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Laptops With Certain NVidia Chips Failing
Eukariote writes "An estimated 18 million laptops with NVidia G84 and G86 graphics chips sold in the past one and a half years are experiencing high failure rates. Various laptop models from multiple manufacturers (Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others) are affected. NVidia blames it on bad chip packaging causing thermal failure. BIOS updates that turn the laptop fan on more frequently or permanently have been released by Dell and HP. The cynical interpretation is that this is likely to only delay the problem until the warranty has expired."
As detailed in this thread, the GF8400 has serious performance problems under Vista Aero when running recent driver versions. I wonder if this is related? - i.e. Recent driver updates have down-clocked the GPU leading to bad performance. Dell have however recently acknowledge the problem and is working on a fix.
A link? Shit I own one. Dell XPS m1330; I've had the motherboard replaced twice already for video failure, and I got the thing in September of 07. Yes, that's right, replaced twice in less than a year.
The flaw is every bit as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
waiting to form.
Charlie gets it right. Let's see, 18 million notebook machines. Freight each way, plus cost of labor to fix them and the materials needed. Less than $10 a machine! Great, that math stuff. Yup, a $150-200 million charge oughta do it at around $10 a machine!
Hello? This is the SEC? Hey, I have a question about an 8K I saw for NVidia. It goes like this.....
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I'd read that the 360 had certain component(s) designed by Microsoft in-house (as a cost-saving measure), which had lousy thermal characteristics, and which they sought the help of nVidia to rectify. I'm unable to find a reference at this time, but I do believe my statement to be true, whether or not the GPU in the 360 is an ATI part.
Kid-proof tablet..
The HP DV2000 DV6000 and DV9000 series laptops are all affected. The BIOS updates just make the fan spin more often, thats it. HP has extended the MFG warranties to 2 years from the date of purchase. At GeekSquad/Best Buy HP has been offering a LOT of replacements for these laptops authorized through HP, but the laptops have to be DOA and sent to service which takes about a week to two weeks. I've sent off atleast 15 HP laptops in the past 6 months for replacement/repair. I give HP some credit for atleast trying to fix the problem and/or replace the whole laptops themselves. I don't know what other MFG's are doing..
The USAF had a reliability program that ran from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s which did quite a bit to make electronics more reliable in the field. About 1% of the USAF's "black boxes" were marked with stickers that said something like "USAF Reliability Program Unit - If unit breaks, replace entire unit and send broken unit to ... for analysis".
When broken units came into the analysis shop, a considerable effort was made to find out exactly which component had failed and how it had failed. This went way beyond normal repair. When a bad part was located, the part was opened up and examined with an electron microscope or X-rayed, as appropriate, to see exactly what had gone wrong.
The USAF would frequently publish pictures from this program in Aviation Week. You'd see pictures of bad lead joints inside an IC package, too-long internal leads that had failed under high G loads, and bad on-chip etching. Manufacturers of bad parts were named. Inspectors were sent to plants to figure out what had gone wrong with the manufacturing process. The problem got fixed or the supplier stopped getting military contracts.
This worked well when the military bought most electronic components. By the 1980s, consumer electronics were using electronics at least as sophisticated as the military, and the military had to start using "commercial, off the shelf" components. Today, the USAF has trouble getting any special attention from parts suppliers.
Auto manufacturers still do things like this. Because they have to pay for recalls, they need to find out why things break and fix the production process, even if it's at a supplier.
Note that they conveniently prevent you from downloading the old BIOS to revert the upgrade, by removing old version from their web site, if the increased fan noise is a problem for you. Under the pretense of "avoiding confusion", they will not allow you to get the original version:
I do not see the previous BIOS version on the HP Support Web? What happened to the previous versions of the BIOS? In order to eliminate any confusion on which BIOS version is the latest, only the latest version is available on the Web.
Ford tried to do this to me with my car. It would make a shuddering noise somewhere in the front end at low speed (eg parking lots). I mentioned it to them each service and they said they'd look at it, and when I got it back after the service they said they'd flushed the power steering system and upgraded the car computer firmware.
The first service after the warranty expired I took it in and they said that there was a faulty hose causing the problem and it would take $$$ to fix. I got them to fix it under warranty eventually but I wonder how many other people they screwed over...
Hey, I benefited from almost the exact same problem. I was test driving a program car, and it drove like a dream - except when I turned the steering wheel all the way to the side. Then it sounded like someone had a low-speed metal grinder under the hood. I told the salesman, and he pulled the car's record to look into it. As it turns out, the previous owner had tried to get that noise fixed maybe 5 times, but their dealer couldn't permanently repair it, so the owner returned it under their state's lemon law. My local dealer asked if I'd be interested in the car if they could fix it, so I went home to let them dig around inside.
As it turns out, there's a corrugated metal hose near the steering mechanism. When you turned the wheel all the way, it pushed a motor against that hose and caused the noise. The permanent fix? A plastic wire tie to pull the hose half an inch to the side. I got the car in mint condition for half price eight years ago, and I'm still driving it today.
Ummm, this is an obligatory car analogy to the laptops, so don't mod me off-topic.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?