nVidia Class Action Fairness Hearing is Tomorrow - Almost time to make a claim!

Unless they have updated it since yesterday, the web site does not say that. At one point they had a sample claim form containing verbiage stating that the hard drive can be removed. Another version of the sample claim form replaced that one, and it does not say that.

I called and was told that hp owners can, but Dell and Apple owners cannot send in their laptops without a hard drive. From reading the other posts here, numerous folks have called and were told the same. If the shipping instructions do not clearly state this, I plan to ask for written confirmation (by email) that this is authorized when the hp laptop is returned so they do not have a reason to deny the claim for replacement.

However, most of the Dell and Apple laptops affected by the issues giving rise to the class action have replaceable graphics modules. The hp systems are throwaway laptops that do not have replaceable modules. I also have not noticed a disclosure on what NVIDIA is planning to do to fix the Dell and Apple laptops.

 

Well lets make sure when people get response from reviewed claims that they let u all know so we can compare notes. I will.

 

Don't expect to get a fair replacement or reimbursement! I remember years ago we had purchased a Kodak instant film camera to use when my daughter was born. Well, Poloroid didn't like that and sued Kodak who ended up having to quit making film for the camera. We ended up getting several dollars worth of Kodak film coupons good for regular 35mm or 126mm film and had to trash the camera as it was unuseable without the film.
I beleive we should fight this though and maybe we can convince someone. Maybe we can come out with a little better replacement systems than what the settlement says now.

 

The Intel Atom powered Asus EEE budget turd replacing an hp tablet with a far better CPU, along with a few other major component downgrades is not fair. This situation really blows, as did your "Kodak moment".

I am curious about what type of warranty the new CQ50 will have. Will it be 30 days, a year, something between, or nothing? Will I be able to extend the warranty with hp? If it fails shortly after I receive it, or has problems out of the box, and there is no warranty, how am I any better off than I am now with a defective unit without a warranty? All of these questions are unanswered.

So, again let's keep everyone updated on this forum as the mystery unfolds for us, answers are obtained, and claims are processed.

 

In my opinion, it should not be replaced depending on the depreciated value of our laptop. i have had nothing but problems for 2 years with my tx1000; internet problems, video problems, driver problems, and had to send it back in TWICE to get only a temporary fix.

I think we deserve an equal replacement to the product we originally paid for. nowhere in that settlement terms did it say that the we will receive "a replacement dependant upon the depreciated and current value", it says "in similar make and model of our claimed laptop".

i also called the litigation number and was told that i MIGHT be able to request the CQ50 laptop as a replacement in stead of the ASUS netbook. the lady told me that i would have to wait for a response to my claim first, then send an email asking if this is possible. i would sacrifice my touch screen for a laptop that...well...isnt a netbook.

also, i would suggest everyone not send anything anywhere until Mr. Frank hears back from them, which should be any time before (or on) the 18th. let's get all the facts and all the possibilities down pat before we do anything or replace anything.

 

As I pointed out in my opening comment in the post above, the underpowered netbook being offered for a tablet is not fair. That just sucks. No argument about that.

 

Hi people,

My TX1000 is dead. How can I retrieve my sensitive data and wipe it out before sending it to NVIDIA?

 

Assuming you have a desktop , and assuming you have some tech ability; You can unplug the system HDD from your desktop, and plug in the drive from the laptop. Your desktop should then boot up as if it were your laptop. You can then dump any needed data to a backup/external drive.

You mention wiping: I was waiting to see what the return instructions are. They may want it intact -in which case I've already properly cleaned all my personal data with a data eraser program and defragged the drive to cover as many old bits as possible. If they don't care about the OS or drive, I'm going to completely data shred and reformat mine.

It's still unclear whether we'll be able to keep the original drive if we want to. Personally, I'd rather keep my own data and get a brand new drive with a clean install, even if it is full of bloatware.

