Nvidia Problems Hit HP Desktops 141
Barence writes "HP has revealed faults with 38 different models in its slimline PC range, sparking speculation that Nvidia's faulty GPU problems have spread beyond laptops. HP's official statement says the problems are 'attributable to the computer's motherboard" and that affected machines 'may not boot or may not display video' — the same kind of terminology used to describe the previous faults with laptop GPUs. Both HP and Nvidia have declined to comment. But in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this year, Nvidia admitted 'there can be no assurance that we will not discover defects in other MCP or GPU products.'" Note: the linked story (updated since this submission) says that Yes, the problems are now confirmed to be rooted in the Nvidia GPUs.
Don't worry. (Score:4, Insightful)
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In their original filing to the sec they clearly state 'There can be no assurance that we will not discover defects in other MCP or GPU products.'. Also, they do not specify a closed list, but just that so far notebook MCP/GPU have been found detective, thus if they've used them in their slimline pc range, it's not really any news...
Re:Don't worry. (Score:5, Informative)
I strongly suspect that Nvidia did their best to not lie to the SEC, given the potential penalties for doing so; but they haven't exactly overdone the honesty elsewhere.
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At least the problems with those processors didn't tend to turn the computer into a breeze block.
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The Pentium fdiv bug... According to Intel, the calculations were wrong in one case in billions or so (only floating point operations). Even the most critical estimations showed one error in 42,000 or so cases (using Excel spreadsheets with multiple calculations per run).
This compares favourably with totally broken computers.
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They sold some processors that got wrong (iirc they were only lower accuracy than expected not completely wrong) results in certain corner cases of floating point divide. Eventually intel agreed to replace the processors for anyone who wanted them to though few took them up on the offer. Those who wanted to replace them coupld easilly do so.
Theese graphics chips are a totally different kettle of fish, they are failing completely and when they do afaict they are often soldered to laptop motherboards. That me
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Okay, so HP doesn't show video anymore, neither does mac ... but that minor issue aside, we're still able to crack the WPA key's http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/12/1724230 [slashdot.org] with it , right ?
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I don't worry too much, after all I can get an ATI 4670 for around 80 Euros. So it would suck if my MSI GeForce dies but I can afford to replace it.
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Good luck replacing the integrated video chipset with that ATI board
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You just disable it in the BIOS and run off the expansion card, yes?
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Yeah, I'm seriously considering dumping NVidia completely. Evidently they don't spend enough time testing, or don't spend enough money on their QA employees before releasing drivers.
Another reason why closed-source in the driver realm is a nightmare.
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I wish Apple shared your ideas. I'm already on the verge of having to replace my MBP under warranty because of the faulty Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT. The good news that I can keep playing this send-the-machine-back game until my AppleCare runs out, by when hopefully any problems with the new NVidia cards will have time to pop up before I buy my next laptop.
Testing/QA problems aside, the way they handled this run of faults has been pretty shoddy.
who... (Score:2, Insightful)
brbut still: information on this fuckup is hard to find, non-concrete statements everywhere. why not have a tool that reads the s/n of the GPU, checks it and warns if your gpu is faulty? i'm owning a dell notebook which, according to dell, is not affected. but nevertheless dell put a bios-update online for my modell which obviously changed something concerning ventilation. being vague is not always the way to go.
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but nevertheless dell put a bios-update online for my modell which obviously changed something concerning ventilation
Errmmmmm....uhhhh....what? How does a BIOS update affect ventilation? Or do you mean 'fan control'?
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Captain Linguistics to the rescue!
"something concerning ventilation" is a hyperonym of "fan control" (which, in this case, is the hyponym). Your intervention is equivalent to saying "wtf, how will higher gas prices affect road vehicles? Or did you mean 'cars'?".
tl;dr: fan control qualifies as "something concerning ventilation".
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the BIOS might change things like graphic chip frequency (lowering the thermal load).
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S/N is not necessary, it would appear that if it is nVidia based and under 2 years old, it may fail at any time. A few weeks ago I read about this issue here on /., and on that day, my GeForce 8800GTS died. It is somewhat disconcerting to hear all your hard drives making click sounds in a machine that refuses to POST.
