Nvidia's bad bump misery deepens
A DOCUMENT HAS COME TO LIGHT that details the lengths to which Nvidia has gone to cover up the problems it has been having with its graphics chips.
The most recent lawsuit against it by the National Union Fire Insurance Company (NUFI) claims the company has withheld information on the nature of its bad bumps. The very same information it has withheld from us or any other nosy hack or awkward analysts.
The story was broken by a certain Mike Magee at TG Daily on Friday, and it has a lot of juicy bits. The short story is that the list of defective chips shipped by Nvidia goes back to the NV4x generation, and the list of OEMs affected counts ten and basically includes every Nvidia customer.
NUFI complains bitterly that Nvidia has been covering up essential information it is entitled to receive as Nvidia's insurer by refusing to disclose even the most basic facts about the company's GPU chip failures.
We had the same complaint. Let's go back over what happened so you can see the depths of this debacle.
On July 2, 2008, Nvidia issued an 8-K report that essentially said: "We have a big problem." But then it got really vague. Its 8-K mentioned devices "in certain versions of our previous generation MCP and GPU products used in notebook systems." Nvidia also claimed that it didn't know why the problems were happening, saying, "We have not been able to determine a root cause for these failures." But was sure that it had fixed them. No, really, it said so quite explicitly. "All newly manufactured products and all products currently shipping in volume have a different and more robust material set," it stated.
We said at the time that this was cobblers. Nvidia was blaming everyone but itself. Nvidia was not saying which OEMs were affected, and privately it was telling financial analysts that there was only one OEM, HP, that had problems. We said then that it was a design problem and unlike Nvidia's crack team (pun fully intended) of failure finders, we told you precisely what it was, that is, high lead "bad" bumps cracking between the die and the substrate.
We also told you that there was more than one OEM was affected, starting with Dell, then HP, then Apple, and lastly Toshiba. If you read the Apple link, we mentioned it, but it looks like Toshiba never got the guts to do right by its end-users. The ten OEMs listed by NUFI in its complaint are Dell, Toshiba, Apple, HP, Quanta, Wistron, Compal, Asus, Samsung, and Fujitsu-Siemens, "and others." That list adds up to at least ten times the number of affected OEMs that Nvidia had been originally spinning.
The claim all along from the company has been that it still doesn't know what is wrong, and it has no way of figuring anything out. That didn't prevent Nvidia from coming up with the dollar amount it would cost to fix the problem, with great precision, but it couldn't figure the problem out.
So now, the defective chip list has expanded to the G86, G86A2, G84, C51, G72, G72M, G73, G72A3, MCP67 and NV42 officially, but those are only the ones that are named in the lawsuit. There could be others that haven't cropped up yet, or that had problems that Nvidia managed to suppress early on.
We were first to name the G84 and G86 directly, and then pointed out that others were bad too. Nvidia denied it, loudly. We said there were chipset problems, but Nvidia denied that. We said the 9x line was affected. Nvidia denied, but Apple however confirmed. Nvidia claimed it was only laptops that were affected, in an SEC filing no less. We pointed out that this wasn't the case. Nvidia still denies it.
Apple has also confirmed that, and the parts listed in the above links include, desktops. NUFI also names the exact chipset that we said was bad in our article as well. Nvidia would say we must have just gotten lucky and guessed right.
Everything we claimed and more has been confirmed, and more models have been added. We also claimed that desktop cards, and newer 55nm models were defective too, but those don't show up on the list. We guess that's just a matter of time.
Nvidia's chip design problem is a long-term one, and it takes months or years to start showing up. The technical explanation is in a three-part article, here, here and here. It may be long, but it is the only place you find an expanation. Meanwhile, Nvidia still claims it doesn't understand it.
We find this doubtful, mainly because of two things. First, Nvidia claimed to have fixed the problem in the 8-K filing mentioned above, and identified a specific fix. "All newly manufactured products and all products currently shipping in volume have a different and more robust material set." That sounds like it was pretty conclusive. The problem is that Nvidia's claim in that SEC filing just wasn't an accurate reflection of reality.
If you look at the three PCNs we were shown, written up here, here and here, they clearly show the first ship dates for the supposedly 'fixed' products as July 25, August 17 and August 17. Those dates are all after the SEC filing, and after the claim was made. Maybe there is a way to spin "first ship date", but it seems pretty clearly damning, and it does not seem to align with the statement, "All products currently shipping in volume." Maybe the SEC just didn't care, or was overworked, or something more sinister.
Back to the story at hand, the insurance lawsuit. Nvidia's prognostications have been comprehensively debunked, its claims have been shown to be untrue, and it still denies the problem. It refuses to come clean, say what chips are affected, what models of computers they were in, and who they were sold to.
