NVIDIA Gets Away With Bait-and-Switch

racquetballguy writes "As part of a December 2010 settlement agreement, NVIDIA agreed to provide all owners of laptops containing a defective NVIDIA GPU with a laptop of similar kind and value. In February, NVIDIA announced that a $279 single-core Compaq CQ56 would be provided as a replacement to all laptops — from $2500 dual-core tablet PCs to $2000 17" entertainment notebooks. Ted Frank, from the Center for Class Action Fairness, filed an objection to the court, which was overruled by Judge Ware today. Once again, the consumers of a class action lawsuit lose."

Comments

Well that's a slap in the face.

[DWMorse]

I don't care if they really do only spend $279 on replacements... but come ON... Compaq?? I'll keep the defective GPU, TYVM.

Re:Well that's a slap in the face.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone does that, maybe apart from Dell.

Please be joking, please be joking, please be joking....

Off the top of my head:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/06/29/1618205/Dell-Selling-Faulty-PCs

Re:Well that's a slap in the face.

[Opie812]

Off the top of my head: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/06/29/1618205/Dell-Selling-Faulty-PCs

Wow, impressive. You remembered that link off the top of your head. Who are you, Rainman?

Re:Well that's a slap in the face.

[robot256]

It's easy to remember some words and 13 random digits if they are important enough to you. Apparently this guy devotes his life to Dell-bashing. ;-)

Re:Well that's a slap in the face.

[flyneye]

LOL
Nvidia bought the judge a NICER laptop.

Re:Well that's a slap in the face.

[smelch]

As I recall, every Compaq machine I've ever seen was built like a god damned fortress. Talk about a pain in the ass to swap parts out of.

Re:Well that's a slap in the face.

[Coren22]

Stop buying Inspiron then...

But, in all seriousness, did Dell correct the problem? If so, what does it matter if it came defective in some odd way?

If you want to talk about quality from Dell, you shouldn't be talking about their shit consumer line, you need to look at the Precision or Latitude lines if you want quality. Also, WTF does a mouse have to do with a Dell Laptop's quality?

Re:Well that's a slap in the face.

[Fjandr]

Brand is irrelevant, including Dell.

If you want quality, you need to buy one of the quality lines. Those are typically commercial-class machines.

Of the laptops and workstations I've used from a number of major OEMs, the consumer ones have been either crappy or really crappy. The business ones have been, by-and-large, excellent. Again, brand being irrelevant.

That also applies to networking equipment. And tools, power and hand. And, well, pretty much everything you can buy, come to think of it...

Class action lawsuits are rarely good.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a matter of course, you should always opt out of being part of the class. The settlements are rarely very big, and usually the company is better off if it can get everyone into the class and give up their individual rights to litigate.

Re:Class action lawsuits are rarely good.

[Anonymous Coward]

How many corporations have you individually litigated against?

Re:Class action lawsuits are rarely good.

[h4rr4r]

What would they do if you just went to small claims court?
For $2500 that seems like a reasonable place to seek relief.

Re:Class action lawsuits are rarely good.

[arbiter1]

Yea the only ones that win in them are the lawyer, they get paid a percent of the judgement and rest is split up among the people involved.

Re:Class action lawsuits are rarely good.

[cpu6502]

Class actions have worked well for me:

- $30 from the CE cartel
- $75 from Disney's baby einstein dvds
- $100 from paypal for "losses" that I never incurred

One thing I've noticed - they disguise the checks to make them look like junkmail. I almost threw the Disney check in the trash, until I realized what it was. It had no markings to indicate what it was for. (Probably done on purpose, to screw the consumer even further.) And screwing paypal was just pure pleasure.

Re:Class action lawsuits are rarely good.

[mr1911]

In many states part of the small claims process is that you cannot have professional legal representation. So no council petitioning anything.

Re:Class action lawsuits are rarely good.

[Edward Teach]

That is just dumb. I'm actually a member of this class. I replaced my computer a couple of years ago because it died out of warranty. I never expected to get anything for it and only kept the thing in case I needed parts off of it. So, for very little effort on my part. I get a computer that, although not as good as the one I had, actually works. I don't have the funds to litigate against NVIDIA. If the computer plays movies or will surf the web, then it is already 100% better than the brick that was sitting under my bed. I'll just put Linux on it, lock it down, and send it to my mom for her email and web surfing.

Re:Class action lawsuits are rarely good.

[omglolbah]

Luckily Norway has consumer protection laws that make such class action suits pointless.

If there is an issue with a laptop or anything else I buy I get a new product without the issue.
Hell, I get warranty replacements on stuff all the time and not once have I had to fight the company.

If the goods are meant to last more than 2 years they have a 5 year warranty by law. Fun stuff.

Re:Class action lawsuits are rarely good.

[JimboFBX]

Checks are unmarked to prevent theft. Would you prefer it had big dollar signs on it and said "moola moola moola inside!"

Of course, I get junkmail that looks like checks. Some asshat mortgage insurance company with a 1600 Pennsylvania Ave return address sends me junk mail once a week, thinking I"m going to one day hit my head, become retarded, and get fooled. On it it's labeled "Important" and has all this "post master: only deliver to addressee" crap on it, and it has "2011" written to mimic the the way the US designates their tax forms. Oh yeah, perforated edges like checks normally have.

Appeal

[blair1q]

This one has to go over the judge's head.

Re:Appeal

[joocemann]

I would hope something this blatant would end up with the judge not working anymore. THANKS FOR NOTHING PUBLIC SERVANT!

Re:Appeal

[blair1q]

You might want to read that Constitution again. Everyone in government, in this country, is a public servant.

I know judges, and especially Supreme Court justices, don't much care about that, but it was the point of the thing.

Re:Appeal

[Dishevel]

Not anymore
Look around the constitution is dead.
The people are here to serve the government now.

Re:Appeal

[frank_adrian314159]

You need grounds for an appeal. What you think of as denial of justice is not grounds. Show me where the judge made an improper ruling in law.

Re:Appeal

[Gadget_Guy]

If you did you would have called the judge an "incompetent, two-bit corporate shill" instead.

It seems to me that the judge is quite a competent two-bit corporate shill.

What was that saying about not attributing to malice what could be attributed to stupidity? Well, attributing an action to both malice AND stupidity is really just hedging your bets.

Re:Appeal

[joocemann]

Oh yes they are. They serve me and you and they owe us a good job, else be gone.

Re:Appeal

[Bobartig]

Judge Ware is actually a well respected judge of the N.Dist. CA for good reasons. I don't know if he just "doesn't get the tech", but having also resided over San Jose, his docket has been filled with technology-related cases for years. I really dislike this ruling, and I'd like to research into the subject more (can't right now due to finals), but my experience based on direct knowledge is that Ware is a good judge. Nothing will happen to him due to judicial immunity, and his track record being better than most.

My gut feeling is that the remedy became framed in a way that made possible settlements really limited, or possibly plaintiff's counsel threw the class under the bus.

Re:Appeal

[The End Of Days]

Or maybe, just maybe, the Slashdottian assumption of corporate malfeasance isn't how the case actually shook out, and the geniuses around here taking the default anti-corporate stance actually have no idea what happened.

I know, horribly unlikely since it only happens that way 95% of the time, but I'm going to take the chance and go with that.

Re:Appeal

[phlinn]

According to the second link, this was plaintiff's counsel's fault.

Re:Appeal

[blair1q]

If you believe that, then it is true.

If you do not, then it is not.

What's the point?

[pavon]

Except 99% of people in the class aren't going to sue anyway, so they gain nothing by opting out. I just got $16 from a Comcast Bitorrent blocking class-action lawsuit, which is more than I would have gotten otherwise.

Re:What's the point?

[iamhassi]

Sounds like the people with the $2500 tablet PCs need to file in small claims, and the ones with the cheap PCs should be happy with their new Compaq.

What exactly was the problem? "defective NVIDIA GPU" is rather vague, was this a "I can't play games at 1080 HD" defect or "WTF my screen is black!" defect?

No screen means I want every dime for my laptop since it was completely unusable, but can't play games at 1080 HD... a $300 Compaq might be sufficient.

One thing's for sure: I've changed my mind about buying a NVIDIA card this year, I'll stick with ATI.

Re:What's the point?

[hairyfeet]

The problem was they used a defective solder on the GPUs, so heat cycling caused the solder joints to fail, which in your description would be the "WTF my screen is black!". I would sue if I were one stuck with the machine, as well as sue the OEM, since many like HP tried to "fix" the problem by simply sending a patch designed to max out the fans (causing them to burn through the battery and wear out quicker) in the hopes that the machine would survive long enough to go out of warranty so they could flip the bird to customers.

I hope this has taught those that by Nvidia a valuable lesson: don't buy from total douchebags. I was a life long Intel+Nvidia man but after the bribery and compiler rigging came out on the Intel side, and Nvidia trying to dump bad GPUs in the channel and screw customers with bumpgate I'm strictly AMD+ATI for me and my shop. The only way these corps learn is by watching their sales plummet, as we can see in TFA the courts are now bought and paid for.

Re:What's the point?

[MasaMuneCyrus]

I bought a $1600 ASUS G1S. I was a lucky one, the video card died after 2 years of use, so I just decided to purchase a new laptop. Others weren't so lucky. Many thousands of peoples' computers died after weeks or months. And their replacements would be more laptops with more defective cards that may or may not break after weeks or months.

And when the video card dies, you can expect all of the usual -- lots of bluescreens, screwy graphics, or complete failure to turn on the computer.

Re:What's the point?

[AmiMoJo]

This problem isn't limited to nVidia though, it is just that they have been bigger asshats about it than anyone else. ATI had a few issues, and it is also the cause of the Playstation 3 yellow light of death.

nVidia's crime was refusing to acknowledge it, then denying it, then trying to wriggle out of fixing it while still shipping defective GPUs. They ended up with millions of GPUs in the field that needed replacing, and the cost of replacement is so high that it is cheaper to ditch the whole motherboard and install a new one. That is what other companies like Microsoft have done when millions of their machines had a design flaw, and some OEMs using nVidia chips did too.

The killer for nVidia was their deal with HP. Basically they supplied about 95% of the chipsets HP used in its laptops, and so for over three years HP was shipping defective nVidia GPUs. They came to an agreement whereby nVidia would pay HP $100 per laptop, clearly not enough to replace the motherboard for a fixed one (and remember that nVidia were still shipping defective parts at the time) so they just kept swapping mobos until the warranty ran out.

For anyone in the EU remember that the legal minimum warranty period on electronics is 2 years. For anyone in the UK remember that the Sale of Goods Act requires all goods to "last a reasonable length of time", which for a laptop is generally considered to be 5 or 6 years. If your laptop is less than 5 years and and develops this fault you are entitled to either a partial refund (depending on how much use you have had from it) or a replacement.

Re:What's the point?

[Coren22]

The below responder answered your question, but I wanted to address your concerns over buying Nvidia, as you are a bit off base there. In this case, a supplier used materials for the solder/insulators that were out of spec from what Nvidia asked for. This was not a defect that was introduced by Nvidia, but they are ultimately responsible. ATI has serious driver issues, and never seems to be able to fix them, Nvidia just works, until issues like this arrise and the card blows out. I have had Nvidia cards that took such abuse as being covered in water from my water cooling, and after drying off, they worked perfectly. I would not recommend judging them just based upon this issue that has since been fixed.

Re:What's the point?

[walshy007]

The problem was they used a defective solder on the GPUs

Wait a second, last I checked all nvidia made were gpu chips and on occasion reference boards just to test things worked.

Wouldn't this be the card manufactureres fault? not the gpu manufacturer? Imagine an atmel avr chip being used in some embedded design, and then it is discovered the solder connections to the board and dodgy and flake out after a bit, how would this be atmel's fault? they only supplied the chips, the embedded device designer (or in this case video card pcb vendor, not nvidia) is the one responsible.

