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

Nvidia 8800 chip high failure rates?

gehrbox

gehrbox

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 5, 2007
1,040
0
Charleston,SC
A while ago NVidia announced they had issues with a large number of some of their chips. At the time it was not made clear what chips were effected.

According Engadget it appears that vendors are seeing an unusually high failure rate in the 8800 series chips. Both the mobile and desktop versions. The mobile version is used in some iMac's.
 
Apparently the source is a nvidia hating person, that's not very trustworthy, so if there haven't been many complaints yet, I wouldn't worry about it.
 
They are reposting a claim made in the Inquirer, which according to the many comments I read to that article, is full of **** and "has a sole purpose to hate on Nvidia".
 
I have my doubts about this article, but I'm holding my breath with "BS".

Dudes nVidia tests their stuff over and over, I strongly doubt they'd make something with a fail rate that high in that many machines, they're tops in what they do, let's think this over a bit.

EDIT: Once again guys, calm down, this guy isn't that reliable apparently, go and read the comments from longtime readers and you'll see.
 
CristobalHuet said:
Dudes nVidia tests their stuff over and over, I strongly doubt they'd make something with a fail rate that high in that many machines, they're tops in what they do, let's think this over a bit.
Click to expand...

Apple also checks their equipment, but has had plenty of bad iMac displays get out into the wild recently. The Alum iMacs suffered some heat related issues on their ATI video when first released. iBooks were fielded with faulty boards causing a large expense to Apple. Lets not forget the famous Mac Cube cracks!

It does happen. Ask GM, Ford, Toyota and any number of companies that have large recalls due to design issues.

If it pans out that this is a false story I hope Engadget is quick to publish a correction.
 
gehrbox said:
Apple also checks their equipment, but has had plenty of bad iMac displays get out into the wild recently. The Alum iMacs suffered some heat related issues on their ATI video when first released. iBooks were fielded with faulty boards causing a large expense to Apple. Lets not forget the famous Mac Cube cracks!

It does happen. Ask GM, Ford, Toyota and any number of companies that have large recalls due to design issues.

If it pans out that this is a false story I hope Engadget is quick to publish a correction.
Click to expand...

iMac screens (aluminium) have always had some issues since their release, there is nothing new about more bad displays appearing recently IMHO. It's a sad fact of the LCD world.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen, what I'm saying is that suggesting that 3/4 of your current chip lineup that is one of the most used in the world right now is defective and will fail is very far fetched IMHO. :)

I hope so too, I will pray tonight that this is BS, what a nightmare if true, my iMac is supposed to arrive tomorrow. :(
 
Well considering this has been formally announced by nVidia that there is a problem, just not defining the exact products. External sources have confirmed the MacBook Pro to be affected and it would not surprise me at all if the 8800GS is also affected.

I'm getting in touch with the nVidia press team to try and clear this up. My theory is, that with the shear amount of bad news floating around the internet about 100% failure rates on their most popular products, they will be more than happy to give me good news. If they refuse to deny it... Well, then we're all proper screwed!

I'll let people know once i get a solid response from nVidia.
 
This report is more damning than any other i've seen.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121859523254035725.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Reuters:
"Separately, the company said it would take a charge of $150 million to $200 million in its second quarter to cover anticipated warranty, repair and return costs associated with a defect on some of its chips.

The charge would be to cover expected warranty, repair, return, replacement and other costs, arising from a weak packaging material used in some of its previous generation graphics chip products sold in notebook PCs."

In theory, in the current economic climate, this is the kind of problem that can end even medium sized businesses. Fortunately nVidia should be big enough to bounce back, not to mention with their new product line up due... Hopefully they won't be defective!
 
tri3limited said:
This report is more damning than any other i've seen.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121859523254035725.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Reuters:
"Separately, the company said it would take a charge of $150 million to $200 million in its second quarter to cover anticipated warranty, repair and return costs associated with a defect on some of its chips.
Click to expand...

The problems in the mobile GPU parts (including the 8800, same as the part in some new iMacs) is entirely real and has been acknowledged by nVidia. The $200 million in second quarter losses were also real, of course. I've heard that their third quarter report was due out today but I have not yet seen it.

The Inquirer may indeed be blowing the story out of proportion and have some vendetta with nVidia with their "every nVidia part is defective or potentially defective". However, that's not what Bud was referring to when he started this thread.

I'm also curious as to how many if any such failures early-2008 iMac owners with nVidia 8800GS cards have been experiencing.
 
CristobalHuet said:
I have my doubts about this article, but I'm holding my breath with "BS".

Dudes nVidia tests their stuff over and over, I strongly doubt they'd make something with a fail rate that high in that many machines, they're tops in what they do, let's think this over a bit.

EDIT: Once again guys, calm down, this guy isn't that reliable apparently, go and read the comments from longtime readers and you'll see.
Click to expand...

Well - there are two main factors in this.

1. NVidia has admitted the problems with the 8600 and 8400 chips only after a protracted fandango where first they practically outright lied to cover up the problems. Who's to say there isn't a far bigger issue given their behaviour so far? And if you are right, shouldn't these chips have undergone the same 'over and over' testing?

2. The GPU's run hotter in Macs than in many other notebooks / desktops because of the more marginal cooling. If there are any heat-related issues, Apple hardware is potentially more at risk than any other machine.
 
Sesshi said:
2. The GPU's run hotter in Macs than in many other notebooks / desktops because of the more marginal cooling. If there are any heat-related issues, Apple hardware is potentially more at risk than any other machine.
Click to expand...

Come to think of it... I'm pretty sure that I read the word heat somewhere in an article. Can't remember which one though, and I'm too lazy to check!
 
I thought the issue was with cycles of heating and cooling rather than heat per se, and the impact of that on whatever the the specific problem is supposed to be, and that's why this is showing up in laptops first vs. desktops. The Dell and HP solution has been to increase fan speeds; I wonder if the chips are overheating as well, or if that solution simply aims to minimize the ∆T for the chips. I wish we had some hard facts so I could really start worrying. What's the deal, NVIDIA? I've scheduled an appointment with my therapist for this afternoon to discuss the situation :p
 
You might be right about the cycles thing... I just seem to remember seeing heat somewhere (probably your laptop theory).

The main reason i feel that there must be some truth to this is that nVidia are aware of the article as it is on there forum quite a bit, so if it wasn't true what harm would there be in coming out and saying everything is fine!

Lets face it, if the Apple forums had rumors about their iPhone 3G dying 14 months into your contract guaranteed would immediately squash the rumor and say no if that was the case.
 
That's the thing...who knows?

Maybe NVIDIA really isn't full of it when they say that it's just limited to a small batch of parts :confused:
 

Attachments

  • nvidia.jpg
    nvidia.jpg
    76.4 KB · Views: 85
Yes, but what do we really know about this Dileep character? He might just be pulling our collective leg :(:p
 
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