When we first asked it, Nvidia claimed that it wanted to protect its customers, that is, the big OEMs, so it wouldn't say a thing. The people who buy Nvidia cards? Well, that was their own problem, as Nvidia was more worried about OEM feedback than end-user harm.
This tale really starts to spin down the rabbit hole when you consider that Nvidia has been using the same line on the insurance company. According to the complaint, Nvidia has been asking NUFI to pay up, but has not provided it with any information. You really have to read this to believe it, from the suit (Page 2, lines 12-19):
"Most importantly, NVIDIA has failed and even refused to provide material information about the Chip Claims to National Union, despite repeated and specific requests by National Union for that information. Instead, NVIDIA has provided substantial information about the GPUs themselves, held meetings to discuss the GPUs, and flooded National Union with technical data. That information, however, does not contain basic information about the Chip Claims that would allow National Union to evaluate whether any settlements are reasonable, whether coverage exists for those settlements, whether other parties may be at fault, or even what precise injuries the settlements are compensating the Chip Claimants."
Other than the part about flooding with technical data, this is exactly what Nvidia did to us humble hacks here at The INQUIRER. Lots of words, much chest thumping about its greatness and infallibility, but never answering the question.
The questions that Nvidia will not answer are not at all out of line. To quote Page 12, Paragraph 68:
"The information that NVIDIA has failed and/or refused to provide to National Union includes, but is not limited to, the following Material Information:
- Records showing the dates of manufacture of all affected notebook computers;
- Records showing the dates notebooks were shipped to end users;
- Records showing field failures to date, and the specific dates of those failures;
- Records showing the specific dates of repair of the affected notebooks;
- Records showing what component parts were replaced and when and why;
- Records showing any injury to component parts other than NVIDIA chips, including descriptions and dates of injuriers; and
- Documentation of settlement discussions, NVIDIA's estimation of claim exposure, and supporting documentation of any estimate."
Do these sound like things that are reasonable to ask before an insurance company pays out?
Reading the fine print in the suit, you can see there are several good reasons why Nvidia is playing dumb. The first is the civil lawsuits - if Nvidia admits anything to anyone, it will surely have a harder time defending against those civil lawsuits. You could say that what is going on is obvious to even a slow monkey, and we knew over a year before that some Nvidia GPU parts that were out were problematic.
Luckily for Nvidia, it is still in the dark, claiming that the science behind the cracking bumps is not understood. Somehow, every packaging expert talked to by The INQUIRER understood it, was able to explain it, and the explanations all matched up. Nvidia might want to hire one of these guys in the future to fill the glaring hole in its corporate semiconductor knowledge base.
Secondly, NUFI is claiming that Nvidia did not involve it in the negotiations for which it is being asked to pay Nvidia's settlements. Nvidia's insurance policy states that NUFI must be involved in any such negotiations, or at least that it must be given the opportunity to decline to do so.
It looks like Nvidia didn't provide NUFI with details, then sent it a bill with a big number on it. NUFI wisely declined to pay.
Things get even thornier on the next bit, on Page 25, Paragraph m(1). That says that property damage from "A defect, deficiency, inadequacy or dangerous condition in "your product" or "your work"" does not qualify for coverage under the policy. That sounds like defective chips might not be covered because they are defective, not because they broke for some unknown mysterious reason that Nvidia won't say.
In the end, the whole sad story backs up what we have been saying since the early days of this whole Nvidia "bad bumps" defective chips fiasco.
Nvidia is knowingly covering things up, denying information to the people who need it, and stonewalling everything. The list of affected parts has grown longer and longer, the list of affected OEMs by now basically comprises the list of all of Nvidia's OEMs, and now it looks like the company's hope of an insurance payout is under threat.
The only common thread is that Nvidia simply won't tell the truth no matter what. Every public statement it has made, from sworn SEC documents to off-the-record claims, has been disproven, but still it carries on with its version of events, almost as though its reality trumps all others by force of will.
While this story is fairly well fleshed out now, the ability of Nvidia to dig its own grave deeper seems to be never ending. The allegations in the NUFI lawsuit are so farcical at times that they stretch the ability to believe, unless you have been dealing with Nvidia before for a while. Then you'll recognise it as business as usual. µ
Note NUFI/AIG was contacted twice for comments on this story. We have not heard back from them either time, but will update or follow up should they respond.
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wow is this an an attempt to shut up the people who usually hate on you ? if so i applaud! :P
Good reporting Charlie. Hopefully NVIDIA can own up to these faults and affected people can get (eventual?) replacements.
My next GFX borad will deffo not be green! The lying toe-rags.
Strange how 8-K looks a bit like a disgruntled customer!
!w00t! for Charlie.
