More Defective NVIDIA Graphics Chipsets

this does raise a point. though nvdia claim it was not overheating problem, but a problem with the packaging material.

different laptop will have different configuration. clockspeed or thermal envelope, cooling design.

i was reffering to their desktop version of ATI chip, which i presume are the base of the mobile chip. have a look.

 

oh well, ill just get a 3 year warranty.... its only going to last me 3 years anyway before my new laptop is the ancient

 

The initial "reall" was in large part NV's fault, and they have owned up to it, whats happening now is some one "crying wolf" just for the sake of stirring the pot in my eyes.

It is true that a lot of todays laptops run too hot and do have high failure rates, and its a direct result of book makers giving us exatly what we want, loads of power and features, crammed in the smallest thinnest casing possible, with silent or near silent operation. The price for that is a hot, generally low life span machine, with as cheap as mainstream machines are, theory is use it a year or three and replace it.

Even todays high end Desktop graphic cards are buying into the logic of silence in place of cool cards, ATI's 48xx series is a prime example, they are very quiet and VERY hot stock, the coolers are quite adequete to cool the chip, and the chip isnt a boilermaker, they just use the fan as sparringly as possible to keep it quiet by default, you hack the bios or CCC and take control of the fans, you get a bit more noise, but a significantly cooler card, usually drops of 20-30C with the stock cooler.

 

Oh man, I just actually read the whole "aticle" on this site, and I cant believe you guys posted that.....It reads as gospel, and its all hear say with nothing to back it up, and most likely untrue. Please edit it to reflect that nothing has proven and this all just rumor mill material from a site known for "creative" journalism. Posting things like that as news does little for the integrity of a trusted well run site such as NBR.

 

Well I see forums with people having problems with both ATI and Nvidia

so far (touch wood) none of my friends who I have built systems for have had problems with their Nvidia 8 series desktop units

I also recommended Nvidia GPUs for their notebook purchases too
only problems they have had is a bad battery, and vista....

my eldest son had a Rock Quaddra TI64 with an ATI X700 in it, that failed.
Rock are replacing it with an nvidia chipped Pegasus 720, as its still under the extended warranty

my 8800m is running fine, the fans are working the same as they did the day I got it.
it aint broke so I aint fixing it.

also Charlie D from the Inq has some hatred for Nvidia like many people have said
but nvidias drivers are still way better

 

Hmmm... fortunately for me I don't game much on my MBP. That's what my desktop is for. My next laptop will be one packing an ATI graphics option for sure. Wonder if Apple will use ATI in their next notebook updates...

 

some people have been having issues.

my 8400m GS has already failed and so have most of my friends. [after 1 year]

We all know thats rock solid truth by now.

some people have been having issues with their 8800. isolated case. but still an alarming number. [even though not very much.]

if its dead on arrival. it doesn't count. but if it fails after awhile, sketchy.

 

Exactly. This is what I also read and is the reason Nvidia is keeping quiet. The problem is the wrong manufacturing process/materials were applied... and it's most likely WIDESPREAD. The way I see it, its only a matter of time. On your poorly designed lappies like the dell 1330, we are seeing widespread issues early on. But my guess is many more may experience latent effects later on. Nvidia themselves are saying its the packaging material. That is nothing less then catastrophic. In a way, the owners of the m1330 may be lucky since they may receive new MOBOS with the correct packaging material. The rest of us may see this issue in two years after which our warranties run out. This mess will continue and I expect will show its ugly face down the road. Just like excessive radiation exposure can show its ugly face in leukemia and other latent effects. Nvidia simply does not know what to say since basically they muffed up their entire manufacturing process which would probably include most if not all batches throughout a lengthy time range. Were are doomed.

 

Well, it isn't helping that nVidia won't come clean on this one.

In response to some comments...I'm not trying to spread fud. Go read in the forums...just about every other thread in the Dell forum is about this (at least it seems like it), HP has a long standing warranty repair program in place that seems to be largely targeted towards GPUs, nVidia did take a $200M charge without explaining fully, Dell/HP/etc are replacing entire computers for this, and don't forget that nVidia recommended that ALL systems be patched with a BIOS 'fix' that would 'prevent' issues.

If this were such a small problem, why just why would all notebooks be getting updates to speed up their fans?

I'd rather see nVidia clear the air so this isn't a topic anymore. So why haven't they?

 

Well Greg, in a way I feel they did when they pointed out that the wrong packaging material was being used. Or this could be just a cover up to put blame on somebody else for their own manufacturing defect in their process. Either way, it appears the wrong process or materials were used and it was widespread. If it were isolated to certain batches they would have come clean. I take Nvidia's silence as complete and total admission that this is truly catastrophic and effects ALL batches throughout a extended time frame.

It will be interesting if Nvidia challenges the Inquirer article. I expect further silence will be the order of the day. In this case, Nvidia is in fear mode. Either way they are screwed. But the long term PR and scaring off customers could be worse then if they just took a bigger loss today. But we could be talking about a much bigger number then 200 mil.

 

It`s a good job that the GeForce 7800 is not include, imagine all the PS3 dying!

Nvidia should put it`s hands up and reveal all it knows, maybe a 3-5 year warranty on all affected Nvidia GPU`s

 

This is a huge opportunity for ATI. AMD should put all their resources towards the ATI GPU right now. This is not a small problem for Nvidia and won't go away soon. The ultimate problem is always poor design, materials and manufacturing processes by all parties. Notebooks rarely have proper CPU + GPU cooling. This should be a wake up call for the entire industry to address design, materials, configuration, and cooling issues seriously.

