Nvidia Reports Large Quantities of Defective Notebook Chips

I had Toshiba with ATI which was rock solid, no crashes. It is second time NVIDIA screwed, first they made lousy drivers crashing Vista. And now they are even not competent to write corrected driver. I bet Vista would be much bigger success if not NVIDIA. I should not listen to those podcast nerds praising Ncrap.

 

Oh crap.. I hope my 8400m gs is not going to fry. I have a dv6500t so hopefully that model is not at issue. I have had a few blue screens but nothing serious. I think those problems were related to office 07 (back to 2003 now) and I am running all the latest drivers. I have one more year of warranty so hopefully its all resolved by then. These manufacturers really need to get a handle on heat related issues already.

 

with ATI I had never blue screen

 

From NVIDIA:

Separately, NVIDIA plans to take a one-time charge from $150 million to $200 million against cost of revenue for the second quarter to cover anticipated warranty, repair, return, replacement and other costs and expenses, arising from a weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of its previous generation GPU and MCP products used in notebook systems. Certain notebook configurations with GPUs and MCPs manufactured with a certain die/packaging material set are failing in the field at higher than normal rates. To date, abnormal failure rates with systems other than certain notebook systems have not been seen. NVIDIA has initiated discussions with its supply chain regarding this material set issue and the Company will also seek to access insurance coverage for this matter.

Regarding the notebook field failures, NVIDIA president and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang stated:

"Although the failure appears related to the combination of the interaction between the chip material set and system design, we have a responsibility to our customers and will take our part in resolving this problem. The GPU has become an increasingly important part of the computing experience and we are seeing more interest by PC OEMs to adopt GPUs in more platforms. Recognizing that the GPU is one of the most complex processors in the system, it is critical that we now work more closely with notebook system designers and our chip foundries to ensure that the GPU and the system are designed collaboratively for the best performance and robustness."

Today's high performance notebooks are highly complex systems with extreme thermal environments. The combination of limited thermal management and frequent power cycling is particularly challenging for complex processors like the GPU.

Huang added, "This has been a challenging experience for us. However, the lessons we've learned will help us build far more robust products in the future, and become a more valuable system design partner to our customers. As for the present, we have switched production to a more robust die/package material set and are working proactively with our OEM partners to develop system management software that will provide better thermal management to the GPU."

 

It could also be that you're running an older BIOS. HP released a BIOS update for the pavilions that greatly lowers the internal temps by making the fan run more often.

 

this is a nightmare :cry: sounds a lot more serious than i originally thought.
i wonder if this effect apple 17" MBP also...

 

just look up HP "One time service enhancement", covers dv2000-2400, dv6000-6400, dv9000-9400 and Compaq V6000-V6400 nbs with AMD CPUs and you guessed it, NVidia GPUs for video issues and motherboard failures.

 

Digitimes has a brief piece speculating that the problems are related to the 8500M chip. Sometimes Digitimes scoops early news and sometimes they just pimp rumors, so take this for whatever you think it's worth. For all the details you can read the article here.

 

Something tells me that the 8600M GT in my Asus G1S is a prime candidate for premature frying . .

 

Glad I sold my laptop before this fiasco came to light. I thought lately my lappie was running a bit warm while gaming, and even after cleaning out the vents the issue persisted. Over a year, the fans were coming on more often, the air from the vents warmer.
It's still under warranty, so I'm glad the buyer has that option if anything fails.

 

This news is much later than I expected to see it. I remember that the notebook I'm typing on right now, an XPS Gen 2, had 2 defective on arrival (not dead on arrival) Geforce 6800 Ultra's. Neither could withstand playing games. The third one finally could without rebooting the system every 5 minutes. Dell didn't want to acknowledge the problem, but they eventually did and noted it was widespread.

I also agree that my next system will probably have ATI graphics.

 

Maybe this explains why my 7900gs has been reaching it's threashold temps somewhat frequently. I just cleaned out the dust a few weeks ago and it had no effect on the temps . Oh well, I still have 1.5 years on the warrenty.