Re:What's the point?

[springbox]

What is the problem with ATi? The PS3 uses an NVIDIA-based GPU.

Re:What's the point?

[AmiMoJo]

Some laptops using ATI GPUs had issues.

Part of the problem is that laptop manufactures were asking for GPUs that could run at higher temperatures so that they could use less cooling. Less cooling means smaller heatsinks, which means thinner and lighter laptops, and a quieter fan. To be fair nVidia GPUs run a 110C without crashing, it just causing the soldering to fail rapidly.

The list of companies to boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

is getting pretty long.

Re:The list of companies to boycott

[hairyfeet]

Buy AMD! After they bought ATI they've been opening up the code so FOSS guys can have decent drivers and support chips as old as they want, and their desktop and laptop chips are nice, and the new APUs have low power usage and full 1080p hardware acceleration for just about every format.

After the Intel bribery and compiler rigging (which they are still doing last I checked BTW) and Nvidia trying to burn the living hell out of their customers for THEIR mistake in picking a bad solder, I've been strictly AMD+ATI in my personal life and in my shop and my customers couldn't be happier. The cheaper AMD chips means they can spend more on extras like more RAM or an SSD, and the Radeon chips make video smooth and make it trivial to hook up even the little netbooks to a nice widescreen and have a great picture.

Sadly voting with our quickly devaluating dollars is pretty much all we have left in this country, as both parties are so heavily corrupted that they don't even pretend to serve anyone but their corporate masters anymore, and the courts from SCOTUS on down have made it clear the country is BY the corps and FOR the corps and fuck you peasant scum. So the only way we have to fight back against douchebaggery like this is to quit buying their products and hopefully start the corp into a freefall death spiral. Many of these corps have so many debts that a couple of bad quarters is all it will take, so vote with your dollars and tell your friends/customers/families to do the same. It is all we have left now really.

Re:The list of companies to boycott

[AndyAndyAndyAndy]

LG is preforming a bait-and-switch with their line of 32-42 LED LCD displays. Worth looking into VA vs. IPS, if you're looking to buy. Quite infuriating.

Re:The list of companies to boycott

[VVrath]

Except Intel is one company that still builds a lot of their stuff in the U.S., unlike AMD.

That's because AMD doesn't build its own stuff. They had fabs in the US, and were in the process of building a new one in NY, but were forced to sell off their fabrication after Intel's anti-competitive practices nearly bankrupted them.

The consumers should shut up and be grateful

[countertrolling]

that they didn't just get a gift certificate for a cup of McDonalds coffee.

Re:The consumers should shut up and be grateful

[countertrolling]

The judge effectively told these people exactly that, and I'm the troll?

Eh.. dumbass mods don't get sarcasm

Re:The consumers should shut up and be grateful

[TaoPhoenix]

Sorry man.

The way to please the mods is to link prior stories.

"They should be glad they didn't get a lousy month of service on an unsafe gaming network".

Re:The consumers should shut up and be grateful

[couchslug]

"that they didn't just get a gift certificate for a cup of McDonalds coffee."
I could pour THAT on my crotch, get a better settlement, and suffer less than I would by accepting a Compaq.

Re:The consumers should shut up and be grateful

[Khyber]

I died twice and only got $40K after hospital bills and lawyer fees.

Fuck yes I'd rather have third degree burns. Return on investment is much, MUCH bigger. As always, the law of diminishing returns bites you in the ass.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[Culture20]

Who the heck spends $2500 on a tablet PC?

Someone who bought a tablet PC, not an iPad or Xoom. It's a miniaturized laptop with a flip-around touchscreen. Expensive hardware.

In other news...

[MrEricSir]

...Compaq still exists.

Re:In other news...

[compro01]

Compaq is a brand of HP since 2002.

Re:In other news...

[MrEricSir]

Sure, but have you ever seen a computer with a Compaq brand on it? I thought it was discontinued...?

Re:In other news...

[sandytaru]

Yes, they are still branded as HP's low-end laptops. You can find them in any Office Depot, usually under $400.

Re:In other news...

[Kitkoan]

Compaqs website. They have their brand name on their computers and laptops.

Re:In other news...

[MarkTina]

And is a very clever way of HP getting twice the shelf space of a retail store .. your average Joe Public thinks they are separate companies you see :-)

Re:In other news...

[nonicknameavailable]

i have a new one here

Re:In other news...

[jmauro]

They likely paid for every square inch of shelf space they have so having two seperate brands doesn't actually get them anything extra. It's the second item in that they seem like seperate companies, with Compaq at the low end to make the higher end HP machines seem better is more probable.

Re:In other news...

[JWSmythe]

    Have you been to a retail electronics store lately? Or shopped online? The Compaq name never went away, it was moved to be the entry/low end computers, while HP reserves their name for the higher end.

    They recognized that the average consumer had brand recognition for the name "Compaq". Some had been using the same machine for 5 years and knew it was reliable (ok, for those that it remained reliable). Some had friends of friends who were happy with theirs, and they generally stayed in the range where most consumers could afford to buy the item out of pocket.

Re:In other news...

[TangoMargarine]

I own one. Got it in 2007 for around $600. AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ 2.1GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB hard disk. Still going strong except for an occasional graphic panic every once in a blue moon that can be fixed with a slow power cycle.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[peragrin]

Pretty much anyone who bought a tablet before the iPad came out.

seriously the average tablet computer back then was $2000 if you wanted a 10" screen or larger.

It is why every other company thought Apple would come out with the iPad for $1000 or so since they are a premium brand name and always charge more. The $499 price forced everyone back to the drawing board which is why 1 year later there is only one decent competitor and it will be another 6 months before a second actually hits the market.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[compro01]

Mine (HP TX2512) was $1000 two and some years ago.

OTOH, it was an HP (ATI graphics though) and has issues due various stupid design decisions.

judge ware

[Anonymous Coward]

which was overruled by Judge Ware today

Is his first name Hard?

Re:judge ware

[camperdave]

JudgeWare is a new type of software. It is designed to weigh alternative legal arguments and determine which has the greater merit. There has always been a demand for an impartial and incorruptible judicial system, and JudgeWare addresses these issues. JudgeWare is currently available for the Microsoft Windows XP environment.

Re:judge ware

[grantek]

no, they've replaced the court with a Microsoft product called JudgeWare 2012

Re:judge ware

[ColaMan]

No, it's Malcom.

His friends jsut call him Mal, though.

Tell Me About It....

[cfkboyz]

I had one of the affected pc's (HP DV6110US). It was not the best computer, but a hell of a lot better than the piece of shit I have YET to receive!!! I have always said that we got screwed.... I don't really need the replacement computer as I bought a Macbook 3 years ago when the HP took a dump, so I might sell both and buy a new Macbook Pro... I would have been happier if they gave everyone the option of the Compaq or Asus EEE T101MT-EU37-BK, but only people who bought tablets are given the choice...

Re:Tell Me About It....

[Durandal64]

Asus EEE T101MT-EU37-BK

Holy shit, that's a real model name? Jesus Christ.

Re:Tell Me About It....

[Anonymous Coward]

I had one of the affected pc's (HP DV6110US). It was not the best computer, but a hell of a lot better than the piece of shit I have YET to receive!!!

No, actually, it's not. The DV6110US has a 15.4" screen, a 1.6GHz processor, 1G DDR2 ram, and 120GB hard drive. The replacement Compaq has a 15.6" screen, a 2.3GHz processor, 2G DDR3 ram, and 250GB hard drive. The replacement is better in virtually every way.

The dollar figures quoted are highly misleading. The defective computers being replaced are not worth $2000 today - they were worth $2000 when they were new. It should not be shocking to anyone that a computer that cost thousands of dollars three years ago is outclassed by a $300 modern computer. Apparently, people don't actually want a computer with comparable specs; they want a modern $2000 computer.

Re:Tell Me About It....

[lennier1]

Depends on the laptop. My 18 month old $2700 Toshiba Qosmio is still sold today. Slightly better graphics module but otherwise only 200 bucks less than what I paid back then.

Re:Tell Me About It....

[ColdWetDog]

Asus EEE T101MT-EU37-BK

Holy shit, that's a real model name? Jesus Christ.

How else do you differentiate it from an EEE TM101MT-EU38-BK ?

Re:Tell Me About It....

[Anonymous Cowpat]

fair enough, but how should people be compensated for the last however many years of not having the stonking computer they paid for? 3 years ago (or whatever it was) these people forked over $2000 (or more) for what should have been an excellent (contemporary) laptop, and then didn't receive one. Shouldn't they now at least receive a machine occupying a similar place in the market as what they paid for? If you manage to claim back lost money from someone, it normally comes with interest at least to make up for inflation. In this case, not only is there financial inflation, but there's rapid deterioration in the relative capability of the goods.

The offered machine may be a bit better than the one it's replacing, but most software has got a lot heavier in the intervening time. In terms of what's being asked of it, the replacement is worse.

Re:Tell Me About It....

[dgatwood]

My head a splode.

Re:Tell Me About It....

[s73v3r]

And why shouldn't they get one? They got a modern-at-the-time computer that was defective, why shouldn't the replacement be a modern for now computer?

Re:Tell Me About It....

[racquetballguy]

The offered machine may be a bit better than the one it's replacing, but most software has got a lot heavier in the intervening time. In terms of what's being asked of it, the replacement is worse.

The vast majority of defective machines have better specs than the replacement machine. A 3 year old laptop with a dual-core 2.2 GHz processor (AMD Turion 64 x2 TL-64 processor in many of the defective machines) is still faster than a single-core 2.3 GHz processor (AMD V140 in CQ56). Moreover, the replacement lacks just about every feature present on the defective machines (the CQ56 doesn't even have a webcam).

Re:Tell Me About It....

[JWSmythe]

    You know, you're absolutely right. I think this should be applied to everything. If it's bad, I want it replaced years later with one of equal specifications and original price.

    If I bought a house 3 years ago, and found they used Chinese drywall, I should be given a new house of equal qualities and price. If I bought a new car with a later discovered fault, I want another new car.

    Oh.. That's not how it works in the real world. We don't dumb luck into getting a free upgrade years later just because we wanted one. If their computer had such a tragic flaw with it, why wasn't it returned for a full refund?

Re:Tell Me About It....

[hedwards]

I think Japanese companies seem to like that. I remember having a PCG-GRX560 at one point, I'm not buying any more Sony products after the last set of fiascos, the hardware was really nice, but the software was crap.

Re:Tell Me About It....

[JWSmythe]

    Well, your logic is flawed. Rather than arguing if the $12,000 Hyundai is ok, consider what you're really asking for. You want a new $50,000 truck to replace your 4 1/2 year old truck.

    No, I would not be happy. And no, I would not buy from them again.

    But whens the last time you heard of a manufacturer handing over new cars for old cars just because there was a flaw with it. Think hard. Cite a case for me that matches, and I'll be very very impressed.

Re:Tell Me About It....

[JWSmythe]

    Think a little harder about this too..

    This was a class action suit against *NVIDIA*, not the laptop manufacturer. Do you sue Kenmore for the full value of your house because your stove doesn't work, or Kwikset because someone broke into your house?

    This whole case was mistargeted. It should have been the class versus the manufacturers who sold the laptops, who could have in turn sued nVidia for their loses.

    But hey, if this is the way it works, I'm going to sue Seagate for a new computer next time I have a drive failure. Whoohoo, free computers for life!

Re:Tell Me About It....

[s73v3r]

So if you spent $2000 on a defective product, you shouldn't be made whole with $2000 worth of product? Just because you say that's "how it works" doesn't make it in any way, shape, or form right.

Re:Tell Me About It....

[s73v3r]

Well, your logic is flawed. Rather than arguing if the $12,000 Hyundai is ok, consider what you're really asking for. You want a new $50,000 truck to replace your 4 1/2 year old truck.

