Summarizing the Nvidia problems with laptop chips overheating
Last month Nvidia disclosed that due to a manufacturing flaw, some of their laptop computer graphics processors and chipsets are overheating and failing. This is a brief summary of the story for those that missed it.
All of the flawed processors and chipsets are not failing but the frequency of failure is unclear. Nvidia put it this way:
"Certain notebook configurations with GPUs and MCPs manufactured with a certain die/packaging material set are failing in the field at higher than normal rates. To date, abnormal failure rates with systems other than certain notebook systems have not been seen."
The day after the announcement, Humphrey Cheung at tgdaily noted that "significant quantities" of Nvidia chips are overheating and failing.
Two ways that failures manifest themselves are not being able to start the computer and, of course, a blank screen. Dell said that failure symptoms include multiple images, random characters on the screen lines on the screen. HP lists not detecting wireless networks as a sign of failure along with the wireless adapter not appearing in the Windows Device Manager. They also note that if the "battery charge indicator light does not turn on when the battery is installed and the AC adapter is connected" it may be due to this Nvidia problem.
The problem has existed for a while. CNET blogger Brooke Crothers says the HP knew about this since November 2007. At The INQUIRER Charlie Demerjian wrote about this problem back in April of 2007. Last month, Mr. Demerjian offered a fascinating explanation of what's going on in his article Nvidia plays the meltdown blame game. In it he says "...this problem hasn't cropped up in desktop parts yet, but it most assuredly will."
Today, the Wall Street Journal had a story about dissatisfaction with the way Nvidia has dealt with this issue, Chip Problems Haunt Nvidia, PC Makers. The article notes that "Nvidia hasn't recalled the affected chips or identified which models have problems." Nvidia's failure to publicly identify the problematic hardware, strikes me as inexcusable. According to The INQUIRER, All Nvidia G84 and G86s are bad.
Are You Affected?
The only laptop vendors to step up to the plate so far have been Dell and HP.
Owners of 24 HP laptop computer models need to be concerned. See HP Pavilion dv2000/dv6000/dv9000 and Compaq Presario v3000/v6000 Series Notebook PCs - HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement and HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement. I can't tell which of these two items is the most recent since HP doesn't date stamp them.
Owners of 15 Dell laptop computers are affected, including models in the Inspiron, Latitude, Precision, Vostro, and XPS lines. Dell owners should read NVIDIA GPU Update: Dell to Offer Limited Warranty Enhancement to All Affected Customers Worldwide.
What To Do If You Are Affected
The solutions offered by both HP and Dell boil down to running the fan all the time to prevent the Nvidia hardware from getting too hot.
Both companies offer a BIOS update. HP seems to have an updated BIOS for all affected machines, Dell has one for 10 of their 15 affected models.
HP describes the BIOS update thusly:
"HP has identified a hardware issue with certain HP Pavilion dv2000/dv6000/dv9000 and Compaq Presario V3000/V6000 series notebook PCs, and has also released a new BIOS for these notebook PCs... The new BIOS release for your notebook PC is preventative in nature to reduce the likelihood of future system issues. The BIOS updates the fan control algorithm of the system, and turns the fan on at low volume while your notebook PC is operational."
A very different perspective on the BIOS update is offered by Charlie Demerjian in The INQUIRER:
"If you look at the HP page, the prophylactic fix they offer is to more or less run the fan all the time. Once again, for the non-engineers out there, fan running eats a lot of power, so this destroys the battery life of notebooks. Basically, people bought a machine with a battery life of X, and now it is Y to prevent meltdown from a bum part. It doesn't fix anything, it just makes the failures take longer, hopefully past the warranty period, at a huge battery life cost. Fire up your class actions people, you got shafted."
Both Dell and HP have extended the warranty on affected machines by one year.
Other Steps To Take
If you own a laptop computer with Nvidia chips and you haven't registered it with the hardware vendor, I suggest doing so. This way they can contact you if need be, and it can only help grease the wheels should you need warranty repair.