 

Well, I don't know where you get your credible and reliable news from, but nVidia has never identified which particular chipset is affected. Inquirer spreaded the then-rumor about all G84/G86 being affected and got partially confirmed by Dell officially releasing BIOS update to a bunch of laptop with G84/G86.

Inquirer is probably not the most reliable source, but so far it has been more accurate than nVidia and most comments here that try to discredit Inquirer.

 

Keep in mind the Inquirer talking about the Nvidia issue is NOT the National Inquirer reporting about aliens, Tom Cruise's third nipple, Elvis, etc.

 

I wasnt claiming that the 7000 series was/is defective, just that my 7800 died after 2 years of use, and on the day of the first press about faulty nvidia construction.

 

is the 9700m gts affected by this? i was going to get a new laptop that has the 9700 but now I don't know if it wise to get it.

 

what about the NVIDIA GeForce 9300M, is that defective as well?

 

I'm glad I got an ATi GPU.

 

Thats true, in a lot of ways they are worse, NI is known not to be credible and is a source of entertainment, "the inquierer" plays itself off as a legit news source when they are not, they'll put anything out there to stir a buzz in the community and a lot of folks buy into it. For all the pure BS I've seen from them, if they posted that grass is green and the sky is blue, and Elvis truely is dead, I'd have second thoughts immediately.

Explain its "death", you just happend to read about bad chips and it simply stopped working? The "dying" chips dont just up and die, its a slow process that takes time and multiple symptoms are present. Were you running the card OC'ed? How were your temps? What about the rest of the system, PCIE bus OC? Are you 100% certain the card is dead? Just 3D problems and 2D works fine?... etc

My laptops 7400 go is working just fine, bad press and all, my old 7900GT is just dandy in my brothers rig that gets used quite heavily in gaming on a daily basis, and as far as I'm aware my old G80 320mb is still serving K-tron just fine as well.

I have still yet to see any real indication of truth that any chips other than the original culprits are true defective in mass, there will always be bad apples in every bunch, cards will go bad, especially with abuse.

I've always been alarmed at all the posts I've seen of the 84/8600M chips running near boiling, and always suspected those chips would be short lived, sure they can operate that high for awhile, but they cant do it for long. Heat is the enemy, and small size and silence are not good ways to keep it at bay.

 

Uh oh... I guess it's time to make the big switch back to ATI. Just like I made the big switch to a Mac. (Please excuse my Macfanboyish like comment).

 

DO any of you know if any of the Nvidia Quadro FX1600M or Quadro FX3600M or Quadro NVS 320 are affected?

Thanks!

 

Ummmm. No, this problem has nothing to do with the 'silicon' involved. Both ATI/AMD, and Nvidia have their chips manufactured by TSMC which is the world's largest contract fab company in Taiwan, ROC.

This problem is a mechanical/physical design defect, nothing more, nothing less, and it appears to relate to poor mechanical design that makes the chips themselves especially prone to failure after prolonged thermal cycling. Basically, its a metal fatigue problem.

"High end" chips are not intrinsically immune.

Its not a matter of being 'cheap'. Its a matter of the designers of the chips made mistakes. Seriously, when you're packing 50W of dissipation into an area less than the size of a postage stamp, thermo/mechanical stuff becomes extremely problematic.

Its an unfortunate fact of life that chips are extremely difficult to design and optimize for all of the considerations, but don't assume for a moment the root cause is Nvidia being 'cheap'. The effects of metal fatigue in CPU's isn't exactly an easy thing to simulate for.

 

does anybody know if the 9500M GS is affected?
is there even any difference between the 9500M GS and the 8600GT? (die shrink?), or are they simply the exact same card?

 

The 9500M GS is a die shrink of the 8600GT, not a rebrand.

 

so the 9500m should have somewhat of a less chance of being affected right?

 

DO any of you know if any of the Nvidia Quadro FX1600M or Quadro FX3600M are affected?

Thanks!

 

Lets call these GPUs "potentially affected".

It's a bit like trying to get some exotic plant to produce fruit. You need the right combination of user operation, cooling system and fan operation (as programmed in the BIOS). Alternatively, what proportion of people with the HIV virus die of AIDS?

Some notebooks create the right conditions easier than others. The newer nVidia GPUs are a die shink so they should create a little less heat. That may reduce the risk of packaging decay, but will still depend on user operation and how the BIOS controls the fan operation.

John

 

Is the 9600M GT affected too?

 

Great analogy John, I agree, there are many variables that could result to a failure. The biggest factor would be the notebooks cooling design.

Not all defective products will fail. Did all of the defective Sony batteries explode? NO. but it would have been cool watching it.

If you recently recieved a BIOS update that makes your fans algorithm run more aggressively, then yes you can possibly have a defective gpu. Nothing is official for now.

 

That would be the accurate title in my opinion.

Choosing a title like 'More Defective NVIDIA Graphics Chipsets' adds to the spreading of rumors. I've seen people on other subforums who now believe every Nvidia chipsets is defective.

If it were up to me I'd choose a title like 'Possibly more potentially defective NVIDIA Graphics Chipsets'.

 

Hopefully Nvidia finally caves in from all the pressure theyve been getting.

 

On the bright side, I think all the worried XPS users (and others) can rest easy, or at least I will that this would only increase the probability of a fix, recall and refund. I'm looking forward to it.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/18/dell-offers-1-year-limited-warranty-enhancement-for-nvidia-gpu-i/

DELL WILL BE EXTENDING WARRANTY BY ONE YEAR!!!!

 

Do laptops with 8600GS suffer from this or its only for 8400GT & 8600GT variants?

 

it's all 8400GS's/8400GT's 8600GS's/8600GT'S

 

Got any link discussing issues with the GS variants, always hear people complaining about the "GT"s