Comments on: Has your Nvidia GPU melted down?

Nvidia expects to incur significant costs for warranty service on GPUs made with "weak materials." Were you affected?

[josephinehull]

I purchased a Dell XPS M1330 with NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS in Dec. 07 and at five months it died. I'm currently on my third motherboard. It's like a time bomb.

[kilgore_trout8]

I also have a dell XPS M1330 (purchased in Jan. '08) and just had my first (and hopefully last) motherboard replacement today. I chatted with the technician a bit and he told me that Dell does not actually use new motherboards for their warranty replacements. They slap new Nvidia chips onto old MBs and sends them out for replacement. He also replaced my CPU fan unit, which contained a large copper heatpipe that was apparently discolored and corroded due to the overheaing (according to the tech)! I actually experienced some blue screens that referenced a Nvidia driver as the culprit back in Feb., but after checking with Dell tech support and installing a new driver as suggested, everything worked fine until last week.

This is disgraceful on the part of Dell and Nvidia. I am quite angry about this since it is (was) a brand new laptop. I believe Dell knew of these problems for some time and could have acted sooner to deal with them. I now have no confidence in their products and will probably avoid buying another Dell in the future. The laptop is getting extremely hot again as I type this. My pessimistic opinion is that problems will keep cropping up as a result of this overheating and will greatly reduce the useful life of the machine. If only there was some way of getting a rebate for paying full price for what is essentially a defective laptop!

[lpusa]

I too purchased a Dell m1330 in Sept 07 and my first mobo went out in december. Lost 4 days of work trying to fix the issue and dell finally replced my mobo. Same issue just happened again to my last week. This time, Dell was reluctant in trying to resolve my issue. I chatted with 3 different tech supports guys and finally called up and spoke to two different techs. Finally got a supervisor to authorize a new mobo for me. Dell was refusing to replace the board becaue their Diagnostics didn't show up any issues... I extended my warranty for another year ($170) cause i kno wthis is a short term fix. Hopefully dell gets their act together and resolve the issue correctly.

[raptortx1]

I'm not certain, but I think this has happened to my HP dv9000t that I purchased in March 2007. It has the GeForce 7600 and over the past couple weeks went from fine to crap. The computer has been getting very hot and I was getting display driver errors which progressed into a grainy/blocky boot sequence and then just a black screen. Unfortunately the warranty has expired so I'm screwed for now.

[felix0345]

I have the same laptop and experiancing the same issue. I went to the HP site and but my laptop's product number is not in the list.

[felix0345]

Did you contact HP support already?

[savyboy]

XPS M1330 laptop from Dell is plagued by this problem. After 6-8 months of online web surfing, I got the dreaded vertical lines on the display, Blue Screen, and shutdown. Dell is replacing motherboard now, but this really needs to be dealt with in a recall offering to replace with new computers. Big big problem on the XPS M1330 Dell laptop.

[sfsidd]

after reading the blog and comments, its really easy to guess that dells are greatly effected by that line of GPU by nividia. but im wondering, if that would be an issue in my lenovo T61 with a nividia quadro GPU?

[wadah1111]

Hmmm, that will keep me back of buying a laptop with nvidia's graphics card till (THE
Y) inform (US ) which laptops have problems and which not so I can buy the one that's not having problems
What's your problem nVidia?
not only one mistake but two? first ruining the costumer trust then ? refusing to tell him how to aviod it?
I'm just disappointed

[eric6632]

Got a Dell XPS M1330 with a nVidia GeForce 8400M GS back in September of 2007. Started having trouble in August 2008. Black screen and a rainbow of colors at boot and system hang. Getting replacement Motherboard next week (Sept 2008). Refurb with another nVidia? We'll see.

[pov3rty]

My HP notebook is dead also... lucky for HP, it was 2 months after my warranty ran out. HP has extended the warranty to 24 months for SOME of the notebooks having problems -- but not all. They refuse to service mine and many others like mine.

A forum thread is growing with angry HP owners demanding action. Come join us and let's see if we can rightfully get all of our notebooks serviced or replaced as they should be, and just like everyone else!

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1191277

[catrionajay]

Complete failure of nVidia GeForce Go 7600 in my HP Pavilion dv9000. Computer boots to a page of dancing pixels and then a black screen. Purchased the computer in April 2007, and not part of the special extended HP warranty.

