I bought an HP Dv9500 laptop in fall of '08. It burned up 11 1/2 months later due to this issue. HP fixed it under warrantee, but they just replaced the dead board with an identical one, never bothering to tell me that it was a known issue and it was just going to happen again. Yesterday it died again.

I'll be buying ATI from now on, but considering the way HP just left me hanging (when they could have substituted with a better chipset/card like Dell was doing) I think I'll stay away from their products as well.

$1200 is a lot to pay for a laptop with a 2 1/2 year life expectancy

Dell (Hell), hp and maybe apple are smart fraudsters.
They need that the people buy their laptops regularly to cause of these and other failures.They aren't worried about that!. they are very happy!. Laptops with high quality don't exist. We, as idiots, buy,throw and buy again.

I'd go even further than this article. From my experience I'd say that all of the GeForce 7s and 9s are bad too. I've seen a GeForce Go 7400, desktop 9800GT and a mobile 9300M cack themselves in the same way as the 8400s and 8600s have done.

Does anyone know of a definitive test for the Nvidia design flaw that would suffice as proof (beyond reasonable doubt) to a retailer that the device was bought with a built-in/inherent fault ?

It happened to me yesterday, i had no idea about this problem untill i started looking in forums
Heeelp...

Prozak's method is good but not good enough. Reballing with heat (whatever if it's with hairdryer or some pro tool by pro service) will solve problem just for short time. If you are really lucky it will run for a year ! Then problem apears again.
So I'have 2 MB (one is reballed, one is with new chip) and useles laptop. I spend for this thrash a lot of money (1450$ +120$ reball +150$ new MB x2).
My girl said that I'm stubborn donkey but I wanna my HP working again !
And somone should pay for this.
For the begginning do not buy anything from HP!!!!

I got Pavillion Dv9548 and GPU(G86s) fried about month after warranty expired, nothing...
I've replaced Gpu for the brand new, It was running about 3 month and fried again ;-), nothing again.
So, I've buyed a brand new MainBoard(with G86s), upgraded Bios(to start fan early and full throtle), set a new sys.., well It's Fried after about 5 days warking only in win and explorer(nogame, no even movies).
Now I try to buy another new MB but with chip produced after dec 09. I dunno if it'll help becouse it's only rumor (I wonder if it's HP trying to rob me again ;-)
If anyone, anyone find out a solution please refer it widely.
Gratz

I too had this problem after overheating.
I hear Nvidia laptop graphics cards are experiencing death en masse.

This problem is so awesome it borders on ridiculous. I was just lucky to find this company that can fix this fault www.first4laptops.com

Yeah, I'm also part of this unhappy select group.

The Inqiorer, with a big complain list like this one couldn't you try get a formal answer from Nvidia ?

I was using my sz6 laptop in stamina mode (intel graphic) for a long time. currently I needed to switch to speed mode (G84 graphic) and I encountered this problem !
I was wondering why this happend because I thought the nvidia graphic card is shuted down in stamina mode !
I have had two nvidia graphic cards and they really disappointed me! I also have a C610 (for 2002) laptop with mobility radeon graphic card that works like a charm yet !
For my next buyings if I have a choice I'll definitely choose ATI over NVIDIA!

I own & operate a computer sales & repair center, I was a huge nvidia fan for years until this issue. I can tell you it is definatly a over heating issue. The reason i wont stand with Nvida on this is Because the fact remains the flaw exists & nvidia wont admit it & blames everyone else for the problem. I have replaced 11 HP laptop boards & 6 dell laptop boards this year alone so far. I have also had to RMA atleast 7 Nvidia PCI Express desktop cards. I have personaly went with ATI video cards & i have never been a AMD CPU fan i am Intel all the way. AMD Video cards since december 09 & no RMA's yet.

Yo everybody who own g84 and g86 with no guaranty left can try preheat the chipset.

U can find many youtube link using keyword: oven, 8600m

it's work for many 8600m notebook & nvidia desktop VGA

I Hope this can help many of G84 & G86 users. (Remember: do it on your own risk)

Same problem with my very expensive Dell xps 1330. Strange blue blocks on screnn to begin and then the vertical white and black lines that signal the end.
Just out of waranty too!
Thanks NVidia and Dell!!

I bought my laptop in August 2007. An Asus Z53sv with a Nvidia 8600gs GPU (The Mainboard Version is F3S).
The Laptop died in September 2008. For the first Time.
The Mainboard and the 8600gs Chip got replaced. Support admitted Heat issues of the GPU.
I got myself a Laptop Coolingboard by Zalman which helped a little. Temperature in idle mode went down by 6-7°C to 64°C.
In November 2009 the Laptop died a second time. Same Problem as before.
Twice in thirty months Heating Probs caused the machine to literally melt away.
Right now I'm trying to get any response or even a reaction from Asus as the warranty has expired 3 Months before the Laptop died.
Nothing. Very frustrating.

Well after 5 failed BFG 8800s, what does BFG do? They send me a 6th 8800. I sold my 8800 for $50 and I'm never going to buy an Nvidia or BFG product again. My ATI 5770 arrives tomorrow.

