Is it safe to buy todays laptops with Nvidia GPU?

Thinking of buying the Lenovo T410 with the discrete Nvidia graphics but am worried about the dereaded G84/G86 issues that plauged the laptop industry in the past. I know the new laptops use different cores and all but can anyone confirm if its safe to buy laptops with Nvidia GPUs today?

Please only post if you know. I am not interested in guesses or what you "think" is correct.

 

You'll have to ask nVidia. Sure, they say the newer cores are okay...but considering nVidia tried to keep this all hush-hush I'm not sure I would trust them at all in a notebook.

That's just my "guess."

 

no more guesses please...Im looking for real information here.

Is there a new Mfring process they switched to? Are the materials they used the same? This is the kind of info I am interested in.

 

If you get the three year warranty, yes it's safe.

Anything based on the 8800m (=9800m = 160m) will have a good chance of failing.

Nvidia always said the G86 and G84 cores were fine, they wont ever say "this core is bad, don't buy it).
The GPUs with the G86, G84 cores are faulty. The 8800 has a high failure rate also, but if you ask nvidia they will say it's perfect.

Basically I would stick with ATI, sure it also has a chance of failing like anything, but I think it's a safer bet.

The materials are not the same, but the 8800m doesn't use the same materials yet it's faulty.

Basically nvidia GPUs are hotter than ATI, simple as that.

If you keep the old G86 and G84 cores under 60C they would never fail (that's what the underfill was rated at). But it's impossible to keep them under 60C.

 

I personally had an nvidia chip crap out on me (a Go 6200) several years ago... that being said I currently have a NVS 160 in my current laptop which seems to be running cool enough so I'm LESS concerned. The thing is that Greg is right, nvidia really did itself a disservice when it attempted to sweep the issues that users were having under the rug and many people are going to have a hard time trusting them again. Ultimately, the proof will be in the pudding and you will probably have to look back in a year or so to see if this latest crop of nvidia graphics processors is indeed better than the last.

 

There have been no publicly available reports of any widespread problems with newer Nvidia cards (GeForce 9 and up); that much is a fact. Whether this means the laptop cards are well and truly safe or their mean lifetimes have been extended to more than 3 years -- well, like you were already told, you'd have to ask Nvidia.

 

I'll have to find the source, but I remember reading that nVidia claimed the 9000 series GPUs and all chipset parts were okay...but a less than impartial source found that the chipset parts were still faulty.

I'd still go ATI or Intel, if you are concerned about it.

 

You should be fine, but if you go low end, you might as well stick with Intel integrated GPUs.

 

I hate the messy nomenclature that GPU makers use. It is a disservice >(

From the following list of GPUs, which ones were/are the faulty ones?

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html

 

That would be my guess too.

 

Im sorry but why did you even post this? This thread is not about misinformation and rammbling guesses. What you posted makes no sense and offered no real information other than guesses and misinformation (yes Nvidia did admit the G84/G86 chips are fault) yet YOU state they would say "Its perfect".

Please do not post in this thread. Thank you.

 

8800m
8600m
8400m
7950m
7900m

And the quadro CPUs based on the above. + more...

They admit it after the fact!

When the GPU is old they admit it. But they didn't admit it when they were selling them

They talked so much crap, tried to cover everything up.

You don't know anything about it or you would agree with me!

Just read this:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1051123/nvidia-cuts-reviewers-gts250
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1137385/nvidia-bad-bump-misery-deepens
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1028703/nvidia-g84-g86-bad
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1051409/nvidia-k-filing-goes-microscope
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1137385/nvidia-bad-bump-misery-deepens

And the other many pages.

 

Im asking you to stop posting in this thread please. I dont want rammbling guesses and misinformation in this thread. Only accurate proven info.

 

Just read this:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1137385/nvidia-bad-bump-misery-deepens
/thread

My info is proven, look at the links.

