Dell explains NVIDIA GPU issues, throws out BIOS updates to help
By Darren Murph 
posted July 26th 2008 7:12AM
posted July 26th 2008 7:12AM
[Via Electronista]
posted July 26th 2008 7:12AM
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But Dell has "bad karma" and Apple has "good karma". Dell can't do good, whatever they do; Apple can't go wrong, no matter what.
Well kiddies its on. My MacBook Pro just failed a week ago due to the GPU. F*** you Nvidia
My Asus W7S with a 8400M GPU went screwy the same day Nvidia announced it - you could access the hard drive but it defaulted to a very low resolution and the colours looked like they defaulted to 16 flavours only. They replaced the whole motherboard, I don't know whether that's going to solve a future problem if the GPU is flawed, but at least I have a 2 year warranty on it.
God~ am I waiting for that? I can feel my macbook pro is hot.
does anyone know what Sony's take on this is? I just bought a laptop from them with an 8400mGT and I'm wondering if i should wait for it to fail,
whoops DP :p
I contacted the IM tech support service, and their guy told me that the sony graphics chips aren't affected and linked me to the originally shipped drivers. Are they just full of BS, or am I in the clear?
Anyone know about Sony's take on this issue? I just got a vaio with an 8400mGT and i'm wondering if i should wait for it to fail, make them replace it or something?
O.K. go read the article again. They said "help reduce the likely hood that the problem would occur" not eliminate the possibility that the problem would occur. Perhaps they would like to slow down the failure rate until nVidia can provide good parts. Otherwise all you would get if Dell replaced your motherboard would be another bad part. I worked in development at Dell for 20 years, 5 of them in product sustaining. Trust me, they aren't pleased about the situation and they do want to get a REAL fix, but thats difficult when you don't make the GPU yourself. It also doesn't help when it takes months for silicon to go through the fab process and every manufacturer on the planet is clamoring for new parts.
wow
what an exciting issue
except if u are actually an owner of a dell lappie with one of these gpus and actually tried to run a game that takes advantage of it
i think the problem more squarely lies with dell's update and ratifiication process rather than an underlying die issue. But what the hell....
same chipset as a desktop, lets give it 6 month old drivers or older because we are too lazy....
this is more an issue of mismangement by dell being too... protective, but correct me if i am wrong, learning new things is always good...
ser
all 8400M (not 8400, used in desktops) are defective, no matter the brand, INCLUDING APPLE!
You couldn't be more wrong. This problem first came to light on HP laptops. nVidia have also confirmed it's their fault, and didn't you see their share price drop 24% the very same day?
Following a story isn't your forte is it?
The original problem was disclosed by NVIDIA as a hardware fault, they then went into silence and eventually came about with driver and firmware pushes to "help" the situation itself.
If partner companies don't go out on the line to push these to their users then chances are they face a situation where they're replacing parts on their own until warranty is up. If they do push it and it fails then they can pass the bill onto NVIDIA who already took out $150-200m to cover replacement costs as they already knew the firmware and driver changes wouldn't be a total solution.
Dell is more or less just passing down orders from the top for addressing the GPU issue, it's not like they designed the chip itself, it would be the same if the Intel or AMD CPU powering it had issues and a cheap workaround was enabled only for people to try and blame the CPU issue on Dell for apparently not coming up with a hardware fix or whatnot.
are the new iMacs effected too ?
Class action time people !
I am on my second motherboard for my Dell m1330. Great laptop except for the fact that the GPU keeps crashing. I do not recommend BIOS A11 for this laptop as I was fine until I upgraded it. I am now using a cooling pad as well.
I am on my 5th.
Though many GPU's have this problem the M1330 has a higher failure rate because the thermal envelope is so bad. The heat has the get past the CPU as they share the same heat pipe.
I asked them to extend my warranty due the the monthly failures but they do not respond to me now.
Best laptop I have ever used - when it works.
Have the new 8400m and 8600m been fixed to avoid this problem? I mean if I was to buy a Dell laptop today with the 8400m graphics, would it still have this problem or has nVidia started shipping problem free cards already?
did the bios update and it hosed my XPS M1330 :( Reloading windows now. All I got was BSOD's after the update and never got into windows except for safe mode. Also of note, couldnot boot the Vista DVD after the update either, had to go into safe mode and start the Vista install from within windows. WTH !?!?!
This will probably make the fans will run full-blast all the time. This will make your laptop loud and decrease battery life significantly. On top of that, it doesn't "fix" any of the problems, it will just delay failure long enough for Dell (and other companies) to avoid taking too much heat for poor products. Really, though, it's all nVidia's fault.
Dell has my inspiron 1420n right now, I hope they take care of all this while they're working on the thing..