My thinkpad t61p died yesterday of the same problem... it was super easy to troubleshoot as the BIOS gives me a lovely long-short-short beep code. Had a Quadro FX 570M in it too... :(

I've been through 4 failed Nvidia cards now. I'm running temporarily on an ATI card my friend loaned me. I'm buying an ATI card after the first of the month. I've given up on Nvidia permanently.

My DV9500 died yesterday: bad colors with lines and dots on boot, i shut down, then pressed power button, and ('windows start' sound is) just white with four black thin lines on screen. :-(

Does anybody tryied to solve the problem by comment: posted by prozak, 08 February 2009 (look by pressing PageUp ~9 times)??? I think this will kill my laptop, or not, hmmm
Heeeelp

(sorry, for my english).

I have a desktop with a 8500GT in it and now I get lots of colorful flickering squares and lines all over the screen its so bad you cant even tell whats on the screen. I had to replace it with a different card to solve the problem. THANKS NVIDIA FOR SCREWING ME OUT OF MY HARD EARNED MONEY!

We purchased our laptop in February 2008 and it was okay until a few weeks ago. Then blue vertical pixellated lines appeared all over the screen. We restarted it and there were white horizontal lines all over the screen with part of the black background and some start up text showing the CPU info. Then the green bar appeared to show that Vista was loading after which vertical blue lines appeared again. GPU is 8600M GS (type G86-770-A2). No help from Medion or place I bought it from as out of warranty by 8 months. So dismantled it and found Motherboard is made by Clevo and GPU is fixed to motherboard (not on separate mini-card). Guess GPU is screwed. Even so if Medion wont help then I'll try hairdryer method. Except I have access to an SMD reworking station and can use this on top of chip to "remelt" the solder underneath the G86 chip. (Bit like the X-Box problem). What do I have to lose?

Exactly like Jabbaz above, and other users, same problems with my 1,5-2 years old laptop, vertical lines, freezing, blue-screen/reboot/shutdowns... the warranty was 1 year, of course... I'm fishing for another graphic card since it's replaceable but what can I do to prevent the problem reappear with the new one?

I have an acer5920g with nvidia 8600gs G86 mxm card. 8600gs is dead. I replace it now to a 3650 ati, because it's out of warranty. It started with heating. at 70 degrees celsius freezed, then again freezed at 70. Only when heated. It did it for 2 or 3 days, then I turned it on, Nothing but vertical lines, just as somebody wrote. I used a laptop cooler, because of overheating. I thought it was acer's fault. The GPU went 92 C with maximum load. 1 year acer warranty, it was 1,5-2 years old. A friend of mine has an 5720 acer, with G84 8400g card, heating problems too. Interesting.

If you have a Sony Vaio SZ model, which is not included in the extended warranty program, is also affected by this issue!

My SZ780 nvidia GPU eventually DIED after constant blue-screen/reboot/shutdowns..

Beware.... your 8400M will not last long!

This is in all pavilion laptop, including mine as well.. there are so many customers are complaining in pavilion series (may be all HP notebook).. Search with dv2533tx, there are few customer with this particular model.

Refer hplies (dot) com

hello I am a chinese customer.I have a question that if dell 1520'GF8600 has the problem you mentioned in your blog.how can I prove that my notebook is involed in ? Please help me for my confusedness. Thank you!

Why have all the links to previous related Inquirer articles been 404ed?

My Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180 is now junk, after just 16 months. Sony says the problem doesn't affect Sony. It affected mine.

Last Sony I will ever own!

Now I am just waiting for the lawsuits.

nVIDIA, you suck. Sony, you suck more!

Me too. My vostro died after 13 months of using it, 1 month after warranty.
Too bad that Dell says that vostro 1500 isn't affected by this problem, only vostro 1510 and newer ones...
I lough out loud, you fuckers!
Now they want 250 Euro frow me for replacing this graphic card...

I wrote a letter to heise.de, the biggest german news journal for IT. Hope it helps, but I know that it doeasn't and I've to pay...

I have similar problems with my acer aspire 5920G. It's starting to shut down, completely without warning, AGAIN. And I had it fixed just last august for freezing and shutting down. Although I think they only changed the hard drive. That's not really helpful when the frickin 8600m is frying all the hardware. I doubt the store where i bought it will change my graphics card, warranty being expired and all. F**k! I's not even a frickin laptop! It's so hot it burns my thighs and I can't put it on my lap.

Have any of you tried replacing the NVIDIA graphics card? If so, does it alleviate the problems? Or do have to do a complete makeover that costs more than a new laptop?

I have a VAIO AR-630E with the Nvidia 8400GT ,same story, the computer died after 16 months of use.Blue screen appears, and windows reboots fails with the resoultion changed and some times with vertical rare stripes. I took it to a sony service shop and they told me that they had to change the mother board, but now im doubting if its worthy to fix it cause im afraid it will fail again. Any news about this problems?

Regarding the 8600m gs graphic card in a Sony Vaio.
After 13 months its dead, Sony wants to charge for repair because out side of warranty, I say they should replace without cost due to faulty part.
Now still having no joy with Sony I've sent an e-mail to BBC Watchdog explaining the problem and saying this will if not effect all people who have this card installed in there laptop.
Now I really hope for everyones sake I'm not the only one who has done this as we all need to stand together and demand thats this problem caused by the incompetence of Nvidia be sorted at there expence after all Nvidia has taken out insurance for this problem so lets get them to sort it out...
So for all you people who have had and those who will have this problem DO something about it and complain to BBC watchdog after all its what they are there for...

did nvidia, hp and dell finally fix it? cause i got a new (refurbished) motherboard for my dell vostro 1310 yesterday and i still have the same problem! and even worse, the laptop gets hotter and does not turn off the fan anymore at all time!
so before i call dell the next time i would love to know if there is even a fixed gpu out there and they just tried to give me an old one...