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The only good Nvidia GPUs are the 8800 GTX, the 7xxx series, and prior.
The G280s should be fine, but we really don't know.
Nvidia is also pumping out G260s and such that are really rebranded 8xxx cores. All of the 8xxx cores being sold as a G2xx should be fine (since they finished updating their manufacturing process), but they have NOT had thorough testing (by Nvidia themselves) or any updates to the power distribution (which is dangerous since they've changed bump and solder materials).
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Anecdotally, I've been happy with my EVGA Geforce 9600GT.
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I have a dell Vostro that is affected, and the warranty ran out at the end of last month.. The BIOS update only changed the way the fans run. Previously they would run at whatever speed was needed at the time to cool the laptop, now, they run at full speed regardless. To me, that is not much of a fix, my laptop still runs incredibly hot, to the point I suspect it will fail soon.
I am hoping for a recall, but I doubt that will happen, it is the only true way to resolve the problem, but it would be costly, a
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My girlfriend went off to teach English in Japan for a year.
I'm so glad I picked out the embedded Intel crap instead of the Nvidia 8400 or whatever the next cheapest option was.
Oh, so that's why (Score:1)
I have an HP laptop and my video card died 5 days before my warranty ran out.
Then it happened again a year later.
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Faith is usually misplaced with companies. Most of them have sucked at one point or another. All you can do is do some research about current products and hope there is no hidden problem brewing.
When I last bought a graphics card it was an NVidia 8600GT because of ATI's still-questionable Linux support at the time (the Open Source driver project was announced but nothing delivered yet). N
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AFAIK, right now the closed source NVidia drivers are still better than ATI's, either open or closed source. But I expect the Open Source stuff to catch up and the proprietary drivers to break sooner or later.
For my NVidia 8600 GT, for instance, there are no current Windows 2000 drivers available anymore. You can get an old version from the MSI website, but the system was never quite stable under Windows 2000. After switching to XP and current drivers things are fine - but it required changing the OS.
Simila
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We're at the point where a decent video card is cheaper than the operating system
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We're at the point where a decent video card is cheaper than the operating system
Really? Where can I get my hands on a *free* video card, pray tell!
Note: If you haven't gotten it by this point, then maybe my response should have been:
I run Linux, you insensitive clod!
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I tried that for a while too. System still unstable, certain applications (Teamspeak, Day Of Defeat Source) could not be closed normally and required a "dirty" shutdown of the OS with the power switch.
While I'm not sure if the graphics card drivers were at fault, I suspect some driver problem. And the graphics card was the one component for which I had only old or XP drivers.
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Im still not sure how ATIs driver base stands with linux, could someone fill me in?
AMD now owns ATI, and is opening up their graphics specs in a big way, as well as improving the Linux drivers for their cards. They now release Linux & Windows drivers at the same time, as they've put the development of the Linux drivers on equal footing with the Windows drivers (moving to a unified development process), so the Linux drivers in the last few revs have seen major improvements as they get them caught up to the same feature set of their Windows counterparts (the last rev added CrossfireX a
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Yeah my hp laptop died also, was only 4 months old so they fixed it with no hassle. Might get the extended warranty now though.
nVidia is being sued by their shareholders? (Score:2, Insightful)
For "covering up" the faulty GPUs? Hey, if they signed contracts with the OEMs on these chips leaving the announcements to them, then that's the brakes -- they can't talk about it. What would you expect them to do?
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You can't sign such things away.
Company Press Conference:
"Oh I'm sorry we didn't announce that we lost $72 billion last month due to [insert asset price collapse here], but we signed a contract with those other guy over there leaving it to them so legally we couldn't do so. Pardon? I fail to see what me selling all my stock last week has to do with any of this, next question."
And I expect them to meet the SEC requirements for being a public company.
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They don't have to reveal anything until they release their 10Qs.
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But they can't say "it's all OK except for this one small case" when they know it's a bigger deal than that.
ARGH! (Score:1, Informative)
Look, I know this is offtopic and all, but the expression is "That's the BREAKS". NOT BRAKES!