Scott - I tried all of that and by the time BIOS wouldn't reflash correctly it was too late. The last step I tried before the entire PC was bricked was the attemp to reflash. Once I tried it, the PC really was bricked. I tried everything while symptoms were causing problems that I possibly could, including phone support with Dell, and it was all too late. By the time you see the vertical lines, or other seemingly systemic errors, it is too late. At least that was the case with my pc. I also stil have 2 years of service on this, so I intend to continue using it with uppraded BIOS. If motherboard 2 is also defective, it should conk out within a year like this one did. Anyone know how much it costs to swap a motherboard on a 1330? At what point does it become more expensive to do swaps than replace the machines? Just curious if anyone has a sense of how much this is going to cost Dell, and at what point they may have to stop swapping everyone's motherboards, if that ever happens.
OK calm down. My video chip died four days ago and dell is well aware of the issue. I had a tech at my house in one day and repaired in 30 minutes. If you are still in the standard warranty, upgrade and buy a 4 yr warrant. This is always a good idea on a $2300 product unless you plan on buying a new one in a year. Second the BIOS flash does not make your fan run more often. I have upgraded the BIOS (A11) two days ago and my fan does not get louder or does it run longer. Also I still have the same battery life. OHH and Apple loves, guess what NV chip you got? See you soon.
My thoughts exactly, I know the Nvidia chip is overheating on the MB Pros as well, saw the article here, so I wonder what Apple/Nvidia does to fix this issue as well?
Faslane
I thought this affected the Intel Macs too?
Nvidia?? Care to respond? My MBP heats up like a mo-fo when gaming etc.
Figure it out!!!!
Faslane
i have installed bios version a12 on my m1330 and its louder but i just installed i8kfangui and set it up like i want it and now its quiter then before. if the gpu dies dell can replace the whole thing thats not my problem.
Can anyone recommend someplace where I can check what my temperature thresholds should be for nVidia GPUs, Intel CPUs, and HDs?
My nVidia GeForce 8600M GT, on a new Dell m1530 laptop, idles at around 62-65C, the CPU around 45-50C, and the HD around 40-45C.. How can I know if I can be affected by this bug? What should I set my thresholds to on the temperature monitors so that I can be warned when it's getting too hot?
I'm certain this affects more than the 8xxx series. My XPS M1710 has died twice -- the original after 11 month which Dell replaced, then that one died after 13 months later. Both with the exact symptoms they outline here. The original GPU was an GeForce Go 7800GTX, the 2nd as a GeForce Go 7950GTX. It is obvious to me the airflow was poor, the GPUs got too hot, and it began to damage the GPU memory. It's clear GPU memory corruption.
Dell replaced the laptop the first time, but as the warranty expired now they refused to do anything about it. They offered to sell me a new 7000-series GPU for $850, if I installed it myself. Get real.
I tossed the thing in the garbage, and I bought a MacBook Pro. They screw their customers with their ineptitude, then insult them on the phone. I talked to about 20 different Dell reps in 2.5 hours as they bounced me around everywhere before I finally got a supervisor who told me in a heavy accent that I was screwed.
Nice hate rant, maybe you can plug Apple a few more times as well.
Unfortunately you fail to realize that the same 8600 chip rests on the MBP as well. It's not isolated to a vendor it's isolated to the company producing it.
I think I may have expected too much out of you to begin with though, honestly now how is it a Dell issue that NVIDIA botched their 8400 and 8600 series chips again across all companies? Did they design the chip? no. Did they design the PCB? no.
NVIDIA already admitted their chip failures, they even produced the firmware and driver updates to "help" prevent failures at some point and passed them down to their partners. If those partners wanted to make those changes available though is up to them.
Going from PC to Mac doesn't save you from hardware failures, if Intel produces a series of botched Core 2 chips then everyone that was hit by that problem batch is at risk no matter what their platform is.
Nice work on playing up past aggression with a situation that is unrelated. Dell cooling issues can be a problem but they didn't cause NVIDIA to lose the farm and produce a huge amount of faulty chips for everyone. Maybe you can think about the actual picture next time.
I'm affected too. My system hasn't really acted up YET, although I've had a few crashes too which appear to be video related. It's ok, errors can happen. But it pisses me off that nVidia and Dell are just trying to extend the lifespan until the warranty is over. Yes, you can extend the warranty before it runs out, and hope that it will break until that runs out too. But it ain't my fault, why should I pay for it?
Seriously, ok, I can understand that nVidia does not want to pay. But making the systems louder? No way. Maybe they are even going to say "oh, but you didn't install the new BIOS... no warranty for you". They should just leave things as they are, but extend the warranty for the video card to a lifetime. When it dies, they replace it. That's all. Otherwise users get tempted to overclock the chips to hell and back and switch off the fan, or better yet have the fan switch off, let it heat up, cool it down, let it heat up... that's supposed to be the problem, right?