I have a HP dv9700 with NVIDIA 8400 and have the same problem. call hp and laptop is 1 yr and 10 days old, out of warranty by 10 days.. hp says tough luck to bad, this model not included in recall

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090204/dell_lawsuit_090204/20090204?hub=SciTech

I feel bad for those that have faulty laptop units that are out of warranty.

Here's one where they won't even honour an existing warranty on an XPS M1330:

Dell will not honour warranty on a warranty transfer.
Sequence of events -
purchased an XPS m1330 from a friend of a friend.
prior to purchasing, I checked the laptop and service tag #s and copied the warranty info [good till 2011].
seller transferred ownership to us and 4 days later we received an email confirmation from Dell confirming a successful ownership transfer.
Laptop video display starts to glitch [as noted on many forums discussing this known problem].
Checked the service tag #s online to follow the procedure to contact Dell on this issue.
Now, after the ownership transfer the warranty info on the service tag # doesnt exist. Nowhere to be found on the search.
Called Dell on more than a dozen occasions and just kept getting the runaround from Dell reps in Canada, USA and India. Managers wouldnt even assist us. This was ongoing since middle of December 2008 to this date.

Finally got someone live last week at a higher level at Dell Canada. Forwarded them our email copy of the successful ownership transfer.
In summary here’s what they said - “sorry, we can’t help you.”

Dell sends us a confirmed email notifying us of a successful ownership transfer on the service tag # given, and we have all the warranty documents for that service tag #. The computer video display glitches [no longer working] and they tell us:
(1) we are not the owners - yet we have your email from your Dell Registration confirming ownership transfer,
(2) we can’t help....

Despite all the correct warranty documentation we have from Dell, this is all they have to say.

We are filing a lawsuit against Dell Canada.

PROBLEM SOLVED
(epaminonda eimai ellhnas akou prosektika)

Got same problem all of a sudden.
After searching some forums i came across a solution that really worked.

There's some sort of a problem with this chip(dont ask me how and why)

So the solution:

1.Remove Heatsink(cpu-vga)
2.Remove nearby pcie wifi or/and bluetooth.
3.Get a hair drier(YES A HAIR DRIER)
4.aim the heat stream direct on the vga chip(aprox. 3cm away) for 5 mins
5.WORKING VGA CHIP AGAIN

Mine works now im actually posting this from my laptop ;)

I'll get the link with from the original poster.
Although he hasnt given specific details on why this fixes the problem but as far as i get it, through time and heat levels some of the chip's pins when hot must not have contact(along with shocks)
Thank god i saved my laptop :D

got 3 xps 1330 ... guess what ;) about 1 year and all 3 got ... ehm ... broken ... always NV chip :) never ever NV ... i jsut pray for better support for linux user of ATI :"(
aaand my desktop with G86 also ;) just wonnnderfulll ... (desktop after 2yeas ... gr8 winning )

My Dell Vostro 1500 has the same problem with overheating and I am concerned about it.
After playing a game for 5-10 minutes the performance becomes awful. I've used Hardware Monitor (HWMonitor) from CPUID to track temperatures and guess what. The performance for instance in CSS gets from 100FPS to 15FPS when the temperature goes over 90C.
Asked Dell for an upgrade to a different card but they told me that there are no other compatible graphics cards.

my HP dv2500 is also dead due to this problem, looking for a way to fix it.

I think I'm one of the luck guys to have this problem. I have an hp dv9500t with a 8600m video card, and at one point, the screen started flickering and turned off. WHen i turned it back on, it was stuck on 4-bit color and vga resolution. Driver reinstalls and even Windows reinstalls didn't help, so I took it to someone to have a look at it. I was told it was a heat related problem and that replacing the motherboard was the only solution (with a warranty of 3 months). I forgot to mention...this happened 3 weeks after my warranty expired, so, several conspiracy theories come to mind. It's not my first problem with it though. I also had problems with the recovery disk (which I found out was specific to the batch my laptop was from) so I got a new one, since i was still covered by warranty. 2 day shipping turned to a week, and the disk was for the wrong windows. Needless to say, I haven't contacted HP since and probably won't. For quite a while...

ive got a hp dv2500 , its a dv2630ea to be exact.
i believe my lap top does not have one of these bad cards yet it still over heats and shuts down at the slightest hint of doing anything that might prove harder than showing my desktop wallpaper.

its had a new hard drive , its had the bios flashed , its been de-dusted , its still overheating and shutting down , usually whilst watching video , viewing photos or surfing the net / u tube etc.
its less than a year old.
my previous hp did exactly the same thing , it had ran out of warrenty so i replaced it with this one.
i will never , ever buy a hp product again.
totally useless.