Well this is a pretty decent article. Certainly can't blame the insurance company for not wanting to pay up. I don't think we really want nvidia to disappear though. Just to change their business practices a bit. I know they have this mad race with ati that seems to know no limits but.... sacrificing quality and testing and lying about it aren't the answers. At least AMD came clean on the origional phenom bug right away... and it cost them bigtime in sales and market share, but these huge lawsuits and ruined company image I think are worse. It's sorta like microsoft with the melting xbox except microsoft keeps extending the warranty and replacing instead of cranking the fan speed and counting the days till the warranty runs out......
Charlie didn't really need to repeat everything from previous Nvidia bumpgate posts. I've read it all already, and having to go through it again made the article too long to be interesting.
Where are the nvidiots now? Haha!
Though there is a realistic chance of them coming and declaring that the insurance company and the document are a figment of Charlie's imagination :P
Wee,Wee,MC HammerTime, Flawed? From what been printed, too hot of solder, tranies too close to metal contact pins, scorched tranisotrs that respond poorly over variations of battery reserve & lastly nvidia, open gl & Vista NT6, based on Open GL don't match Up Right. Making possible lousey condition to work under for entry gate tranies. Pumps mixedup by bumps.
maybe next zine should be MIT HardWare. or Mike Is Tom. Hehehe.
Meaning TIm might be code for: yes, thats right, Tom Is Mike. Did World Pay Off. It Never Does.
Combo Problem that goes beyond solder mix, its probably correctable, especially with 7 oncoming. Wheres My Ten Mil? Pumps 'n Bump, Pumps n' Bump. \V/ LG Lifes Good....\\//LG Lifes Good....
n.b. invisible fickle finger of fate is inside story \\!//.
I think the entire history behind this particular article is worth mentioning, as the fact that there's still people buying nvidia after all the facts is unbeliveble.
I still waiting for the moment when this entire saga become a really blood scandal in the news midia, so nvidia end up forced to take some action on it's faults.
I'm not a ATI fanboy, I just won't buy something reported as "possibly fault".
A weak Nvidia will also in some point start to destroy competition in the discrete GPU front, and when there's no competition, we customers don't get innovations nor better prices.
So please Nvidia get better, so the GPU war won't be over.
All insurance companies are basically the same. They demand that you pay your premiums on time, but when it comes time for them to pay up, they make your life a living hell.
Irrespective of whether Nvidia is at fault or not, the insurance has to pay. They are not suing Nvidia for knowingly selling faulty chips (there is no proof that they did), but that they negotiated with their (Nvidia's) customers without involving the insurance company. This is just a weasel tactic by the insurance company to stop or delay payments.
This reminds of a story about 10 years ago when an ice storm caused damage to thousands of homes in Montreal. A friend of mine called her insurance to pay for fixes, and they basically said "we won't pay you because we already paid a lot of other people for damages to their homes." She threatened to sue, at which point they agreed to pay. I just wonder how many poor souls thought "poor insurance company. I'll foot the bill instead."
Although we don't know everything going on what we do know is there are certain procedures that must be adhered to. Those procedures should be outlined in the policy.
Having said that if the insurance company specifically states that certain conditions must be met before they pay or investigate a claim then they must follow those procedures.
...it would have to be an insurance company.
This Nvidia mess is my favourite computer soap opera.
Keep up the good work, Charlie.
I've read several time from people that nvidia has billions in surplus money to spend. If that's true why don't they just pay the claim themselves? That way they avoid any unwanted attention IMO.
Or is it that they don't have the money to spend and need the insurance company to help buffer expenses?
If you actually read the filed suit it brings up a couple of points that Charlie doesn't point out in plain language to the nvidiots:
1. Nvidia's partners have demanded money from Nvidia for bumpgate. 10 partners have demanded money. That means that 10 partners know that the chips are bad and want Nvidia to pay.
2. Please note that Nvidia has not argued one whit that the chips ARE NOT BAD. If they did want to argue that they would be providing their insurance company all of the information in the world to argue that for them (remember what insurance is for? That policy should be protecting Nvidia but somehow it's working backwards in this case. jee I wonder why?)
3. The date the date the date. The insurance policy went into effect the END of January 2008. Which means that anything that happened before that date or that Nvidia knew was a problem before that date, well, it won't be covered as the insurance policy was not written and paid for before then. (Think about this guys: design and manufacturing happened long before that policy was signed. The damage was done long before you powered up too many times and cracked those bitty little bumps)
This is a prime example of crappy business practices from top to bottom. Companies often fail for a reason. In this case it will be many reasons. Sad for us, the users of graphics as there will be less choice in the market. But boy, do they need new management and need it about three years ago.
-not the paralegal
in the end. My company had sh*t like this from our insurer. After we sued them into the next district, they paid up after a few months. I think the threat of compensatory and punitive damages finally ticked their bottom line counter.
Insurance companies, one that industry that makes politics look squeaky clean.