 

Hi ultimeaciax,

A laptop hard drive will not simply plug into a desktop because the interface is physically different on a laptop. To do that you would need to purchase an adapter. You would also likely have serious problems trying to boot from the drive unless the CPU, chipset and all other hardware devices are the same as your laptop, which is highly unlikely. I have tried this before and you will be greeted by the infamous BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) due to massive driver conflicts in the Windows HAL (hardware abstraction layer). But, you certainly could install it as a slave drive using an adapter and copy the files over to the desktop drive.

The easiest thing to do, by far, would be to purchase a cheap external USB drive enclosure. You can find them for about $10 if you look around a bit. With a USB drive enclosure, you can copy the files to another computer, format the old drive and then use CCleaner, or another free program, to wipe the free space after formatting. If we are allowed to keep our hard drives, you'll likely want to by a drive enclosure anyway so you can use the drive for data storage and/or backups.

Be aware that formatting will not destroy the data on the drive. Formatting will merely clear the file allocation table so the files are not visible when browsing the drive with Windows explorer and the data would still be easily retrievable using free utilities available on the internet. A drive wipe process involves writing zeros to the drive several times, overwriting and effectively destroying any and all data on it so it cannot be retrieved. This may take quite a while, so be patient and let the process run its course. You could just start the process before retiring for the night and let it do its thing.

You will need to know if your drive is an IDE or SATA to purchase the correct enclosure, but that is easy to tell just by looking. When you remove the drive you will see a bunch of small wire pins in the connector if it is an IDE. If it is a SATA drive it will have flat plastic male connections on the drive, which mate with a female connection on the receptacle the drive attaches to. Some IDE laptop drives have a proprietary plastic adapter covering up the pins, so look carefully and slide the adapter off the pints if it has an adapter. (It would also not fit the IDE connection in the USB enclosure.) I know some older Dells have these IDE adapters, but I am not sure about the hp's.

Or, without even pulling the drive out first you can look up the specs on the hp web site if you don't already know if yours is an IDE or SATA. I do not own a tx1000, so I cannot tell you, and I have not looked this up on the internet. I know my wife's dv6449us is SATA and saw that listed in the specs on hp's web site.

I hope that you and others this find the information helpful. For any newbies on this forum, if you find a post helpful you can add to that forum member's reputation by clicking on the middle icon in the lower left corner of a post, as shown in the example below. You can even include a short message to go along with the add-to-rep if you want to.

You will find that I gave a +1 to your reputation if you log into your user Control Panel, so you can see what this looks like on the receiving end also. You asked a really good "how to" question that I am sure at least a couple of folks are wondering but just have not asked yet.

 

I suppose YMMV, but I had absolutely zero problem unplugging my SATA 3.5" drive and replacing it with the SATA 2.5" from my V6XXX laptop. SATA is SATA; the drive size shouldn't matter, but yes they would need an adapter if their desktop uses an IDE drive. It was a little confused to not find what it was looking for on boot, but I was presented with a prompt that allowed me to make the proper selection, and I went straight to startup screen, albeit after a longer than usual boot sequence for windows to adjust and configure. It wasn't an efficient or ideal setup, and true, I had to rely on the basic video driver and had very low resolution, but it was more than managable. Windows even read my external WD drive with no trouble.

Maybe my MB is more flexible since it's a home build, and I suppose, it helped that my desktop is an AMD MB as well (you're right an Intel MD would pose a problem), but my BIOS had no problem with it. Plus it should be added that my desktop is running Win 7, which is pretty similar to Vista, so compatibility wasn't an issue. I agree, trying to boot a Vista drive on an XP system my give you guff, but I think it has a good chance at working out fine on as Vista or Win 7 MB.

Also, the problem with simply putting it in an enclosure and using it as a USB external is: unless the drive is partitioned and the data needed is stored separately from the system drive, windows will not allow access to the file structure. This means no access to "My Documents", "My Pictures", "My anything" stored within the Windows file structure. Maybe this was because of password protection, or maybe there's a tweak that I'm not aware of. Maybe you could access via prompt if you know DOS commands well enough, BUT using an enclosure was my first thought, and it didn't work for me.