I have an HP Pavaillion 9500 that recently failed because of this problem. The laptop came with an Nvidia GeForce 8600M. I knew what the problem was before I called, but the tech that I spoke with at HP seemed unaware of the issue. Not suprised... I had the laptop for less than a year and already it failed. I am now worried that they are just going to replace the video card with the same faulty one that went bad in the first place. Thankfully it was fixed under warranty at no cost to me. I also extended my warranty by one year... just in case. 

Interesting side note. When I went to Fedex to send the laptop to HP, the rep behind the desk at FedEx mentioned that they see ALOT of HP laptops getting sent back. Much more than any other. Hmmm...

Well, I hope that apple can not ban post published in theinquirer... for some reason they decided to withdrawn my post in apple forums. OK, this is their right, but I guess that it makes even more interesting what I posted, specially to Mac users.

This is what apple does not want you to read...

I know that there are lots of posts about this particular problem, but I would like to focus on all those users who have already suffered the problem in a REPAIRED computer: all those people that have seen their logic board repaired and who had seen the problem again. My case: first repair in September 20th 2008. My MBP became a brick again on October 26th , just one month after the first failure. 

I would like to learn from the experience of other users who had also suffered this problem. One of the reasons is that, even though apple has acknowledged the possibility of a problem in all those computers, there is no list of part numbers of motherboards affected, so there is no way of knowing if our logic boards are replaced using a faulty logic board as well. Indeed, many forums in the internet says that ALL NVIDEA 8600 M GT are affected!. And all those show more technical information that apple or NVidia have ever shown ( http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/09/nvidia-g84-g86-bad )

No matter what apple thinks (I've got long and boring telephone conversations with people in the customer service, saying that a replacement with a new computer is impossible), that would be a violation of the terms and conditions of the warranties, since a reparation will always have to consists in restoring the computer to their original status, and none of us would have pay a cent (not to say 3000$-4000$) for a computer prone to fail, even if there is an extension to 2 years of the coverage for failures in this piece. In addition, just consider what would happen if next failure occurs out of the 3yr apple care period or out of the 2yr extension warranty for the faulty nvidia chips: if the chances for a failure are similar (and there is no data offered by apple or nvidia indicating that this is not the case; and our experience points in this sense), the repaired computer simply has an effective reduction of the warranty coverage.

What I have done is to write apple in the most official way indicating that I am waiting for a response in which apple acknowledges that the pieces used for reparation have been certified and checked for not suffering the same problem. In case I do not obtain any response, I indicated that I will consider that apple is indeed acknowledging that this tests have been done and my pieces are identified as not faulty. After that, if I suffer again from the same problem (I would only have to make some "nasty" thinks on the MBP as gaming or installing Vista) I would at least have the chance of suing apple for such a fraud.

For me, all this implies losing my time and money going to the nearest authorized technical service (in a different city), being unable to use my computer for one month in the last 2 months, and a constant worry of when and how is the next failure to happen. Probably it is the same for many of yours. For apple, all these repeated failures simply implies that they have to use some of the old faulty pieces that they will have to get rid of, anyway. Eventually, many laptops will run out of warranty, so apple will not have to spend a cent on those computers, and indeed many of them will prefer to buy a brand new laptop that paying 1000$ for repairing the 2-3yr old faulty one. Well, only these consequences unless we start to deal with this seriously, warning apple that their current behavior will probably cost them more than a replacement program. I suggest all of you to make similar claims to apple.

Finally, how can I post my case in the google spreadsheet?

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pV-CKzYqbB6dLQRx8wpC2aw

I think that the information that we can gather from these forums is the only arm we have to put some pressure in apple 

Thanks 

Yeah I notice my laptop get's quite hot, mainly in the region near the fan (top left corner).

I have an HP dv9535nr. Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 nVidia GeForce 8600m GS. I've seen the average temps for my GPU with gpu-z, and they're usually 50c idle, 65c load. I've tried overclocking (with astronomical numbers!) and I've seen the GPU hit 80c on full load, but never going higher.

Question: I've owned it since 08-2007, so should I be concerned? I've never had any problems besides heat, but never any crashes due to the GPU. In fact, when I DID overclock it STILL ran butter smooth without a hitch, no visual corruption or artifacts. It's 10-2008, so it's past its warranty and HP will probably charge me for any problems they fix now.

If it affects the entire line, how can the laptops be properly repaired?

Sending my Asus laptop back again after only having it for 3 months since they last "fixed" it. Probably another motherboard replacement. I wonder how long it will last this time... Why did I have to get the 8600m GS -_-
Next time I'm getting a desktop.

hello
I bought a HP pavilion dv9575em equipped with the graphics card nVidia 8600m gs and 14 month after the graphics card is H.S. 
I send has HP my PC notebook to be to repair but HP says to me that my notebook is not in the list of the portable PC with extension of 12 months guarantee to 24 months. 
After I make a research is I discover that no HP of the list is equipped with graphics card nVidia series 8 (8400m and 8600m)
to see: 
http://scandalehp.wordpress.com/scandale-hp-refuse-de-reparer-les-pc-equipes-des-cartes-graphique-nvidia-8400-et-8600/

Can you help me

Hello, 

I own an HP Pavilion dv9575 em (Serial Number CNF7241KTT 
Product Number GP652EA). 

The graphics card fitted to my hp got HS (the nvidia 8600 GS recently involved in the case Nvidia). 
Unfortunately here in Morocco, HP wants to charge me the card replacement; knowing that HP has extended the warranty for an additional year on other models of the same pc ... ... I do not understand. 

