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The Inquirer

Nvidia heat causing Macbooks to fail

We are shocked... shocked I tell you!

  • Charlie Demerjian
  • 29 November 2008
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CONTRARY TO POPULAR belief, the Nvidia 9300/9400 chipset line has been fraught with problems, both logic bugs and heat. Late though it may be, it is still far from ready, and Apple is the latest victim.

According to Apple Insider, the latest Macbooks have two distinct problems. The first is a lockup/black screen whoopsie when using the GPU to do such unusual things as gaming. Those darn 'customer use patterns', how could people think they could get away with gaming on their machines! The other one is distortions while scrolling. One has an easy fix, the other is much more problematic.

The easy one is the distortions while scrolling. This is usually fixable with a software patch, most likely simply adding deeper buffering of frames. I expect this one to be taken care of in short order.

The other one is a little more problematic. No, it is a lot more problematic, and it gets to the heart of Nvidia's greatest technical weakness, they can't keep heat and power usage under control. This chipset has a long history, and is internally code named MCP79, as you can see below.

alt='mcp79-b2'

Macbook MCP79/9x00, note the stepping

Please note the last three characters, the "-B2" part, this means the Macbooks are using the B2 stepping of chips. The letter connotes a major revision, the number a minor stepping, counting from zero. Parts start out with 'first silicon' being labeled A0, then minor fixes make A1, A2... Ax. GPUs and chipsets are usually marketed by A1 or A2 silicon. Seeing a B probably means something went really pear-shaped, and as it could not be fixed with several minor changes, a ground-up rethink was needed. Seeing a Bx in the first version of a chipset on the market is a really, really bad sign. B2 means this is likely the sixth stepping of the chip, including some major redesign work.

If you have been following this chipset like we have, you know that boards with it were supposed to be out at CeBit in early March. During that show, several mobo makers expressed dismay at how late it was then, and gave us a " don't hold your breath for this chip before summer." Deeper questioning revealed that the problem was heat, it was running far too hot to be passively cooled, and that was mandatory for the intended market.

March begat June, and June begat 'delayed', which then upon the 14th of October begat the new Macbooks. Late, yes, but out finally. The real problem is whether or not they got the heat problem under control, logic bugs can be patched around in software and firmware.

A trip to Taiwanese mobo makers in September by The Inquirer answered that with a definitive 'not yet', but weeks later, we had the new Macbooks. Calls to mobo techies gave us the answer, confirmed by moles at Nvidia, they are seriously cherry-picking parts for Apple. Mobo makers are getting the high power-draw parts, Apple is getting the ones that meet spec. Barely.

This means that there are far more borderline chips out there than anyone feels comfortable with, but products must launch when products must launch. The black screens and lockups are caused because the GPU is overheating and crashing, something that is pretty obvious given the 20/20 hindsight of the chip's troubled gestation.

Is there hope? Sure. Several mobo makers all said they put out the bare minimum number of boards at launch, there are a total of five 9300 and just one 9400 SKUs at Newegg right now, but more were on the way. All said they would put out more models when the B3 stepping (Remember kiddies, that is the 4th rev of the Bx parts) comes out in January. Those will likely hit Macbooks about the same time... so in two months, this will be a non-issue.

Until then, you are looking at Nvidia admonishing you for doing such crazy things as using your notebook for running a game, or in general, 'customer use patterns' that cause their chips to cook. You would think they would engineer things right rather than blame customers, but hey, this is Nvidia.

Apple isn't at fault here, they are equally victimised by Nvidia's inability to get things right, but unfortunately the customer ire is aimed at Cupertino.

At least they are aware of the correct company to blame. µ

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