Not trying to contradict you Fox, just conveying my experience.

 

It's not very typical to be able to boot Windows on another machine by simply transplanting the hard drive. Generally people will have better luck using an enclosure or a usb adapter to access there information. It is true that if you password protected or encrypted your information you will need to take ownership of it on the new host computer, but that is a matter of changing the permissions.

Link to adapter: Amazon.com: Vantec CB-ISATAU2 SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter Supports 2.5-Inch, 3.5-Inch, 5.25-Inch Hard Disk Drives (Black): Electronics

Link to taking ownership XP: How to take ownership of a file or a folder in Windows XP

Link to taking ownership Win7: Windows 7 Take Ownership & Grant Permissions to Access Files & Folder

I agree with Fox however and recommend getting a cheap enclosure. This will prove to be more helpful if you want to use the hard drive for backup or a portable external hard drive.

Mark

 

This is veering off topic, but I even have a second drive on my machine from my previous setup that I'd originally intended to wipe and use for storage, but decided to keep it when I discovered I could do a no fuss sort of dual boot on my new build right out of the box. There's a 10 sec prompt on start-up: Depending on which drive I choose to boot from, I have a clean stable XP setup (detected as an "older version of windows"), or my daily use Win 7 (default). Again, I had no intentions of setting up a dual-boot, pure accident.

Maybe it's because it's a home build and not a retail machine (although, again, no trouble at all with my laptop drive booting, except for default drivers), or maybe I'm just lucky, Either way, all this talk has made me even more solid fan of my current brand of MB.

 

Compaq CQ50 are all discontinued. How can they supply tens of thousands of brand new discontinued notebook computers?

Besides, all CQ50 models have serious overheating problems. Google "CQ50 overheating", and there are many reports regarding the problem. The source of the problem seems to be a design flaw which allows the heat sinks to slightly separate from the GPUs when the computers were assembled. Plenty of the notebook GPUs of CQ50 were fried this way. See link, and link.

It seems that we return a lemon and get another lemon of the same flavor.

 

That's totally awesome that it worked out so well for you. It's definitely not the norm. There were probably enough similar components that Windows was able to reload some different drivers rather than going into a BSOD. I have tried that a number of times and it usually resulted in a kernel panic situation. The last time I tried it was using Windows XP, so Vista and Win7 may be stable enough to let that happen. We may never know how you lucked out.

And BTW, did not see that you sharing your experience was a contradiction... we're good. Sharing experiences for the benefit of other is what this forum is all about. And, you are correct on the SATA connections. My post was not clear on that and made it sound as though the interface was different on both IDE and SATA laptop drives, when it's only the IDE interface that differs between desktops and laptops.

Have a nice week.

 

Dang, that really does stink. Maybe it's just time to suck it up and drink the lemonade. It seems that's all they're serving now. I've never had a good experience with an hp computer and I really did not expect it to start now. There was that ounce of hope... but, not anymore with this information. From now on I am sticking with Dell and Acer products whenever I need to purchase a low-budget laptop. (I've experienced a far better result from both in terms of reliability and service.)

The comments by "ShadowWolfe Hellscream" at one of the links you posted about hp not paying any attention and fixing ongoing problems truly resonates with what I have seen. The CPU failures mentioned by "outkast" likely related to the fact that most CQ50s had AMD processors. I think AMD may have corrected this in some of their latest CPU products, but for years their processors did not lower clock speed and shut down like Intel processors do when they overheat... the AMD processors would just keep running at full speed and fry themselves. I guess I will be ripping apart the CQ50 NVIDIA sends me and applying Arctic Silver and 3m foam tape shims to try to keep it from dying prematurely.

Thanks for the info, and have a good week.