Yet publicly reconu hp to the problem on graphics cards nvidia 8600 and 8400. 

Here is the answer to my requests HP: 

HP Customer Support - www.hp.com ... 

Dear Sir 

Thank you for contacting HP Customer Support. 

I am Fati, the Technicienne who will support your case. 

D # after the description of your fault, he trimmed that you have a concern in the graphics card. 

# It turns out that the incident is on your machine equipment, probably requiring repair and because the warranty has expired, please contact the proper service by contacting 081 005 010 number to obtain an estimate of repair or additional information. 

We also invite you to visit the link below to see a list of computers that have an extended warranty with your party does not: 
h10025.www1.hp.com ... 

Best regards, 

Fati

I bought a Dell Inspiron 1520 3 months ago with a nVidia 8600 in it. The laptop was a factory resealed unit with no warranty, and within 2 weeks the GPU overheated and died.

You don't need to replace the motherboard in these and most of the dells cause the GPU is a seperate unit, but it still cost me $200 and a lot of time to find another second hand graphics card from a laptop wrecker.

Wonder how long this one will last.. I think i might underclock the gpu.

Well if your buying a computer from HP or Dell then your dumb enough to believe this article. All laptops are proned to heat problems period, i don't care how many fans you have put in them. The batteries in most laptops get hot enough to cook an egg on and well when the entire bottom of the laptop is a battery all that heat rises through the plastic and damages the rest of the components over time. And guess what, heat is the leading cause of failure in electronics especially computers. 
I have been using Nvidia gpu's for years now and I currently have an 8600GT and I have never had a single problem out of any of them. I don't give a shit about your bell curve as it means nothing. Improper cooling in a desktop or laptop will cause it to fail at some point and it doesn't matter who made your gpu, cpu or motherboard. 
LMAO a voltage bump, as if a person who writes ridiculous articles such as this would know anything about engineering. Grow a clue you idiot.

Since my 15"MBP with 8600GS received a new logic board due to blown GPU (I am Second Life user, which makes extensive use of the GPU), I use an external cooler from Zalman whenever I run applications with high GPU load. The temperature reduction is reasonable. I don´t want my logic board to be replaced a second time. People say, that the MBP GPU does not run on full speed anyway for temperature reasons. Up to now mostly Apple was blamed for probably risky thermal design. What about if Apple simply knew about the nvidia problem early and designed the MBP to hopefully not to trigger the problem? I have business with Apple as supplier and and know their extreme high negotiation power. They can save may be millions of dollars if they knocked down the GPU sell price due to nvidia's design problem.
It is just guessing - but seems quite logical to me.

'BOUT TIME the expose began. there are hundreds of documented cases on the web for the apple mbp. spreadsheets full of serial numbers and angst. personally, i have gone thru 2 logic boards in an mbp and it's now out of warranty. there is no fix. apple can only replace with logic boards that have the same chip on it. what a hose! FD

It's too bad you weren't on the job when ATI was releasing bad batches of Radeon 9700 cards all over the place.

There had been something wrong with my DEll Latitude D630 that had been bought for one year and two days.You can see nothing but some gray lines in the blank screen...

The engineer has changed a new motherboard with newly bois...

no one knows how long will it alive...

Hi ! I just wanted to confirm that more and more 8600M Packard Bell laptops overheat and reboot, or not even start after 8-12 months. Motherboards are then replaced by a new one (after a battle with customer service) but does it mean the end of the problems for a customer or a garantee that it will again overheat in a few months ?

Do some newer(?) 8400M or 8600M GPUs still have this problem ? Is there a way to find out if the GPU is bad (with a revision number and a tool like GPU-Z) ?

And I still see a lot of Laptop offers online and retail with these GPUs... will they really all overheat ?

I guess we need answers from NVIDIA.

Thailand:

Many HP/Compaq Notebooks need to change VGA Chip/ Mainboard change
(HP DV20XX-DV24XX 7200Go, now 84G and 86Gs) 

Same service warranty as US?
I don't think so.
We need to pay >>>$410 /Mainboard 

Support?
They do nothing because Thai's law is not that strict or they don't care anymore.

Wow, I am glad I have stuck with ATI Radeon for all these years!

JT
www.FireMe.To/udi

Few weeks ago I installed and update for my HP Pavilion Media Center m8100y customizable TV PC. Ever since its fans are not stopping and it making a lot of noise!

we have a compaq x6000 p4 3 gig ati, bought 07-15-05 that just totally quit with the same symptoms as described about the newer nv's. Power supply (135watt) is not good enough, they just happen to make a 180w, hum. Battery time is about 20 min. and enough heat to break e=mc sq., any way you want to check it. Repair shops replace a lot of the on off switch board on x6000 also. Any one have a 3 yr. warranty?

