Nvidia begins to settle claims of faulty laptop GPUs

Select Apple, HP and Dell laptop or tablet owners who purchased their computers between November 2005 and February 2010 were alerted Thursday that they may begin to file claims to replace faulty graphics processing units produced by chipmaker Nvidia. Final approval of the settlement was reached on December 20, court documents show.

The faulty chips caused video issues with these computers, manifesting themselves in blank screen or scrambled displays. Nvidia was sued, and the suit successfully was granted class action status. As is customary with such settlements, Nvidia is not admitting wrongdoing by agreeing to its terms.

Apple Macbook Pro laptops manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008 are affected, as well as select Dell Inspiron, XPS, Vostro, Precision, and Latitude models produced between November 2005 and February 2010. HP models affected are Pavillion laptops produced between March 2006 and April 2009, as well as Compaq Presarios manufactured between March 2006 and October 2009.

A $2 million fund had been established to cover the cost of repairs and replacements, the company said.

Nvidia has a full listing of affected models available from its website. Class action members would have until March 14 to submit their claims, the website states.

For those that may have had to pay for repairs to their laptops, Nvidia will reimburse them for those costs as well as repairs necessary. In the case of HP systems, the company may provide completely new laptops altogether, as the company said replacement parts for these computers were no longer available.

HP tablets would be replaced by an Asus EEE T101MT-EU17-BK notebook computer, and all other models by a Compaq Presario CQ50 notebook.