Rumor: NVIDIA's defective GPU woes worsen

by Randy Nelson on Aug 12th 2008 7:30PM

While AMD is riding high after the unveiling of its brawny ATI Radeon 4870 x2, rival NVIDIA is potentially looking at more problems with defective GPUs rolling out of its fabs. According to an article from UK tech blog The Inquirer, a recent batch of bad notebook chips was only the first sign of a malady affecting a wide swath of the firm's graphics processors.

The site reports that four of NVIDIA's partners are seeing G92 and G94 chips "going bad in the field at high rates." These two GPU parts power a number of the company's most popular notebook and add-in solutions, notably the 8800 mobile series, 8800GT, 8800GTS, 8800GS, and 9600GT. Laptops from Dell and HP are reported to be most affected, but with the problem seemingly creeping into stand-alone cards, desktops from these vendors – along with others, not to mention home-built rigs – could be in danger of GPU failure. Until there's a formal announcement from NVIDIA, new hardware purchasers should probably keep their receipts handy just to be safe.

[Via Engadget]

Source

Tags: defective, gpu, nvidia, PC

Reader Comments (38)

I can't think in any good RRoD related joke =(

I think, therefore I am.

wait...I mean

Yeee heeee! I'm running, I'm running!

Well 360s have an ATI GPU...

it would be a yellow light of death joke

I have a Dell m1330 with the defective nvidia 8400m. the first time it happened, and found out what the problem was, that's the first thing that popped into my head. It actually gave me the blue screen of death (pointing at the video driver), then it died. I am on my second m1330 system board, it still gets really, really hot. Waiting for my second m1330 BSoD/RRoD

Haha, I'm immune I'm gonna be running a 8800 GT, TAKE THAT BITCHEZ!

Honestly not suprised, especially with their outstandingly horrible video drivers that they have been publishing for the last year or so. And then the craptastic 9xxx series, and finally this SNAFU..

Sounds to me that there is some management problems. Or someone has been dropping the ball on Quality Control...

Um TipTup....the 8800gt was listed in the article.

Why go for an Nvidia card anyway. ATI is far far better value for money. For half the price of a 280gtx you get a HD4870 which is 5% slower at the most, or get a HD4850 for the same price as an 8800gt for double the performance.

That image liked...popped out of my screen.

I see a sail boat.

Its a schooner.

where were you people when i made that joke?

Glad I got an ATI 4850 instead of an 8800GT..

Its a kickass card, especially for $200 when I got it, finally can run Crysis on High at 1080P on my HDTV. XD

Yeah, 4850 is a lot better but I think this is just FUD by the Inquirer, which is basically the tabloid of tech sites. The 8800GT used to be the most popular card so I doubt it could have had issues so widespread and no one would have noticed until now.

Lifetime warranty ftw

true, the fan on my bfg 8800gt (g92) started clicking. I called 24hour tech support at 3am and I had a new one, no questions asked in 3 days (and a free t-shirt). Video card companies are usually pretty good about keeping their customers satisfied.

I had wondered why the Geforce graphics in my Compaq ran so hot, even playing 2D games, before it finally died earlier this year from playing FF7. : (

Luckily, I found out HP extended its warranty and its with them for a free repair. Sent it July 31st, won't get it back till August 22nd. Eh, I hated it anyways and I gave it to my brother before it died, so he has a free laptop.

Always been an Nvidia fanboy and am now switching to ATI, with ATI's better performance per dollar and reliability. Now, I've had to switch to 360 from PS3 as well, mostly because now the PS3 has build quality issues and the 360 is error free. : (

You have a retail computer right? Did you add any extra fans? Is there even enough room in the case? If not you probably should get that checked. Name brand computers can run pretty hot seeing as a lot of them don't have a very good cooling setup.

It was a Compaq laptop and the bottom got extremely hot when playing any game.

I wonder when I get it back, will they have just make a temporary fix and the videocard will fry again after use or did they actually fix it? Actually, I hear HP released a new BIOS to make the fans run more, not a good solution.

I recently replaced my 8800GTX with a Radeon 4870 when it went bad in just over a year. Started with weird crashes, at random, then just up and died. The Radeon has been beautiful, I didn't know I could get such a nice performance boost.

Really really off topic, but I couldn't help but admire your picture... I finished the book last night.

Pretty much epic win. I'm super pumped for the movie!

To be honest there's not much point in buying any of these supposedly affected cards, since ATI pretty much has the best value graphics cards in terms of performance for price. The 3850 is a good 'entry' graphics card and can be had for around £55-60, then you have 4850s at £105-115 which blow away £90-100 8800GTs. Above that and you're looking at the 4870, and then crossfired 4870s or the upcoming 4870x2.

Not to play down the 8800GT though, it is a great card, just not worth buying for it's current price given the other options. Unfortunately my first 8800GT died suddenly after working flawlessly for 6 months, but the replacement is going fine (shame about the lack of speed control on the fan though).

You know, as a long time Nvidia fan that just switched to ATI, I love the manual speed settings on the fans.

HAHAHA, you realize the Inquirer is like the onion to the tech world right? that place is not a reliable source of information in the least

Yeah, hhe Inquirer is very anti-nVidia on pretty much anything. They're like the SDF.

Anyone saying the inquirer is like the onion is obviously ignorant on IT stuff and/or doesn't read theinquirer.

Sure, they have a funny style of writing their stories, but that doesn't make them any less trustworthy.

They were the first to break the news about the Sony exploding batteries and several other stories irresponsible companies sensitive and fanboys like the people dissing TheInq would rather not let anyone know.

ive been following the tech world for a very long time, im a pretty heavy overclocker and am always on the prowl for new parts, i stayed up past midnight numerous times for the release of computer parts, i know the inq is garbage

Nvidia ought to start firing people, beginning with their CEO and working their way down.

Buying ATI was probably the smartest thing AMD's done in a long while. I wonder if this will help them in the Intel Wars.

I'd like this to be resolved... I can see the effects every single day on my MacBook Pro.

could this be the final nod to ATI taking this gen of cards? I'm itching to get an ATI card again, although my 8800GT is going me fine at the moment, but damn, these cards are so damn cheap it's like taking your girl or guy out for a nice diner. Gotta love the competitive pricing between these two companies, thank god we have both of them :P

My two 8800GTs are running fine, and have been since their launch, I call bull.

And i suppose the dozen people worldwide who have had thier 360s since launch which havent RRoD probably think the RRoD doesn't exist too.

Seems they are trying to delay the official announcement till the majority of warranties have expired. Shame that it's a manufacturing defect so the EU is covered :)

I feel sorry for all the companies that are getting tons of RMAs because of the Nvidia GPUs.

My computer is one of those that are affected. I wanted an AMD chip in the first place, but HP screwed me in a replacement thing. I'll never buy a laptop from HP again, nor will I buy ANYTHING nVidia.

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Rumor: NVIDIA's defective GPU woes worsen

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