OK, I'm fed up with this. My Vostro 1500 has a deffective card and I am NOT EVEN OFFERED a power hungry BIOS update!!
I hate the culture of litigation but the only way to punish these companies is through these tools. 
Please join me in my effort and visit my newly minted blog:
http://nvidiaclassaction.blogspot.com/

Thank you very much for this article :)
I was going to buy a new macbook pro 17" but I was a little concerned about all that forum posts that describe various problems with display. This article makes a perfect sense and now I'll be waiting for another macbook pro release.
Holy sh*t, I was close to loosing a few thousands of $ :)

My opinion after reading endless reviews and faults is that nvidia´s G84 G86 series are all faulty and nvidia is only covering up only due to enormous stock on this specific gpus.. check this link to open your eyes. http://www.beyond3d.com/content/news/633

my BenQ S41 with a 8600M GS (G86M A2, 16SP 128-bits) died on me once...

sent it back to BenQ and the guy there only said the mobo was changed and that's all...

which i suspect is not so simple as i encountered artifacts before it broke down on normal usage...

anyway, now i underclock the GPU to keep it cool... raise the clock back to default only when playing games...

I don't like the article because he is just blurting out crap. He is obviously biased because Nvidia must have screwed him over somehow. Don't like charlie or the article. Making it seem like some conspiracy when its not. Get over it, its business, and Nvidia has good management.

Laptop died on me last friday and is only just over a year old, an ASUS F3SV with a 8600M GS. I had noticed bands of vertical stripes and artifacts for about a week beforehand. Now all I get is a blue screen after attempting to load windows. Laptop has always run hotter than others I've had in the past. GPU temps have been 60-70 oC when idle and up to 105oC after a short period of time using asus stock drivers. Luckily it is still under warranty but I don't want it replaced like for like, due to reading this and other experiences I've read on many different forums. I'm still waiting to hear from the techs at asus on what they will do regarding this matter. I hope I haven't ended up with a very expensive paperweight.

I might buy a pny nvidia quadro fx 370 professional CAD type card which based on g84 chip and priced heavily for 210 dollars
so will it also be affected
or how much can a graphics card stand on desktop with this issue

It is quite clear that you own AMD stock... or maybe some different kind of AMD "affiliation"
That explains all those its the end of the world for nvidia articles... and the AMD try harder ones.
BTW where is AMD's 880million $ goodwill impairement news report? Isn't it newsworthy?!?
I think its quite ugly down there in the 4+$ region, since not so long ago that number was 44$ for the AMD stock... Keep bashing and pumping but you do not fool anyone...

Someone has written about how I'm NOT crazy, and it IS Nvidia's fault that my laptop died. If anyone cares, it was a Dell, not an HP. Too bad I sold the parts because no one believed me (even though it was the absolute truth). There needs to be a criminal investigation on this...Nvidia is screwing people over.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?act=ST&f=33&t=38508

19 pages.

I was wondering what was going on w/ my laptop :(. It was weird too because with my last D3LL update it would stay running for a couple of days at a time :MIRACLE MUSIC: but it turns out it was just a fluke and started doing the same thing again. Heck I don't have to turn off my laptop, psh. It does that on it's own! like every 10min..... freaking Nvidia

The only problem with this theory is that there are HP notebook models such as the dv2500 and dv2700 that have been out for a while with the nvidia chips that are NOT listed as needing a recall/fix. That would lend more to a theory that it is cooling design issues . . .

apologies for not being too clued in, the g84 and g86 parts, do these just refer to the 8500/8600 parts? If it is down to an engineering failure causing over heating, would improved cooling help resolve the issue or would it just merely prolong the issues.

currently using 2 x 512mb 8600gts sli in an antect p182 case, has a 12cm fan situated at the end of the 2 cards blowing air on to the cards.

GeForce beaten by 4800, mobile chips failure, and Rambus law suit. All happened in one month. Looking NVDA for $6.

I've had heat issues with my ASUS F3SV since about 6 months ago, (its 9 months old) but always attributed it to other things. Within the last 2 months or so things have gotten noticeably worse, with unexpected shutdowns and failed reboots with a black screen while I can hear the fan spinning. The bell curve, hot/cold/hot again being the cause of laptops showing up with heat issues more frequently as they progress in their lifecycles seems to make perfect sense in my case. 
I'm going to send it back to ASUS for repairs, but ultimately the laptop I paid for wasn't supposed to run with the fan at full blast to keep it cool and drain the battery life because of it. I don't really want the same laptop back now, I would rather take the money and wait till this is cleaned up, but what choice will I have? I'm sure ASUS won't do much more than, at best, replace the defective old parts with defective new parts so that it lives out its life long enough to survive the warranty period.
I'm in Canada, and I doubt there is much I can do, but I'll definitely be looking into it. Any advice?
NVidia's silence on the affected parts and failure to come clean about the extent of the problem has forever lost them a customer.

My claim is that All Inquirer Articles are Total Crap. This must be true, because "people" say they're all written to this one's evidential standards. Also, some "journalists" I asked laughed, then said it's unlikely that Charlie would adopt a different style for just one article in the same publication. As further proof of my claim, other articles in other technology publications are bad. Ergo, you should buy some AMD stuff. Please, for the children.

Gotta love it when criticising someone for criticising a company you are a customer of is more important than understanding that an entire product range is fatally flawed.

"Yes, there may be problems, but they are attacking my master and I must defend them like the good little sycophant that I am".

I don't have a preference for company, I'll make a judgement based on my research at the time. If I were researching a mobile solution with game class graphics atm, I would be steering clear of the nVidia iceberg.

Slavish adherence to a brand is fanaticism.

A fanatic is someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
—Winston Churchill

Strangely appropriate...

