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

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.

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: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.