And your logic is flawed as well. It's not a 4 1/2 year old truck; its a truck that was defective when new. Had the manufacturer admitted fault and fixed it, we wouldn't be in this predicament. But because of their actions in denying and dragging out the action, 4 1/2 years went by. Why should the consumer be penalized because the manufacturer used their army of lawyers to draw things out? Should they not be made whole with the value of the vehicle at the time of the defect?

But whens the last time you heard of a manufacturer handing over new cars for old cars just because there was a flaw with it. Think hard. Cite a case for me that matches, and I'll be very very impressed.

Who the fuck cares? We're saying how it should be, not how it is. Arguing for the status quo means that we'll never progress.

Re:Tell Me About It....

[s73v3r]

No, you think harder about this. You're basically arguing for the precedent that all a company has to do in this situation is drag things out as long as they can, and the amount they'll have to pay off goes down dramatically. Instead of having to make someone whole with the value of the product at the time of the defect, they just have to go with the value of the product today. That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard.

This whole case was mistargeted. It should have been the class versus the manufacturers who sold the laptops, who could have in turn sued nVidia for their loses.

Why? It was nVidia's defective part. Why should we have to take an extra step, instead of going after those directly responsible?

Re:Tell Me About It....

[JWSmythe]

    The laptop manufacturer is the one directly responsible. You don't sue Bosch for a new car because your fuel injectors don't work; TI because a sensor on your motherboard fails; or Charmin because your toilet backs up. They would be directly responsible in each case, but you didn't purchase the item from them. From the article, the laptops were sold by Dell, Apple, and HP. That means that's who you ask for resolution and possibly reimbursement.

    You do realize that this was a "low hanging fruit" case. The pockets at Apple, Dell, and HP are far deeper than the ones at nVidia. nVidia could be responsible for the chip, but it really wasn't their duty to reimburse full value on the computer. They didn't build the computer. If I read other comments correctly, the fault was in that the soldier was not correct applied when attaching the nVidia chip to the motherboard. But you can't hit the motherboard manufacturers, because they may be unbranded. In all those manufacturers, I've seen a variety of motherboard manufacturers, including Intel, FoxConn, and Asus. Wouldn't it make more sense to lay the claim on the people who failed to attach the chip correctly? Oh. Those are still deeper pockets than nVidia has.

Re:Tell Me About It....

[Danse]

This was a class action suit against *NVIDIA*, not the laptop manufacturer. Do you sue Kenmore for the full value of your house because your stove doesn't work, or Kwikset because someone broke into your house?

I don't see why not, if the Kwikset lock was defective, thus allowing the thief into my home. Seems like their defective product was directly responsible for the situation. If a Kenmore stove was somehow preventing my house from serving its intended purpose, such as it exploding and rendering the place unlivable, then sure. They're responsible. The defective Nvidia part prevented the computers from working, so yeah, I'd say they are responsible. They can take the defective laptops back and give me a new one. I don't need a 3-year old laptop when I paid for a brand new one and didn't get it. Instead I got a worthless brick that did nothing.

Get real, people.

[jtownatpunk.net]

A class action is NEVER about making he victims whole. It's about punishing the offending corporation. Period.

If you ever go into a class action thinking you're going to gain something personally, you're an idiot. (Unless, of course, you're a lawyer.)

Since this is slashdot, I'll try to make a poor analogy. It's like the geeks and nerds at a school hiring a freelance bully to take care of their local bully. The nerds and geeks shouldn't expect to get anything out of it except a cessation of hostile activity from their local bully. The freelancer gets to keep the bulk of whatever he manages to recover from the local bully. He may get the bully to agree to give a candy bar to every kid in the school but the geeks and nerds aren't going to recover multiple years' worth of lunch money. The goal is to prevent future bad behavior on the part of the local bully and nothing more.

Re:Get real, people.

[codecore]

I think that the tradition is to use a poor car analogy. Wait, that's dailytech, nevermind.

Re:Get real, people.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

What you say is true(and, for the great majority of class members, the alternative would be "absolutely nothing, and the offender gets off scot free": The class's lawyers pocketing 1.3 times as much as the class sounds absurdly unjust, unless you fancy trying to find a lawyer willing to go up against a reasonably sized corporation for 1.3 times your individual damages...); but there isn't any reason, in principle, why the class-action mechanism couldn't, simply by growing slightly sharper teeth, provide both the punishment and the restitution.

Re:Get real, people.

[Cytotoxic]

Well, that's one theory anyway. Many class actions are actually more complex than that. Often a class action is pursued with the tacit support of the corporation. You see, when a corporation faces an unknown liability (in this case based on lots of individual laptops) they'd like to wrap it all up in a single number. And negotiate that number down as much as possible - with one party on the other side of the negotiation. Getting a class certified is step one of this process.

Of course, the class action attorney has a bit of conflict of interest. What he really needs is for there to be a large payout. Therefore he needs a large class to be certified and for there to be a settlement as quickly as possible (to avoid bleeding off his own funds sustaining the suit).

So the sued party and the plaintiff's attorney can sort of end up on the same team, provided that the company being sued believes that they have some actual liability. The only party not represented in this situation is the class membership. They get whatever the two principals and the judge allow.

Re:Get real, people.

[nurb432]

A class action is NEVER about making he victims whole

Correct, its about making the attorneys ( on BOTH sides.. ) wealthy.

Re:Get real, people.

[Dahamma]

A class action is NEVER about making he victims whole. It's about punishing the offending corporation. Period.

Except in reality it's not even about that, but more akin to class-action lawyers acting like derivatives traders, where they make millions doing nothing useful for the economy while their customers are lucky to see any gain at all.

Re:Get real, people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since this is slashdot, I'll try to make a poor analogy. It's like the geeks and nerds at a school hiring a freelance bully to take care of their local bully. The nerds and geeks shouldn't expect to get anything out of it except a cessation of hostile activity from their local bully. The freelancer gets to keep the bulk of whatever he manages to recover from the local bully. He may get the bully to agree to give a candy bar to every kid in the school but the geeks and nerds aren't going to recover multiple years' worth of lunch money. The goal is to prevent future bad behavior on the part of the local bully and nothing more.

The analogy that came to my mind was sending a team of adventurers out to slay a dragon and expecting them to give you the loot they find.

Re:Get real, people.

[Bob9113]

> A class action is NEVER about making he victims whole.

Are you saying that the above is the case, or that the above is good?

I think most of the discussion is in the context of whether it is good, not whether it is the current state of law -- though your observation that it is the general state of law is an important fact in the greater discussion of whether it is what should be.

If you are saying that the above is good, do you suggest an alternative avenue for making those who were wronged whole, or that it is the least objectionable alternative for them to remain unwhole?

Re:Get real, people.

[BradleyUffner]

If you are saying that the above is good, do you suggest an alternative avenue for making those who were wronged whole, or that it is the least objectionable alternative for them to remain unwhole?

A "normal" lawsuit. Of course you will have to work harder to prove your case, as opposed to sitting on your ass and doing nothing as part of the Class.

Re:Get real, people.

[nurb432]

Never defended the corporations. Just stated that the lawyers are the only ones that profit from this stuff.

Even the lawyers on the losing side get paid big bucks.

Re:Get real, people.

[Bobartig]

It's about both. Class action as a mechanism is designed for mass tort cases where the individual award would be too small to make individual litigation practicable. There are plenty of examples of class action making individuals whole, particularly in state courts where additional rules often apply in terms of acceptable remedies. Sometimes class action settlements do come out horribly shit. However, your ignorance and cynicism doesn't change reality, or the policy lying behind class action.

Here's a better analogy, actually a straight-up example. DRAM manufacturers collude to raise the price of DIMMs for several years, resulting in raised consumer prices. This violates antitrust and unfair business practices in the U.S. Lawyers get together and file a class action suit on behalf of all individuals who purchased DRAM during the time of the price-fixing. The settlement is a check for some nominal fee, $7-15. This amount, on average, compensates individuals for what they paid at retail over what RAM prices likely would have been without the price fixing.

Re:Get real, people.

[Neil Boekend]

No, it starts with the dragon stealing the princess. You, the good king, send a merry band of adventurers to the dragon to get back your beloved daughter. After a couple of years the adventurers return, but the princess has been spoiled and now weighs 250 Kg. The adventurers have a cartload of gold they got from slaying the dragon and a cartload of gold they got from you for returning the princess.

Re:Get real, people.

[tunapez]

Yeah, but, then the local bully goes and imports his own bigger bully and Jayne gets his ass kicked hard. The happy ending rarely occurs in real life....again...unless you're a lawyer involved.

Summary is misleading

[Calibax]

So some 3 year old HP laptops that cost a lot back then are being replaced by $350 HP laptops now. Normally a 3 year laptop can't even be sold for $350 (unless it's a top of the line Apple model - and these aren't). And what about the specs? Nowhere in TFA is a comparison of the specs of the system being offered with the specs of the original systems.

From TFA, a lawyer and an expert witness for the people suing NVIDIA actually agreed the systems were broadly equivalent. Maybe they needed an expert witness who was either more expert or less honest.

Where exactly is the bait? Or the switch? I guess the article was submitted by one of people who expected his 3 year old system with something that costs the same now, so he could have a substantial improvement in performance.

Re:Summary is misleading

[Viewsonic]

I think the argument is that back then, those were top of the line laptops. The ones they are getting today are not top of the line laptops.

The specs may be the same, but the court should recognize that equivalent should be associated with cost as well as specs. The laptop of old was meant to run games of that day, the new laptops should run games of this day. If one laptop cost $2k, the new one should at the very least run $2k today.

Re:Summary is misleading

[cfkboyz]

No, the point is I had my HP for 1 year and 3 months when it died... I paid $800 for it plus tax. So I should be owed the replacement cost, minus the depreciated value.... The Compaq replacement is a POS period....

Re:Summary is misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi! Meet my friend depreciation.

Re:Summary is misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not the consumers fault that it took 4 years to get action, and the laptops had depreciated by then. Most consumers laptops barely lasted one year. Then, they had to buy new laptops, because HP refused to replace the defective ones. That is why small claims court would have been a better route. You can sue for lost productivity. I am also getting stuck with the $350 replacement Compaq.

So, I bought a $1200 laptop that lasted 6 months before overheating. I had to back everything up and ship it back. HP put the same faulty part in, and it lasted another couple of months. I asked them to NOT fix it by putting the faulty NVIDIA chip back in. They did it anyway. FOUR long years later, I'll get a replacement $350 laptop.

Basically, I paid $1200 to order a laptop that I would not receive and could not use for 4 years. When it arrives four years later, it is worth only $350.

Re:Summary is misleading

[sandytaru]

That never works in most warranties, let alone product recalls. Back when I did cell phone insurance, the wording only provided that you'd get "a like or comparable model when available." That seems to be the same wording used in the settlement this time. For cell phones, it did not mean that your $300 fancy phone of 3 years ago would get replaced with a $300 smart phone of today. It meant that the insurance would give you a new or used phone of today that had the same features, or similar features, to your 3 year old phone. Chances are, unless you had a Blackberry, that'd be a $50 Samsung feature phone. I agree that the people in the TFA are getting the short end of the stick, but I'm not sure that they're going to win anything better on appeal. This assumes, of course, that the new Compaq laptops have an nVidia chip in them at all - which they just might not. They have onboard Intel graphics chipsets and no discrete graphics. The lawyers can definitely argue that nVidia is NOT replacing it with a like or comparable model, since it might not even contain the thing that was broken in the first place.

Re:Summary is misleading

[racquetballguy]

There is definitely a large range of laptops affected by this settlement - I highlighted 2 of the higher-end models (which represent a sizeable portion of the class). Many of those models failed within a year and HP just replaced the failed GPU with an equally defective GPU. So it's not really fair to compare the laptop based on age or resale value - a fair analysis should solely based on specs.