8600M GT user here- desktop- my screen flickers non stop.great job

Not happy at all of how nvidia is treating their customers, they better do something quick or they´ll have an angry mob on their asses in no time! Me included!

maybe this means s/thing to you.
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Nvidia-Grafikchips-mit-Lebensdauerproblemen--/meldung/110750

I have a dell XPS 1330m with the 8400m chip
i have had to have dell replace my motherboard twice in the past 6 months due to the 8400m failure
The dell tech guy said he goes out on calls all day long with this same problem

So this includes the 8700M 512mb laptop card as well? The wiki lists this card as being under G84M.

The GPUs aforementioned are not the issue here.

It is the mobile C51 chip that gets overheated. There is no fan (overheat protection) on the chipset and there is no thermal diode that shuts down the PC in the bios. 

The C51 PCIe interface overheat easily. That's why the GPUs and the Wireless cards are affected (PCIe interface)...

Also, let it be know that it is not due to packaging material set. It is definitely a chip/system design issue.

why are the 8600 and 8400 still being sold in laptops?

Charlie,

I read the inquirer to find out what is really happening in the IT industry. US based media don't report the inside dirt. You were all over the HP/Compaq merger and other things and you're all over this too. While NV Fanboys may think you're just hating on NV, the fact is, covering up a design flaw on such a massive scale as this is something the public needs to know. I have the Nforce 430 chipset in my Compaq PC with the GeForce 6150 IGP and while that hasn't so far been identified as a part that will fail, it still makes me nervous. I'm going to get a PCIe card and it definitely won't be an NV. I was looking at a Macbook Pro, but as long as the new ones have the NV 8600M GT, I will be looking for a reconditioned older model with the ATI GPU. This kind of nonsense will kill consumer confidence in NVidia. Think maybe intel will snap them up when the dust clears?

I just got a shiny new Thinkpad T61 with the Quadro 140M in it. Sounds like that's a G84M and should be affected. Does this affect the A3 silicon only? How can I tell which silicon I have? I'm running linux/Vista, lspci in linux tells me I've got rev A1 (I doubt that) nvidia's control panels in both OS's give me no useful info...

Initially Intel was in denial about P5 bug. Once they realized the serious of the problem, intel made a 180 degree turn, sovled the problem admirably, and went on to own the processor market.

NVDA has been innovative. But recently the management became arragant and lost focus. It'd be a real shame to see the company fail. Hopefully NVDA can confront their mistakes and emerge from it a better company.

I have this problem on my MBP, and my brothers 1330 with the 8400 is showing the same problems.. I hate Nvidia so much..

Come on Charlie,

Didn't you realise until now there's money to be made ? Now there are a lot of money invested in research not for evolution, but for making more and more piles of money... And that do come from 'consumer economy', that is... we all should buy stuff even if we don't need it. But that keeps the jobs of thousands and amont these people some can drive some nice Ferraris. I mean, it's the way it's supposed to be done: research how to make a product fail just after the warranty goes off... that way, those cheap bastards who refuse to pay up will eventually pay, even if they don't like it. :P I don't think HP will be upset for being fed with parts that don't last forever but for failing before the timeframe of the warranty. They'll just slap Nv around just a few time so next time they deliver the parts failing just at the precise moment. That's the way capitalism work: money, money, more money, piles of money, piles and piles of money and so on. Who cares about those cheap bastards ? :))

Perhaps they have got tired of reading this crap already (:

Even if its a good news for Ati kind of article, there still manages to be Nv bashing.. its just get tiresome after a while.. objective news reporting prefered to this.

I know that joy over others misfortune is considered to be the greatest of joy.. but myself I don't really get it.

"It amuses me when the NV fanbois come out in force to tell Charlie he is spawn of the underworld for daring to hate their precious, innocent, sweet NVidia. Really i couldnt give a shit who's best but these people clearly should wait for the facts to be known before calling Charlie a liar."


he he he he I don't care who wins this battle..
but its fun to see some corp bashing..

I do respect AMD because it has competing coloss Intel, which has ability to put its joker card - the next generation technological norms - a year and a half before AMD can.

I respect NVIDIA, because it is competing AMD, which now can use its joker card - the next gen technological norms - 6 months before NV can

I do not respect histeria and sensationalism which kills smart but unfortunate outsiders of technology game like NVIDIA leaving us with smaller options on the market. 

Your critics must be creative, Charlie. If NVIDIA was playing dirty game intentionally using this compound for their cards to be dead just after warranty expire, then I will be first to sing them anaphema, burn in hell. 

If not, can't you just research more, learn to behave.and shut up? Hope you love computing and all what surrounds it. Such articles make me think that you love just yourself. See the difference between you and old chap Mike Magee?

Alright so Charlie may not like NV so much and he sure as heck doesn't hide it. But even if you are an NV fanboy shouldn't you atleast consider that maybe there's some truth to what he's saying ... and if so, all those other "unbiased" sites should be reporting on the possibility of problems also ... now shouldn't they.

I couldn't care one way or the other, when the smoke clears I'll buy whichever card is the best bang for the buck.