 

yeah that's for sure. i have a used Dell Latitude D600, from ebay, that i use in the car when i go railfanning, i like trains, and it's been so so terribly hot even in the last summers intense heat and i tell you it hadn't skipped a beat. i've been so worried about it. but it's a real durable model. best laptop i ever had even though it's outdated. I bet a compaq wouldn't make it past the first week of mobile use in the summer. all the compcrap laptops i ever had were pretty crappy. i'm triple convinced that every model the make is junk. my first one was in 1997 and nothings changed. looks like ebay time soon.

 

This whole mess is just CRAP !! I just wish there was a fixable solution to the one I have instead of the option before us. I wonder the same thing....if the CQ50's are discontinued why is that even an option? According to the NVIDIA claim site..."Most HP computers will be replaced with a Compaq Presario CQ50 notebook computer." Well I sure hope I am not amoungst the "Most". Still keeping my fingers crossed (X)

 

"Most HP computers will be replaced with a Compaq Presario CQ50 notebook computer. The HP Pavilion Tx1xxx tablet computer will be replaced with an Asus EEE T101MT-EU17-BK computer."

I interpret this to read -- and I'm pretty confident about this -- that any notebook which is not a Tx1xxx tablet will be replaced with a Compaq Presario CQ50. The "most" refers to the fact that every model except the tablet which is directly involved will be replaced with the CQ50, not that most notebooks will be replaced with the CQ50 and some will not.

It's entirely possible that I'm wrong, but I don't see why they'd specify a certain notebook and leave the rest vague. Makes no sense legal-wise.

Read it as "HP computers which are standard notebooks will be replaced with a Compaq Presario CQ50 notebook computer. The HP Pavilion Tx1xxx tablet computer will be replaced with an Asus EEE T101MT-EU17-BK computer."

 

I scanned through the whole forum and checked out the settlement page. I found out about this problem probably back in '09 when my lappy died. I signed up for quite a few 'petitions' and even emailed HP about the Nvidia chip. In the end I just gave up, until I recently discovered this forum.

BUT, I have an HP tx2500. It has pretty much exactly the same parts as the TX1XXXs so I don't understand why its not covered. Anyone know who I can talk to about this?

 

The tx2500 has an ATI/AMD chipset. This suit settlement only covers some Nvidia based GPU/chipset issues.

 

Sephiros, as Miner pointed out...

Your tablet must have failed for another reason for which NVIDIA is not responsible. While they may look the same on the outside, they are apparently substantially different in terms of their core components. Did you ever determine exactly why yours "died"? Was it a failure that happened after the warranty expired?

If you can provide some detail on that, there could be some help and advice available from members of this forum. There may also be a thread covering the specifics of the problem that you experienced.

 

the tx2000 series came out some time after the tx1000 series. though the laptop may appear to have the same specs, it does not contain the same hardware models. the defective hardware produced by Nvidia has not been used in the tx2000 series and is not covered by the settlement.

 

So isn't it today the result for the class action fairness came out? Did anyone hear anything yet?

 

Well this is all I could find out thus far:

Center for Class Action Fairness: NVIDIA GPU Settlement - HP replacement computers

 

potentially good news guys, i just got off the phone with Milberg, the one in charge of the claims processing and the official website.

after talking with him, he pointed out the minute details of the website are "subject to change" as they look into this matter further. while there is nothing on the website saying this, i did ask him to put a notice on the front page informing people of the possible changes.

it seems that the ASUS and the CQ50 are "proposed like-value replacements". proposed meaning this is what nvidia threw on the table as a solution. these "proposed" models have not been approved yet and, over the course of the next few weeks, will be investigated as potential replacements.

i was also informed that if you submitted your claim all ready, you are not "locked in" to what is on the site. if it changes, so will your claim, regardless of having been filed all ready.

this process could take a few weeks, Milberg told me. Nobody's claim will be approved (and no ones laptops will be replaced) until these details are stamped out and the website is updated. the "legal affairs" are apparently tied up in trying to update the site (i do not see why they are needed for a website). i asked him to please put a notice on the front page and he said he will do his best to see what can be done about that.

basically guys, there is still hope. the listed models are POSSIBLE or PROPOSED replacement models made by Nvidia. now these CAN be approved and we MAY be stuck with them, but the opposite is also equally true. they may be denied (i wont lie, i really hope they are), and a fairer replacement model could be approved. just "keep checking the website for more information".

