Apple offers free repairs for 2013 Mac Pros with defective video cards

Apple has launched a free repair program for 2013 Mac Pros dealing with faulty video cards, in some cases believed to be responsible for problems like distorted or non-existent graphics, as well as freezing, reboots, sudden shutdowns, or even a system failing to start.

Affected Pros were manufactured between Feb. 8 and April 11 last year, MacRumors noted, and are equipped with AMD FirePro D500 or D700 cards. Configurations with D300s aren't included in the program.

People who believe they've been impacted must make an appointment at an Apple Store Genius Bar — or else see an Apple-authorized service provider — in order to determine if their system is indeed eligible for repairs. Service should take about 3 to 5 days.

The program is active from today through May 30, 2018.

A number of Mac Pro owners have been complaining about graphics-related issues since February last year. While some have already managed to get free repairs through Apple, until now there was no formal scheme.

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43 Comments

spaceage

said about 8 years ago

This whole system is so out of touch with any supposed "pro" market that it purports to address. What is with a "3-5 day" repair period? If you are a pro, and you've invested $10k or more into a system like this, how happy must you be to have to lose a week of productivity waiting for this? Apple should literally make this a while you wait repair that you schedule, but I guess the system is so woefully complex to service that you have to wait days to change a video card. Just another example why having a strange, semi-proprietary hardware design is a terrible idea for pros. And what's with no CPU updates since intro, max 1tb flash, no retina-level display option from Apple, and probably half a dozen other ridiculous decisions Apple has made with this product. Who comes up with and approves this stuff? Obviously execs with more money than brains, detached from reality.

esummers

said about 8 years ago

spaceage said:

This whole system is so out of touch with any supposed "pro" market that it purports to address. What is with a "3-5 day" repair period? If you are a pro, and you've invested $10k or more into a system like this, how happy must you be to have to lose a week of productivity waiting for this? Apple should literally make this a while you wait repair that you schedule, but I guess the system is so woefully complex to service that you have to wait days to change a video card. Just another example why having a strange, semi-proprietary hardware design is a terrible idea for pros. And what's with no CPU updates since intro, max 1tb flash, no retina-level display option from Apple, and probably half a dozen other ridiculous decisions Apple has made with this product. Who comes up with and approves this stuff? Obviously execs with more money than brains, detached from reality.

Not sure where you are coming from. This is a part they need to ship. Even in the professional or enterprise market it is rare to find a better turnaround time on hardware repairs then this. If uptime is that important you maintain a pool of spares or own a MacBook Pro to fall back on. A GPU repair would require a burn-in test, so it probably would not happen while you wait. Most Apple parts arrive in 1-2 days, so in theory the repair may be completed sooner.

appex

said about 8 years ago

Bring brand new

- Apple Mac Pro

- Apple Thunderbolt Display 4K 24-inch

- Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad

with Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 Type-C (reversible) Generation 2 (USB 3.1-built-in hub for keyboard).

Also the the rest of Apple devices (Mac and iOS). Bring standards.

Marvin

said about 8 years ago

esummers said:

Even in the professional or enterprise market it is rare to find a better turnaround time on hardware repairs then this. If uptime is that important you maintain a pool of spares or own a MacBook Pro to fall back on. A GPU repair would require a burn-in test, so it probably would not happen while you wait. Most Apple parts arrive in 1-2 days, so in theory the repair may be completed sooner.
One thing they could do for these customers is switch the SSD to another Mac Pro unit like a store unit (even if it was lower spec) until it was ready then switch it back when it's ready.

There is a site that sells custom PCs and they sell around 2000 GPUs per year. They do in-house testing before putting the GPUs out and their failure rates are shown on the following page:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Failure-Rates-by-Generation-563/

The numbers in the field are what matter for customers: NVidia was 0.64%, AMD was 1.92%. So this kind of thing might affect 1 in 50 Mac Pro buyers. The number of Mac Pro units sold is about 50-100,000 per quarter so 1-2000 people every 3 months worldwide. It wouldn't be a huge expense to offer a substitute Mac Pro during repair.

The in-house failure rate that the company noticed there was pretty high for AMD at more than 1 in 10. AMD had that 2011 MBP issue too. They currently have liabilities more than their assets amounting to $336m. They have $1b in current assets once you deduct current liabilities and they have been losing $100-200m per quarter. I'm not sure how long they can keep doing this but they'll be in trouble if their current assets go below their current liabilities, potentially next year. Their R9 GPUs didn't help their finances much but perhaps their new Polaris GPUs will help and these will come mid-2016:

A Mac Pro (and 15" MBP) update likely won't arrive before this as it's a big improvement. In the event that AMD goes under, Apple would have no option but to either buy them out and have them make in-house GPUs for them or switch to NVidia across the whole lineup. NVidia is switching to a new process this year too so the Mac updates this year should be really worthwhile. These will support Displayport 1.3 so 5K at 60Hz and 4K h.265 encode and decode.

quadra 610

said about 8 years ago

spaceage said:

This whole system is so out of touch with any supposed "pro" market that it purports to address. What is with a "3-5 day" repair period? If you are a pro, and you've invested $10k or more into a system like this, how happy must you be to have to lose a week of productivity waiting for this? Apple should literally make this a while you wait repair that you schedule, but I guess the system is so woefully complex to service that you have to wait days to change a video card. Just another example why having a strange, semi-proprietary hardware design is a terrible idea for pros. And what's with no CPU updates since intro, max 1tb flash, no retina-level display option from Apple, and probably half a dozen other ridiculous decisions Apple has made with this product. Who comes up with and approves this stuff? Obviously execs with more money than brains, detached from reality.

It doesn't "purport to address" the "Pro" market.

"Pro" has never meant FOR professionals or the "pro market." It's just a marketing designation to distinguish a more powerful model from its less powerfully equipped sibling. MacBook vs. MacBook Pro, for instance. And the Mac Pro simply being Apple's most powerful Mac, so it'll naturally get a "Pro" designation. While it might incidentally serve the "Pro" market pretty well, it's the same in terms of service and support as any other Mac.

You're reading way too much into it and it's influencing your expectations.