nvidea problems--motherboard replacement

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>HOT ON THE heels of its denials that anything is wrong with the G92 and G94s comes another PCN that shows the G92s and G92b are being changed for no reason. Yup, the problems that are plaguing G84 and G86 are the same that affect seemingly all 65nm and now 55nm Nvidia parts.</p>

<p>This PCN is very similar to the one linked above, and the formatting is almost almost exactly the same, so we won't cover all the details, just the pertinent points. This one is much more important, it confirms that the problems are not confined to the 65nm products. Since Nvidia told us the last one was unimportant and refused to give it to us, we didn't bother asking this time, we just took notes when they were shown to us at a recent conference.</p>

<p>It is titled "G92 GPU Desktop Products" with a subtitle of "Change Bump Material from High Pb to Eutectic Solder", with a date of June 2008 and a number PCN0346A on it. Page 2 has the "PCN Submit Date" of June 13, 2008, " Planned Implementation Date" of July 28, 2008, and a "Proposed First Ship Date for change" of August 17, 2008. Short story here, if you have a G92 or G92b purchased before next week, you likely have a lemon. Remember, these are chip ship dates, not boards in stores.</p>

<p>The next few chunks, "Change Category" and others are the same, "Class 1", given to everyone under the sun, and OMG***BBQ. That is kind of a 'well duh' thing, and is exactly the same as the G86 part PCN.</p>

<p>The big one is the affected parts list. It clearly states that not only are 65nm parts bad, but 55nm ones are as well. The entire list of affected parts is as follows.</p>

<p>Nvidia</a> 55nm parts are bad too - The INQUIRER</p>

<p>Basically avoid nVidia chips until the end of the year.</p>

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<p>Man this problem blows, I hope my Dell holds up until those new GPUs start coming with the replacement mobos.
I'm trying to hold out on calling Dell until that happens.
I don't want to get another defective board to replace the defective one I have now.</p>

<p>I am totally going to avoid nvidia from now on because of this mess.</p>

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<p>You might ask Dell to exchange your computer for one with integrated graphics. I have a friend that bought a Lattitude and he didn't like it. So a few weeks later he called Dell and they said that they would take it back and give him a refund. He did and they did. I don't know if they'd do a swap but I certainly would. In fact if Apple had a MBP with integrated graphics, I'd happily swap mine for that one (I don't do anything graphics intensive).</p>

<p>I read that nVidia will mix the good chips with the bad chips on at 55 nm (I think that it's in the article). If they're doing that with the current 8400 and 8600 chips, then it's a crapshoot as to whether you get a good one or not. My MBP has been repaired and it is on its way to the Apple Store and I have no idea as to whether I will be getting a good chip or a bad chip. nVidia has pretty big inventories of 8400s and 8600s to clear (I wonder why).</p>

<p>If you need a laptop now, I'd suggest HP's small business line. Their midrange line is completely devoid of nVidia graphics chips.</p>

<p>There's a nice pragmatic article at Overclockers.com</a> - nVidia: What Do You Do? on what to do if you already own a laptop with nVidia chips. Basically he says get the extended warranty.</p>

<p>I don't even know if the problem will be resolved this year. Some company may buy a batch of them on the cheap and put them into products next year. nVidia really needs to release batch numbers of bad and good chips.</p>

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<p>I talked with Dell today and they said they WOULD NOT replace my nVidia with the integrated graphics card. They said that it would be a downgrade and that the laptop isn't configured for it. I asked them what happens when my motherboard burns up again and they said, "We'll come out and replace everything again." I asked if they plan on replacing the fried parts with corrected nVidia parts and they said NO. They say that nVidia insists that it's not a problem with their cards but a problem with the BIOS on laptops.</p>

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<p>Could you return the machine or swap it for a different machine?</p>

<p>nVidia has said that it is their problem at one of their recent earnings reports. They wouldn't take a $200 million charge to fix a BIOS problem. Dell stock got clobbered after-hours and the margin hit. I should go on the Dell forums to see what owners are saying.</p>

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<p>Nope. And it's only 8 weeks old!!!!! What bothers me is that they probably knew about this problem well before they sold me the machine. Their only solution is to continue to send techs out with replacement parts when the motherboard and nvidia burn out but the replacement parts are the same defective parts that we started out with. In effect, they are only delaying additional failures.</p>

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<p>I was over at the forums at notebookreviews and they have a pretty active XPS M1330 discussions. The machine is pretty popular.</p>

<p>They have a thread with directions on modifying the heat-pipe connections to the GPU to improve cooling on the M1330. It looks like quite an involved process (I'd guess that mechanical engineering types would be comfortable doing this). I've done many notebook modifications in the past but haven't done something this complicated. Others have changed their processors in the M1330.</p>

<p>I had a look at HP's midrange business line last night too. Their business computers run 50% higher than their consumer computers. I guess companies willing to pay that premium expect their computers to work and HP isn't willing to annoy them with bad parts. I don't know if I'm willing to pay that premium but it's a consideration.</p>

