'm sure there are plenty of pro-Apple propaganda sites that would be more to your liking.
     
  16. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

    Joined:
    30 Aug 2015
    Posts:
    14,851
    Likes Received:
    3,654
    Gee thanks.

    Baaaa
     
  17. jinq-sea

    jinq-sea 'write that down in your copy book' Super Moderator

    Joined:
    15 Oct 2012
    Posts:
    8,823
    Likes Received:
    721
    You know what? Have a breather. There's no need to be an asshat to Gareth.
     
  18. Byron C

    Byron C Multimodder

    Joined:
    12 Apr 2002
    Posts:
    9,838
    Likes Received:
    4,430
    [​IMG]


    I shouldn't, but I do enjoy seeing ridiculous "arguments" being taken to pieces (if you can call it an "argument", since the majority of the offending posts seem to be either a straw-man or an ad-hominem).

    Challenging the integrity of the writer and going on to insult other forum members asks for an outright ban, if you ask me. I'd probably make quite a vindictive moderator, probably a good reason that I'm not one... :)
     
  19. MoldyOldyGeek

    MoldyOldyGeek What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    10 Feb 2016
    Posts:
    4
    Likes Received:
    0
    I'd appoint you as moderator in a heartbeat. :thumb:

    And thanks for the Stephen Colbert clip. hahahahahaaa!!!
     

Share This Page