 

Jesus, people are just trying to help, if you didn't like the information, move on and keep studying/searching/filtering. If you want the absolute truth, pray to god and cross your finger for a miracle.

 

Charlie is a known ATI fanboy. I will say that you need to take his articles with a grain of salt, BUT there is some truth to his words when it concerns nVidia's quality issues.

 

I think your best bet to to invest in an ATI GPU at the moment. They have got a slightly better track record in terms of failing cards and presently their cards are great performance for the money. They may have taken a few years to catch up with nvidia after the release of the 8800 GTX but now their products have as good performance as nvidia's offering and sometimes better in the case of the midrange GPU's.

 

Actually the only issue with the Nvidia chips are the solder they used.
GPU Chip wise it is ok.
Most importantly keeping the laptop internal cool by monitoring it is the best way to prevent VGA/Mainboard failure.

My reason for a ATi GPU is because they are more value for money however Nvidia makes better Linux Drivers.

So my advice is if you want to run Linux fine and proper get a Nvidia GPU otherwise ATi is better.

 

That's changing. ATI/AMD has actual open-source drivers for it's GPU's, and is funding a couple developers to work on them. They aren't near the level of support as the closed drivers or the Nvidia drivers, but they are properly open which is a great reason to support them in the first place.

On top of that, you have the MASSIVE power/performance ratio differentials between the ATI and Nvidia cards... a GTX 260M runs at 75W, whereas a Radeon 4850 is 45-65W and benches MUCH faster. And I'm seeing benchmarks for the 5830 in the Envy coming near the 260M GTX, and it only sinks 24W

 

I wouldn't put my money on that.
You have to know manufacturers have to keep certain functionality undocumented as their technologies and patents.
Hence to date opensource ATi Linux driver does at most 2D rendering.
Nvidia Binary blob to my experience usually work out of box.
At the same time Linux Developers are also trying to reverse engineer Nvidia drivers to create a Open Source alternative.
However like my previous post stated to date ATi has been releasing high performance but lower cost graphics solution than Nivida and Fermi is yet to be seen in real action.
Therefore ATi is the better bet.

 

I just found that my Quadro 140M is based on 8400M
(Why change names so much?!?! )
So far, after 3 years, it is running ok, hopefully it will keep like that. It is all about probabilities (number of faulty GPUs compared to the total GPUs produced). They just found that certain Nvidia GPUs have more chance to fail, so have less quality, which doesn't mean that they will fail. There is never 100% guarantee that any GPU will not fail.

 

ATI has full documentation out within their contractual obligations, they just can't share certain bits of copyrighted code that they have licensed from other companies. They're doing as much as they can legally do. They're not trying to keep things secret to give their closed drivers an edge or anything.

And the ATI driver will do decent 3D rendering through at least the x1xxx range of cards, and they're starting to get good results with the HD2xxx and up series. Since they're all very similar hardware, the HD2xxx/3xxx/4xxx should get 3D support in very quick succession. Don't know completely about the 5xxx series, but it's shaping up to be the same way. A lot of the drag is also the major flux going on in the Linux 3D architecture pipeline, what with Gallium3D, Kernel Mode Setting, and so on. ATI is a major contributor to all those projects, helping drive things and follow the community's decisions on architecture instead of doing like Nvidia, throwing out nearly the entire rendering subsystem and replacing it with their own.

For all that, I'll support ATI. And then on top of that, the higher performance/watt ratio of ATI in Windows just makes it that much more of a good idea.

 

Can anyone confirm if Nvidia has chanded the Mfring process and materials used since the dark days of the G84/G86 chips?

I am concerned because my T61 with G84 chip died due to video failure and I dont want to be screwed by Nvidia again if I buy the T410 (which only comes with Nvidia GPU if you want discrete)

 

I am quietly closing this thread.

ArtificialSweenter, this is a forum and not your personal "answer my question now" service. These forums are built on user-created content and you can't make demands or artificial rules based on what you want to hear. If you want that, privately hire someone to do research for you.

Thank you.