Yes because Charlie has been so right in the past.
http://charliedemerjianisadouchebag.blogspot.com/
Lets review, he said all G9x chips were affected, this is false. Has has stated the R600 would wipe the floor witht eh G80, that was false, complete oppisite to be exact. Said the same thing about R770, again wrong as hell. Now he is sayng the same thing for R870/GT300 and that GT300 will be months late, again very wrong on one side the other we have to wait and see. Charlie should be fired for bad reporting.
"... the defective chip list has expanded to the G86, G86A2, G84, C51, G72, G72M, G73, G72A3, MCP67 and NV42 officially."
Guys, I have the best job in the world. Official. I can't tell you how much fun we’re having here right now. Get faster and faster – the GPU. That GeForce chip. Yes honestly. No I am not making this up. This shit is just interesting as hell. *(its our chip that makes that work)* The world’s most technologically advanced chip. Suer, there's bound to be bumps in the road, whenever we're doing everything for you. But you got to CUDA, OpenCL and DirectX. Nvidia just needs to simplify the product line for consumers. Going forward, we can transition to a scheme formerly known as the random-numbers-and-letters, and to put said product into this pipe for smoking. Ok. Talk maths at us, and you don't come home clutching the magic beans! Legitimate optimization are reasonable and important, only if it improves real game play! Let's face it, the people with these cards would not be the way it's meant to be played, due to its eccentric personality and seemingly unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments, Tesla.
Well if they continue to go down this road they will be the second Nortel. Or AIG. They need to start being more proactive and also open with there partners. This is not good for NV in the long term and those days seem to be getting shorter and shorter.
I have been following closely all your nvidia articles for the past years. All the reported problems are true especially since I sell XFX nvidia cards. This one will finally shut the mouths of some naysayers.
simple - nvidia are (insert plural word for female genetalia that rhymes with runts). after having had a laptop g73 fail recently due to this problem i will never buy anything with an nvidia component in again. ever. even if they paid me. and i really could do with the money as i've not got much on at the moment save being bellowed through, spat over and dribbled on.
"Flash Gordon to Vultan. Do you read me? Mayday! Mayday!"
Nvidia has the best performing graphic cards then this crap happens.
Holding back information must be the way to go when running a big company rather than admitting there is a problem. Lots of companies do it. I'll still continue to support Nvidia though. I perfer them over ATI any day.
Why waste my time with this.
Actually that article stated that GT200 would be faster than RV770, but not by a lot (true) and that it would be a lot more expensive (also true). It went on to state that R700 would wipe the floor with GT200 (true, the 4870 X2 did beat the GTX280, the highest end card at the launch of the 4870 X2 by a large margin).
I am still waiting for Sony to cover my prematurely-failed VGN-FZ with the 8400m time-bomb. How can this issue get so much coverage, and yet be denied by the retailers involved?
My kids wanted a PS3 this summer, and now I can avoid two companies with one non-purchase.
nVIDIA, you are finished! Sony, you already know where the line to ruin is forming.
@mo28:
why waste our time with THAT?
@none:
you're an idiot. it's true. give me a pencil and paper and i'll prove it (that joke copyright Bill Hicks).
how can you (or anyone else for that matter) read about this whole affair and trust nvidia again? seriously? wtf? have you never heard the saying 'fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me'?
InqSTEVEInq has it right. boycott the lying swines.
toodlepip!
sad to see nvidia failing as we do need them to push ati forward. but looking at comments of john and such is simply making my day :) what happened there Johny boy? struck a nerve? you twiching there a bit? good, thats what i like to see :D
your statement: "ow he is sayng that GT300 will be months late, again very wrong on one side the other we have to wait and see." just LOLs! there are no sides here you silly, there is a prognosis that is based on analysis and only with time you will know whether it was wrong conclusion or not. at the moment there is nothing "very wrong" about it on "one side". also, no one should be fired just because you personally don't like what he is reporting.
that said, i do plan on selling my 4870-512mb and get gtx260-216 instead. from what i read it seems better for my application (not due to physix). dead serious,zero sarcasm, not a flame bate.
It's amazing that there still are people struggling to defend Nvidia on this.
Nvidia did screw up but we need the competition. But I still question Charlie's track record. So, When is Charlie going to write a long detailed article that tallies all the ones he got right and also all the ones he got wrong?
Good, Charlie.
Many of your rants have to be taken with a pinch of salt due to their being long on hate and short on facts.
This one is the opposite - long on facts, and short on hate. You're letting the facts mostly speak for themselves (with a bit of encouragement here and there). I prefer it this way.
c'mon, you gotta do better than this... I mean, how old are these chips.... maybe someone can sue ATI over their 2xxx series cards (they all stunk bad).