The settlement agreement said that HP claimants would receive "a replacement laptop of like or similar kind and equal or similar value." I own a 17" dual-core 1.8GHz dv9000 with 1680x1050 and a lot of accessories. Based on the settlement agreement, I didn't expect to get a new $2000 17" HP Envy laptop. I expected to get a ~$450 17" laptop that perhaps had some features my laptop lacked, but was missing some of the features my laptop had. I was surprised when NVIDIA picked one model to replace all of the laptops, and I was shocked to find that that model was the cheapest laptop that Best Buy sells. So the bait is a "laptop of equal of similar kind and value" and the switch is a laptop that is significantly slower and has almost none of the features contained in the original laptops: dual-core processor, 17" display, webcam, HDMI, firewire, Bluetooth, light-scribe DVD-RW, expansion port, stereo microphones, 4 USB ports, modem, remote control, number pad, dual headphone jacks.

Re:Summary is misleading

[h4rr4r]

I was surprised when NVIDIA picked one model to replace all of the laptops, and I was shocked to find that that model was the cheapest laptop that Best Buy sells.

You're not the sharpest knife in the drawer are you?
Of course they are giving you the absolute cheapest thing they can get away with. Only if a judge says otherwise will they offer anything better.

Re:Summary is misleading

[racquetballguy]

While the settlement agreement did say "similar kind and value," Ted Frank was only arguing for a feature-by-feature comparison where the new laptop should be at least as capable as the original one. The replacement laptop is neither of similar kind (17" != 15", single-core != dual core, etc.) nor value (try to find a 17" dual-core laptop for $279).

Re:Summary is misleading

[racquetballguy]

Even the cheapest 17" laptops go for over $500. These computers were top-of-the-line 3 years ago, and, while they are no longer high-end, they still are much better performing and have many more extras than new budget computers. Compare the AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-64 processor (1054 passmark score) in some of the originals to the AMD V140 processor (674 passmark) in the CQ56-115DX.

Re:Summary is misleading

[Darinbob]

Also misleading: bait-and-switch. This is not a bait and switch. They did not offer to sell the customers one thing and then deliver something else. This is about a class action lawsuit settlement. There is no "bait" at all here except to file a claim.

Re:Summary is misleading

[IshmaelDS]

but if the lawsuit was filed three years ago and the laptops were busted then, shouldn't they be getting equivalent value for the laptops of that time, ie, if their laptop was worth $1500 3 years ago they should be getting a laptop worth $1500 today. That is when the claim was filed.

Re:Summary is misleading

[klingens]

Not true. These people were without a laptop for 3 years. At the time the laptop died, it was worth $2000 and these people told nvidia: fix this mess you created. Nvidia declined and a suit was filed which took 3 years. It's not the customers fault it took so long to get justice. The day the damage was claimed against nvidia was the day the value of the item in question is determined.
If you have to sue your insurance company about your car for 3 years, the company can't continue to depreciate the amount it owes you over that time if they're found guilty..

Re:Summary is misleading

[Euzechius]

Mod parent up - summary is indead very biased.

Re:Summary is misleading

[Anonymous Cowpat]

but that assumes that you have a working phone for 3 years, then one day it breaks, and a week or so later, a replacement shows up which is the same (if there are still stocks) or the next closest thing which is available. So you pootle on your merry way with your phone's relative capability degrading as it was before it broke.

It sounds like we're talking about someone who bought a $300 phone, it never really worked, and after 3 years of not being able to use a fancy phone, they're finally offered a replacement which isn't fancy anymore. It's like if someone had your warranty, the phone broke within a week of buying it, and it then took 3 years for a replacement to be sent, which was then identical to the original phone which broke 3 years ago.

Or, let's put it another way. You spend $2500 on your laptop, you get something sooperdooper-whizz-bang-awesome, and then for the next 3 years, it steadily degrades in relative performance. Then you spend a further $2500 on a new one, and so you leap back to the top of the relative-performance stakes, and slide down the graph again. Net result: $5000 spent, two 3-year slides down the graph.
Now, instead of this, you buy a machine for $2500, 3 years later it's replaced with a similar machine, and you let that slide down the graph. Net result: $2500 spent, one six-year slide down the graph. Simple.
But hang on, that's not quite it. It's actually $2500 spent, one 3-year slide down the graph, consisting of the bottom-half of an overall 6-year slide.

If you're the sort of power user who spends $2500 on a laptop, you would probably have already replaced the faulty one by now even if it weren't faulty - you won't be taking a step back just because it's the settlement, so you're given a settlement which is essentially worthless, and what you actually get back for your original $2500 expenditure is nothing.

Re:Summary is misleading

[racquetballguy]

Of course they are giving you the absolute cheapest thing they can get away with. Only if a judge says otherwise will they offer anything better.

You're right - I definitely thought that they would give out the absolute cheapest thing that they can get away with. I never thought a computer almost 50% slower, 68% fewer pixels, and missing ~11 accessories that are on mine, would be considered similar in kind OR value. There are thousands of claimants with similar computers (the whole dv9xxx series and all of the HP Pavilion Tx1xxx), so it's not like I'm the only person with a high performance laptop.

Re:Summary is misleading

[h4rr4r]

similar in kind OR value.
To a 3-4 year old laptop. Meaning they will give you what a laptop that old is worth, as we can see not very much.

Re:Summary is misleading

[racquetballguy]

Not true - the bait is the settlement agreement stating that members would receive "a replacement computer similar in kind and value." Class members had the option of opting out prior to the settlement agreement being accepted. If too many class members opted out, the case would not be given class action status. Class members who accepted the "bait," gave up their rights to sue HP and NVIDIA. The switch came 2 months AFTER the end of the opt-out period, so those of us unhappy with the replacement computer have no recourse.

Re:Summary is misleading

[Anonymous Cowpat]

continue your car analogy. You buy a $20k car. You drive it for one week. It breaks irreparably due to a latent manufacturing fault. The manufacturer takes 7 years to accept that the fault was actually theirs. They then proceed to offer you $5k, what the car would now be worth after 7 years use, if it were not broken. You've paid $15k for 0 years utility.

Fair?

Re:Summary is misleading

[racquetballguy]

The settlement agreement stated "similar in kind AND value." The defective HP laptops were sold as recently as April 2009 and the lawsuits against HP/NVIDIA were filed as early as September 2008.

You're right that defective laptops aren't worth much; but, if these laptops were working, I'm sure that a laptop with a dual-core 2.2 GHz processor will be perfectly usable for at least several more years. Most of the computers in this class action suit broke after less than 2 years.

Re:Summary is misleading

[CriminalNerd]

The parent's post just totally flew over your head.

Who cares if it costed $1,500 three years ago? If I bought Laptop model A for $1,500 three years ago and I'm getting it replaced, then I should get a laptop with similar specs to the model A, not the latest model B that costs $1,500. It's not about how much a model A costed then, but how much it costs now. Object-to-object equality, not dollar amount to dollar amount.

If I bought a blank CD-R for originally $2.50, and you scratched it before I could use it, then I'd expect you to get me another CD-R, not a DVD, nor a Blu-Ray disc, regardless of how much it costs now (e.g. pennies or less). What a lot of people are assuming is that I should get $2.50 worth of CD-Rs, which would be like...more than 10 CD-Rs (I think) depending on the store/brand/going-out-of-business sale/etc.

Re:Summary is misleading

[s73v3r]

Think about it another way. You bought a modern-for-then computer, which was defective. Why shouldn't your replacement be a modern-for-now computer?

Re:Summary is misleading

[hcmtnbiker]

So some 3 year old HP laptops that cost a lot back then are being replaced by $350 HP laptops now. Normally a 3 year laptop can't even be sold for $350 (unless it's a top of the line Apple model - and these aren't). And what about the specs? Nowhere in TFA is a comparison of the specs of the system being offered with the specs of the original systems...
Where exactly is the bait? Or the switch? I guess the article was submitted by one of people who expected his 3 year old system with something that costs the same now, so he could have a substantial improvement in performance.

The TX1000 series which is a large portion of this suit is a convertible tablet PC. I own one of these, it was a dual-core 1.9GHz Proc, 3GB RAM, 12.1"(which is VERY portable), and had a screen that could be turned over and closed to provide a tablet. You cannot touch one of these for anywhere near the price of that Compaq being offered, nor does this "comparable" computer listed offer ANY of the features this notebook did. An iPad would be a closer fit to a Tx1000 series notebook, and even that is less of a machine and twice the cost of the Compaq.

Re:Summary is misleading

[s73v3r]

Bullshit. For one, yours is a warranty replacement. We're talking about a class action for a defective product. They should give something comparable to today's computers, not something comparable to the thing of 3 years ago.

Re:Summary is misleading

[s73v3r]

And since it was their fault, and their refusal to fix the problem which prompted the suit, they should have to give what that laptop was worth back then.

Re:Summary is misleading

[moonbender]

No, if they sold you a broken laptop three years ago, they should have replaced it three years ago. They didn't, so you had to sue. And probably buy a new one, which they arguably should re-imburse you for. Giving you a laptop now is an insult (you probably don't want another one) and giving you one you can't even resell to recover most of those losses is adding injury.

Re:Summary is misleading

[sjames]

Actually, the point of a lawsuit is to make the plaintiff whole. If you had a car that safely and reliably carried you and your kids at a cost of $0.50/mile traveled, it doesn't matter how much or how little the replacement costs, it should have at least as many seats, be rated at least as safe, and get at least as good mileage with at least as much reliability. If it costs $100 to buy that now, good for the defendant, if it costs $100,000, not so good for the defendant. It matters not how much the plaintiff might or might not have paid back in the day. In no case would a "slightly used" Yugo be considered appropriate compensation even if it was newer than the old family wagon.

That's not necessarily how it ends up working, but that's how it's SUPPOSED to work. Of course, insurance is supposed to work that way as well, but they rarely pay out enough to actually get back what you lost these days.

Re:Summary is misleading

[reub2000]

Maybe there is more to a laptop than simply specs? Maybe I originally purchased a thinkpad because I wanted something that wasn't entirely made out of plastic?

Re:Summary is misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

"specs" include a lot more than CPU speed, RAM, and Hard drive space.

What about the screen resolution? Or the type of panel?

What about the size and weight of the machine? Do they match machines with 10-key pads to consumers who purchased them with 10-key pads?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that CPU speed, RAM, and Hard drive space are usually the least of a consumer's worries when purchasing a computer. It's "what features do I need" THEN "maximize these other three numbers in my budget."

A top of the line computer will always have more features (blu ray? Webcam? discrete GPU?) than a bottom-of-the-line Compaq. That the CPU speed may now be similar is trivial. A KIA is just as fast or faster than a 1930s Mercedes Benz. They are not, however, broadly similar.

I remember, during a brief stint at Best Buy, taking up the cause of a customer who was being bait-and-switched like this. The manager was attempting to suggest that the replacement plan would allow him to replace a top-of-the-line Sony that was a little over a year old, with a $400 Compaq because the processor speed and RAM was the same. I pointed out that it said "equal or better specifications" and that we included size and weight on our specification tags. The customer made it out of the store with an open-box unit that was this year's model of the same line of Sony laptop, since it was the only thing to match or beat those specs.

Re:Summary is misleading

[Calibax]

If a part in your car fails, do you have the part manufacturer buy you a new car? Or do you talk to your dealer or the car manufacturer. The part manufacturer doesn't have a contract with you, and you shouldn't expect him to provide you with a complete new car.

As I understand it, in these particular laptops, due the way that HP designed the system the NVIDIA part couldn't be replaced. That's an HP issue, not an NVIDIA issue. I also read that NVIDIA was willing to send HP and other manufacturers replacement parts. So everyone trot along to whoever made your system and and let them beat up NVIDIA - just as NVIDIA has to beat up the company that delivered the defective ball contacts that caused the problem.

