Nvidia Problems Hit HP Desktops

Barence writes "HP has revealed faults with 38 different models in its slimline PC range, sparking speculation that Nvidia's faulty GPU problems have spread beyond laptops. HP's official statement says the problems are 'attributable to the computer's motherboard" and that affected machines 'may not boot or may not display video' — the same kind of terminology used to describe the previous faults with laptop GPUs. Both HP and Nvidia have declined to comment. But in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this year, Nvidia admitted 'there can be no assurance that we will not discover defects in other MCP or GPU products.'" Note: the linked story (updated since this submission) says that Yes, the problems are now confirmed to be rooted in the Nvidia GPUs.

Comments

Don't worry.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm sure it is confined only to HP desktops, no desktops from other manufacturers are affected. It was true last time, why not now? *snicker*

Re:Don't worry.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Fair enough. The SEC filing, while somewhat vague, was honest as far as I know. I was referring to the original claim, back when this story was starting to show stress fractures, that only certain HP notebooks were to blame(with vague intimations that HP engineering had fucked up). That was before Dell admitted problems, and just recently Apple put out an advisory to the effect that Nvidia had told them that all was well; but they had determined otherwise.

I strongly suspect that Nvidia did their best to not lie to the SEC, given the potential penalties for doing so; but they haven't exactly overdone the honesty elsewhere.

Re:Don't worry.

[InsaneProcessor]

Does anyone not remember that Intel sold a lot of processors that couldn't divide correctly either?

who...

[cosmocain]

...would have thought.
brbut still: information on this fuckup is hard to find, non-concrete statements everywhere. why not have a tool that reads the s/n of the GPU, checks it and warns if your gpu is faulty? i'm owning a dell notebook which, according to dell, is not affected. but nevertheless dell put a bios-update online for my modell which obviously changed something concerning ventilation. being vague is not always the way to go.

nVidia is being sued by their shareholders?

[morgan_greywolf]

For "covering up" the faulty GPUs? Hey, if they signed contracts with the OEMs on these chips leaving the announcements to them, then that's the brakes -- they can't talk about it. What would you expect them to do?

AMD/ATI?

[sanosuke001]

This is a great chance for ATI to get some market-share. If you don't know what nVidia cards are affected, are you going to chance it? I know I wouldn't. If ATI doesn't take advantage of this with price drops or something, their marketing dept. should be taken out back and finished off of-mice-and-men style...

Re:AMD/ATI?

[kazade84]

This gives me another reason to recommend AMD/ATI over nVidia. The first one being that nVidia refuses to release their card specs, unlike AMD and Intel.

Re:AMD/ATI?

[JavaBear]

So you are telling us that you are now swearing to Intel CPU's and AMD/ATI GPU's ? :-)

OK EU, the blanket Pb ban had the best intentions

[distantbody]

...The RoHS demonization of lead had the best of intentions and all, but the results are in, and some things just kinda crap out (including, big, expensive and very dangerous things) without it. Thanks EU, but we're gonna have to wrap this avoid-lead-at-all-cost show up right about now...

ATI Linux Support == Total Crap

[brunes69]

It's hardly affected it at all.

ATI Linux drivers are still total crap compared to NVidia's.

I would rather have a funded, supported binary blob that works over a bunch of unsupported unfunded drivers and open specifications any day.

Try to use any modern ATI card in an Linux-based HTPC that has to support HD video, and see how far you get.

Re:ATI Linux Support == Total Crap

[vally_manea]

I totally agree about the binary ATI drivers - they suck bigtime, but the open source one is progressing quite nicely, more info here http://www.radeonhd.org/

Re:ATI Linux Support == Total Crap

[Creepy]

My peeve with ATI is lack of OpenGL Windows extensions (which extends to Linux). ATI tends not to add EXTs even when the card supports the hardware (for instance, geometry shaders, which are supported in DirectX but not in OpenGL, and likely won't be supported in OpenGL until they become ARB, knowing ATI, so maybe OGL3.1).

I think ATI has a better scalable design and better heat properties (in SLI they rule the roost in power consumption, heat dissipation and throughput). Shader performance is still fairly poor on ATI cards, but they make up for it by massive amounts of shaders. ATI has had memory bandwidth issues in the past, but I haven't checked lately.

