I finally got to that video thank you. This is long but I hope insightful and relevant. If you dispute any of my comments I would be happy to hear it always willing to improve my technical knowledge
My commentary on the video follows each stage as I watched it and I did not go back and edit anything. I started skeptical but finished believing his theory could be possible. The JEDEC specifications chip suppliers have to meet still bothers me though.
1) Apple laptops fail as the Apple Care warranty expires and there is a timer inside your laptop set to blow it up. Can you hear the mission impossible theme tune playing? Conspiracy theory in some respects truth in a way. They said that about Hotpoint washing machines years ago the truth is the company whoever they are do statistical analysis for how long their products will last and then offer a warranty accordingly which protects them and allows them the R&D expenditure in the future to bring you the next latest and greatest without being brought to their knees by people who think their special product should last for 20 years. Apple is not unique here. Hotpoint gave a 5 year warranty for a reason which does not take a lot of figuring out!
2) There are no ****** nVidia or ATI chips, there may be ****** packaging technology or ****** surface mount technology or ****** sub contractor wafer flow soldering but the architecture of the chip design is just fine. Doesnt matter if it is better or worse than the competition the chips can do what they say on the box (ronseal, does what it says on the tin). He clearly means ****** packaging technology.
3) Vent holes in the bottom of the laptop case? There is enough speculation on this forum that this might disrupt the Apple designed air flow as to make it counter productive. Plus people on this forum have flamed those that decided to drill holes in the bottom casing of their laptops.
4) Yes he finally got it, changing the thermal paste will improve things maybe he is not an a*hole after all but I am only 3 minutes into the video.
5) No no no they do not use the entire chip for the balls these days chips are pad limited not die limited. There is no way the die is that big the die is small and the package is larger.
6) OK I could accept that the internal BGA package itself could be compromised by extreme heat. A plus mark for this guy.
7) No you are not messing with the bumps inside the chip itself you are messing with the bumps inside the PACKAGE uugghhh Just nomenclature I guess this guy may be good at computer repairs but he is not a semiconductor guy.
8) The entire wafer is falling apart, I just fell off my chair laughing. A wafer contains several hundred or even thousands of die depending on the wafer size and the die size. He is holding one chip in his hand and sensationally announcing the wafer is falling apart.
9) OK I can see his logic but the problem is still inside the chip package not the chip itself. Just semantics its good enough for the lay man.
10) OK now 12 minutes into the video he is starting to make sense. He still refers to the chip when he means chip package but thats OK although I might like to see the manufacturers specifications for die and chip package to see what they actually say is within temperature tolerance. JEDEC comes in here.
11) Very poor explanation of chip scale package versus ball grid array he clearly is not confident he knows what he is talking about he waffled through it a bit but thats OK.
In conclusion I have to say this guys explanations were horribly technically inaccurate but his summary may have some credence that it is the chip package that fails and not the integrity of the chip solder balls to itself or the PCB.
Of course you then have to factor in that all packaged components have to meet a JEDEC standard and go through strict HTOL temperature cycling and aging before they can be approved. This is designed to reduce the field PPM failure rates to an acceptable minimum. These days that means up to 105c for commercial general use components. I have never seen 105c on the temperature sensors in my MBP according to the third party monitoring software I use. Chip and package good for 105c maximum temperature I have seen at its highest 82c. Why would I ever see a dGPU failure if the chip package design was the problem?
So now we are faced with a possible conclusion that Apple is building laptops where industry standard components with an upper temperature limit of 105c cannot possibly meet the thermal limits of their end products. Wouldnt that be a good headline for the media if it were true (maybe where people work that dGPU real hard for video editing on a real hot ambient environment with maybe a compromised air flow around their laptop?) ☺
Really? Flip side is that the whole world uses components with a maximum working temperature of 105c (lets leave out lower grade components and upper grade military grade components here) and its only Apple products that fail?
Possibly but this guy has not convinced me 100%.
