NVIDIA shows signs ... [2008 - 2017]

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

They aren't all falling apart.
For instance, HP has no mention of the dv2500 14.1'' series laptops on their Nvidia GPU RMA support page, even though it has two different variants of the G86 chip (8400M GS -64bit- and 8400M GT -128bit-, both coming with 1.2GHz GDDR3), and it has existed for much longer that the "G86-failure scandal".
How do you explain that ?

I'd take it that a critically-heating, massively produced defective GPU inserted into an old, smaller than standard chassis (14.1'', instead of 15.4'') would have been the first to show any symptoms, and yet...

I never said "fallling apart". The connections between the chip and the pads on the substrate are breaking due to thermal stress and migration.

How do you explain that Nvidia is replacing all underfill material in all it's chips, and switching to eutedic balls, even for chips that are effectively reaching the end of their lives anyway? It's very expensive to rebuild and requalify this kind of thing, it's not something you just do for a laugh, or drop 200 milliion on and hurt your stock price on unless you really, really have to.

Read the article, because I can't believe that you have done so if you have to keep asking these questions. Charlie has got the spec of the old underfill material, and it's rated only up to 60 degrees, and at 80 degrees it's a hundred times weaker. Nvidia chips run hotter than that at the balls and pads, which are effectively heatsinks into the chips themselves. This underfill failure is exactly what Nvidia pinpointed themselves when they finally admitted the problem, but you can see the underfill isn't rated for the very high temps seen on the balls/pads between the chip and it's substrate. The underfill works within it's spec. Nvidia is using it way outside it's specification.

The failures are caused by the materials and the way they interact with the heat stressing caused by the design and nature of these chips. Some will last longer than others because of the environment they are in, how they are cooled, how they are used. Others will fail more quickly for the same reasons, and laptops are currently the worst case scenario for failures. They are not the only case scenario though.

 

[Acert93]

Yeah, and "who" exactly got him that story ? And has he verified that those failure rates are higher than average for discrete GPU-equipped laptops ?
If he doesn't check both sides of the story, then that just makes him somebody's ***ch, not a "journalist".
And who know's, maybe that "somebody" just happens to be a current and/or future competitor...

Like NV is going to talk to him, or anyone else for that matter, openly. Charlie is a pawn. But as a consumer stuck with one of these prone-to-defect products I don't really care: NV is playing the corporate game and Charlie is being used as a tool (surely to a competitors advantage), but in the end, as a consumer, what I care about is that there is some accountability.

As for journalism in general, if Charlie presented information to NV and they continue to stonewall him he did due dilligence to get both sides. It isn't necessarily his responsibility in all matters. If there is a supposed issue (Side A) and he contacts NV (Side B) and NV stonewalls him and he asks around (OEMs, engineers, etc) to flesh out the story "as we know it" then he has done his job. At that point NV (and other interested parties) can use media channels (as they surely do) or Charlie himself to clarify, redirect, spin, or ignore the reporting depending on the side effect. Charlie is usually worth ignoring because it would be difficult to prove he was fabricating information and you run the risk of engaging him on his own turf thus giving some weight to what he says as well as making him "important" enough to respond to.

Anyhow, I would like to see those critical of Charlie to take their hand at analysing NV's accusations against OEMs. It seems outside of a few journalists more than a few parties with invested interest are allowing some of this stuff to settle out of the way under a rug somewhere. Potentially millions of defective chips in addition to companies (NV and OEMs) selling these chips after the issue was discovered is a pretty serious issue.

 

[INKster]

Anyhow, I would like to see those critical of Charlie to take their hand at analysing NV's accusations against OEMs. It seems outside of a few journalists more than a few parties with invested interest are allowing some of this stuff to settle out of the way under a rug somewhere. Potentially millions of defective chips in addition to companies (NV and OEMs) selling these chips after the issue was discovered is a pretty serious issue.

How does taking a 200 million hit, reporting it to the SEC -even at the cost of predictably future share value impact-, and then having vendors like the world's largest (HP) and others giants like Dell, Lenovo, etc, issuing special support pages and free warranty service/replacement qualify as "sweeping it under the rug" ?
Can you get any more high-profile than this ?
Is it as serious as the X360 RRoD ? I don't think so, or we would have sensed it by now with a much more serious choir of protests from around the world.