 

thanks matt. that is potentially a good news.

although, i don't buy into his comment of "proposed-like value replacements" and are "subject to change".

if that were true, they would have said so in the notification page.

i think the lawyers expected a sweetened deal to pass without much resistance, but perhaps they now realize that now the spotlight is on them, they are putting on a different face.

i think it is more important now than ever to send in your letters to the presiding judge and all attorneys involved in this process, asking for a fair outcome that was suggested during final settlement.

and i would like to thank ted franks for his involvement (and hope that he will continued to be involved).

 

Same here. I am cautious to what they promised "not locked in" once you have already filed your claim. They definitely could say that you agreed to the replacement of your TX1000 with the Asus netbook as you read the claim form and filed it. What Matt were told on phone was not an official announcement and they could deny it. They are attorneys and they know how important the accuracy of words is in an official notice but now they said the replacement in their notice is premature and pending approval. It's just kind of unbelievable.


I will wait for their official notice on the correction/update of replacement (if there is any) and then file my claim for the replacment. If there were no correction/update, I would join the petition against the settlement.

Anyway, thank you, Matt.

 

Just got off the phone with Milberg. there is a meeting tonight to discuss the addition of new replacements. this does not mean it will happen but is being discussed. But the good news is they have at least heard us.

 

thank you shasta, i forgot to mention about the meeting. i do remember him saying something about that, so i can confirm.

 

From their own FAQs about the settlement:

4. What will I get if I file a replacement claim for my HP computer?

If your Replacement Claim for a notebook computer is approved........ If your affected computer is an HP tablet computer, *you will receive* an Asus EEE T101MT-EU17-BK notebook computer. For all other HP notebook computers, *the replacement computer will be* a Compaq Presario CQ50 computer.

Doesn't sound like "proposed" replacement models to me.....

 

Hey everybody, like most of you I too have a computer affected by the settlement, (HP DV9013CL) and I am happy that I might be getting a replacement although I am also in agreement that said replacement is inferior to my damaged notebook. I have been following this thread closely and doing my research to find more information about the replacement computers. I have contacted MR. Frank with no reply yet, although looking at the Center for Class Action Fairness website MR. Frank is suggesting to politely call Milberg firm (the firm that controls the NVIDIAsettlement.com website) to get information regarding the updating of the website. This came from an update from MR. Frank today. Here is his posting and the more knowledge that we can acquire will hopefully help towards getting a fair replacement for all classmembers. Center for Class Action Fairness: NVIDIA GPU Settlement - HP replacement computers. THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE CENTER FOR CLASS ACTION FAIRNESS UPDATE, January 18, 4:15 PM Eastern: I have not received anything in writing as of this afternoon. I called the Milberg firm, and they claim that the information on the website is "premature" and not the "final" version of the settlement. This is mysterious, given that Milberg has control over the website. Worse, Milberg refuses to provide anything in writing that the website will be updated with different information, so Milberg can deny that they told me this later. Still, there is a claim that there will be a "meeting" tonight to discuss modifications to the claims process. One would hope that any such modifications includes corrective notice to the class and an extended claims process to make up for the inaccurate information previously given. I will check the settlement website next week. The low level person I spoke to did not seem to understand the difference between an objection to a judge's decision and asking Milberg to comply with the judge's order, and kept asking me if I thought the judge had made a mistake. Class members thinking of writing me should instead politely call Milberg at 213.617.1200 and get an answer about whether and when the Milberg NVIDIA settlement website is up to date, and why inaccurate or "premature" information has been posted to the website.