 

My 8600m gt downclocks all the time with stock clocks anywhere above 55c, any driver. Defective card?

 

Hmmm this doesn't affect the 9500Gs does it?

 

The 8500M was in what, 2 notebooks? It was available in the Asus C90s, but everyone who bought one of those got it with an 8600M GT anyways. I can't think of anything else it was in.

The failure of such a low volume product could not create so many problems for the whole of Nvidia.

 

uh oh... dell just released a new set of drivers for the GeForce 8400M, GeForce 8400M GS, and GeForce 8600M.
http://support.dell.com/support/dow...-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=6&fileid=261031
would this affect my XPS m1530 8600gt? (I'm pretty sure I would assume so, but I was wondering if the "M" means the gt too)

And personally, for someone like me who has always been somewhat of a ATI fan, I'm seeing this as a huge disappointment for nvidia.

EDIT: btw is the GPU on the m1530 under the left handside of the palmrest? ...I've always felt it always been unusually warm (during idle and even more so during gaming)... though I never thought too much of it.

 

oh lordy.. this thread is getting me worked up.. iam about to order a Sony SZ7 with a nvidia graphics car din it.. the 8400 GS... EEEKkk!

i wish sony had ATI for the SZ series

i need a laptop soon because of college.. and it sucks that nvidia is nearly the only choice for almost every brand.. where the heck is ATI when you need them.

 

ATI should become much more prominent when the Centrino 2 platform is released in early August.

 

Hi, I don't really post much here, I mostly read. However, I own 2 XPS M1530s. And ever since the nVidia fiasco started I've been doing alot of research on the matter. And this is what I have come up with.


M1530 is LIKELY not affected for the following reasons:
1) The heat pipes, although on the same fan, they come from different sides of the cooling fins. If I still remember my heat transfer classes, conduction efficiency should be 20% less efficient towards each other (when interrupted with another material). Which in this case is a good thing. This means that CPU+chipset heat affect GPU less. As for the XPS M1330 this is not the case, not only the GPU shares the same fan but also the same heat pipe.

2) The link that you have above. the drivers are for XPS M1330. If you wish to confirm this click on "Return to Drivers Results Page" above and you will see that it's the M1330 and NOT the M1530. Though the driver is also made for 8600M (same gen same drivers), Dell did not list it as a required (or even recommended update) for the XPS M1530. As the newest update is 11/28/07 for the 8600M on XPS M1530. You may check this by clicking on "select a different product" on the link that you have posted.

However, since the driver update on 07/01/08 is in fact for the XPS M1330. Things are not looking too good for these owners. I really sincerely hope that Dell can shed some light on this matter. After all, everything that I have written are mere speculations. No one will know for sure until nVidia contacts Dell and Dell contacts the end-users.

I really do wish everyone the best though, I even still have an Asus F8SV with 8600M GT to worry about (but at least Asus has 2 year warranty).

 

I just think that any laptop equipped with the 8400M GS cards are mostly the "older generation defective GPU".

This is not official but I found this: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2172

"In recent weeks I’ve been hearing about a lot of problems related to the Dell m1330 and m1530, which are powered by the GeForce 8400M GS. For a while now this issue has been put down to overheating of the GPU. I’ve heard from several people who have been hit by this problem, with some having to have multiple motherboard replacements.

There’s details of a modification called the Copper Mod posted on several forums. Finally, what makes the 8400M GS a prime suspect is that the other day an update for this GPU was released by Dell."

 

The 8500M was used in the Asus C90s and I think that some Mac Book Pros also use the same chip.

 

macbook pro only came with 8600m gt to my knowledge. the early core duo model comes with ATI Radeon X1600.

why is nvidia keeping this a secret? people who own nvidia gpu will just panic, wheter or not their gpu is effected or not. unless its all/most mobile gpu they ever produce that is affected i dont see why they are keeping this a secret.

 

I won't buy any laptop with nVidia cards unless they disclose wich models are affected.