Brake(s)
1. a device for slowing or stopping a vehicle or other moving mechanism by the absorption or transfer of the energy of momentum, usually by means of friction.
2. brakes, the drums, shoes, tubes, levers, etc., making up such a device on a vehicle.
Break(s)
1. Informal.
a. an opportunity or stroke of fortune, esp. a lucky one: That's a lucky break!
b. a chance to improve one's lot, esp. one unlooke
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I for one welcome our "grammernazi" overlords.
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How did I get a -1 Troll mod?? I thought my post was at least civil. It's not like I was insulting the OP or anything. Now, if you want to give me a -1 offtopic mod, ok; Then that would at least be correct.
If you are going to mod, please mod properly. Otherwise, what's the point?
AMD/ATI? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:AMD/ATI? (Score:5, Interesting)
This gives me another reason to recommend AMD/ATI over nVidia. The first one being that nVidia refuses to release their card specs, unlike AMD and Intel.
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Can you provide more details on this?
I always thought that nVidia had excellent drivers and open platform, while ATI was pain in the ass for several years.
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Have you used an nVidia card on Linux? The drivers are fine, but they come as a binary blob.
ATI has always had crap drivers, but they recently started releasing specs. I don't know what affect this has had on the driver situation, since I don't have a current ATI card.
ATI Linux Support == Total Crap (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hardly affected it at all.
ATI Linux drivers are still total crap compared to NVidia's.
I would rather have a funded, supported binary blob that works over a bunch of unsupported unfunded drivers and open specifications any day.
Try to use any modern ATI card in an Linux-based HTPC that has to support HD video, and see how far you get.
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I agree with you.. Also not to forget about various SDKs that nVidia has, stereo drivers etc.
ATI is total crap software and driver-wise. If nVidia has serious problems, nobody wins.
Re:ATI Linux Support == Total Crap (Score:4, Insightful)
My peeve with ATI is lack of OpenGL Windows extensions (which extends to Linux). ATI tends not to add EXTs even when the card supports the hardware (for instance, geometry shaders, which are supported in DirectX but not in OpenGL, and likely won't be supported in OpenGL until they become ARB, knowing ATI, so maybe OGL3.1).
I think ATI has a better scalable design and better heat properties (in SLI they rule the roost in power consumption, heat dissipation and throughput). Shader performance is still fairly poor on ATI cards, but they make up for it by massive amounts of shaders. ATI has had memory bandwidth issues in the past, but I haven't checked lately.
So basically, from a DirectX Windows only perspective, ATI is one of the best routes to go. From an OpenGL Linux, Windows, or MacOS X perspective, I prefer nVidia because they tend to support the latest public extensions (EXT is the agreed upon name and likely ARB - vendor only extensions have a vendor code like _ATI or _NV).
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Like I said, try to use these to do something as simple as play HD video. You will get nowhere.
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You do know that ATI/AMD have been releasing full documentation to their GPUs and hiring key Xorg driver developers - so the binary blobs may not be an issue soon? There is even 3D support already for the R5xx series.
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The documentation has been out for 2 years, and we still have yet to see something as simple as accelerated 2D playback capable of displaying HD video ( 1080p ) without corruption. As such I don't have very high hopes for the near term with tis track record.
The fact that ATI is not funding the Xorg team working on the drivers doesn't help matters much either.
They're just playing the classic "dump some specs/code on them to shut them up" approach to open source. Without funded expert developers FROM ATI work
Previous Post == Total Crap (Score:1)
I have used ATI products under Linux since their Mach64 chipsets, and I have never had problems installing ATI drivers or getting 2D and 3D acceleration to work under X.
ATI drivers weren't as easy to install as nVidia's, but they worked just fine.
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Not to be smart, but if this is the case you simply are not excersizing them much.
Like I said, try something as simple as playing a 720p or 1080p video full screen. CPU use goes through the roof. Then, when the video stops, your entire X display gets corrupted.
This has been the case with every ATI driver release in the past 8 months. I finally gave up and bought an NVidia card, rock solid drivers from day 1.
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I would rather have a funded, supported binary blob that works over a bunch of unsupported unfunded drivers and open specifications any day.
