VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[Jason Lawson]

I recently acquired a Macbook Pro (paid $745.00) with the NVIDIA problem related to screen freeze ups with no mouse or keyboard input possible requireing a hard boot which ultimately ends up in a hung boot screen.This may even plaque some newer stuff apparently, though probably less at this current time I suspect.

The issue is related to the eutectic / non eutectic mount of the NVIDIA chip which causes overheating to failure point when working with large mixdowns or more noticeably certain versions of streaming flash video contents.

The problem with my machine was that the hard drive had been replaced with something non-apple approved, and I wouldn't qualify for the flat rate out of warranty repair from them at $300.00 (local repair shop quotes $900.00 for logic board replacement).

The solution for me was Hi-Tech Electronics (in China town NY).
I was a little worried to send my machine to some unknown place like this, but I checked around and it seemed they had a good reputation, so I tried them and am very pleased with their repair. They remounted the chip with the correct solder compound etc. and cleaned it up for $259.00 return shipping included, 95 day warranty. I paid about $40.00 to ship it, but that included a special laptop shipping box, and insurance.

So in the end I acquired a really well kept Macbook Pro otherwise for about what I would have paid for an excellent used on anyways lol (about $1100.00 locally atm) but the way my budget was I don't think I could have done it otherwise. Hopefully others were covered by Apple or the class action that resulted from the issue, but apparently some of those bad boards were in circulation still until ju\st recently.

[Jason Lawson]

I should add that I now use an additional 3-fan cooling pad whenever possible and use smc fan control a for cranking up my fans under heavy load.
These particular machines run quite warm by nature.