Are Dell's 8600M GT's still defective?

Are the 8600GTs that Dell is shipping out still the defectrive ones with the unstable heat issues? The ones that they recommended a BIOS update for?

If so, I think I am going to look at getting something else as I do not want my GPU failing.

 

Read this article about the nVidia GPU problem.

John

 

Ohh ohhhhhhhh..... Again???? Another thread??

Search around mate There are *so many* threads on this as well as the direct2dell blog'....

To give you a quick answer, no one really knows... though many people have heard from their customer service / tech support conversations that they have been fixed. But no one really knows *for sure*...

And Again, Please, Search Around Thanks and cheers.

 

I read the direct2dell blog, but that does not tell me if I purchase one right now If I get the defective chip or not. I already know about the problem, not asking about the problem. I want a XPS, but also do not want a defective chip.

 

Good..

And as I told ya (and as you probably read around) no one really knows mate People have said that they heard the cust. service guys saying its been fixed.. and thats the max things have got to I guess, IMO... In fact I remember one user posting their the cust. ser. guy he/she spoke with gave a date thats something like 'systems shipped since June/July do not carry the defective units"... again, it was just one user who heard this

 

The most telling quote -

"We use an industry standard process, how we manufacture the chip is identical to a lot of companies and this particular bump underfill material has been used to manufacture billions and billions of chips, not billions of chips."

That says to me all chips are affected (G84 and G86 and possibly far more from Nvidia and other companies too)

Knowing that they tend to tool up, produce arun whilst developing the next gen and then move on to the next gen in their fabs ie all the same gen chips are produced at the same time and then they move onto the next release. They dont have fabs making older tech - they just move onto the next design while shifting the warehoused stock.

So I'd say - Yes, Dells 8600GT's are still defective and may potentially cause a problem at some time in the future although 15" and 17" machines are not currently showing too many problems, it seems to be more prevalent in smaller form factors (13" and 14").

 

It's NOT only Dell!!!! Jeeze!!!!!!

It's -all- 8600M GT's.

Also:

Nobody knows if they are

Nobody knows if they aren't

 

Lol, take it easy Polarix.

They are talking about the 8600m GT in Dell laptops. Just for simplicity's sake, they call it "Dell's 8600m GT."

 

I think his point was that Dell has little to do with it, since nVidia is manufacturing it.

 

From a new article on "The Inquirer" seen yesterday... an "inquiry in 3 parts" kinda story....

.............. "SOURCES CLOSE to Dell say they knew about the problem a year ago, and HP is on record as being aware in November, so there has been about a year to characterise the problem, design a solution and test it. Multiple sources involved with package engineering tell us that this is not nearly enough time to do a proper test regime, much less long-term reliability studies."

Part 1: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/01/why-nvidia-chips-defective

Part 2: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/01/nvidia-should-defective-chips

Part 3: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/01/nv-should

Judge for yourself if this all that is true or not.. me just sharing info. Cheers.

 

The Questioner asked about Dells 8600GT - I answered the question.

 

I have forgotten about this issue as I was getting myself worked up.

But I have spoke to a tech manager and he reckons Dell on build model 1 from inception of the xps 1330 and 1530 until december was faulty and build 2 onwards was ok.

He said they were aware of the problem back then and has been fixed.

But I think he was lying, and I have made a complaint to his manager about this, guess what no reply no compensation for wasted calls and bad customer service, so me Im just going to roll with the punches and hope for the best.

Or I might extend my warranty just to be safe.

Who knows whats going on, I dont even think dell or Nvidia knows, its just a fingers crossed situation.

So fingers crossed guys and hopefully all is ok, People have not posted yet that they have been directly affected by this issue as of yet ( i dont think ) and a lot of people who buy xps machines do heavy gaming and that causes stress, and if it was that bad we would see a lot more people saying there cards have failed.

 

If the defect has been fixed then Nvidia are the only ones that could have done it. If that was true I'd expect Nvidia to come out and say it and save some face. The fact that they haven't would lead me to believe that its bollocks

 

@SteveJonesy, spot on! ALL units are affected, period. Unless Nvidia makes an official announcement, NOT from a Dell rep in Mumbai, assume the problem exisits. buyer beware.

 

As I said I think the manager in the tech dept was lying so I made a complaint.

He did not know what to say... So he just said something to get me off the phone as he did not know how to deal with a actual complaint or question.

But hopefully its not as big as we think, and everything is OK.

What else can we do.

Especially the people with the 1 year warranty from purchase as I could not afford to get the 3-5 Year.