Re:Summary is misleading

[mog007]

That analogy is flawed. To be correct, it would be more akin to that car maker offering you a similar car they currently make, 7 years down the road.

After all, these people aren't being offered cash, they're being offered a replacement machine.

Re:Summary is misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Depreciation doesn't shrink your 17" screen to 15", or your dual-core to single-core. Or make your webcam disappear. Or your numeric keypad disappear. Or your Lightscribe DVD player, or your ExpressCard slot or your Firewire and S-video port disappear..........

Re:Summary is misleading

[jimicus]

When you spend a great deal of money on consumer goods, there are always one or two features which are exclusive to the expensive model and tend to remain so.

Quite often, that feature is something that doesn't even get mentioned in the abbreviated spec list (maybe the manufacturer thought it was so damn obvious it wasn't worth mentioning) and is more related to form than it is to function. You can't compare an iPhone 3GS to a Sony Ericsson XPeria X8, but I bet you there's an insurance company somewhere that does.

Re:Summary is misleading

[hattig]

Hmm, what I see is that you should be owed the cost of replacement with similar specification machine at the time your machine broke, plus inflation since that time.

The fact it took three years to arrange the deal is neither here nor there.

Arranging a replacement machine is disingenuous, because computers aren't like houses or cars or furniture in that they improve for the same money very rapidly over time. Hence why they can offer a cheap POS Compaq turd to replace what could have been a high end machine. Surely form and function should have been considered as well as today's cost?

I bet most people would just rather have the dollar value of the POS Compaq rather than compete with 20,000 other people selling their replacement machine on eBay.

Re:Summary is misleading

[bioster]

Hi! Meet my friend "they should be responsible for the replacement value of the product when it died, not the replacement value of the product three years later."

Re:Summary is misleading

[bondsbw]

As I read it, it's more like buying an SUV in 2004 and getting a compact car as a replacement in 2011. The machine offered as a replacement is not as powerful as the original, i.e. single-core instead of dual-core.

Re:Summary is misleading

[phlinn]

If you read the second link, one of his arguments is that the expert witness provided by plaintiff's counsel provided a misleading testimony. The agreement was for equivalent hardware. Unfortunately, the class didn't all have the same hardware, so a one size fits all replacements is inappropriate and doesn't meet the terms of the class action.

Re:Summary is misleading

[Anonymous Cowpat]

ok, let's just let the cash be an underlying thing to help us discuss value. Take my analogy as it was, but at the last step, the manufacturer offers you a 7-year-old second hand car of the same model, with a market value of $5k.

Re:Summary is misleading

[Anonymous Cowpat]

ok. So you send your broken laptop-with-non-replaceable-nVidia-parts back to HP. HP replace it with a fully functional laptop. HP then sends the entire bill to nVidia. Explain how this is better for anyone?

1) nVidia likely knew that the parts would be fitted in a non-replaceable manner 2) HP paid nVidia for working parts.

If I build a wall, and then discover that a single brick incorporated into the wall is faulty and making the wall unsafe, would it be at all reasonable for the brick manufacturer to only replace the faulty brick, and leave me to swallow the cost of knocking down the re-building the rest of it? Or should they only have to pay for the replacement bricks (because they make those) and leave me to pay for the replacement mortar (because that's made by someone else).
What if I'm a builder, and I built that wall for someone else? And they only discover that the brick was faulty 3 years after I've finished building it?

Re:Summary is misleading

[Qwell]

Except in this case, they aren't giving you a CD-R to replace the one they damaged. They're giving you an unwritable CD, that only costs $0.12

The issue is that the replacement system is of *lesser* spec than some of the models that were replaced. We're not even talking equivalent models that have since been upgraded. In my case, I lose 2GB RAM, 1 entire core, and the quality/(comparative real-world) speed of the CPU is lower.

Re:Summary is misleading

[Anonymous Cowpat]

I remember, during a brief stint at Best Buy, taking up the cause of a customer who was being bait-and-switched like this... I pointed out that it said "equal or better specifications" and that we included size and weight on our specification tags. The customer made it out of the store with an open-box unit that was this year's model of the same line of Sony laptop, since it was the only thing to match or beat those specs.

Would that be why it was a 'brief stint'?

(not that I'm complaining, good on you for standing up for what's right)

Re:$2500 Tablets

[lowlymarine]

The iPad does not compete with devices like the ThinkPad x-series tablet and the Latitude XT. People who needed tablet PCs for real work still need tablet PCs for real work, because the iPad isn't a computer and doesn't run the specialized software people bought tablet PCs before.

Of course when Jobs starts banging on about the iPad controlling 80% of the tablet market, he's conveniently omitting convertibles like the above ThinkPad, which likely make up 90%+ of PC tablet sales.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[alexhard]

The difference being of course that the iPad is a large cellphone, while tablet PCs are PCs in tablet form. Completely different hardware and capabilities.

Your four-year-old computer ain't worth shit

[Anonymous Coward]

The ruling here is basically that people can't trade in their four-year-old worthless laptops for brand new expensive ones. You get a new laptop that's equally as worthless as your obsolete PoS. It's not really as crazy as it sounds.

Re:Your four-year-old computer ain't worth shit

[racquetballguy]

Some of the laptops were sold as recently as April 2009. So a 2-year-old high-end laptop that failed after 1 year is not obsolete and worthless. The specs on these machines are better than many of the machines sold today. A $1500 machine sold 2 years ago is probably still a $650 machine.

Re:Your four-year-old computer ain't worth shit

[s73v3r]

It is quite crazy, at it was nVidia's actions which caused the delay. Since it was their fault, and their delay, they should be forced to offer a replacement worth the same as what the laptop was worth back then.

Re:Your four-year-old computer ain't worth shit

[Khyber]

"The ruling here is basically that people can't trade in their four-year-old worthless laptops for brand new expensive ones"

They can't trade SHIT in to begin with, the laptops have been long dead and busted, with the company refusing to replace.

I'm one of the affected (DV9825nr - nVidia GeForce 860M GS) and I got my replacement, mostly equivalent, and IT'S A LEMON. Thankfully I invoked the warranty not a few days before it went tits up so It's getting repaired for free right now, although with the slew of problems I think this qualifies for Tier-X (what HP calls economically unservicable) and are probably going to ship me something new.

The only thing on my replacement that was NOT comparable was the GPU. the 8600 did far better than the ATi 4200HD

Re:Your four-year-old computer ain't worth shit

[PitaBred]

The problem is that the worthlessness was known, and Nvidia stalled and denied the issues even in the face of evidence. And now that they FINALLY gave in, the laptops are relatively slow.

Fuck that. Nvidia screwed people out of time as well as the product itself, and they should not be compensated just for the raw hardware as it was 3 years ago, they need remuneration for the years they had to deal with the lies and lost productivity and likely money because they had to buy a replacement that didn't have the Nvidia problem.

Paid the lawyers

[jamesl]

I'll bet a $279 single-core Compaq CQ56 that the lawyers are well paid.

Re:Paid the lawyers

[Lord_Jeremy]

$13 million
According to TFA, nVidia allocated $509 million of their "reserve cash" to cover the judgement. The judge was informed that there were "millions of potential members of the class, since "millions" of notifications about the lawsuit had been sent out. (FWIW I actually have a defective machine that was covered and I received a notice. I exempted myself because the issue had already been taken care of under my Apple warranty.) Approximately 28,000 people actually responded and participated in the lawsuit. According to TFA again, the settlement ended up to be for $10 million, plus the $13 million in legal fees that the judge approved before he got the actual number of individuals that were taking part in the class. $279 * 28,355 = ~$8 million so I presume the other 2 are going towards distribution or somesuch. In any case, yeah... the customers that have likely each been screwed in excess of $2000, discounting any compensation for the hassle they had to deal with, collectively receive $10 million in the form of extremely low-end replacement devices. The lawyers get $13 million. The lawyers got more money out of this case then the collective customers.
I noticed some other people saying things along the lines of the replacement being fair because after three years, the value of the defective computers would have depreciated considerably. That's not how this works. nVidia acknowledged there was an issue back in July 2008. The point of the lawsuit was that they screwed over people who had bought laptops with the faulty chips. Those people (myself included) had to deal with their system breaking down, struggles with service and support, and I'm sure in many cases lost work time or the expense of purchasing a temporary replacement. I look at this as I paid approximately $2200 for a high-end laptop. For a number of months I could not make use of the laptop I paid for because of a mistake that nVidia made. Furthermore, nVidia claimed for quite a while that my type of computer wasn't affected before coming clean about the scope of the issue. I could have been much less fortunate and not have been able to get mine repaired before the Apple warranty expired, or somesuch. If that were the case then I would have essentially thrown $2200 down the drain because of a mistake that nVidia made and I have a right to be compensated according to the original intent of purchase. It makes no difference that my laptop would be three years old by now, when I bought it I paid $X and if only now I was being given a functioning product according to my original intent of purchase, then I expect that replacement be worth at least $X.

Re:Paid the lawyers

[Darinbob]

The question though is why these lawyers, who were acting on behalf of the consumers in the first place, are not acting on the behalf of the consumers in order to get a reasonable replacement?

Re:Paid the lawyers

[idontgno]

The question though is why these lawyers, who were acting on behalf of the consumers in the first place,

Faulty premise. The lawyers, purporting to represent the class of plaintiffs, were really representing themselves. I'm sure the negotiation comes down to Nvidia saying "OK, Counselor, how much is this going to take to make this go away?" and the lawyer saying "Well, I need about $13 million. And you can give the plaintiffs whatever you feel like. Don't go nuts. You're supposed to do that paying me first."

Re:Paid the lawyers

[Darinbob]

The judge is the one who agreed to $13 million. That was based on an assumption that many many more people would accept the class action.

Re:Paid the lawyers

[Alain Williams]

Of course they were. Remember that judges are just grown up solicitors & barristers (UK terms for any 'mercans reading), so they all know each other, have worked for the same chambers, play golf together. So of course the judge will look after his buddies. It is not until you get involved with this bunch that you really realise on whose side they are. (HINT: it is not the plaintif or defendant)

Re:Paid the lawyers

[hattig]

In that case why not just say $100 per member of the class action?

That would actually mean it was in the lawyers' best interest to get more people in the class action, or alternatively they would get paid less.

Instead they're deciding on their next sports car, holiday home purchase and expensive private education package for their spoilt offspring.

Thank god for extended warranties...

[tlhIngan]

I got lucky. My Dell laptop with a nice dual 8800M-GTX (SLI) card in it failed in a very interesting way. It would boot up in 2D just fine (I could boot in safe mode, and I could get to the login screen), but the instant it started up 3D, it would either lock up or bluescreen (an interesting one - it wasn't the usual BSOD, just one that said something like "Hardware parity error")

Thankfully I bought the 4 year extended on-site warranty, so I simply called Dell, faked through their OS restore procedure (same effect - though it gets as far as the testing 3D performance step before it locks up - I already tried it).

I had them also send the tech a replacement graphics card as well, and told them to replace that first. Half an hour later, it was working great.

Thank god for extended warranties. I usualy get them for laptops because heat failures are common... and probably one of the few times an extended warranty makes sense.

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[cpu6502]

No need for extended warranties on new items.

Just use the warranty that already came with the unit (1 year typical), and if the company refuses to accept a return, go ahead and return the item to the company anyway. Then file a credit card dispute saying, "I returned this damaged unit. Here's proof of delivery," and you'll get your refund from Visa or Mastercard.

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[kasperd]

Extended warranties are never worth it. Never.