I also had failing nVidia cards in two brand-new HP desktops earlier this year, and extremely bad experiences with their tech support.

[DevryDropout]

HP DV9000 has major thermal issues...I have the nvidia geforce 7600. And my screen is down 5 months after 1 year warranty expired from HP. Oh, and 5 months after it completely melted down and was serviced by HP under warranty. (That worked out well at the time)
It would seem that the left side hinges of the unit are in proximity to the heatsink fan and vent which weakens the plastic(hinge). Causing them to crack and perhaps transfer heat to the backlight display circutry. I bought this unit and paid for all the upgrades and now it's costing me $$$$$$$ unless HP is going to foot the bill. I couldn't get the online "tech" to even send me a shipping box. The unit's numbers match to HP's list of affected units...but the "chat tech" doesn't have the juice to authorize ANYTHING. I'm upset...many blogs etc on the web with identical experiences.

[yfei]

nvidia geforce 7800go in my Dell e1705 just melt down 10 mins ago. I had the laptop since March 2006. No heavy usage in the recent 12 months.

Dell and Nvidia should issue recall to e1705

[bdbird]

I have a Toshiba Qosmio G35 Av 600 with an Nvidia card. the display is slowly, but surely failing. since the computer will be 3 years old in July, I guess I am out of luck. I am researching whether I should repair this one or invest in a new one. If I have to replace the motherboard, most likely will get a new one. I was leaning toward HP until I saw all of these posts. I am disappointed with Toshiba because the support desk never mentioned this problem when I called them.

[cnetSTEVEcnet]

Sony VAIO VGN-FZ180E bit the dust... 18 months old.

Used on desktops only, no gaming, HDMI signals and hi-res VGA outputs.

Sony denies any problem with the chip. "Out of warranty so pay for new motherboard yourself."

[cnetSTEVEcnet]

Forgot to mention, nVIDIA 8400M GT with BlueRay R/W. Used to have a beautiful XBRITE-HiColor? LCD display. Now, not so much!

Just vertical lines over the BIOS bootstrap display and dots over the Windows Vista start screen, then a BSOD.

[-Gunner-]

HP dv9000, 7600 Go, Intel CPU - meltdown happened this month

Same GPU failure as all the AMD / Nvidia laptops that HP decided to repair, but HP continues to deny that they are obligated to repair any laptops sold w/ Intel CPU's -- regardless of the fact that the failure of the Nvidia GPU's is identical. HP's behavior regarding this has been egregious. Our only hope of reimbursement at this point will likely be thru class action lawsuits. Needless to say I will be staying far away from Nvidia GPU's and any HP products, and will be recommending that everyone else do the same (and I am the go-to tech guy for a whole lot of friends, family, and co-workers).

[schola2]

My HP Pavilion dv9000 screen is streaked with brown. Is this due to the nvidia problem? I called HP customer service and got customer service hell instead. When I emailed HP I was told to email them a copy of the original receipt (there were just 4 days left on the warranty). I told them it was required that the original receipt be mailed in to initiate the warranty so I could only email them a duplicate which was provided by the store for proof of purchase. The warranty has expired and I haven't received a reply from HP. What can be done about this?

[rahiljnmc]

dell xps 1330, purchased jan 2009. Vertical lines and crashed! Nvidia GPC issue. Dell support agreed to replace the motherboard. but, expecting same issues with new motherboard as well.

[solosailor32]

This problem also exists with Toshiba Satellite P105-S9722, with NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS. Very frustrating, indeed, especially considering the original price tag of this laptop model.

[314156]

XPS 1330, half screen blank, the rest with vertical lines. Sent in November 2009 -- expecting the worst -- another mobo with the identical nVidia garbage chip. Dell needs to be shipping motherboards with a different chipset or a new laptop of a different design if they want to keep their customers loyal. I have had many laptops and I abandoned them eventually after many years because they were too slow or not enough RAM for the next OS. Selling expensive laptops that are guaranteed to fail in a year or so, or just hours when running a stressful video test routine -- is outrageous. Given the incompetent engineering at nVidia and the magnitude of their failure -- I will never again purchase any laptop that contains NVIDIA chips, even if that means lower graphics performance.