Some motherboards have thermometers for measuring and reporting the temperature. Try to contact the hardware vendor to see if they offer software that you can use to watch the internal temperature. I use the free HD Tune to watch the temperature in hard disks but the hard disk might be nowhere near the Nvidia chips. The System Information for Windows program can also display some temperatures. Still, the best monitoring is probably with software from the motherboard or computer manufacturer, if they offer it.
Be aware of where the vents are and make sure they aren't blocked. Also, check for dust on the fan and remove any that's there. Go to the Power options in the Control Panel and make sure that all the available power management facilities are being used. They include powering down the hard disk after a period of inactivity as well as CPU power management. The Thinkpad T42 that I'm writing this on also offers PCI Bus power management.
And, of course, the most important advice of all, backup your important files to some place outside your computer. Locally resident backups on an external hard disk or a USB flash drive are a great starting point.
Update August 20, 2008: A reader with a ThinkPad T61 laptop computer wrote to tell me that the fan runs all the time. I haven't seen anything about Lenovo in terms of this Nvidia problem but the computer in question has an NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M.
Update September 10, 2008: A lawsuit broke out. See Lawsuit alleges Nvidia hid chip defects.
See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.
Michael Horowitz is an independent computer consultant and the author of several classes on Defensive Computing. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
Modern Os uses lots of 3d animations on the Surface so Nvidia have reduced the 2D Part of the Grafikcards and simulates a lot over the 3D part. This Shows the significant Power Plus from a 7series to a 8 series Geforce on Desktop operations they need roundabout twice a much Power.
i knew some poeples using Dell notebooks, and can compare them with other Notebooks with the same age: Dell notebooks have a very tight and bad termal design. So they are not designed to have a high passiv thermal rate. They need the fans. This is one of the reasons for some of their spectactular fails. Back to the theme. All gefore Chips seems to have a lower Thermal resistance then the previous great series (6 and 7 are nearly immortal) and are back to normal standard. For all Desktop and Botebook users i can only say look at the Cards Temperatures, most Monitoring programms can read the internal sensors out. Notebook designers didn't credited in somecases the extra 20 Watt power the chip needs in Desktop. To the good side: mostly on battery the notebook don't suck much power and goes in low Profile mode, so mostly it dies when it runs on cord. At home on your desk you can simply putt the notebook on a cooling Plate (a platform with two big slow fans) this keeps it cool and out of trouble. And maybe even less noisi as the internal fans don't have to spin up to much.
to the inquirer.. It's Rubbish about the Extra Juice the fans draw. A highperformance fan sucks 0.5 Amps. That means 6 Watts max about2 Watts on lownoise. The Geforce 8 and 9 series sucks about 38 Watts in Desktp the Mobile around 25 Watts. The CPU and chipset is with another 25 Watts a big player. So you got around 60 Watts and the Lownoise 2 Watt more which reduces your Standing time by 3% matters?
sorry for my bad English i am a Germans student of technical Computerscience.
http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1260549
http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1260549
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1478474&tstart=0
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pV-CKzYqbB6dLQRx8wpC2aw
1. HP admits to me that my laptop is affected by the bum NVidia chipsets.
2. Because it is out of warranty, and not yet on the list of affected latops, I have to pay 300.00 dollars to fix my laptop.
3. Exasperation
So, since I ustilitze my latop for work and school, it is imperative that I get my laptop fixed. I pay the 300 dollars to have ti fixed and they tell me that a box will arrive at my door the following morning. This was 3 days ago and the box still hasnt arrived. The 300.00 dollars have already been deducted from my account. I called HP to find out what the hold-up was. On my first attempt I was told that since their system was down they couldn't tell me the status of my order and to call back tomorrow. Unwilling to take the hint I call a second time immediately after. I am told that my order has been delayed on their end due to Hurricane Ike and that their Houston office, which sends out the boxes is closed due to the evacuations. They said they sent a request to them and that I should call back in 48 hours to find out the ETA of the box.