They can be. I had a four year extended warranty on a Compaq I bought in 2003. At a point where the warranty would have expired I send it to repairs, where the screen and battery were replaced, and a few other minor details were repaired as well. Later before the extended warranty expired I send it to repairs again, with roughly the same things being broken again. At that point they didn't repair it, but I got a refund of what an equivalent machine would have cost at that time. That refund was about twice as much as the extended warranty had cost in the first place, but of course far less than the original cost of the machine.

I ended up spending the refund buying a cheap unbranded laptop, which in most respects was better than the Compaq I used to have, and I didn't even spend the full refund. I used that unbranded laptop for about three years before finally buying a new laptop.

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[xero314]

and probably one of the few times an extended warranty makes sense.

Extended warranties always make sense... For the company selling them. Just like insurance, extended warranties are statistically a losing proposition. You actually have considerably better return on investment, over the long run, playing most casino games. To put it bluntly, extended warranties are a con.

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[Khyber]

$300 warranty to replace a failed (at the time) 800 piece of equipment.

I think you don't understand economics very well.

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[zippthorne]

If an extended warranty made sense, they wouldn't sell it to you. You're pretty much always better of taking the money the were going to charge you for the extended warranty and setting it aside in your own "personal warranty" fund. Think of all the devices you've bought over the years. How many of them have really failed during the time period and in a way that the extended warranty would even have been effective...

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[adolf]

I had an extended warranty on a Dell laptop. It's gained me a number of new parts to replace broken parts, including the top half of the machine (including LCD), a hard drive, and a power supply.

The screen itself (a not-shabby 1920x1200 15.4" model) costs more than the warranty.

That said: I'm generally very shy around warranties. I can fix my own dishwasher, or my own range, or my own furnace. I can also fix my own car.

I can fix my own laptop, too, but I knew going into it that I'd be dragging that machine around with me literally everywhere, and using it in all manner of environments, and that even though I'd try to be gentle to it, something expensive would break before the warranty has expired. And it did.

*shrug*

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[kalirion]

If an extended warranty made sense, they wouldn't sell it to you.

Wouldn't that apply for health insurance and auto insurance as well? I hope to god I never need to make a $200,000 claim for an accident, but it sure as hell makes me feel better to know that I can if I need to.

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[zippthorne]

It does not apply to health and auto insurance, because you only have one life (and usually one or very few cars) to insure. If you had dozens, then it would not make sense to pay someone else to do your risk averaging for you.

The maximum loss in the event your $2k laptop fails is... $2k for another laptop. You don't get so attached to a laptop that you'll spend anything just to keep it around a little longer.

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[toddestan]

It can make sense in some situations. For example, you know how you plan on using your laptop, whereas they can only assume you are going to follow a typical usage pattern. You can use this to your advantage. If you are going to use your laptop for many hours a day, constantly on the go, etc. it's more likely that your laptop will need servicing than the average laptop, so in your case it may make sense to buy a policy that's designed to cover a laptop that will only see "typical" use. Of course, this only works because the warranties only cover a certain amount of time, and not a certain amount of usage, unlike auto warranties which also have a mileage limit.

With that said, I still decline the warranty and take my chances.

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[hedwards]

An extended warranty on laptops is usually a good idea. Most other things the extended warranty is a waste of money, but for laptops it's a good deal. I wouldn't go with one longer than about 3 years though, I've found that to be sufficient to make it worthwhile. Just make sure to know the terms, some will replace it with an equivalent model, but a good one will replace it with one that is of similar price if they can't find the same one.

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[QuantumPion]

If an extended warranty made sense, they wouldn't sell it to you.

Wouldn't that apply for health insurance and auto insurance as well? I hope to god I never need to make a $200,000 claim for an accident, but it sure as hell makes me feel better to know that I can if I need to.

Compare the profit margin of electronics insurance to health insurance.

Extended warantees are absurdly profitable, which is why they are pushed so heavily. Probably over 50%. Maybe over 90%.

Health insurance companies generally have less than 1% profit margin. The difference is they deal in large volumes and a guaranteed customer base.

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[neminem]

Or from refusing to honor them. (Hi, HP! Remember me? No, clearly you don't, since you claimed I never bought a computer from you when I tried to use the extended warranty I purchased.)

Re:Thank god for extended warranties...

[Anonymous Cowpat]

if it's genuinely faulty, and he really did deliver it back to them; where's the deception necessary to make it fraud?

Opt out of class

[Todd Knarr]

This is why my standard response when I receive notice of a class-action settlement is to return the paperwork with the "I decline to participate in the class" boxes checked. If you don't respond, you're considered part of the class and are bound by the terms of the settlement. By declining I preserve my right to make my own claim against the company.

Re:Opt out of class

[SydShamino]

So will you try to take them to small claims court to get more than the cheap laptop? Or did you just give up the ~$200 you could have made selling this thing on eBay?

Re:Opt out of class

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Is this a matter of principle, or have you achieved better-than-class results independently?

Re:Opt out of class

[Cytotoxic]

Strangely, this also offers you a bit of an opportunity for leverage. A certain percentage must opt in for the class to be certified. If you randomly happen to be a hold-out in a case where a few more opt-ins would make a difference, you might get offered all kinds of goodies to join the class.

Re:Opt out of class

[zero0ne]

My question is always, how can that be legal?

How is it that Class action lawsuits are OPT-OUT instead of OPT-IN?

What happens if I moved and they sent it to an old address? Could I still make my own claim?

If they aren't sending the letter using registered mail, how am I able to prove I never received it? How can THEY prove that I actually received the letter if they have no confirmation it was even delivered?

Re:Opt out of class

[racquetballguy]

Unfortunately, many of us liked the terms of the settlement that said "new laptop of similar kind and value," and choose to not opt out. The CQ56 wasn't selected until mid-February - 2 months after the opt-out deadline. Now we lost our right to file a claim against either NVIDIA or HP. Lesson learned: vagueness in settlement agreements is NOT accidental.

Re:Opt out of class

[Todd Knarr]

Well, if I had one of these laptops I'd simply contact whoever I bought it from about returning it as defective. If they balked, next step is to call American Express (you think I'd pay for something like this with anything else?) about a merchant refusing to accept a return of defective merchandise. Supporting documentation from the court filings, yadda yadda, and barring something unusual the money will be credited back to my card, the merchant's account gets debited and the merchant gets to argue with Amex's legal department about it. Good luck with that. Much better for me, last I checked $2000 malfunctioning laptop - $200 for "replacement" on eBay still = $1800 loss.

Re:Opt out of class

[idontgno]

They are altering the deal. Pray they do not alter it further.

Re:Opt out of class

[SydShamino]

While that might work, I personally find it very doubtful that either the vendor or American Express would let you call about a piece of defective merchandise you purchased more than four years ago (assuming you mean that you would do it now based on your plan to include the court filings as supporting paperwork). I haven't looked at American Express' policies recently, but I would be surprised if you could do that two years after the purchase when the class action was originally filed.

Without reading TFA, I assume the laptop reward may be on top of keeping the existing hardware, including in cases where that existing hardware was repaired.

Re:Opt out of class

[prefect42]

So how often have you actually taken action yourself?

No, you are misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

The laptops with this nvidia were sold defective, and it was spotted RIGHT AWAY. Nvidia lied about the parts not being defective and refused replacement. That is why there is a lawsuit. The lawsuit has taken 3 years, so of course you can't replace these laptops with the exact model anymore. It's stupid to even offer replacements at this point, so this should be a cash settlement instead.

Since nvidia parts aren't usually sold in laptops that cheap, the refund should be much higher. This isn't about getting something new three years later. It's about something that should have immediately been covered under warrenty and recalled especially since they knew they were bad. Intel has had bad silicon before, and did the right thing!

Re:$2500 Tablets

[peragrin]

A convertible isn't a tablet. It is a notebook with a touch screen. All convertibles only have 2-3 applications which use the touch interface the rest you need the keyboard/mouse for.

A tablet shouldn't require a table to use after ten minutes.

I have wanted a tablet since 2002 when the first slates cane out. It took 8 years and apple to realize you needed to do more than add a touch sensor and have it duplicate the mouse.

Intel 'graphics'

[meerling]

So I take it people are getting downgraded from nvidia graphics to intel graphics?
Looks like all the gamers can throw away all their games other than solitare and farmville.

Sorry, but let's face it, any kind of integrated nvidia gpus is massively superior to any of the intel gpus, or whatever is the appropriate term for those integrated graphics chips.

Re:Intel 'graphics'

[PessimysticRaven]

Sorry, but let's face it, any kind of integrated nvidia gpus is massively superior to any of the intel gpus, or whatever is the appropriate term for those integrated graphics chips.

I think the correct term you're looking for is 'waste of PCB real-estate.'

WTF?

[splitreason]

I'd hate to be the lawyer that was representing the people on this one.

Re:WTF?

[PessimysticRaven]

Why? They're the reprobates walking away with the money while the consumer walks away with... Ugh.. A below-entry-level system.

Re:WTF?

[racquetballguy]

The lawyers (chief counsel is Milberg LLP) walked away with 13 million dollars. However, they could have opened themselves up to lawsuits by submitting false claims to the court. Off the top of my head,
- they falsely said that HP owners had the option of getting their laptops fixed
- their expert, Dr. Nader Bagherzadeh from UCI, made multiple incorrect claims in his expert declaration which Milberg ignored, even after being informed of the mistakes
- they actually fought Ted Frank's action, who was trying to get their clients a better computer
- they modified the settlement website with new language after Ted Frank filed a motion (changing "similar in kind and value" to "similar in kind or value")
- the settlement administrator falsely told every one who called that the court approved the CQ56 replacement computer and that it could not be changed

not only that intel video + celeron cpu sucks. 2gb

[Joe The Dragon]

not only that intel video + celeron cpu sucks. 2gb ram also sucks now days.

Re:That's part of the reason I don't buy laptops..

[TheRaven64]

I haven't had a single laptop last a single year past the expensive addon warrenty period. After my second lappy fail I bought myself a desktop for the first time in many years.

My current one is almost 5 years old and I'll probably replace it soon - because it's starting to feel slow, rather than because it's broken. The one before it I replaced after just over three years, for the same reason. Both were Macs and came with a 3 year warranty. I also have a ThinkPad that is getting on for 8 years old now, although the battery is completely dead (I could replace it, but I never use it as a mobile device, I just wanted a computer that was easy to move around).

My 386 laptop (CAF - anyone remember them) probably still mostly works, although the 60MB hard drive died after about 8 years of use - I could replace it, but I don't really have a need for a 386 anymore...

How much are you paying for an 'expensive addon warrenty[sic]'? Macs bought from the HE store come with a three year warranty, and I had the battery replaced in mine for free about a month ago, even though the warranty expired over a year earlier. But then, I live in a country that has consumer protection laws, and the fact that it didn't not retain capacity for as many discharge cycles as they claimed meant that they had to.

I wish this suit was on slashdot earlier

[Joe Snipe]

The deadline to file was March 14th, and I own one of these defective HP's. In fact it died three months ago.

Re:I wish this suit was on slashdot earlier

[Stray7Xi]

No kidding, I have one of these defective HP's, had it repaired under warranty 3 times. When it failed a fourth time, I gave up. Never received any sort of notice of class action. There handling of this is despicable.

Re:I wish this suit was on slashdot earlier

[kpainter]

You have no options. The deadline for filing a claim is long past. This was for people who already had accepted claims. I have an accepted claim and probably won't even bother sending my failed tablet in for the "replacement". I don't want to give them the satisfaction of sending me that piece of shit.

I will take my revenge out on NVidia by never buying another product they had anything to do with. HP was already on my list.

Hammer the vendors

[BearRanger]

My Macbook Pro had one of the offending NVIDIA chips. When it failed out of warranty Apple simply replaced it. They didn't send me to NVIDIA for a solution. I assume they hammered NVIDIA to get their money back for the replacement part. The OEM computer manufacturers are always going to have more leverage with their suppliers than you or I will. Responsible vendors should shield the end user from this sort of pettiness and finger pointing. After all, you didn't buy your laptop from NVIDIA...