 

as i said, they are saying that the website is "premature" and the models listed are "proposed models". i also said that the website has not been updated to provide this information. there is a supposed meeting tonight to discuss the models proposed and possible solutions. maybe it will change, maybe it will stay. the bottom line is to keep checking the website information as the info posted MAY CHANGE.

 

Hey thanks Matt, has anyone heard of a petition site for classmembers with the HP notebooks that are supposedly being replaced with the inferior Compaq CQ50? I definitely feel for the people with a TX1000, that's a bad deal, but I also think that us HP owners should have our voices heard in this unfair settlement as well..

 

Sorry about that. when making the original petition i did not realize how equally inferior the CQ50 is to the other models included in the settlement.

click the link in my sig for the petition site; now updated to include all members affected in this settlement.

 

Thanks again Matt, I just signed and I'm #78 out of the 100 or more you are hoping for- hopefully this will help out us and others out there. If other people are a part of the NVIDIA settlement and you feel that the replacement for your notebook/tablet PC is unacceptable please sign a petition @ http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/tx1...ment-petition/

 

Litigators, Judge, Nvidia, HP… big names and all the information is there. Anyone have any contacts at CNN or any of the networks. With the numbers of afflicted computers in the US, this would be a very good public interest story and perhaps exert a little additional pressure on the situation ... while creating a PR nightmare for all concerned if it hit TV.

 

Here is how to submit a story idea to CNN:

CNN.com - Contact Us

Make sure to type in something like: Questionable settlement practice by the involved attorneys - NVIDIA Defective GPU class action lawsuit

More people submitting the same ideas, more likely CNN would consider investigating this issue.

BTW, I don't think lumping the judge with everyone else is fair; the judge has clearly signed off on the final settlement language; it's the people who are suppose to follow and execute it are not following the judge's decree.

 

i agree. the judge signed the settlement saying that we would receive a "like value" computer. It is Nvidia's job to find a suitable replacement.

i like the idea of submitting the story to CNN, but am also a little weary of it right now. there were (supposed) meetings last night to discuss the laptops that would be our replacements, and i would like to hear what was said in those meetings and receive an update before we do anything too brash. If mr. Frank does not receive a response or update by the end of the week, or the litigation website is not updated, i will be giving Milberg a follow-up call Monday to see what is going on. if it comes down to this, i will, of course, share the news as soon as i hear anything.

 

We might not want to go all news on this thing.
The more people that submit a claim, the less everyone gets total.
At least thats what it sounds like to me, but i may be wrong.

 

Is that why the litigation is low key? You'd think something this big would have already been on the news. but of course there wouldn't be enough money and computers to go around to everybody.

 

I couldn't agree with you more on this. May as well get a gun and shoot yourself in the foot. NVIDIA agreed to spend a finite amount on the settlement, and when the money is gone, it's gone.

 

Maybe that explains these so-called "proposed" and tentative replacement models: They wanted to see the pace and number of claims being filed to see how thinly funds will have to be spread.

 

i disagree. the settlement was approved saying "of like value and model". i believe the "pool" of funds spent on this settlement is for reimbursement claims, not replacement claims.

 

that's the way i took it to mean.

 

I was wrong

 

Based on what I read, $2 million is for the cash reimbursements. Nvidia has a separate reserve of $350 million+ for the repair/replacements, according to their SEC filing.

 

where did you see that??


thanks

 

in the court documents... sorry
I thought that was referring to the 200+ mil payout to hp and other
manufacturers not us if it isn't in the court document it does not apply

 

^

http://www.nvidiasettlement.com/pdfs/10.PDF

page 4
section B. Post Litigation and Current Repairs
Lines 5-8

I stand corrected on the reserve amount. It is $312.9 M