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<p>don't all business computers run a bit higher because of their construction..?</p>

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<p>I think that it's construction and warranty. Business computers (except for low-end models) frequently come with 3-year on-site warranties.</p>

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<p>I purchased an HP dv9700t with an 8600 that was shipped in July to us and just sent off with d to college 3 hrs away. Anyone have any HP problems yet? I sent an email off to HP to have them advise me on the component.
I guess I will see what they have to say.</p>

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<p>I got the MacBook Pro back yesterday. Everything works fine. I did some analysis on the system using GPU-Z and CPU-Z and everything looks stock. I was hoping for a board with a G0 Merom stepping but it came back with the A stepping. The date on the graphics ROM was older than my Penryn (February 2008). So I have no idea as to what I got back. It looks pretty similar to what I sent them.</p>

<p>I picked up a USB fan at Radio Shack and my daughter is now using the fan when she uses the laptop. I'm not sure what I will do if it dies again.</p>

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<p>


I've got a dv9700t with an NVIDIA GeForce 8400m GS, and it's been fine so far, but I'm using a USB cooling pad with it. If I have problems with it, I'll probably just get a Thinkpad with an ATi card. NVIDIA is getting worse and worse in my eyes, from this hardware failure to their refusal to open source their drivers.</p>

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<p>The Inquirer website has the following story about the Nvidia chip problem: Why</a> Nvidia's chips are defective - The INQUIRER</p>

<p>Not a good story. The problem impacts laptops in particular (both Windows and MacBook Pros). The basic chip design was flawed as explained in the article. Short of a major redesign, firmware changes to “underclock” the chip may extend its life at the expense of efficiency and speed. Using a cooling pad to wick away the heat generated by your laptop maybe another interim solution. Either of these methods may only extend the “end-of-life” cycle for the Nvidia chipset… Ouch!</p>

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<p>Uggggh. What that says is that the current chips are bad. And that the means that they are using to fix it is a crapshoot at this point. Which to me means to go with ATI or Intel Integrated.</p>

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<p>nVidia is getting sued by shareholders over the GPU problems. I wish that there was a class-action suit for GPU owners to join.</p>

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<p>There's a new update on Leopard and reports are that it's quite an improvement. I'm downloading it now (I expect it to take quite some time as I think that tons of other people are downloading it too). I'm hoping that they detuned the nVidia Graphics card.</p>

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<p>There's a story out that nVidia will be going back to high-led solder bumps. Perhaps nVidia ran into electromigration problems with the switch to eutectic bumps. This is basically pretty crappy news. It indicates that nVidia has no idea as to what they are doing. I continue to see a lot of failures on the XPS forum that I'm on, and, of course, I continue to see MacBook Pro failure reports from those that purchased a year ago.</p>

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<p>Dell tech. came to my house to replace the stuff that burnt out on my son's new XPS 1330 (only 8 wks old at the time). It's been about a month now and it's still working. Actually, it doesn't get used very much. We keep it as a spare laptop in the house. They replaced the defective nVidia with new defective nVidia so in time, it will burn up again, no doubt.</p>

<p>I honestly don't know if I'll ever buy another Dell again (previously, we always bought Dell). S went to school with my Black Mac (which was new). I missed my Mac (my first non windows experience). I ended up buying myself a replacement Macbook (White one with an upgrade to 250 HD). I have to say that after my initial adjustment from a PC to Mac, I love the MacBook. As the commercial says, "It just works." I realize now what a pain it was doing all of those Windows updates and virus scans and the stupid Windows Defender scan and Spybot scans. The best part is when I called the Apple Support number (to ask a question about the touchpad), the tech was an American! I could actually understand what she was saying.</p>

<p>If I ever have to buy a PC again, I'll probably try an HP.</p>

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<p>I setup my MacBook Pro to be an FTP server over the weekend and it was easy. On Windows, I have to download third-party stuff. Yesterday I got Airport working on the MacBook Pro. I was in my son's apartment and we only have three network ports and four computers (I like to use two laptops sometimes - one for stock display and music and the other for work). It's pretty easy to set up the MacBook Pro as a wireless router. Mac OSX is really a server operating system with a nice client too. I think that most people won't ever need the server capability but it's nice to know that it's there if you need it.</p>

<p>I'm happy with Dell for desktops and I'm very happy with my XPS M1330. I like Apple for laptops but prefer Dell for desktops. If Apple every ships a desktop with a box (no, I don't need an 8-core Mac Pro) under $1,000, then I'd be interested.</p>

<p>I'm thinking of 2010 for the next round of desktop upgrades. Nehalem will be out in mid-range SKUs and Larrabee should be out. Probably enough reason to upgrade. All of my current hardware more than meets my current needs.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
On Windows, I have to download third-party stuff.

[/quote]
That's wrong. IIS has a built-in FTP server, it's just not installed by default. You can install it from the Control Panel.</p>