Re:Hammer the vendors

[Vectormatic]

and that is how it should be, the consumer shouldnt be bothered with going after the chip vendor in this case, just because nvidia happens to be somewhat publicly known. Would you as a consumer go after marvel if you network chip had a fatal bug in it?

The consumer has a contract with the laptop vendor to provide a working laptop, the laptop vendor has a contract with nvidia to provide graphics chips, they are the ones that should be sueing nvidia, not the consumer. The consumer didnt buy a defective chip, they bought a defective laptop

Re:Hammer the vendors

[OwMyBrain]

Interestingly enough, the current line of Macbook Pros seem to have AMD/ATI graphics.

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html

Consumers lose, but guess who wins?

[macraig]

Once again, the consumers of a class action lawsuit lose, and the lawyers win.

There, FTFY. You KNOW they got their golden parachutes even while the "business" tanked. It's not a coincidence that lawyers, CEOs, and politicians are all indistinguishable: they're all paid to screw with (over) people.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[steveg]

Even now expect to spend above $2k if you want a precision tablet screen. Capacitive touch screens are fine for phones or anything designed for clicking on buttons. If you need the precision of a stylus (for "inking") than a capacitive screen is close to useless.

I just bought two Thinkpad tablets and one Motion Computing tablet for my users, and they were all over $3k. Admittedly, we got SSDs instead of spinning drives, but other than that we didn't fancy them up much.

Could be worse...

[macraig]

... you could be the not-so-proud owner of one of the other affected brands (e.g. Toshiba) NOT included in the suit, and get nothing at all except the finger and a Simpsons-like "Ha-ha!".

Re:Could be worse...

[racquetballguy]

You still have the option of suing NVIDIA in a small claims court or being a member of a (hopefully more successful) class action lawsuit. Since the CQ56 replacement computer was not announced until 2 months after the opt-out period, the HP class members never had the option of opting out once they learned of the replacement model. Many HP owners have successfully sued HP and/or NVIDIA in small claims courts and won judgements from $1K to $2K.

Re:Could be worse...

[racquetballguy]

There are several unconfirmed stories on nvidiadefect.com where people in the US and the UK have successfully sued HP in small claims court.

Good Luck Collecting

[jeko]

Here's the problem with small claims court. You're responsible for collecting your own judgements. If you're suing "Bob's Restaurant and Bar," you can show up with a deputy and clean out the cash registers if necessary. If you're suing "Bob's Auto Yard," you can show up with a deputy and seize a car off the lot. If you're suing Bob, you can garnish Bob's wages.

Suing a multinational corporation is a somewhat different affair. If they don't have seizable assets within your jurisdiction, and they decide to blow off your judgement, your options rapidly dwindle. Once they decide to appeal, you find yourself in Big Boy court paying your own legal fees and any victory you might have had instantly becomes pyrrhic...

Re:Good Luck Collecting

[HornWumpus]

You can't appeal a small claims case and you are always responsible for collecting your own judgement.

Re:Good Luck Collecting

[Xeranar]

Actually........ So you can't call your local sheriff to have your small claim collected but what you can do is call Nvidia's HQ's sheriff and discuss with them how to have the warrant for sale executed. Then again if you won against Nvidia and not your laptop manufacturer or warranty company odds on all three of them would pay out before appealing if the case was solid. Class action suits are about trying to stop bad corporate behavior rather than helping the individuals. This is to keep Nvidia in the future from making faulty GPUs.

Re:Good Luck Collecting

[GodInHell]

Not always -- some child support claims are managed by the State collection apparatus in some of the states. All of which assumes you're limiting the discussion to the U.S. There are probably other exceptions.

Re:Good Luck Collecting

[frosty_tsm]

You can't appeal a small claims case and you are always responsible for collecting your own judgement.

This probably depends on jurisdiction, but I know of a small claims case that was appealed locally. The plaintiff wasn't happy that they lost and appealed against two college students who had moved across the country. Kind of an ass move.

Re:Good Luck Collecting

[The End Of Days]

This is to keep Nvidia in the future from making faulty GPUs.

Nothing like dreaming the impossible dream, huh?

Class action lawsuits are about enriching lawyers. Any other effects are unintentional at best.

Re:Good Luck Collecting

[x0]

by jeko (179919) Alter Relationship on Mon 02 May 05:23PM (#36005150)

Here's the problem with small claims court. You're responsible for collecting your own judgements. If you're suing "Bob's Restaurant and Bar," you can show up with a deputy and clean out the cash registers if necessary. If you're suing "Bob's Auto Yard," you can show up with a deputy and seize a car off the lot. If you're suing Bob, you can garnish Bob's wages.

I think you need start avoiding Bob in the future...

Re:Good Luck Collecting

[Coren22]

I can speak from experience in this matter. My "dead beat" ex wife didn't pay for over a year, I had to outlay $2000 on a lawyer and take her to court in order to get the state to look into it, and even then, I had to request that Child Support Enforcement start collecting from her wages. It isn't as easy as you might think, and it would have been even harder if I actually depended on the income she was supposed to be paying towards the kids. This all in Maryland, which is extremely rare for the father to be assigned custody by the state.

PS. I only say dead beat as that is what every non paying father is called, even if the non payment is due to hardship, he's a dead beat that chooses not to work...

Re:Good Luck Collecting

[heathen_01]

So you literally want to fuck NVIDIA?

Re:Good Luck Collecting

[Kjella]

Way, way offtopic but the word is "deadbeat". I don't know what a dead beat is, maybe the opposite of a funky beat in a song? It doesn't sound right at all.

Re:Good Luck Collecting

[degeneratemonkey]

Allen Ginsberg is a dead beat.

Re:Good Luck Collecting

[fscking_coward_2001]

My "dead beat" ex wife didn't pay for over a year

"Cunt" is what I call my sometimes-paying, sometimes-not paying ex-wife. I find it much more satisfying than calling her a "deadbeat".

Re:Good Luck Collecting

[jeko]

I would, but he's got the best prices in town. :-)

Re:$2500 Tablets

[RobbieThe1st]

Uh... I disagree. Provided you have a decent mouse-binding to the touchscreen, mouse apps are generally perfectly usable with a touchscreen or Wacom Penabled-style tablet.
In the case of the former, you need to bind right-click to touching the screen for 0.5-1.0s, and left click to quicker taps.
In the case of the latter, a right-click modifier button on the pen will do fine.
Aside from that, perhaps add some drag detection in select apps and set that up for scrolling. Just about all you need.

I think the only reason they didn't take off is because of cost - Who wants a fragile transformer for 2x the cost of a regular laptop?

Jefferson is coming.

[crhylove]

If the courts continue to act not in the interest of the people, we will surely reach the boiling point of revolution sooner. And myself and Jefferson both say hurrah!

Re:Jefferson is coming.

[macraig]

Seconded. Do we have a quorum, then? To arms!

Re:Jefferson is coming.

[crhylove]

I do not know what that word means. Therefore I am offended.

Re:Jefferson is coming.

[macraig]

What, you don't have arms? Unless you were born that way you should still know what they are. ;-)

Re:Jefferson is coming.

[udoschuermann]

No, if you join a class action, you need to understand a few facts:

1. You don't have to lift a finger, others will do all the work for you,
2. The lawyers will be paid from the settlement,
3. Not enough remains (or is planned to remain) to compensate you fairly

Don't join if you have illusions about point #3. IANAL, but if you want a chance at fair compensation, do not join the class, rather pursue your own claim. But of course, that takes work.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[kevinmenzel]

Unless you're doing specialized tasks - like something that could use a Wacom digitizer pen - the only reason I ever wanted [and still want] one! Basically a combination between doing some Photoshop stuff directly on the Photoshop screen itself with a digitizer (with pressure sensitivity hopefully, and all that funky brush direction stuff CS5 supports) and recording automation on more than one channel at once with a multi-touch tablet - I'm pretty sure there is an IBM tablet that does both multi-touch with fingers, AND digitizer pen... even more expensive but that's what I was and am looking for in a tablet...

But sometimes they are.

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

> Yea the only ones that win in them are the lawyer, they get paid a percent of the judgement and rest is split up among the people involved.

I mostly agree with you, but there is still something to be said for class actions: they are one of the only things encouraging corporations not to take more advantage of people than the law allows. This way, NVIDIA's costs for selling a faulty product are higher, which gives them more reason to make sure that they don't. Think of it as quality control.

Because real court costs people lots of money if they hire lawyers, or lots of time (and they almost never know what they're doing) if they don't. So it doesn't make sense for individuals to sue when corporations screw them, usually.

Re:But sometimes they are.

[Danse]

I mostly agree with you, but there is still something to be said for class actions: they are one of the only things encouraging corporations not to take more advantage of people than the law allows. This way, NVIDIA's costs for selling a faulty product are higher, which gives them more reason to make sure that they don't. Think of it as quality control.

We just need a way to ensure that the people who got screwed over by the company being sued don't get screwed over even more by the attorneys on the case. They tend to walk away with millions, while the people who actually lost something tend get a ridiculously paltry sum to compensate them, often with strings attached, such as being required to purchase from the same company again in order to take advantage of it.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[iamhassi]

"he's conveniently omitting convertibles like the above ThinkPad, which likely make up 90%+ of PC tablet sales."

I wouldn't be so sure, Fujitsu has a large line of popular LifeBook Tablet PCs, and Newegg has a wide variety of tablet pcs available with the most models coming from Panasonic and their $2400-$4000 Toughbook series

Re:That's part of the reason I don't buy laptops..

[iamhassi]

"I haven't had a single laptop last a single year past the expensive addon warrenty period. After my second lappy fail I bought myself a desktop for the first time in many years."

Out of the dozen or so laptops I've owned only one was brand new and they've all lasted several years. Right now I have a Fujitsu tablet that is running fine despite being a few years old, replacing the battery really breathed new life into it, and the core 2 duo Acer seems to be doing fine despite some apparent water damage visible at the sides of the LCD

I think you just have horrible luck with PCs.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[s73v3r]

I would bet that the iPad sales have greatly eclipsed those Tablet PC sales.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[s73v3r]

And all of that is extremely shitty, UX wise, compared to the way the iPad, and now the Honeycomb tablets are doing it.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[Khyber]

Back in the day of Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior, we had this magic thing called a LightPen. It enabled pen-based touchscreen right there on your PC!
Why the fuck this isn't used today is beyond me. It was accurate, responsive, and just about as good as a Wacom tablet/pen today.

Well...

[frank_adrian314159]

The company made money, the lawyers made money, and, when you consider the customer, two out of three ain't bad...

They do that on purpose

[publiclurker]

That way every large box store can get their own model name/number. this allows them to all advertise that they will beat all competitors prices, knowing full well that no-one else has their particular model.

Re:They do that on purpose

[CynicTheHedgehog]

Does anyone really shop at the big box stores anymore? I might go to one to look at a TV to see how the picture is, but then I'd turn right around and order the a comparable model from NewEgg. And even then, for the past year or so I've been basing my purchases almost entirely on customer feedback, and I have yet to be disappointed. That's something you simply can't get at a big box store.

Anyway, online stores don't play that model number game except to the extent that the model number denotes things like the size of hard drive or color of the device, because if they did they couldn't harvest reviews and things from other sites. And you can usually drop the last -XXX from whatever from the model number and find comparable devices from other stores.

Re:getting away with it

[macraig]

The talented bad guys actually DO get away with it, all the time, consistently, because they're good at manipulating other people. These are not only professional "criminals"; they're also our lawyers, chosen CEOs, and politicians. Did I forget labor union leaders and theocrats like the cardinals and Pope?