So basically, from a DirectX Windows only perspective, ATI is one of the best routes to go. From an OpenGL Linux, Windows, or MacOS X perspective, I prefer nVidia because they tend to support the latest public extensions (EXT is the agreed upon name and likely ARB - vendor only extensions have a vendor code like _ATI or _NV).

Re:OK EU, the blanket Pb ban had the best intentio

[Sockatume]

I wouldn't call the Xbox 360 GPU failures (which don't seem to have affected any other ATi products) or the nVidia notebook GPU failures (which don't seem to have affected any other nVidia products) "big, expensive, and very dangerous things". Certainly the very specific nature of the problems suggests it has nothing to do with the switch to lead-free processes themselves (which nVidia and ATi themselves are using in other products without issue). I'd welcome other examples of course, as there could be low-profile problems which I've overlooked and show this to be a more general issue. Of course there are many new theoretical failure modes introduced by lead-free components and soldering, I'm just pointing out that from where I stand it's not yet an issue in the real world.

Possible Recall?

[d0n0vAn]

I am a recall coordinator. My job is to apply the formula. A new laptop built by my company overheats and the video card dies. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of laptops in the field, A. Multiply it by the probable rate of failure, B. Multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A x B x C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

Re:Possible Recall?

[hairyfeet]

There is a problem with your math there,you see you forgetting about Y,which is how many customers turn on your company after you burn them and tell all their friends their horror story so they never buy your product either.

Let me give an example: A former teacher USED to go to Walmart all the time. It wasn't far from his home,and since he was a DIY type he often spent 500-$800 a month there. They burnt him on a $40 battery that was less than a week old because he couldn't find his receipt,even though it is a brand only sold at Walmart. Since that was 3 years ago and he hasn't been in since at the minimum $500 they have lost $18000 for the price of a battery. He also has several friends who trust his judgment and are now going to Target like he does. Add in the money they would have spent and you can easily double that.

You see,I learned a little rule a long time ago: Give a customer a good experience and they'll brag on you to three to five of their friends. Treat a customer like shit and they'll go out of their way to tell everyone they know how you suck and should be avoided like the clap. It would cost HP next to nothing to keep some comparable spares in a warehouse and simply change out the HDD when a customer sends in a bad one. Give them even the tiniest of upgrades at the same time and you will have a customer that gushes about your service. Burn that customer and he/she'll make DAMNED sure to let everyone know what a lousy POS company you are. And considering that Dell and Acer is out there happy to take their business that really doesn't sound like a smart move,does it?

Re:OK EU, the blanket Pb ban had the best intentio

[Ostracus]

"Los Angeles (CA) â" A tiny material issue in Nvidiaâ(TM)s GPUs has cost Nvidia $200 million so far: The problem boils down to the solder bump material, in Nvidiaâ(TM)s case high-lead that was used in all of the firmâ(TM)s GPUs that were produced until late July , and we still do not know how serious the issue really is. According to our sources, Nvidia has switched to eutectic solder bumps in recent weeks and there is now a new, apparently independent research report, that claims that eutectic solder bumps, which are used for example by AMDâ(TM)s ATI unit, may live much longer than high-lead versions. Of course, switching to eutectic isnâ(TM)t the entire solution, as the material has a much lower melting point than high-lead."

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39506/135/

Re:Oh, so that's why

[Lonewolf666]

I do know, that my next laptop, will be a Dell, and it will have a sweet ass Nvidia card in it. Im keeping faith in them.

Faith is usually misplaced with companies. Most of them have sucked at one point or another. All you can do is do some research about current products and hope there is no hidden problem brewing.

When I last bought a graphics card it was an NVidia 8600GT because of ATI's still-questionable Linux support at the time (the Open Source driver project was announced but nothing delivered yet). Now I can only hope that card does not die on me.

Based on ATI's improvement in drivers and NVidia's current problems I would get an ATI now. But that is not set in stone either and may be reversed a few years from now.

Re:the blanket Pb ban had the best intentions

[Seraphim1982]

...The RoHS demonization of lead had the best of intentions and all, but the results are in, and some things just kinda crap out (including, big, expensive and very dangerous things) without it. Thanks EU, but we're gonna have to wrap this avoid-lead-at-all-cost show up right about now...

The failing solderbumps were high-lead solder. The solution was to switch to a eutectic solder, which has less lead. So why would RoHS anti-lead policies be to blame?