Saw this article reported on first in tech powerup a few days ago. CD jumps on someone elses story yet again. Stop congratulating him, other folk report it too. To defend him though, NV have most definitely been bad with this one. However, why is every one so happy to side with the insurers? Have we all turned into corporate whores all of a sudden. NV bad, Insurers bad, ATI bad (for sacking tonnes and teaming up with the Saudis - a country run as a dictatorship which denegrates human rights and sponsors al qaeida.) Intel laughably bad, British govt bad, Obama pleasant, yadda yadda yadda.
It's all about the benjamins you fuds, get over it, buy your gfx card and play your games.
Capitalism makes rich people rich and doesnt care who gets hurt. Whether you're Mr Huang or Osama ATI Laden.
Pfft.
Good article.
I was wondering where all the republicans have gone.
I think I found out, they're running nvidia rofl
Is Michael Steele on their board?
The way Nvidia has been run, and the way the repubs operate have such clear puarallels.
The real question is, did the republicans learn this from nvidia, or did nvidia learn from the republicans?
I guess it doesn't matter, but the results, they should matter. So anyone think nvidia's chances are any better than repubs of the past few years?
I think not.
I thought my 6800 ultra was a shotty product (it was basically broken - heat and broken features), but it seems their whole product line is messed up big time.
This is like saying all GM cars have axle issues that could cause them to break while driving. Anyone think GM would sell many cars? (Aside from dependence on credit which is screwing over all companies now...so forget the current economic crisis for this example)
In an informed world, with informed consciouentous customers, Nvidia sale's would drop off 90 percent by tomorrow.
Overall this type of screw up generally will bankrupt a company. Good thing the system is set up to lend money, instead of making all these companies actually pay for their mistakes. We surely couldn't use the credit anywhere else lol.
Credit- keeping bad companies afloat since Reagan. - And YOU'VE been paying for it ever since
In a sea of crap, i.e. corporations, it might be hard to tell if someone stained their shorts, but rest assured, they are stained/soiled.
If people woke up to the truth of what's really going on, we'd have to close half (or more) the corporations on this planet. Or we can keep playing their game. Up to us, but so far we've barely chosen an alternative.
Right now people should be seeing the reasons WHY corporations shouldn't have more rights than an actual human being. But, unfortunately, AIG has more rights than you. It's all our faults, us, our parents, their parents, and theirs. Hard nut to crack? Sure is, but if it isn't cracked, it'll only get worse.
A rigged market (not free market which is what they claimed all these years) is a great economic engine (for only a few, for only a while). But how we thought that it to be the best thing for our social compact is beyond me. It never made sense to me, nor those enlightened a decade or two ago.
It's like BSG, all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. Because it's true. We've been screwed before, and we're currently still being screwed, and if you read your history, you know how they'll screw us going forward. We let crooks in, "republicans 80-20 percent", or any corporatist of any party, bring all of this upon us again. If we don't watch out, our children will have to go through it again.
So, every day of in-action, you are not just screwing yourself, you are screwing your kids, just like those who probably were your parents, voting republicans in power from Nixon-W. Bush were screwing you.
At the very least, with Nvidia, we're only talking about graphics cards. Imagine if it's medical testing, or drug research, food safety, and so on and so forth.
Sad thing is, I guarantee you there are 100's or thousands of nvidia's out there right now doing things as bad or worse than Nvidia, in areas more critical to the health of someone, that isn't even known and no action being taken.
So use Nvidia as an example. Because Nvidia isn't a special case, it is the NORM in terms of corporate behavior. They'll all act like this. Now imagine thousands of corporations acting like this, and again, think, should these 'thumb their noses at everyone' attitude be protected by law so much that they have more rights than any human being on the planet? If it doesn't sound fair, it's because it isn't fair. Sad too, because although life isn't fair, one role of gov't is to make sure things are as fair as reasonably possible. But that hasn't been done for many decades.
Tank, hate to tell you this, but Nvidia has had A1 silicon of GT300 since march and it is running quite nicely, so charlie can take that and shove it up his cabboos if he can reach around his fat ass to get it there.
J, you are truely a Liberal idiot. Gov programs will ruin this country faster than anything and so will the BS Global Warming crap you turds love yo cling to
Yes consumers need competition but even with NVidia gone it will still be there... between AMD & Intel
you could try phoning their press department and informing them that you will be having a 1 man demonstration outside the shop you bought the laptop, with the local press attending. You will then put it on youtube, flickr, facebook, myspace, theinquirer etc.
Your plan is take an estate agent's signboard and write your own sign on it, so the press can photograph it. As well as the laptop.
Write something like:
"Sony knew this product was faulty and won't replace it, beward of buying Sony"
You don't need the press, just get a friend to photograph you and video you, then youtube, facebook, bebo, here etc. But the phonecall to their press office with your plan might help.
Nvidia have screwed over so many people that it's a disgrace that national media are not covering it.
I've been unhappy with nVidia as a company for a long time dating back to even before they were caught cheating in graphics benchmarks.
