Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Defective nVidia GPUs?

W

Wormy23

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 1, 2008
31
0
This is probably why our MBP's are so HOT! If you can still buy AppleCare, you better buy it now just in case!


Article from Engadget:

NVIDIA says "significant quantities" of laptop GPUs are defective, stock tumbles

If you're the type to watch the late stock tickers, you might have noticed that NVIDIA's stock just took a pretty big hit, down 24 percent to $13.56 -- that's because the company just informed investors that "significant quantities" of previous-generation graphics chips have been failing at "higher than normal rates," and that it's lowering its Q2 estimates due to pricing pressure. NVIDIA will be taking a $150M to $250M charge against earnings next quarter to cover the cost of repairing and replacing the affected chips, but didn't specifically announce what products were defective, just that they include GPUs and "media and communications processors." Laptop makers have apparently already been given an updated GPU driver which kicks in fans sooner to reduce "thermal stress" on the GPU, and NVIDIA says it's talking to its suppliers about being reimbursed for the faulty parts. That's great and all, but we'd really rather know which chips specifically are failing -- if you're serious about playing in the big leagues, you better come clean, guys.
 
This worried me as well. It's interesting to note their suggestion that their discoveries are only the tip of the iceberg, that, future problems with current and past cards are possible. Ouch! I hope this doesn't affect us. With that, I've taken interest in finally downloading smc fan control for this notebook. Can anyone answer this for me:

Even if you set the fans at a higher default speed (or load speed), will they still speed up if the heat rises and requires such an increase (on top of what i have already increased)? Anyone know exactly how this is handled? Thanks in advance. :apple:
 
i hope they get it fixed in less then a month untill i get mine :D
plus the screen gap on all the mbp are somewhat defective for a $2,000+ laptop
 
If Apple's parts are included in this, expect some sort of Replacement Program.

Tracer
 
Do you think that this mistake by Nvidia could encourage Apple to start using the card style GPU's to be safe?
 
mox123 said:
did they use the same or different NVDIA cards for the santa rosa MBP vs. Penryn MBP?
Click to expand...

Its the name, just different amount of VRAM. It kind makes sense because my 128MB 8600 diode runs very hot...about 20*F higher than my CPU. We will see what happens in the next week.
 
Hey, there are two threads about this. The other one is here - though this thread is larger I think the other one is in a more appropriate section.

That said, I think this is bad news for nVidia - on top of the news that Apple went with OpenCL instead of nVidia's CUDA technology, this event will make things especially hard for them.
 
noodle654 said:
Its the name, just different amount of VRAM. It kind makes sense because my 128MB 8600 diode runs very hot...about 20*F higher than my CPU. We will see what happens in the next week.
Click to expand...

GPU's do tend to run hotter then the CPU. My Penryn MBP's GPU is running at 137 F and the CPU is currently at 113 F( not fully warmed up yet). On my 12" Powerbook G4, the CPU would run at 114 F and the GPU at 129 F once warmed up.
 
I think this is going to effect all 8-series GPU's in any mobile form. If they are telling investors to prepare for 200-million worth of repairs than its serious...thats A LOT of cards. If you hop on some Dell boards and look at all the M1530 video issues its inevitable that its going to effect MBP's too. The only way its not is if Apple is getting their cards from a different manufacturer than Dell, etc than hopefully we should be ok. Either way this a really big blow to nVidia and to OEM's that are using ANY 8-Series(MOBILE) chip.

If you look at all the problems that have been posted on the board here with people saying they are having a ton of video problems, now we can tie some of those problems to the 8600...not good in my eyes.
 
Ahh damn. And just as I'm about to buy my MBP too.

I agree with the others. Seriously, nVidia, you should have told us which ones were/are affected.
 
noodle654 said:
Its the name, just different amount of VRAM. It kind makes sense because my 128MB 8600 diode runs very hot...about 20*F higher than my CPU. We will see what happens in the next week.
Click to expand...

Darn...i was hoping that my Penryn MBP won't be affected by this...:rolleyes:
 
Hopefully the chips which are affected are only limited to the GeForce 6xxx or 7xxx lines.
 
I was just about to call Apple today because my Graphics Card keeps dying. The screen keeps fudging up, and giving me crazy boxes and mismatching areas on the screen... its quite annoying and requires a restart, so I guess I'm affected :(.
 
dizastor said:
Thank god for intel integrated graphics.
;)
Click to expand...

Eww, don't even joke about stuff like that.

Bring back the ATI cards! ATI always treated the Mac better anyway, and tends to have faster laptop chips. Jobs needs to get over it; the iMac G4 leak was so long ago!

Edit: Wait, that was Time Canada. The ATI leak was even longer ago! Canadians are your friends!
 
ilifecomputer said:
...With that, I've taken interest in finally downloading smc fan control for this notebook. Can anyone answer this for me:

Even if you set the fans at a higher default speed (or load speed), will they still speed up if the heat rises and requires such an increase (on top of what i have already increased)? Anyone know exactly how this is handled? Thanks in advance. :apple:
Click to expand...

I'd like to know this as well.
 
dizastor said:
Thank god for intel integrated graphics.
;)
Click to expand...

The same can be said for that 4mb video card I still have laying around to use in some PC hardware servers if the integrated goes bad. Oh wait, the integrated IS an Intel chip. Oh well...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back