We have two Nvidia products here that have failed too. Namely, an ECS laptop that uses an Nvidia GPU (can't remember which though.. 7300, 8300 or 8400.. I'm not the one using the laptop and can't check it now because the thing's not displaying anything). Service personnel says the grahics chip went AWOL. Also, I have an Nvidia based mobo (MSI K9N Neo-F, Nvidia MCP 550) that has also gone the way of the dodo. Service says it must be the chipset. Mobo goes nuts when it's been on for a while and heat has built up, so maybe the Nvidia chip packaging is the culprit there too. I've been using the board happily for 9 months before this happened. I don't know if anyone else is having the same problems. I'm just relating my own experiences.

Wow - wouldn't this include all MacBook Pros? 

(Lance, see that you've already hit this problem...)

Every current MacBookP lists "GeForce 8600M GT" as the GPU!

Synergy, try force heat cycling your A02 laptop?! Try loading up a game for about 5 mins then letting it cool for 5 mins? I suppose you should have nvtune running and alt-tab while game is running etc etc. :-)

I wonder what'll happen if all G84 and G86 owners did that! :D

As for the voltage bump from A02 to A03 it is definitely fishy. Was the voltage bump for mobiles also (wasn't totally clear in linked article maybe I just have to stare at it longer)? That would definitely mean you are missing the performance target but a HUGE factor for that to happen.

Well this explains why both of my m1330's dell laptops have both had there gpu's die and require motherbaord replacements within the first 4 months. (8400gs integrated on motherbaord)

And why there are a million threads on the m1330 dying the same way, graphics go corrupt/vertical lines on screen.

I sure as sugar hope dell are going to be replacing the motherbaords with an updated un-affected nvidia GPU.

I can't agree more with this post..regardless how you look at it nvidia is screwed and in turn screwing all customers that have their "failing" product by not saying what is REALLY affected!!

And I agree with above...I read because of Charlie's writing!!

Well I've owned plenty of ATI parts and Plenty of Nvidia ones, 3870X2, NV 9800s 8800 etc etc.

And I have to say from a feature perspective and quality of image, the red team has it.

Direct X 10.1 anyone?

What Ostar failed to mentioned when he dropped this statistic is that he clearly hasn't owned any ATI parts recently, otherwise he would realise what an absurdly stupid comment that is.

He is obviously a member of the Flat Earth Society or a Futuremark employee, or perhaps both.

And you didn't read the post right above yours?

Nah, I'm happy with my top-of-the-line, nothing-ATI-has-EVER-made-is-comparable video card, thank you very much.

it's so obvious:the writer of this article is either shorting this or was fired by NVDA some years ago and has yet to get over it.

It amuses me when the NV fanbois come out in force to tell Charlie he is spawn of the underworld for daring to hate their precious, innocent, sweet NVidia. Really i couldnt give a shit who's best but these people clearly should wait for the facts to be known before calling Charlie a liar. Well in all your stupid faces! I've recently started to feel my old Radeon X1950XTX is running out of steam.. now shall i invest my hard earned in a GTX260 or a 4870?? ooh not exactly a tough one is it, i'll take red and pocket the change!!

I've had a 512MB GDDR3 GeForce 8600 GTS for over a year now and it hasn't failed me. My card is going to die and there's nothing I can do to deter that?

I'm assuming you've never owned a comparable R700 part. Think about all the dosh you could have saved by buying even two ATi cards.

As current owner of 2600XT, HD3870, and 4850, Inq has failed to mention these cards are great winter heaters that many had to fix the faulty FAN BIOS or do a XML hack to lower the TEMPS BY AS MUCH AS 40 DEGREES! 

I was getting green screen of deaths until I used Rivatuner to drop from 80C idle to 50C idle! Just go ahead and google 3800 or 4800 heat/fan issues!

Would this affect the nVIDIA NVS 130M notebook GPUs?

I wonder if the G94 range is also bust, given that it started life out as the G84 which they tinkered with or so I understand, hope not eek!

I have Nvidia GPU's in two laptops and my desktop. I've been trying to find-out which chips are affected but there doesn't seem to be any concrete information. Why haven't they published a list of dodgy chips? If the problem was limited to a certain production run then surely they would.
Why is it that most laptops have replaceable CPU's but non-replaceable GPU's? Nvidia exec's must be wishing all those dodgy chips were on user-replaceable cards right now.

I just had the graphics chip fail on my MacBook Pro, 10 days after the standard 1 year warranty expired. It was the 2.2 GHz variety with an 8600M GT and 128MB of RAM. Searching the message boards, I'm seeing quite a few reports of this in MacBook Pros. This problem definitely impacts Apple, too.

"No GT200 jokes here, NV personnel are still quite sensitive about that, "

What are you talking about?

My single GTX280 is ****ing amazing.

Much more amazing than any ATI/AMD product I've >EVER< owned.

If someone currently owns a laptop with a G84M A02, which still has a month left of warranty, what should they do? I would guess very strongly if I emailed the manufacturer (Acer), they'd tell me that, as nVidia have said nothing officially, to wait until there's a failure. Which would probably happen soon after the warranty ended...

anyone in the uk can take the part back within 7 years as not fit for purpose if there part dies, warranty is only one of the methods of protection we have thankfully

getting companies to acknowledge this law is another thing, but it is there

aren't you worried NVIDIA will put out a contract on your NVIDIA-hating ass? I know I would've... long ago . LOL.

oh well, nothing like a little knocking down the old peg to breed some form of humility... hopefully.