Now, let me get this straight,
First, I am told by HP that their system si down and they can't answer my questions.
Second, I am told that their is a lag time on their end because of Hurricane Ike and that their Houston Offices are closed, but that they send a request to them for confirmation on the ETA.
Now, am I daft? Why would you send a request to an office you just said was closed due to evacuations because of Hurricane Ike?
I digress, Now, not only did I pay 300.00 for the repair, but I have to call them two days from now jsut to find out what their time schedule looks like. I am a little scared at this point of even sending my laptop to them even if the box showed up this second, as I may never see it again.
So, the question is. What is really going on at HP behind the scenes? It seems to me something massive is happening that we dont know about causeing them to jsut be uncaring. Maybe, I should just try to get a refund on the repair and have it independantly fixed before the company files bankruptcy and I lose my 300.00 for good.
Anyway, I just thought I should let you know that the retailer sent my laptop to HP for repairs and it stayed there for 6 (six!) weeks ("parts shortage" they said, what about that?). So, I had it back after 7 weeks.
To answer your last question... I don't think there's anything happening behind the scenes... Probably not even a company like HP cannot afford to properly handle this kind of problem ?!
I called HP and they said that my particular model is not included in the additional year warranty extension, which I think is complete BS. I have seen numerous posts online from people with 9000 series laptops with the Intel chip and the SAME problem. He said it is limited to models with the AMD processor. I have the Nvidia 7600GPU. I am beyond pissed. I work from home and this is my only computer. I've also had the high capacity battery go faulty just after the warranty and the number 9 key on the keyboard popped up and no longer works very well. I've never had issues with laptops before like this.
If anyone has had any success getting this issue resolved without having to pay the $300+ cost please help!
Your kidding right ???
Yea HP stepped up to the plate allright. They carefully stepped up to the plate like it was a viper, tuched the corner of the plate, and then jumped back.
They are not stepping up to the plate, they are just trying to make it look like they are stepping up to the plate.
Wayne Sallee
Wayne@WayneSallee.com
Sorry if this has already been posted but it links to another part of the HP forum where hundreds of customers are experiencing similar problems considered to be with the NVIDIA graphics chip. Look at the post by Santos on 29th November 2008 for links to external information.
http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1191277
We cannot let this matter go quiet as HP would like, we have all been sold a dud and they really need to take FULL responsibility.
Regards
Celticprince (UK)
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 recommend the free program "Speedfan" which can provide some tweaking of fan control but mainly it will display component core and ambient temps on your tasktray. This can give you some heads up when to stuff your laptop in the fridge for a few minutes. If I run anything graphics intensive I need a "good" cooling platform or it will fry. I am now waiting for another mainboard for my Tecra M4 tablet (the 4th one with Nvidia chip fried) and plan to beef up the heat sink or airflow. Does anyone have suggestions? Im also wondering about the gateway? Intel 087 chip just downstream (airflow wise) from the video chip. It appears to have a thin copper adhesive heatsink/shield on it. Ive measured this chip temp and its over 130 deg F after just 20 seconds of operation. Im thinking of gluing (with some fairchild glue) some fins on this puppy.
How are these chips mounted? They appear to be glued down. I cant see how they could be flow soldered. Do they have compression contacts beneath them? It sure would be nice to be able to change one and not have to replace the whole mainboard which are about $500 from Toshiba. Something is real wrong here.
These jerks aren't getting away with it.
-Stacey
- by StaceyLackey November 6, 2009 3:31 AM PST
- I just made a site www.deadcomputer.webs.com to see just how many people are affected by this and how many of those people aren't covered under hp's warranty. I also was curious to hear about each person's experience with the customer service.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(17 Comments)-Stacey
I'd appreciate anyone's input.