Personally I've seen several of these fail, but the only annoucement is for MacBook Pro and 8600's.

Are Nvidia still denying that there are problems with 8800's!!!! I can't get any answers through my suppliers, just replacement cards which are the same models as those being shipped back!

Any update would be appreciated.


please...be aware of the facts...there are thousands like me having problems with these Nvidia defective chips...and I can assure you...HP is not covering all of its laptops models affected...

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1274587&admit=109447626+1224512935608+28353475

Why is Nvidia SO RELUCTANT to provide a comprehensive list of its defective GPUs...think about that...

We the affected customers are being victims of DAMAGE CONTROL in some sort of confidential business agreement between Nvidia and OEMs....

Corporate America, HP and nVidia, are screwing us over and hoping that nobody will notice. I got hit twice, once with a desktop nVidia 8600GT video card going bad and again with an expensive HP Pavilion notebook with nVidia 7600 GPU going bad. Both are totally dead, I now have worthless hardware junk and they have close to $2000 of my hard earned money. HP extended some warranties just to look good in the press, most are left in the hopeless dust. HP support is so horribly bad - don't buy anything from them. I know that there are a lot of people in the same situation as me and the list is growing.

I'm not saying that they *can't* be defective, I'm only saying that this is _not_ proof that they *are.*

So first you guys said he was downright wrong, then you claimed he had no credible evidence to back him up, and now you're bored and it's supposed to be yesterday's news.
In short, some people will simply never admit that Charlie was RIGHT ALL ALONG and RIGHT AGAIN to BELABOR THE POINT.
You're tired of reading this kind of article ? Don't make me laugh - nobody made you click on the link.
Go huff off somewhere else. Charlie was right, period, and he is perfectly right to continue shoving that in your face given your complete lack of acknowledgment of your mistaken beliefs.
It's a sport for some to take Charlie down, but those who play seem to be sore losers.
Fair play, know what that means ? It means you win some, and you lose some. When you win you don't crow about it, when you lose you congratulate your opponent.
But that is sooo last century, hmm ?

After what's happened these past months, do any of you have confidence in NVidia?

Would you tell the people you care about (family, friends and customers) to buy NVidia products and for them to have as much faith in them as they can when buying a TV?

ATI are not perfect, but NVidia are really gaining an image of "screw the customer when things get tough".

Regarding the difficulty of switching video cards, two problems come to mind:

1) How do you de-rail and re-rail existing design/validation tracks without significant expense?

2) Sadly, the current choices for high-perf GPUs are slim. There's ATI, but honestly, ATI still has driver issues despite having superior silicon. ATI is working through them (and WILL get better), but that's a little ways into the future.

@charlie: on a side note, anything MXM sounds like a mobile part by definition (Mobile pci-eXpress Module). unless this is a quasi-mobile part getting shoe-horned into a mac-mini?

it's extremely common in manufacturing (of anything) to incorporate a process or material change across product lines, even though only one specific product has a problem; it simplifies many things and reduces cost by not having to manage many different processes. that these changes are applied across-the-board is not evidence that they're all bad. 

And yes, whenever a material or process change is made, you damn well make sure to inform your customers even if it's not a quality fix.

"There are no known problems with G92s."

When is Nvidia going to learn that lying and covering up problems is going to cost you in the long run?

How hard is it to admit that you screwed up and will correct the problem?

more like downright unproven. a change of material hardly proves that all of the old units are faulty.

Nvidia killed my father, then raped my mother. ATI fanboys unite, lets declare war on all nvidia products. Nvidia is the devil, and this is the worst thing to ever happen forget about war, poverty, or anything else important. Nvidia has committed the worst crime of all time. Charlie you are my hero, you are so smart. If only everyone could be as smart as you.

I think they're talking about different situations. nvidia is probably right about all the normal 8800gts/9800 g92 cards, as they are using a good (ie expensive) cooler that keeps the cards cold enough - I'm a little worried about the original reference 8800gt though, as it got pretty hot. And ofcourse some special apple designs may have issues as only keeping as cold as originally specified and not as cold as nvidia later found out was neccesary...

So, now that the new line of MacBooks are coming out today, apparently all with nVidia chipsets/GPUs, is this a case of Apple being locked in to a design decision made before they were aware of the scope of these failures, or do you think nVidia really has solved the problem by changing the materials alone (and not the design?) Or, are the graphics in the new MacBooks a new design that is no longer subject to the same failures? In all the 'new MacBook' hoopla over the past two weeks, I have seen NO mention of anyone anticipating a chipset/graphics disaster with Apple's bread-and-butter computer line...

The Apple article that was linked to states the following...

"In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected."

CD just said that nVidia weren't hoenst with Apple about the situation and linked to that knowledgebase article. It's quite a funny read considering how Apple portray themselves as the saviours to their customers by saying "However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected."

Hooray for Apple! :D

At what point do you guys start to sound hysterical about all this?
We've got it. NV tried to hide the fact that they are having some problems. Nasty problems. How many stories will there be on this? I think the next story will be story number 11 or 12?
While I appreciate the coverage of a story that is pretty significant, about a less than honest vendor, what stories are you not covering while you are beating this horse?

"There are no known problems with G92s" that we would like to share with you.

He just forgot to add the second part of the sentence, an honest mistake. ;-)

This AND the Google purchasing Valve story? Wow... The INQ is right about everything.

Charlie, as much as I love reading the inquirer - I think I can safely speak for at least a few thousand people who read the inquirer when I say "we get the point".

Now please next time AMD offer another cheque to handle their PR for them behind closed doors I suggest you perhaps take time to reflect on your job, which i am hoping it actually a journalist. Take a trip back through memory lane when you actually wrote stories worthy of publishing.

so where is the link to the apple article or a screenshot???

You point to apple homepage that clarify defect of laptop chips. Not desktop chips.

Well finally, about time we saw it said in 'plain' english and not only circumstantial evidence.
I feel relieved, for some reason.

You think they would use nVidia chipsets and GPUs if this was such a huge issue?

Hurt me plenty!