AMD kept selling the TLB bug-affected Phenom and Opteron CPU's even after its outbreak in the media, if i recall, just as Intel kept selling the Pentium 60MHz/66MHz with the FDIV bug... for two years until it was revealed by an outsider (i also remember another Intel blunder with the Pentium III 1.13GHz too, selling it for a few months with severe instability problems until THG found out about it).


We're talking about G86 here, a 210 million transistor chip (more than a mainstream Allendale Core 2 Duo, and almost as much the Cell processor), it's only natural that these things occur from time to time, every chip designer went through it and most of them dealt with the ensuing media scandals more or less the same way, free recalls+repairs.
As a consumer, that's all you care, right ?

 

[Skrying]

What Nvidia have done so far is really minor compared to a full recall. That's the very thing Charlie is arguing though. That Nvidia want's people to think they've done enough to fix the issue. Again, I don't believe that Charlie can write like this all the time nor that he wrote this by himself without serious insight from a third party or two. His track record in the past is very spotty, but I must say this article is very well done and for the most part very reasonable and saying that what Nvidia has done is the highest of profile is really rather way overstating what they've done.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

We're talking about G86 here, a 210 million transistor chip (more than a mainstream Allendale Core 2 Duo, and almost as much the Cell processor), it's only natural that these things occur from time to time, every chip designer went through it and most of them dealt with the ensuing media scandals more or less the same way, free recalls+repairs.
As a consumer, that's all you care, right ?

I'm not so sure I'd be quite so sympathetic to the multi-billion dollar company that sold me a known faulty product that fails just outside of warranty and leaves me to pick up the cost and inconvenience of a replacement or repair.

If Charlie's other claims are true about this being a known problem for the last year or so, and Nvidia continuing to ship out faulty chips to get rid of them, I'd be pretty pissed off.

Sure, AMD had TLB, but that was spotted and owned up to within a couple of months. There was a software fix and at no point did your laptop or a major componet die. In fact, didn't AMD stop shipping to retail to make sure?

It's all pretty different from the shennanigans that Nvidia's been pulling about all of this.

 

[Razor1]

What Nvidia have done so far is really minor compared to a full recall. That's the very thing Charlie is arguing though. That Nvidia want's people to think they've done enough to fix the issue. Again, I don't believe that Charlie can write like this all the time nor that he wrote this by himself without serious insight from a third party or two. His track record in the past is very spotty, but I must say this article is very well done and for the most part very reasonable and saying that what Nvidia has done is the highest of profile is really rather way overstating what they've done.

First off he didn't know what a Poisson Cruve is (one of his earlier articles on this matter), and what the differences between that and a Bell curve, now I don't even think he knew there was a poisson cruve to begin with, so who ever he talks to, he doesn't know what they are saying to report on if he is adding his supposed "insight" to a 3rd party's knownledge, it just doesn't cut it.

 

[3dilettante]

Sure, AMD had TLB, but that was spotted and owned up to within a couple of months. There was a software fix and at no point did your laptop or a major componet die. In fact, didn't AMD stop shipping to retail to make sure?

Not quite. If it had, we wouldn't have had the xx50 model numbers.

AMD stopped shipping Opterons to all non-HPC clients. Server shipments were halted.

Consumer chips were not halted.

 

[Skrying]

First off he didn't know what a Poisson Cruve is (one of his earlier articles on this matter), and what the differences between that and a Bell curve, now I don't even think he knew there was a poisson cruve to begin with, so who ever he talks to, he doesn't know what they are saying to report on if he is adding his supposed "insight" to a 3rd party's knownledge, it just doesn't cut it.

I don't think you got what I was getting too. That he's getting a lot of outside information. That's what the "serious" meant. Again, I don't think Charlie is capable of writing such an article alone or even the majority of it himself, at least judged from his past on The Inq. But you can't deny the article is there, coherent, and makes some sense and has a number of details.

 

[Razor1]

I don't think you got what I was getting two. That he's getting a lot of outside information. That's what the "serious" meant. Again, I don't think Charlie is capable of writing such an article alone or even the majority of it himself, at least judged from his past on The Inq. But you can't deny the article is there, coherent, and makes some sense and has a number of details.

problem lies with we don't know what he is adding to the article unless it sounds like total BS, like the example I gave. And that is what is hard to see if there is nothing technical to write about.

