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Stress your Nvidia GPUS Now!!

G

gangzoom

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 8, 2007
58
20
After reading all about the Nvidias' F*****P i was rather skeptical, surely Apple hasn't done a Microsoft with its xbox 360 ROD issue...Anyways I decided to stress the GPU on my 3 months old MBP abit by doing the precise thing Nvidia was worried about...eg: Getting the GPU temp up, than putting it to sleep...and this is what i got after about 25 cycles...



Needless to say am more than a little angry at Apple/Nvidia...i can nearly understand Microsoft trying to cut costs in the Xbox360 (which i've now swapped for a PS3) but completely unexpectable in a £1599 laptop. The screen has now returned to normal, but i have no doubt the GPU is going to fail at some point (all three of my Xbox 360's did the similar things before they all got the ROD)...

The only problem now is what to do, I don't want a Macbook, i already have a MacPro, and there is no way I want to use a PC laptop or keep using this current generation MacBookPro...

Oh I hope Nvidia have deep pockets...its cost Microsoft $2Billion to cover the xbox 360s, and that a $300 machine!!
 
gangzoom said:
After reading all about the Nvidias' F*****P i was rather skeptical, surely Apple hasn't done a Microsoft with its xbox 360 ROD issue...Anyways I decided to stress the GPU on my 3 months old MBP abit by doing the precise thing Nvidia was worried about...eg: Getting the GPU temp up, than putting it to sleep...and this is what i got after about 25 cycles...



Needless to say am more than a little angry at Apple/Nvidia...i can nearly understand Microsoft trying to cut costs in the Xbox360 (which i've now swapped for a PS3) but completely unexpectable in a £1599 laptop. The screen has now returned to normal, but i have no doubt the GPU is going to fail at some point (all three of my Xbox 360's did the similar things before they all got the ROD)...

The only problem now is what to do, I don't want a Macbook, i already have a MacPro, and there is no way I want to use a PC laptop or keep using this current generation MacBookPro...

Oh I hope Nvidia have deep pockets...its cost Microsoft $2Billion to cover the xbox 360s, and that a $300 machine!!
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I don't get it, did the whole screen just turned green? or is it some fancy photography that made the screen green?

But anyway, care to detail out the procedure of your 'stress testing'? I myself are not happier with nVidia than you are. Already been through my 3rd nVidia GPU and it's still giving out errors and glitches randomly.

http://flickr.com/photos/28516734@N05/sets/72157606141870377/
 
How did you stress test it? I've had one issue where I was running VirtualBox for about 5 hours playing a game through it which made my screen glitch, and whilst that is quite demanding I didn't expect it :S Playing games normally doesn't cause any issues for me.
 
gangzoom said:
Needless to say am more than a little angry at Apple/Nvidia...
Click to expand...

That doesn't seem needless to say to me...

Let me get this straight. Nvidia announces a problem caused by a specific action. Instead of avoiding that action in hopes of keeping your MBP alive, you decide to go do that thing 25 times?

You realize that this "test" means your MBP could have been just fine for years?

Hate to say it, but Nvidia may have made this problem possible, but you did it to yourself.
 
gr8bob said:
I don't get it, did the whole screen just turned green? or is it some fancy photography that made the screen green?
Click to expand...

yeaph the entire screen how has a green tint,is coming on intermeittently though

gr8bob said:
But anyway, care to detail out the procedure of your 'stress testing'? I myself are not happier with nVidia than you are. Already been through my 3rd nVidia GPU and it's still giving out errors and glitches randomly.
Click to expand...

Simply ran a timed demo in "company of heros" under windows XP when i wasn't using it..the fan's would hit full speed in about 5 minutes. Did this over the last 2 weeks or so, about 2-3 times a day.

3 GPUs!!! I'm defiantly taking mine back to apple for a refund..wish i hadn't got rid of my old G3 Pimso now :-(
 
can someone please write a simple program which will run our gpus through these cycles automatically to destroy them. I'd like to see my mbp destroyed in the warranty time and not days or hours after its over so I can get a new one, sell it and buy a mac pro
 
Tallest Skil said:
That's called fraud, you know.
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why is it fraud, its a £1599 computer, when i bought it apple didn't tell me i am allowed to use any programs to would stress the GPU...it's like Nissan turing round to me telling me am not allowed to hit the rev limiter in my 350Z cos it might break the engine....I've always bought apple computers so i didn't have to worry about stuff like this:mad:
 
Tallest Skil said:
That's called fraud, you know.
Click to expand...

I think you need to double check what fraud is. If he's running his laptop within spec and it dies that's 100% Apples problem. Unless he's hitting the GPU while it's running, or overclocking it, it's better that Apple replaces it now rather than him being stuck with a lemon once the warranty expires.
 
doctoree said:
can someone please write a simple program which will run our gpus through these cycles automatically to destroy them. I'd like to see my mbp destroyed in the warranty time and not days or hours after its over so I can get a new one, sell it and buy a mac pro
Click to expand...

That is quite honestly one of the most ignorant comments I have ever read. Apple aren't responsible for the failures, nVidia are. What's wrong with trying like everyone else to address this issue properly rather than resorting to destroying your own equipment. Why don't you try doing something productive instead?
 
...after 25 cycles of doing exactly what you were supposed to avoid doing.

That's genius. I wish you had done it more like 60 times just to make it even more ridiculous. I hope the replacement model they give you fails.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Customer requesting assistance to purposefully destroy their property in order to make out with something else.

Yeah, that's pretty much fraud.
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Customer requesting assistance to run their hardware at its full potential now to determine if rumoured design flaw exists.