What are you doing using Linux in the first place then? And okay, now it is working great even as a desktop OS, but a while back it was the epitome of "unsupported, unfunded, open spec" and not "working" that great. We should have stuck to windows, huh? ;)
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Actually I have heard the latest drivers are actually pretty good
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_rhd3300_790&num=1 [phoronix.com].
And the FOSS drivers are making a lot of progress.
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So you are telling us that you are now swearing to Intel CPU's and AMD/ATI GPU's ? :-)
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I'm certain that I'll try to push for an ATI card as a replacement for my GeForce 8800GTs that just died, with well over a year left on the warranty.
I've been a loyal nVidia customer since their GeForce256 card, and nForce chip sets, sadly I'm done with nVidia for the time being. I simply can not risk spending money on hardware that appears to have this high a risk of failing.
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Well, you know, once this kind of problem gets out, every problem that occurs is automatically this problem. There will probably always be some infant mortality among graphics cards, motherboards, whatever... a few failures doesn't mean your chip is necessarily affected.
Of course, I'm saying this with my HP dv9500 on the way back to HP with a dead graphics chip (nVidia 8600M, one of the originals on the list), and I'm typing this on my main desktop, which is sporting an 8600GTS card -- so I do have some con
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in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this year, Nvidia admitted 'there can be no assurance that we will not discover defects in other MCP or GPU products.'"
At least they are being honest? It's not like they are denying claims and trying to hide it (not that ATI does, but you have to respect honest companies).
Anyone know if physics processing is now being done on ATI cards, or is it Nvidia only?
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Does ATI make any integrated graphics solutions that are not tied to the AMD bus?
An Atom running on an Intel version of the 780G would be really handy for people building lower power systems.
Of course I actually like AMD still. They make CPUs that are fast enough that are very cheap. Combine that with the 780G and you have a great low cost solution.
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What price drops? They might even increase their prices a bit, to "compensate" for their increased appeal
more importantly (for me, at least)... (Score:1, Interesting)
has Nvidia fixed their problems for their current products? i bought a dell laptop with intel graphics specifically because of these problems (too late to change that, obviously). my son wants/needs a new graphics card for his desktop; i strongly recommended against Nvidia but i wonder if they'll have it fixed by Christmas when i plan on getting a new card for him; hopefully it'll be an historical footnote long before then but i haven't seen anything indicating they've fixed their problems and their produ
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Your problem will be that while fixed chips will be out there, so will the remainder of the unfixed ones. Telling the difference will intentionally not be easy.
Bring on the nVidia Macbooks! (Score:2)
OK EU, the blanket Pb ban had the best intentions (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:OK EU, the blanket Pb ban had the best intentio (Score:3, Insightful)
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There's no telling if the laptop graphics chip failures are the extent of the problem, or only the tip of the iceberg. We have a few folks here with failed desktop graphics -- no idea if it's this or another problem. If it's really a general RoHS problem, system chips will be subject to the same dynamics.
At least one line of thinking is that the failure is hastened by thermal stress, which is far more severe on a laptop than a desktop -- if so, the laptops would fail first. The BIOS hack, to speed up the fa
Re:OK EU, the blanket Pb ban had the best intentio (Score:2)
Re:OK EU, the blanket Pb ban had the best intentio (Score:4, Informative)
"Los Angeles (CA) â" A tiny material issue in Nvidiaâ(TM)s GPUs has cost Nvidia $200 million so far: The problem boils down to the solder bump material, in Nvidiaâ(TM)s case high-lead that was used in all of the firmâ(TM)s GPUs that were produced until late July , and we still do not know how serious the issue really is. According to our sources, Nvidia has switched to eutectic solder bumps in recent weeks and there is now a new, apparently independent research report, that claims that eutectic solder bumps, which are used for example by AMDâ(TM)s ATI unit, may live much longer than high-lead versions. Of course, switching to eutectic isnâ(TM)t the entire solution, as the material has a much lower melting point than high-lead."
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39506/135/ [tgdaily.com]
Re:the blanket Pb ban had the best intentions (Score:4, Insightful)
The failing solderbumps were high-lead solder. The solution was to switch to a eutectic solder, which has less lead. So why would RoHS anti-lead policies be to blame?