 

[INKster]

I'm not so sure I'd be quite so sympathetic to the multi-billion dollar company that sold me a known faulty product that fails just outside of warranty and leaves me to pick up the cost and inconvenience of a replacement or repair.

Have you even read the HP link that i provided above ?
It's a "Warranty extension".

This service enhancement program is available in North America for 24 months after the start of your original standard limited warranty for issues listed below; otherwise your current standard limited warranty applies. Customers who already have a 24 month or longer warranty period will be covered under their existing standard HP Limited Warranty.

Since most warranties in North America are usually only valid up to a year (unlike here in the EU, where 2-year minimum warranties are required by law), having it extended to 2 years because of this issue is not exactly letting go of customers hooked up to out-of-warranty faulty products...
G86 Mobile isn't selling for that long.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Not quite. If it had, we wouldn't have had the xx50 model numbers.

I thought thought the xx50 was there to differentiate between the old ones with the bug and the new ones (which were a different stepping anyway).

At least you knew what you were getting, as opposed to Nvidia's method of keeping quiet for a year and then sneaking out your broken chips along with the fixed ones in the hope that your customers won't know any better and will be out of warranty when they fail.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Have you even read the HP link that i provided above ?
It's a "Warranty extension".

Since most warranties in North America are usually only valid up to a year (unlike here in the EU, where 2-year minimum warranties are required by law), having it extended to 2 years because of this issue is not exactly letting go of customers hooked up to out-of-warranty faulty products...
G86 Mobile isn't selling for that long.

Have you read the Inq links that I provided above?

Providing extended warranties to everyone is expensive. HP is only doing it because they are passing the cost to Nvidia, who is paying for it all. It's only happening after Nvidia has hidden the problem for the last year. It is still an inconvenience for the customer. It will still cost the customer if the failure happens outside of the extended warranty, which is what the "bios fix" was designed to do ie turn on the fan all the time and hope this pushes the problem outside of the warranty, and now the extended warranty period. They are offering this is lieu of a recall because it's cheaper for them.

You think that a major processing component soldered to the motherboard of a laptop should only survive for 24 months? Especially when it's obviously a defect in manufacture due to NV using an unsuitable underfill material. Even Nvidia said it was the underfill. You only have to look at the spec of the underfill to see it's not rated at the temperatuers that Nvidia used it for.

Difference is instead of implying it's the fault of the underfill by spinning it as "an underfill defect" the truth is that the underfill failed because Nvidia used it improperly. Yes, the chip defect is a failure of the underfill to support the balls and pads, but that's only because the balls and pads take so much heat there is a massive materials mismatch, and the underfill that isn't rated to handle it (surprise surprise), can't handle it.

 

[Razor1]

Then explain what Intel did with the defect motherboards from Dell and other OEM's, check dell deminsion 3000 thermal problem in Google. It actually effects many lines other then what I just mentioned, and for many years too 3+, it was all due to transitor problems with the motherboard. It wasn't even mentioned to the public.

 

[3dilettante]

I thought thought the xx50 was there to differentiate between the old ones with the bug and the new ones (which were a different stepping anyway).

If AMD had stopped shipment there wouldn't have been a need to differentiate.
AMD continued to sell the buggy chips, which necessitated the extra branding.

AMD halted Opteron shipments to server customers, though it delivered to HPC clients.

 

[Acert93]

How does taking a 200 million hit, reporting it to the SEC -even at the cost of predictably future share value impact-, and then having vendors like the world's largest (HP) and others giants like Dell, Lenovo, etc, issuing special support pages and free warranty service/replacement qualify as "sweeping it under the rug" ?
Can you get any more high-profile than this ?
Is it as serious as the X360 RRoD ? I don't think so, or we would have sensed it by now with a much more serious choir of protests from around the world.

AMD kept selling the TLB bug-affected Phenom and Opteron CPU's even after its outbreak in the media, if i recall, just as Intel kept selling the Pentium 60MHz/66MHz with the FDIV bug... for two years until it was revealed by an outsider (i also remember another Intel blunder with the Pentium III 1.13GHz too, selling it for a few months with severe instability problems until THG found out about it).


We're talking about G86 here, a 210 million transistor chip (more than a mainstream Allendale Core 2 Duo, and almost as much the Cell processor), it's only natural that these things occur from time to time, every chip designer went through it and most of them dealt with the ensuing media scandals more or less the same way, free recalls+repairs.
As a consumer, that's all you care, right ?