If there's nothing wrong with the hardware, then Apple has nothing to worry about and you're calling fraud over nothing. If there is something wrong with the hardware, why should doctoree shoulder the cost to get it replaced outside warranty?
 
masse said:
...after 25 cycles of doing exactly what you were supposed to avoid doing.

That's genius. I wish you had done it more like 60 times just to make it even more ridiculous. I hope the replacement model they give you fails.
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All he did was simulating someone who is playing a game and then putting it to sleep after they are done 25 times. Are you saying we should avoid gpu intensive apps?
 
doctoree said:
can someone please write a simple program which will run our gpus through these cycles automatically to destroy them. I'd like to see my mbp destroyed in the warranty time and not days or hours after its over so I can get a new one, sell it and buy a mac pro
Click to expand...

Tallest Skil said:
That's called fraud, you know.
Click to expand...

SolRayz said:
Well selling us potentially bad gpu's and not addressing it is fraudulent in my book.
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An old adage that comes to mind: "Two wrongs doesn't make a right."

Anyway, you all are blaming Apple like they knew this was going to happen. The only company at fault here is Nvidia. Both Mac and PC machines are equally plagued by this.

One thing I want to know is what the OP meant by stress. I see that they put the GPU temps up, but to what degree? And how was this all done? Games? GPU intensive apps?
 
masse said:
...after 25 cycles of doing exactly what you were supposed to avoid doing.
Click to expand...

Really? If I'd know that MacBook Pros had this footnote that said "Games may only be played 24 times or less during lifetime of product." it may have changed my and undoubtedly others decision to buy it.

This is perfectly within what MacBook Pros are supposed to be able to do. It's one of the main benefits of the MBP over the MB, this big fancy GPU. Do you propose we all wait 6 months till we're out of warranty, have Snow Leopard comes out with its increased use of the GPU for OpenCL, and then watch and bleat as our laptops all fail at our own expense.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Customer requesting assistance to purposefully destroy their property in order to make out with something else.

Yeah, that's pretty much fraud.
Click to expand...

The point you seem to be missing is that if it wasn't for a design flaw than there's absolutely no reason why the GPU should fail. Again i would point to the Xbox 360...its a great machine, with great games, unfortunately due to poor design the GPU would fry it self if used for extended periods...of course if you never used it than you would have never have a problem..

masse said:
...after 25 cycles of doing exactly what you were supposed to avoid doing.

That's genius. I wish you had done it more like 60 times just to make it even more ridiculous. I hope the replacement model they give you fails.
Click to expand...

I have absolutely no intention of getting it replaced, i don't want a patch, i want my money back. Maybe to you £1599 isn't alot of money, but to me its £1598 too much for a defective product.
 
Draeconis said:
Apple aren't responsible for the failures, nVidia are.
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If the Matsushita DVD drive on my MBP fails, I don't fly to Japan and tell them to fix it. If the Intel CPU fails, I don't go to Santa Clara to persuade someone there to take it back. If the Samsung LCD develops strips I don't go to South Korea and discuss it with them.

You bought a MacBook Pro made by Apple. They chose what to stick in, it's their problem. We take our laptops back to Apple. Apple can then sue NVIDIA if needed to pay for the replacement logic boards.
 
Go out and buy yourselves a copy of FCS and just run Motion 3 and Color together and chuck loads of particle emitters out in motion.

That should do the trick!! lol

BTW just a quick question cause im too lazy to search properly... The iMac nVidia's wernt affected were they (8800GS' i believe).
 
masse said:
...after 25 cycles of doing exactly what you were supposed to avoid doing.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems serious gamers can subject their machine to this kind of load over a couple months time.

It's called regression stress testing, and if this is all that takes to bring the graphics subsystem down it's a bit alarming and it doesn't seem like the product was ready for prime time.

A couple years ago I was the lead on a WM5 inventory tracking application. After a year's worth of development it was green-lighted for beta. After a couple months we got a few reports of random crashing from customers typically after a week or two of uptime. We placed several units in our lab and ran them hard with automated scripts. It turned out that after 150-200 transactions (about 4 hours of continuous use), the machines ran out of memory - there was a leak somewhere. This was unacceptable, and over the next month we tore the entire application apart searching for it, even though 95% of the deployed units had reported no errors from the field. Perhaps we should have just told the users with the problem to stop using the devices in such a fashion, to cool it a bit?

So NVidia saying something about "customer usage patterns" being part of the culprit of the failures, it's a bit priceless - unless this is typical, expected behavior for a GPU under such duress in this industry. If this is please someone clue me in.

There's a fair amount of empirical evidence over multiple product lines there is a design flaw here. Consider the nature of the announcements regarding this and how NVidia is proceeding with it are very much governed by the amount of financial and legal burden they must shoulder.
 
tri3limited said:
BTW just a quick question cause im too lazy to search properly... The iMac nVidia's wernt affected were they (8800GS' i believe).
Click to expand...

Well that's part of the reason people are wanting to run these stress tests. Neither Apple or NVIDIA are saying boo or baa about what (if any) products are involved. The 8800GS would probably have less problems because the thermals aren't as tight in the iMac as they are in the MBP, but I don't really know.
 
klagermkii said:
Customer requesting assistance to run their hardware at its full potential now to determine if rumoured design flaw exists.

If there's nothing wrong with the hardware, then Apple has nothing to worry about and you're calling fraud over nothing. If there is something wrong with the hardware, why should doctoree shoulder the cost to get it replaced outside warranty?
Click to expand...

dude, it IS fraud.

it's like someone taking their iphone and rubbing it constantly on a rough concrete floor to prove that the glass screen is scratch-proof, yet finding that after enough rounds it IS scratched and then returning it because it didn't turn out to be "scratch-resistant" as advertised.
 
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