I’m out of luck. This week-end my MacBook Pro died of the insidious NVIDIA bug plaguing all machines manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008.
Quoting the Apple support page about the issue:
In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected.
And this is exactly what happened, after almost two years of good services the video output of my MacBook Pro shut down suddenly, even plugging the external monitor won’t work.
Diagnostic from the guy at the Genius Bar of the Apple Store: dead motherboard.
But I’m lucky, because it’s a problem with NVIDIA, Apple is going to repair it free of charge, even out of warranty.
I guess NVIDIA is paying the bill.
UPDATE: I got my MacBook Pro back 4 days after as planned. Everything works perfectly, no problem so far.
CTO at 
Comments
Hey
I found your site while I was investigating the death of my Macbook(RIP). The way it died sounds alot like what happened to your laptop (sudden failure of video on screen or any other external monitor). I#m currently studying in grmany and the crash happened after i plugged my charger in. I thought maybe something with the different voltage had fried the macbook even though i was assured that macbooks only need plug adaptors and not converters in europe. Also, my macbook was manufactured around the same time.
anyways lemme know what you think………..im despirate for some help
Leah4 May 09 at 1:58 pm
Unfortunately, it a bug coming only with the MacBook Pro, the GPU is not the same in a MacBook.
Fred Brunel4 May 09 at 4:45 pm
hey man, hopefully you can help me, do u have a ticket number? or something I can use? I had just the same issue and the guys at the phone doesn't want to make effective the warranty because is different to what is described in the apple's article. So, wondering if by any chance do u have the number so I can use it as an antecedent when I call. Thanks!
jaffidlanderos9 October 09 at 12:51 pm
My macbook pro just suddenly died the other day and I have been investigating the cause. Thanks to this article I believe I have found the reason.
Derek3 January 10 at 10:07 pm
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