You just know there is going to be a glut of Nvidia chips sunk into clear pastic to make up a charming little keyfob.

At least then Nvidia could recoup some of its lost earnings...even then I bet they could screw the manufacturing of that up too....

LMFAO...

What a shame...


I don't think you have quite understood glass transition temperatures Charlie...

"When the underfill glassifies, it means you are at the hottest point on the die"

If the prevailing temperature is greater than the materials glass transition, it will be rubbery. If the temperature is lower that the glass transition, the material will exist as a glass. So in the example (Temp >80 degrees C) the underfill will be rubbery not glassy. 

Is glassifies even a word?

NVidia didn't simply put heat sinks on the too hot chips.

Or bigger heat sinks, if they had sinks on 'em.

I've read about people using IR imagers on their mobos and cards to discover ( without zapping 'em ) what chips need cooling, and go adding it themselves, for reliability.

The thermal limits are manoeverable if you remember all the tools available, ya?

you call yourself a journalist and you can't even sort the difference between "loses" and "looses"? you're an embarrassment to journalism, and you sound like a poorly educated angst ridden fan boy. I'm guessing that's because that is what you are. you should be writing user reviews for gamefaqs.

Take audio speaker, 8 ohm model can run at 4 ohm will probably play OK yet, Not as well, just louder than when at correct 8 ohm. 
Reverse, 4 ohm speaker played at 8 ohm takes more power to reach acceptable volumne, More strain. However at near 0 ohm, entire amplifier blows out. Thats Not much variation in resistance to produce such near fata/fatal or variant results.

Here Nvidia May need huge write off to lessen burden of Agiena PhysX purchase. As Nvidia is Not that Stupid. I though Kens remarks where bit daft, as chuckie leaden hackett man, Not engineer. So why blame Msr. Demijerian?
drashek

The corporate need to remove costs from the business.

The corporate need to increase profits by reducing embedded cost of material.

The corporate need to reduced costs by reducing R&D expenditures.

The list goes on and on.


Charlie has now given us more logic and reason as to why the NV parts had design flaws and why they are failing. For those of you who question why ATI parts are not failing, ATI simply designed theirs better. My Sapphire Radeon HD 2600PRO idles at 55C to 57C and under load in gaming, at up to 64C. No failure. Better design. ATI didn't set aside 200 Million to fix notebooks with defective GPU's. ATI desktop parts aren't failing either. Can't wait to see what part 3 has for you NV fan boys to betch about.....

I wonder will anyone else.

The part about concentrations of heat in specific areas, whilst the temperature readout is only the average, that's a bit of a concern.

Nice one Charlie, let's have another one.

Chucky's beginner mistake on this article is that he does not know the difference between stress and strain.

Stress is the pent up force, strain is the physical deformation that results when the force overcomes the resistance through which it built up.

Due to thermal expansion, the bumps are placed under stress. If that stress is greater than what the substrate can handle, the joint becomes strained, breaking the contact if strained enough.

When the underfill looses it's rigidity due to high temperature, the substrate becomes less resistant to stressing force. The substrate and the now unrestrained bumps may deform. (become strained)

The underfill does not relieve the bumps of stress as Chucky stated. It prevents the stress from becoming physical deformation (strain). 

I'm pretty sure it was high school physics where this is taught. You did graduate high school didn't you Chucky?

No matter, Chucky lost all credibility when he declared in a brutal rant that he would never write about or use Vista again ... but kept writing about and using Vista. 

If you believe Chucky's weak manipulation of coincidences as an explanation for the high failure rates of Nvidia GPU's, then I've got a lovely piece of bread to sell you that has the image of whatever false diety you worship on it that appeared through the divine action of my toaster.

Another story about engineering with "sources inside nvidia panicking". But no evidence any of it is true.

Thanks for a good read. Let us know when you can prove it. Like say, a vid card maker going on record saying 40% of their cards are crapping out. Not more "sources at blah blah, say it's true".

So what. This line of stories is really old FUD.

Bravo Charlie, well done! That’s the kind of writing and research that used to define Charlie D. 

Excellent piece, parts one and two.

SPARKS

Well done article, good research, sound facts.

Poor engineers at NVidia. My guess is that this mess is not really their fault. Engineers know you should abide by the centuries old principles of sound engineering, as Charlie rigthly points out in his articles.

Based on my long, long years of industrial experience, this stuff-up was likely brought about by clueless managerial types aiming to accelerate their career paths.

Of course time to market, production cost etc. are important factors. But in the end you can't get around proper engineering, or it comes back to haunt you.

May NVidia survive this disaster to fight another day, and may others learn from this.

Hi,

I was wondering: if everybody has been the same materials for years, and many other chips run at 70-80C (or more), how come only now, and only Nvidia has so much trouble with dying chips?

Could somebody explain what is different in AMD/ATI or Intel chips that they don't get damaged by high temperature?

Thanks.

Lukasz

Excellent journalism!
I think Nvidia is a great company. Though they have milked people for their chips too long - AMD isn't any better in that respect. I hope they do rebound & continue to provide
excellent competition for Intel & AMD. I don't think this is a unique scenario, just look
back at the faulty electrolytic capacitors that flooded the market recently. I still haven't
noticed any significant numbers of laptops or discrete cards (though AMD seem to dominate the
Foxconn PCs) failing.
Keep up the good work Mr C.

All the king's horses and all the king's men,
Couldn't put Bumpty together again.

... at some point on the hybrid chips (high lead engineered dies with eutectic actual bumps) the current tolerance per bump will be exceeded and electromigration will mean more part failures but the question is how long it takes for eutectic failure cf high lead? Does it fall within warranty periods? Is that what matters to nVidia?

From what I have observed of nVidia through limited interaction over chipsets, their commercial conscience was not congruent with my priorities as a customer.

When Jen-Hsun Huang said recently nVidia was so dedicated to customers it was ready to spend $200 to fix a $20 part failure, it strikes me he could have been expressing a sincere change of heart, or then again...

So what material combo is ATI using on its parts? Those new Radeon 4800 cards run at 70-80 degrees, that's alarmingly high.

You ppl are such jerks. When a company is going through rough patch, you always try to make sure that you jump on top of it and sink it further by creating more negative publicity. NV has given us some great GPUs in the past few years, and 1 bad series can't take that away by your stupid reporter's stupid articles. 
Get a life and do some good to the world!

If it where simply due to useage, Water Cooled model would Not have such problems. I believe problems are built in right from final (brand Name) factory. 

Meaning enginnering is probably OK, its Board assembly of part that starts defect Trail.

Song medoly: There Once was Lone Cowboy from Streets of Laraedo, All outfitted in Best of White Linen....Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley, Hang Down Your Head & Cry....Poor GPU, Your Gonna.ds Die.d.

Each Unit fine example Until Next Butcher takes its presious cargo & blothces it. Here Assembly Heat Has Ruined what may be perfect design (except so many couldn't take assembly heat).Ahso, Except that Power of Great Ultee' blast past Known Thermal envelopes & make linen Schorched randomly, now out of sync with specs.
drashek