And no, before you nvidiot fanbois even go there, just because everyone else appeared to be cheating one time or another on benchmarks is _not_ a valid excuse.
I've been watching this story, thanks to Charlie, unfold for some time now. I've personally worked on a number of failed {HP and Dell based} laptops with the specific 'bump' problem as described. In hindsight, I also suspect several failed nVidia based graphics cards in computers at where I used work probably also failed for the same reason.
In point of fact, in a 250 PC Dell only computer company, I only encountered 2 failed graphic cards which were not nVidia based over 6 years.
After the poor quality of the extended warantee to cover the above notebooks {I won't go into the lame excuses, returned borked parts and arguments over fully qualified repairs with HP in particular}, I will _never_ purchase anything less than 5 years old which has nVidia in it.
The people I've helped get through their fully qualified warantee repair for this nVidia problem also will never buy anything with nVidia in it again and they are actively recommending to their respective friends and families to also never buy anything with nVidia in it.
Normally, I take whatever I see in news articles with a large grain of salt. Personal first hand experience combined with court filings from what is a normally unexpected quarter to back up what I read are sufficient for me to give Charlie the benefit of the doubt.
nVidia really, really screwed up and are continuing to make it worse. I suspect strongly that nVidia will be out of business entirely before this is over.
What I'd like to see from Charlie is a hypothetical calculation of the total liability using the same conservative approach he did in one of his earlier articles but to use the expanded chip list in the court filing as his starting point.
That's what you've been doing the past x years when buying an Nvidia card.
Every $ spent by Nvidia on TWIMTBP hurt ATI more than it helped make games better.
For all that, ATI still make better gpu's. On sheer talent alone, ATI/AMD are keeping the whole corrupt IT industry honest.
If you have any deceny at all left, promise yourself to buy ATI/AMD in future. This is like the legal version of the pirate bay (unless you count intel) - good guys vs bad guys.
The future of the planet is at stake, do the smart thing for once in your stupid life.
Don't forget, the extended warranties are provided(mostly) by insurance companies...
In the end, maybe the nVidia chips will fell into the same category,
like the high intensity light bulbs in the rear projection(LCD and DLP only) TV sets ???
Does this mean the slogan will be changed to : Nvidia ..."The way YOU were meant to be played."
another hate from charlie, but sorry it's too long for my breakfast i'll have it for dinner
1. Dell makes crappy cards no matter which chip is on it, the caps go out more than anything, I dont see how in the world you can hold Nvidia accountable for Dell using cheap parts to fit to their card. Hell, their board are just as junkie.
2. I've work at a place where over a 4 year period, every single ATI card, all machines came with them, failed.
3. You can't blame the chip makers for OEMs who use crappy parts to make addin boards.
4. You can fault Chip Makers for making bad design descions.
5. Both OEMs and Nvidia should take some flack for this.
@Brain, how old was this lappy? The G73 hasn't been used for an add in card in lappies for over 3 years now, no wonder it failed, IT WAS OLD! Get a life, nothing computer related lasts forever.
So Magee's /document/ backs up your story?
No. Magee's document is the story.
It's the difference between journalism (you know where you find out facts and evidence and have sources and so on) Charlie, as opposed to mere hand waving and innunendo (where you can just make up any old crap and claim no one would talk to you even if you wanted them to or worse just name drop people that didn't actually say what you are, e.g when you wrote that graphics cards development would be finished in 5 years because they can do 1080p)
Hi, a friend of mine had their HP Pavilion laptop die (no display or corrupt display in safe mode in Vista) just after its 2 year warranty :( It had the G72M processor, I checked a link from (I think the inquirer) which was to a page on the HP site listing all laptop model numbers which they were offering extended warranties but it wasn't listed. Does anyone know if theres anything else we can do? It was bought in Spain so duno if that might mean there are different model numbers here or something....
thanks for any advise!!
Andy.
@John: so one should just accept that one's gpu is going to fail at some point due to a design fault? that's right, a design fault. not because it's old (have you not read this or any of the related articles? - if not then i'll just reiterate - the problem is not CAUSED BY but BECOMES APPARENT through age) but because of a fault that the company that designed the gpu are aware of? a company that won't accept liability for said fault and in doing so leave countless people out of pocket. bollocks! of course it's reasonable to state that nothing computer related lasts forever (although there are theories that allow for computation to take place for an infinite amount of time, however this isn't really the place to discuss it) but i reckon it's reasonable to expect a laptop to last for more than 3 years! jesus, my 20 year old amiga still works ffs!
you state that ati cards have failed at a place that you have work. well, er, what has that got to do with nvdia cards that aren't fit for purpose failing? and nvidia not paying people the money that they owe them for unusable laptops? screw failed ati cards and any other non-pertinent factors. dell, hp, other oem's, ok, they're complicit. they should pay too. so this is about nvidia and their customers lying and cheating people for profit. any other point is moot.
and i do have a life John, i do! it's not much of a life and contains far too much snoring for one to be entirely comfortable, but it's a life John goddammit! ahh, sob...