Thanks for proving my point!! So predictable, I didn't even have to wait more than one post.

Instead of tackling the issues about the continued shipment of prone-to-defect chips (sold to consumers) and addressing yet-to-be-substantiaged share of blame on OEMs you avoided my concerns as a consumer: did NV sell chips knowing they were bad? How long, and how many, prone-to-defect chips did NV sell? Are OEMs to blame at all, as NV has claimed? That is what is being ignored and swept under the rug and your post is exactly the blatant nonsense I am talking about. Charlie is a mere side show. The fact he is being used (duh) is besides the point. Kind of sad that the industry needs to use someone like Charlie to even prod these points. The fact you can quote me and then avoid my very point is entertaining though!

As an aside, $200M is chump change (see MS's $1.15B and 3 year warranty) and a year extended warranty (long after the fact) of a potential defect that will cause significant inconvenience and due to the issue may fall outside the window of coverage is an issue. But those are all outside my "under the rug" comment.

Oh well the longtime NV fans and insiders will continue to run the same course

 

[Mariner]

Seems pretty obvious that Charlie has been assisted in this by somebody from within the industry, most probably from Namics who obviously don't want to carry the can for NV's apparent design blunder.

For me, one of the worst things for customers is that the BIOS upgrades to affected laptops basically set the fan running permanently which, for me, would make using one extremely irritating.

 

[INKster]

Thanks for proving my point!! So predictable, I didn't even have to wait more than one post.

Instead of tackling the issues about the continued shipment of prone-to-defect chips (sold to consumers) and addressing yet-to-be-substantiaged share of blame on OEMs you avoided my concerns as a consumer: did NV sell chips knowing they were bad? How long, and how many, prone-to-defect chips did NV sell? Are OEMs to blame at all, as NV has claimed? That is what is being ignored and swept under the rug and your post is exactly the blatant nonsense I am talking about. Charlie is a mere side show. The fact he is being used (duh) is besides the point. Kind of sad that the industry needs to use someone like Charlie to even prod these points. The fact you can quote me and then avoid my very point is entertaining though!

As an aside, $200M is chump change (see MS's $1.15B and 3 year warranty) and a year extended warranty (long after the fact) of a potential defect that will cause significant inconvenience and due to the issue may fall outside the window of coverage is an issue. But those are all outside my "under the rug" comment.

Oh well the longtime NV fans and insiders will continue to run the same course

I'm not sure i'm comfortable with your personal attack against me. I certainly didn't do it to you.

BTW, Xbox 360 hardware is sold at a loss for Microsoft (which can afford to cover the Xbox/Zune division continuing losses since 2001 with the Windows/Office software licensing revenues), and most, if not all of the RRoD's stemmed from overheating ATI GPU's (it certainly wasn't the IBM CPU).
Nvidia just hands over the GPU for implementation into the OEM motherboards, and expects profits for it, like its reasonable for any company hoping to strive.
I remember seeing the Xbox 360 and PS3 motherboards side by side on a website back in 2005, and commented to a friend just how littered with cheap electrolytic capacitors was the former, compared to the neat and clean PS3 layout.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I'm not sure i'm comfortable with your personal attack against me. I certainly didn't do it to you.

BTW, Xbox 360 hardware is sold at a loss for Microsoft (which can afford to cover the Xbox/Zune division continuing losses since 2001 with the Windows/Office software licensing revenues), and most, if not all of the RRoD's stemmed from overheating ATI GPU's (it certainly wasn't the IBM CPU).

ATI just made the design and handed it over to MS. MS is the one that put insufficient cooling and a wonky heatsink on it.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Seems pretty obvious that Charlie has been assisted in this by somebody from within the industry, most probably from Namics who obviously don't want to carry the can for NV's apparent design blunder.

There's no doubt about that, it's very clearly written with little of the usual Charlie polemic.

 

[INKster]

ATI just made the design and handed it over to MS. MS is the one that put insufficient cooling and a wonky heatsink on it.

That sounds exactly like what happens in a laptop, doesn't it ?
There are no reference heatsink/cooler for notebooks like there are in desktop chips, at least to my knowledge (underfill material issue aside).

Microsoft, long before issuing the 1.1B repair charge notice, repeatedly kept sending costumers faulty consoles -some guys got seven (!)- before they admitted anything, going as far as having top-level executives publicly and categorically denying the abnormally high RMA rates.