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I think it barely had the best intentions.
I hear that inclusion of lead was because of ONE scientific study that hinted alloys of lead MAY leach into ground water and that paper has since been withdrawn.
For those of you not in the industry, solder used to be 60/40 tin/lead. It melted at 188oC and was processed at 225oC for reflow (Suface mount oven) and 245oC for wave soldering (through hole parts).
Thanks to the EU, lead was banned so we had to move to things like SAC305 (96.5% tin/3% silver/0.5% copper). S
buy EVGA and get a LIFETIME warranty (Score:1, Insightful)
but you MUST register the video card or mobo or prostitute with them within 2 weeks of purchase otherwise you have the standard warranty coverage. I have a G92 8800GTS/512, and a backup G80 8800GTS/320 which was my warranty replacement for a 7900GT which had a prolonged illness, then a slow death, after two years of use. If the G92 fails, I get whatever is comparable NOW, which would probably be . . . I don't like any of the current crop of GPUs because they use up too many watts for what I want . . . I'd
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You'd get either much more graphic power in the same power envelope, or the same graphic power in a lower power envelope
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Implied Warranty - Look into it in your state (Score:2)
I've seen so many notebooks (mostly HP dv6000 and dv9000 series) being hit with this lately that it's unbelievable. And yes, HP did release an extended service offer for a few specific models; it tacks one year to the end of your current warranty. Even if you have an HP notebook that is one of the affected models, they won't touch it unless it fails within that 24-month period. Month 25? Sorry, time to shop for a new one.
Well, in my state there is an implied warranty law that applies here: Consumer Law [maine.gov]
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Yup.. my dv9500 failed on graphics last week... after about 10 months. One would hope their repair/replacement strategy delivers a solution that won't tank in another ten months.
I have an new HP Desktop (Score:1)
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I remember this. I had this problem too. It wasn't necessarily the GPU, because my GPU is running great, hitting great benchmarks (8400 GS).
The nVidia PCB problem has not had anything to do with performance hits either. It's a matter of quality and how long it is expected to last before the hardware gets knocked out.
This may not have been the case here, but still, performance hasn't had anything to do with it.
Possible Recall? (Score:4, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are there a lot of these kinds of problems? What manufacturer do you work for ?
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A new laptop built by my company overheats and the video card dies.
The laptop battery then explodes, trapping and burning coworkers in several nearby cubicles.
No problems for me (yet) (Score:1)
I'm surprised I haven't had any issues yet. I'm running an EVGA 780i Nvidia chipset motherboard with x2 8800GT. I only started having heat issues recently because the back fan on my case went out.
Actually, thinking about it I think the Akimbo coolers on my video cards are what are saving me. Nothing like doubling the width of your video card for a GPU cooler to save you from heat damage I guess.
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I had seriously considered getting an HP Pavilion desktop with the nVidia graphics chipset but I fortunately thought better of the idea. That's why I have a Pavilion a6400f with the Intel G33 graphics chipset--not the most capable but at least it's reasonably stable. :-)
This is disappointing (Score:1)
Well this NVIDIA issue has been out for a while and its a major disappointment especially since I bought a 9600gt like 2 months ago which will suffer the same fate. However, this issue is agravated by temperature changes in the graphics card. So this is agravated in laptops which are cycled on and off frequently. Seeing as I leave my desktop on most of the time and that I use the graphics card for long sessions but also do not have heavy, frequent loads I expect this to be a non-issue with my setup. I g
Re:This is disappointing-More Disappointing (Score:2)
Slimline = laptop graphics (Score:2)
Unless anyone specifically knows it to be otherwise, it's pretty safe to assume that these GPUs are the same ones as used in laptops. "Slimline" computers generally use laptop graphics and other components.
In other words, this isn't actually news, basically.
Nvidia Lies - So What's New? (Score:2)
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Guys, stop showing your ignorance. HP and Dell have very little to do with the laptop designs. They're mostly designed and manufactured by chinese companies and stamped HP/Dell/Whatever. The design bureaus at the large computer companies deal more with QA and marketing issues than actual from scratch design.
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Mod parent up.