If you have been following the comments, you'll note I did say you can blame a chip maker for a bad design descion. I've no doubt the chip itself more than likely still works itself, but the design flaw was the bump material. Do I think warranties be honored, YES. DO I think that lappies or any other computer or parts should be covered for 4,5,6,10 years, HELL PHUCK NO and anyone who also thinks this is outright stupid and crazy. The only companies offering Lifetime warranties are BFG, eVGA, XFX(who seems to be having massive issues right now with making anything Nv/ATI) and VisionTek, lest I forget any good name brand memory maker.
And if you doubt my XFX comment, just check newegg feedbacks on XFX products. X58 boards failing left and right. You can't Nv for that, IT ISN"T THERE CHIP ON THE BOARD and noone else seems to be having issues.
ANyone who has a computer, PC or Laptop, and has had it longer than 2 years before it failed, should be happy and just go buy another one as the average lifetime of these things is about 2.5 years before major failure. And that could be motherboard, screen, or anyother component in the unit. Dell, Compaq, HP and Gateways are the worse of the bunch as they almost always go due to bad caps. You can't blame Nvidia for bad caps. Although I'm sure Charlie will figure out a way.
KonTeo you assert that the extended warranties will be covered, and are usually covered, by the insurance company. This is not a *usually the case* situation. Extended warranties are covered when there are small numbers of returns exhibiting a range of defects.
What we are staring at and what Charlie won't just come right out and say is that this was a design defect. Design defects are not *usually* covered under any insurance policy.
Design defects are the kind of thing that OEMs want their money back for and from the designer. Design defects are something that should be pulled from the shelf as soon as there is a level of knowledge that there are higher than "normal" rates of failure. Nvidia knew, Nvidia knew before they shipped the vast majority of the chips that the OEMs are claiming money for against Nvidia.
Design defects that you knew about and still want your insurance company to pay for begins to look like insurance fraud.
This doesn't fall into the category of "normal" in most ways. But then again Wyeth and Nvidia could swap boards and they'd both have the same mindset.
Insurance companies have very strict requirements for paying out claims. It is apparent that the insurance company was denied information that they formally requested. If NVidia came clean and admitted that there were design flaws in their chips and chipsets, the claim would be denied, because the insurance company will not pay a claim on a faulty chip design. Further, the insurance company has proven that NVidia is covering up by not sharing vital information. The claim is denied and NVidia will have to pay, depleting any cash they have and causing them to have to be bought up by someone (CAN YOU SAY INTEL?). Charlie has proven his point. Nuff said. Nvidia produced faulty designed chips then attempted to cover up the design faults when they began failing.
john,
silicon doesn't deteriorate after 2.5 years. apart from thermal stress there is no wear. there is no reason whatsoever why these electronics can't live for decades. our pair of pentium1 systems (win98 load generators)are still alive and well after almost 14 years as are soon to be 10 years dual-p3 servers (mind you, dell ones). it is not production equipment but still plenty good to preform certain tasks. wife's 5 year old net-browser Tosh lapptop has battery life of 10 minutes and twichy HDD but the cpu and pos intel gfx still works. heck, one of my acquaintances runs a green-screened 386 system as a automated crop watering controller for his entire farm.
point is - good silicon usually works several decades, well way past its warranty. just because a certain piece of hardware can't run crysis does not make it useless. 2.5 years lifetime is joke and to suggest "just buy a new one" is plain arrogance.
now,your efforts to try and pass the blame to oems in this case are just funny. if you haven't followed the story - the problem was traced to nVidia silicon.
maybe you should try cursing more so your opinion is heard better?
@John:
er, you seem to have missed the point entirely. and no i won't explain it to you, i won't! i just won't play! gah!
beard.
There is nothing wrong with the silicon, it is the bump material used to to connect it. Last I knew bump material was not silicon or has reality distorted that much. Secondly, my assertions are in fact correct and fine, computers should be replaced every so often especially if said machine would cost more to fix that its value.
By your assertions, Intel, Nvidia and ATI should all be sued for all the bad caps causing boards to go bad because the OEM used crap to make the overall part. As if they have any control over it, they give the specs as to what to use, they can't help if the OEMs use crap.
National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh = AIG subsidiary.
I'm not surprised they don't want to cover one of their policies. Just Google their name plus "refusal to pay" or "complaint" or "won't cover policy". You'll get tons or results from all sorts of insured.
