APPLE, DELL and HP notebook owners have combined their lawsuits against Nvidia in an attempt to force the graphics chip maker to replace its dodgy chips.
According to CIO, the case, for which the plaintiffs have applied for class action status, could involve millions of computer owners who have suffered at the hands of Nvidia.
Nvidia admitted to the problem in July 2008, when it said some older chipsets that had shipped in "significant quantities" of notebooks were flawed.
Later it blamed its suppliers, manufacturers and even consumers and said it would take a $196 million charge to pay for replacing the graphics processors.
Apple claimed it had been misled and said it was told that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, when Apple carried out its own investigation it discovered that some of the dodgy chips had ended up under the bonnets of its shiny MacBook Pro notebooks.
HP and Dell first issued BIOS updates designed by Nvidia that boosted fan speed. The increased fan speed was intended to ward off chip failure.
However the plaintiffs in the combined lawsuit said that anything other than replacement of the flawed chips was an insufficient remedy. Anything less made the computers less viable, resulted in decreased battery life and just delayed inevitable failures until the machines had outlived their warrantees, they claimed.