July 29th, 2008
Dell customers unhappy with BIOS band-aid for faulty NVIDIA GPUs

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2308

Dell customers are unhappy with the BIOS patch released by Dell to counter the problem with faulty NVIDIA GPUs, and quite rightly so!

Here’s just a small selection of comments left by Dell customers on the Direct2Dell blog:

Chinese:
http://www.cnbeta.com/articles/61592.htm


:-
◆我的630是去年12月买的，已经烧了2个主板了（都是因为显卡），
一次是正 看电影 结果居然烧了？！！！
貌似相对于8400和8600的显卡，135M的更容易烧掉（因为据说8600和8400的显卡上有散热片？）
显卡实在太热，在Vista下，待机就60多度！！！
一般浏览网页是68~73度
开跑跑卡丁车是 80~85度
想不到 90度 了还没启动 关机保护！！ ◆◆DELL的散热系统是怎么做的？？
我同学BenQ的本子，只要过热就自动关机，我的630打3D游戏有时都接近100° 它都不关机！！！！
强烈要求召回 NVIDIA 的 问题显卡！！！！

:-
我是今年2月份买的XPS 1330 按照上面说的将BIOS从A08升级到A12，启动后风扇就开始转，而之前在刚启动或不运行负载大的程序，风扇是不转的，可见，升级BIOS只是临时方案。我不怎么玩游戏，恐怕在质保期内不会出现问题，等过了质保期出问题可就惨了。

:-
最进d630开始花屏了，起初以为是过热，后来发现开机的时候有时候也是，进了系统1~2小时后，花屏 死机，用软件测试了下gpu的温度，开机67°C，大大前天终于挂了，打了客服，让重装系统，装了之后显卡驱动装不上，一装就花屏，死机，重启后进不了系统。

工程师昨天来换了一块主板，晚上回来重装，别的都好，就是设备管理器中没有网卡，进bios恢复，还是没有，现在说星期一来解决，不知道到时候怎么办，还i会不会又有新的问题。

另外，上网收索了一下d630花屏死机的问题，吓了一大跳，原来不是个案，也看到了新bios的信息，可是如果真的如网上流传的那样，只是用风扇和电池的代价来减小gpu的温度波动来延长寿命的话，我觉得无非是厂商在挖消费者的肉来补自己的疮，是极度不道德，不负责的行为。三年不出问题厂商就万事大吉，三年后呢，上万块买来的笔记本不是只为用三年，咱们学生没有那么强的经济实力，三年后出现显卡问题，主板就废了，得换，那是什么代价！

希望厂商本着为消费者和自己的信誉度着想，能从根本上解决问题，危难关头，方显英雄本色，IBM thinkpad让人放心的品牌价值就是这么来的！！！


This post has been edited by yangxi: Aug 3 2008, 11:49 AM

oh no~~..

Report: All Nvidia G84/G86 Chips Defective
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-g8...ating,6121.html

It appears that Nvidiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia ’s notebook chips aren’t the only ones that could be defective, if an Inquirer report is to be believed.

According to sources, the entire line of G84 and G86 chips all suffer from the same defect, regardless of desktop or notebook application. The chip generation utilizes the same Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIChttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit ), which supposedly has an issue with an “unnamed substrate or bumping material, and it is heat related.”

As expected, Nvidia is staying mum on the topic, but analysts are spilling various details. One story is that HP was the recipient for the majority of the defective chips – only limited to a specific batch. Further explanation reveals that it was isolated to an end-of-life batch that used a different bonding/substrate process.

The storyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story with HP didn’t fly with the Inq, as it believes that no changes in process were made throughout the chip’s cycle, leading to suspicions that the defect is widespread. Furthermore, Dell responded quickly to failure reports by quickly issuing a BIOS update that pumped up the cooling for the vulnerable chip parts, which clearly shows that the problem ventured beyond just HP. Now HP has also a new BIOS to run the fan at all times at the expense of battery life.

While evidence may point to only notebook chips being afflicted, one theory is that notebook chips go though more stress than their desktop counterparts. Notebooks are power cycled more often, and by extension the GPUs go through more heat cycles – quickly exposing the defect. GPUs in notebooks may also be harder to cool, with less space for elaborate heatsinks and fans.

Unfortunately for owners of Nvidia G84 and G86 hardware, this could just be the tip of a very troubled iceberg.

纸包不住火 ～


Nvidia G92s and G94 reportedly failing
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/new...-g94-reportedly

A little digging revealed what this, and more, is all about, and it's far uglier than just the 'notebook' version. It seems that four board partners are seeing G92 and G94 chips going bad in the field at high rates. If you know what failures look like statistically, they follow a Poisson distribution, aka a bell curve. The failures start out small, and ramp up quickly - very quickly. If you know what you are looking for, you can catch the signs early on. From the sound of the backchannel grumblings, the failures have been flagged already, and NV isn't playing nice with their partners.

Why wouldn't they? Well, the G92 chip is used in the 8800GT, 8800GTS, 8800GS, several mobile flavours of 8800, most of the 9800 suffixes, and a few 9600 variants just to confuse buyers. The G94 is basically only the 9600GT. Basically we are told all G92 and G94 variants are susceptible to the same problem - basically they are all defective. Any guesses as to how much this is going to cost?

From the look of it, all G8x variants other than the G80, and all G9x variants are defective, but we have only been able to get people to comment directly on the G84, G86, G92 and G94, and all variants thereof. Since Nvidia is not acknowledging the obvious G84 and G86 problems, don't look for much word on this new set either - if they can bury it, it will drop their costs.

In the end, what it comes down to is that the problem is far bigger than they are admitting, and crosses generational lines, process lines, and OEM lines. Nvidia is quick to point the finger at everyone but themselves, but after a while, the facts strain those cover stories well past breaking point. There is a common engineering failure here - this problem is far too widespread for it to be anything else. The stonewalling, denials and partner gagging is simply a last-ditch attempt at wallet covering.

With OEMs extending warranties, Nvidia is going to have to cover a lot of laptops for a long time. Desktop boards are going bad as well now, contrary to the statements of Nvidia PR and AR, and the hole keeps getting deeper and deeper. I wonder if they can ever come clean and survive. µ