 

I don't think it's related but my GF Toshiba Tecra M3 P-M 1.83Ghz uses a nVidia 6600 (very old) and failed after 18 months. The screen displayed garbled characters, checkered, wavy lines, screen going completely white, shutting down/resetting etc.

Luckily she had 3 years warranty.

 

Hmm. My fathers Sony SZ420 runs very hot when using the Nvidia 7400. Sounds like it's the right age.

Greg

 

Personally, nvidia should at least give us a heads up on what laptops are affected, cuz some of us plan 2 buy laptops this summer.....?

 

Thats why I had to send in my HP. One day it simply would not post. It would give 4 beeps and thats it. Reason: GPU failure. I guess this issue is confirmed....

It seems impossible to get a truly reliable laptop these days.

 

i hear ya!!!

and that include everything else in between... cars, mobile phone, television, you name it!

 

I second the motion!!!

 

I wondered why my M1530, with an 8600M GT had such a high GPU temp even on idle. At these underclocked speeds it still manages to hit 70 C without even touching a thing. Comparing this to my older MacBook Pro with an ATI x1600, the GPU never goes above 50 C on idle... and it was the same mid-range performance as the 8600M for it's time.

 

Jeezz, I'm glad my upcoming Thinkpad will be equipped with ATI. But hell, I don't know what to expect either.

 

How many complaints do you see from Sager/Clevo owners? That's right, none.

 

I guess I'll better get the extended warranty for my Aspire 5920 with Nvidia 8600M GS. Just in case. lol

 

I cannot believe that nobody read follow-up news:

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20080704PD210.html

 

see above please.

 

I wish that were true, but Sager/Clevo owners are rare to begin with.

 

What he meant is notebooks in general. Sager doesn't manufacture the HDD or the Ram or the LCD...Every part of the laptop comes from different brands. You still have a chance of getting a malfunctioned laptop no matter what brand you buy.
On the side note, Sager is not perfect either.

 

Woah...not a good thing at all! ....

 

Mine died. Had to have DELL replace it.

 

Any updates on which chips are defective?

 

We'll probably never hear anything directly from nVidia. Just have to see if the notebook manufacturers will pass us a "new" driver that puts the fan on higher, earlier. Or actually comes clean and lets the world know they screwed up the thermal design.

 

Didn't find this in a quick search, but if you have an HP/Compaq notebook check to see if you're on the Affected Models list:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&cc=us&docname=c01087277&dlc=en

HP Pavilion dv2000/dv6000/dv9000
Compaq Presario v3000/v6000

If you're within two years of purchase, you should be able to get a repair/replacement motherboard.

 

The Inquirer is reporting that ALL chips using the G84 and G86 cores are defective. Click the previous link for the full story, but the affected chips are:
8300 GS
8400 GS
8500 GT
8600 GS
8600 GT
8600 GTS

Basically if you bought a laptop with nVidia discreet graphics you can plan on you gpu burning out.

I think I better cancel my XPS 1530 order.

 

Ok I just had a chat with a Dell sales agent asking about this defect thing because I just ordered a 1720 with 256 mb 8600M GT. He said Dell isn't aware of any defects right now, but if something were to arise, coreect measures will be taken.

 

It would have more credibility if the National Enquirer was reporting it.

 

If it's the 8 series GPU that are affected, I wonder why I haven't heard any problems from vostro 1400 and 1500 users? I have a vostro 1400 and my laptop runs at 40 on idle and spikes up to 60 when gaming. Is this normal or a laptop? I haven't updated any drivers or BIOS since I got my laptop in July.

 

And also the 8700M GT, that GPU is based on the G84

 

That's odd, the HP link: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&cc=us&docname=c01087277&dlc=en leads me to believe that it's not the 8M series because none of the notebooks listed (dvx000 - dvx400) use the 8M series.) They 8M series began with the dvx500 and those aren't listed.

 

so if the 8600GT is affected, I'm assuming the 9500M will be as well?

 

It is naive to count they admit before running 1720s out of stock.
Note that replacement for 1720 has no NVIDIA anymore.
Anyone knows how to remove that Ncrap and use Intel's X3100 ?