My $1650 HP TX1100 tablet failed

[kpainter]

I sent in my claim and was shocked at what they claimed was "similar value". I am not going to even bother sending mine in. I am sure that will make NVidia happy. Except that I will never buy another product with the NVidia stink attached to it. I am not likely to buy anything HP either.

Re:My $1650 HP TX1100 tablet failed

[kalirion]

Honestly, it's the class action lawyers' fault. They're the ones you need to sue.

Re:My $1650 HP TX1100 tablet failed

[electrosoccertux]

in reality you'll forget your frustration in a year when you're looking to buy another graphics card--if Nvidia's top graphics card at the time outperforms AMD's graphics card by 15%, then you'll just get over it and buy the Nvidia one. It's happened to me a hundred times.

Re:My $1650 HP TX1100 tablet failed

[kpainter]

That laptop failed over two years ago. Rather than going for small in its replacement, I went the other direction. I bought a Sager NP9280 with an i7-975 desktop processor and an NVidia GTX-280M. This monster is a incredibly powerful machine that serves as my desktop machine that I can take with me when I have to. For the most part, I am very happy with it except I am really disappointed with the video drivers NVidia provides. There is some sort of periodic lag that others have experienced and I have never been able to get rid of. The closest I have been able to get in figuring out the problem is there some bug with the power management that has existed for a long time and NVidia doesn't feel at all inclined to fix.

Trust me when I say that I am completely and totally done with NVidia.

Re:My $1650 HP TX1100 tablet failed

[neminem]

Heh. I'm already never buying anything HP again, as of a few years ago. The laptop I got was actually perfectly respectable, and didn't break any more frequently than laptops from any other manufacturer (when you use such a complicated piece of technology constantly, you do expect things will break occasionally). When something did break, though, they basically completely refused to honor my valid extended warranty. Spent several hours on the phone before they agreed to, then a year later something else broke and I had to go through the same insanity *again*. HP clearly just doesn't want my money.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

this is ludicrous. And even then -- apple, with its single button mouse - doesn't need your bindings. ingenious, your saying, i know, but what you just can't seem to understand is fitt's law -- it SUCKS to have no accuracy because your UI uses buttons that are too small, for no good reason.

Design for fingers is not design for mouse.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

because a LightPen only works on *CRT* screens is why. it depends on the refresh "dot" of the electron gun and has no analogy on LCD screens in use everywhere today. At least there is an answer :)

Re:$2500 Tablets

[Osgeld]

they require 2 things, a line raster system, and self illuminating pixels. not that either are a big deal its just not something that lcd's have in a fast digital world, maybe when we start seeing cheap larger oled displays? Also the same reason your nes zapper wont work on a hdtv,

Re:$2500 Tablets

[retchdog]

afaict, doesn't work with non-CRTs, but they died a long time before that (you say duke nukem, but i remember them only all the way back from the days of the C=64). i'd guess that holding it up in the air like that for long periods with precision was very hard, making it useless for art (enter the tablet). likewise the lightpen could be lost/stolen/dropped, making it undesirable for industrial/POS (enter the touchscreen).

Re:$2500 Tablets

[shutdown -p now]

It's because of the way light pen works - it detected the time at which the CRT electron ray hit the screen under the pen (by observing the brightness change), which can then be transformed into screen coordinate (if you also know when the scan started). Thus, the original tech only works with CRTs.

You could probably simulate this with an LCD by varying the brightness of individual pixels very slightly (such that it is not noticeable to the user, but detectable by pen sensors) in a similar fashion, but I haven't heard of anyone actually implementing this...

Anyway, light pen is not all that good for tablets, because with this tech, you actually need the pen. With resistive touchscreens, which tablet PCs normally use today, you can use the provided stylus for precision or your own finger when you don't need to be all that accurate.

This doesn't help EVERYONE like the summary reads

[nbetcher]

I own a Compaq F730US laptop and it has the exact problems described by the court filing, including the Wifi becoming permanently broken (even in Linux); graphical corruptions, etc. The F730US is not included in the settlement - so no, not EVERYONE wins.

And yet...

[WillyWanker]

As someone who owns two dead laptops due to Nvidia's negligence I get NOTHING because the laptops I own aren't one of the models that's part of the suit. So while they may bitch and moan about getting a cheap laptop I wouldn't mind having it simply because IT WORKS. Which is more than I have now.

Re:And yet...

[erroneus]

Sounds like you can sue on your own then. If you were excluded from the class action, then you might be able to get a better deal on your own. Bring it to a lawyer and provide him with all the background and he can look up the successful arguments made, and make them again, collect his percentage and get you whatever he can get. If you don't at least try, you don't have anything to complain about.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[Gadget_Guy]

A convertible isn't a tablet. It is a notebook with a touch screen. All convertibles only have 2-3 applications which use the touch interface the rest you need the keyboard/mouse for.

I have a convertible on which I loaded standard Windows 7. It works fine in every program. You certainly don't need custom applications. The OS comes with support for system wide gestures, on screen keyboard (a choice of two actually) and handwriting recognition. It does more than duplicate the mouse.

The Plaintiff can't appeal,the defendant can

[jeko]

True, the plaintiff can't appeal, but the defendant can. Defendant corporations can even ask that the case be moved to the civil court system so they can be properly represented by their attorney. Once you're there, you need a lawyer, and again, see "victory, pyrrhic"...

Laptops are more complicated

[jaffray]

A new econobox 15" laptop is not even close to equivalent to a three-year-old high-end ultraportable. Or a three-year-old 17" gaming laptop. Or a three-year-old tablet PC. Or even a three-year-old high-end 15" office laptop. It's dishonest to suggest that because the new econobox has comparable benchmarks, that it's a comparable system. Laptops are more complicated than that. The econobox has nowhere near the same utility.

If you disagree, try lugging it through an airport instead of the older ultraportable, or try holding it in one hand to take inventory instead of the older tablet. See how much good the extra PCMarks do you.

Also, what kind of laptops are you buying that cost $2000 but can't be sold for $350 three years later? I bought a three-year-old high-end ThinkPad for a friend for $750 recently. Cost twice as much as a new econobox, benchmarks were worse, but it was still a great deal for a far better user experience.

Re:$2500 Tablets

[Billlagr]

I had a light pen on my Vic-20! Mind you, the crosshairs used to shudder around horrifically, after loading up the 'paint' software included on tape..but a light pen, nonetheless

Expert Testimony on the replacement machines

[Bobartig]

It looks like this is the Declaration the court considered in evaluating the original machines and the proposed replacements:

https://sites.google.com/site/tedfrank/files/nvidia.358.2.BagherzadehDeclaration.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

Why NVIDIA

[Neil Boekend]

Why would you sue NVIDIA? If I buy a HP laptop I use HP's warranty and sue HP if they avoid paying up. They can claim money from Nvidia if they want, but the sale is between me and HP. Not Nvidia. It doesn't matter what Nvidia finds of similar value.
IANAL

Re:Why NVIDIA

[Anonymous Cowpat]

*shrug* it's in nVidia's interest for the consumers to claim against nVidia. If they wanted to force the consumers to sue HP, and then have HP sue nVidia, they would have done it right back at the beginning of the case. Seems nVidia are happy to settle their liabilities directly.

In any case, the question of whether the plaintiffs are technically attacking the right defendants is entirely irrelevant to the issue of the settlement being a joke.

From the decision

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Upon review of the Objections and the expert reports submitted by the parties, the Court
finds that the Objections are without merit. In particular, the Court finds that the CQ-56
replacement computer is a reasonable replacement for the original computers at issue in this case.
Although there are differences between the CQ-56 and various computers for which it is offered as a
replacement, the CQ-56 meets or exceeds nearly all of the specifications of the original computers.
In addition, it comes with an advanced operating system, new warranty and other programs. To the
extent that it does not have various peripherals, the Court finds that they can be easily and
inexpensively added.

That's the decision in a nutshell. If you're going to debate, it helps to listen to what the other side is saying.

That's what you get with HP

[erroneus]

Among the various laptops and desktops I have owned or used in business, HP has simply been the second worst. (Sony had the #Worst spot) I once had a low profile desktop unit at a remote office that needed servicing. The unit was valued at about $400 at the time. HP spent at least twice that shipping out parts, wasting my time and paying a technician to come out 3 times to replace things. And it took just over two weeks to complete.

HP laptops I have seen and had deployed had a fairly high rate of failure (about 30% I would guess) and the warranty support just wasn't what I had grown accustomed to. (What had I grown accustomed to? Dell of course.)

My credibility and reputation is built, in part, on the credibility and reliability of the things I supply, service and recommend. I would never recommend HP based on my experience with the company.

To be clear on this, the ONLY customers who lost out on this deal were HP customers. Everyone else got their stuff replaced properly. So why does this article attack nVidia? Well it doesn't -- only the Slashdot headline does. This is actually a case of HP screwing customers, not so much nVidia. Since when is it NVidia's responsibility to replace the whole computer?? If I ever got in the business of making, let's say, engine components (I know, famous car analogy) and a car manufacturer made a car using my components which turned out to be defective, why would *I* need to replace the whole frikken car?!

Nope. This is all HP here...

Re:That's what you get with HP

[Anonymous Cowpat]

If I ever got in the business of making, let's say, engine components (I know, famous car analogy) and a car manufacturer made a car using my components which turned out to be defective, why would *I* need to replace the whole frikken car?!

How about if you sold bricks? And it only became apparent that they were faulty after they'd been used to build a house. Who should pay for knocking down and rebuilding the house then?

Re:$2500 Tablets

[RobbieThe1st]

Yea, sure. And here I am, with my N900 and it's 267PPI screen and resistive touchscreen... And I can accurately tap things at least as small as most desktop gui buttons. Tapping 8pt link-text with a finger, however, can be slightly iffy, but it works pretty darn well. And, of course, if you use the stylus you can easily hit a 6x6px square without issue, let alone a 50x20px button.

Yes, perhaps you need huge flashy buttons when you have a horribly inaccurate capacitative touchscreen... but I don't want either.

Of course, that isn't to say that some tablet interface characteristics -- gestures and kinetic scrolling to name two -- aren't great. They just shouldn't be needed.
I've had good luck with my HP TC1100 loaded up with stock ubuntu; Using it as a tablet required me to setup an onscreen keyboard, though. The pen worked /just fine/ for a mouse replacement.

really, Judge Ware?

[X10]

What would a JudgeWare know about HardWare?

Equal value

[fibonacci8]

The laptop replacement seems to be of equal value to the video card being replaced.

Re:That's part of the reason I don't buy laptops..

[speculatrix]

the latitude C610 I bought 2nd hand off yahoo auctions (remember them? before they were bribed by ebay to shut down) is still going strong at nearly 10 years old; sure, the batteries are fscked and the hard drive was replaced, and there's a dodgy key on the keyboard, but it runs perfectly.

Sorry

[HalAtWork]

I don't understand these crazy non-car analogies. You see, it's like trying to use diesel to power an electric car: it might work well for other things, but for this engine it just won't work.

guess who's not buying from nvidea anymore

[Gripp]

this guy

Re:That's part of the reason I don't buy laptops..

[unitron]

You could try a solid state drive in that 386 just for grins and giggles.

Provided you've got the disposable income for a grins and giggles fund.

The Free Market works!!!!

[jollyreaper]

HP makes terrible products and abuses their customers shamefully. That's why they went out of business and a better company with a superior product has taken their place. Everyone wins!

Re:$2500 Tablets

[Culture20]

Back in 2007, Fujitsu had a really nice 10" convertible that wasn't too heavy.

I saw the best minds...

[jeko]

I saw the best minds of my generation studying physics, sneering at the engineers...

Seriously? A poetry reference? On Slashdot?! Are things starting to fall apart? Has the center not held? Is this the long slouch to Bethlehem? :-)

Re:$2500 Tablets

[Khyber]

My NES zapper works just fine on my Samsung LN32A550

Ditto the SuperScope.