Wonderful article! What happens when a "normal" person lies under oath? I am still fighting with Dell over a $3000.00 laptop that has had TWO Nvidia GPU's go bad and Dell won't do anything. Thankfully, the Pennsylvania State Attorney General's office is helping---more so than Dell realizes. It is the basis for extreme further action. Consumers (end users) are not Pig fodder as Nvidia views them, they are the very reason Nvidia and Dell exist. End users have finally had enough and are NOT going to allow themselves to be dismissed this way. I have a $3000.00 paperweight. To me, this issue has entered a more serious arena-----the CRIMINAL arena. Starting at the top of the Executive food chain and working down, there needs to be full disclosure. "Firing" and "hiring" from the top--down if full disclosure is not met. Nvidia and Dell (etc.) can turn their cold shoulder's all they want, but but this issue will NOT pass without a resolution that is agreeable to all end users. Period!
Talk about distorting reality.... The 'bumps' connect the silicon die to the substrate package. The OEMs never have to handle a bare die, the die substrate connection is nVidia's responsibility. This IS their design fault, not in the board makers choice of caps or anything else.
And no, it wouldnt be TSMC's fault or there would likely be issues with other companies' silicon.
My IBM T23 circa '01 is still running like new... and no nvidia chip in it. Id be bent if i had to replace a laptop after only a couple years, i take good care of my stuff.
How much more can nVidia beat around the bush before you become suspcious? Stop being naive, its all written on the wall: nVidia is a greedy company and its not all that surprising that they would try to skirt this issue to avoid paying out the ass to fix everyones shit.
called me, his laptop kept running hot and shutting itself off. I was in a different part of the country and I suggested he clocked it down somewhat. This worked. But the thing is running at half speed...
Later I met him, the laptop was on the table and I glanced at it only to see a little sticker with nvidia g84 written on it.
I said "oh, right, you're screwed."
i was hoping to see more of those anti-charlie boys..... where are they? LOL
On a side note, I wonder how many cards fail because of bad cooler design.
I had a GF 6800 with a reference cooler, the kind where a slowly turning radial fan sucks air and dust from the case, blows it over a heatsink in an enclosed passage on its way out the back of the case. It didn't take long at all for the thing to be clogged up with dust, turning the entire thing into an overheated dustball with a motor, killing the card.
Surely it must have happened to other people, too.
I have a NV7600GS pcie, I have hear what is possible may have a bug, somebody ask yourself why nvidia driver are so huge ~ 100MB (with Physx), THIS SIZE OF THE SOFTWARE (DRIVER) ARE "TRICKS" TO PATCH HARDWARE BUGS..., BECAUSE, MANY BUGS, MANY SOFT'S PATCH'S...
P.D: BUY AMD/ATI OR BE TRICKED...
i was a nvidia nerd, but my nightmare has begun since i bought a nvidia g72m laptop. overheat, freakin noise, and burnt like smell...now i hate nvidia and nvidia MUST PAY FOR THIS!!
Thank you Charlie, for publishing this important article outlining that Nvidia have not fulfilled their part in a trade agreement. Basicly. What gets me even more is that the different manufacturers such as HP put their corporate partner, Nvidia, ahead of its own customers and purpose, and do not do anything about it.
This is a situation beyond the usual hardware issues, they basicly sold a product which was not of merchantable quality.
I have bought my very last Nvidia product. Been in the business of computer repair for nearly 20 years. I currently have the Gtx280...play a lot of games, tryed everything...system crashes due to this card....Im done. Gonna try the other guys.
never was a nvidia fanboy, but i became a nvidia hater and ati fan.
had s3 as my first card. it was a disaster. after long time using that catastrophe of a card ( i dont tend to buy new parts or pc every 1-2 years), i bought an nvidia. it was a bigger disaster. had blue screens daily. the card didnt broke out completely, but was kinda unusable in the end as blue screens made like 80% of the time i used the PC. tought i must try em all so i bought an ati. perfect card till died forever. just crashed. everything black, the end. nonetheless till that moment, it worked perfectly for about 3 years. in a moment of complete retardation i decided to buy again a nvidia. not only a graphic card, but motherboard too. some shitty "driver related" problems that prevented me to play certain older games that i was fond of. some other stupid and annoying "power realated" issue that was freaking interupting every game. bought a new power source, still the problem remains. cried all over nvidia forums, support and $hit, till some genial guy found a solution and posted on the forums.
the nvidia chipset motherboard gone fried the first day of use. using warranty changed 3 (THREE) of those. all fried.
so excuse me, you nvidia nerds are just a bunch of morons. buying the bullshit that nvidia sells on magazines and online articles about how are they the best, and how they made the ultimate card and so on and you, the large pile of friggin idiot nerds, try to convince everyone that the new nvidia will own everything and cant wait the freakin piece of nvidia junk, cause some retard gaming company says its games are nvidia optimized. so naive.
My 7600GT died recently, and I know it's an "old" card, but I was hoping to keep using it because it did everything I needed it to do. Do you guys think there's a chance that NVIDIA will have to replace old products that failed, including the 7600GT?