The BIOS update has the fan start earlier, but it does not solve the problem. The The fan merely starts earlier and the GPU temp will still rise to 97C-105C before the GPU starts downclocking itself. The GPU will still fry in approximately 6 months. The second unmentioned problem is that Dell uses a cooling pad that keeps the temp approximately 30C higher than copper does.
let your voice be heard. vote here.
http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/10090995/Replace_All_Faulty_Nvidia_Laptop_GPUs
So are Dell going to contact me and advise me to do this BIOS update, cause otherwise I aint bothering. If it's going to die I'd rather it happened during the warranty, and I don't want a louder laptop with shorter battery life.
http://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=4439&prevaction=category&previd=143&prevstart=24
here is a cool site to get dell laptop parts if you need them
So does this effect the inspiron 1520? I have a 8600m gt card. Does this only effect comps with gpus soddered onto the motherboard. the 1520 can take the gpu out.
I'm affected too (ThinkPad T61, Quardro NVS 140m). The Quadro NVS 140m is actually a rebadged GeForce Go 8400M.
I had originally planned on chancing it with the warranty, but now I'm upgrading to the 4 year warranty (it's $120) precisely because of this problem.
I'm glad my desktop has an ATI card.
Where did you find out that your Quadro was a 'rebadged' 8400M?
I have a Quadro FX 3600M, and I want to make sure it doesn't suffer from the same problems as the 8400M and 8600M.
Nevermind, I should've looked a bit harder myself :P Thankfully it looks like the Quadro FX 3600M is based on the 8800M chipset:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVIDIA_Quadro
Not to wish ill on anyone, but I really hope these problems are limited to the 8400M and 8600M based GPUs.
The only reason I would see anyone applying these firmware updates is if they are out of warranty. Even if you are out of warranty, and it dies, then it should be replaced... now if Dell / Nvidia won't replace it, then that's something else that needs to be addressed.
Personally I have a machine that is affected, and I will not apply this. If the GPU dies, then that's NVidia's fault, and dell / nvidia should be required in fixing it some how. If it dies after they discontinued my laptop, I expect a replacement of a newer model as I paid extra for the warranty for it to always work.
If laptops had a ring, three flashing red lights would appear... this is the same problem that Microsoft has been facing with the 360. After everything MS has gone through, I would have thought companies would learn from that mistake, but I guess not.
Alas, all that really matters is the bottom line, and companies will always look to cut corners for revenue. Luckily for MS the problem was with one of their divisions, not their entire business.
Nvidia= Fail.
It's nVidia's fault for manufacturing a defective product. Where was their quality control during the processing? Someone's head should roll in upper management. Dell and others are victims of these defective GPUs and nVidia should burden the cost of replacements!! Dell should extend the warranties if they don't want to replace the laptops. What Dell should do is upgrade all the GPUs to the 8700m model so no more bad batches can circulate. But is there a guarantee that the 8700m won't have the same problem?!
Dell put out the update to try to cool things down (heh), which is more than what Apple and others did (or didn't do, I should say).
Nvidia *denied* there's a problem with 8400m/8600m GPUs to begin with, leaving the problem for system manufacturers to deal with.
So yeah, whoever said Dell is just trying to buy time with this update until most warranties run out in order to avoid a massive number of returned system is right, but that's pretty much all they can do since everybody got screwed over by Nvidia on this.
I'll wager we'll see fewer Nvidia-equipped laptops in the next 12-18 months, somehow.
Nvidia admitted it, they said "this issue does not affect desktop systems"
I'm not sure if they tried to deny it initially though.
My MBP just died yesterday, and guess what it was nVidia 8600M GT that didn't make it. 8 days ego my warranty ended. If they are not going to recall all broken nvidias I'm screwed.
Certainly, NVIDIA is going to be forced to take responsibility for these problems and to answer to the manufacturers, who will be forced to answer to their customers. And that will probably be true whether the failures arise during or after the applicable warranty periods. So perhaps the purpose of the BIOS updates is to allow NVIDIA (or another manufacturer) to produce enough replacement GPUs for a recall, or just to buy some time so that machines aren't all failing around the same time. (Certainly, not all of the end-users will apply the BIOS updates, and there are a mix of power-users and casual-users, so maybe there will be a manageable stream of returns for repairs and replacement GPUs for those repairs.)
So far, my XPS M1530 with the 8600M GT GPU hasn't exhibited signs of any problems (knock on wood); I just started using the Dell temp utility mentioned in this thread, so I don't yet know if I'm already having any temp issues. And fortunately, I got the 4-year warranty, just in case. I'd much rather have the problem fixed now rather than after my machine crashes, but I'm not going to scream for heads to roll just yet -- I want to give Dell and NVIDIA a chance, to see what they come up with.
Just my $0.02.
Not to take the side of the evil corporate overlords, but...
*Maybe* NVIDIA and the manufacturers *will* take care of this problem when systems fails -- maybe there's no way to know for sure if/when any particular machine is going to fail, so the goal of these BIOS updates is to try to prevent too many from failing at the same time, in order to prevent a deluge of service returns at the same time. I doubt that these companies can get away with rejecting any post-warranty failures related to one of these defective GPUs, and a massive recall & replacement program would completely overwhelm them, so maybe they're just trying to spread out the pain.
My Dell D630 with Nvidia Quadro 135 has around 50-53 Celsius when Idle, and up to 85 Celsius when playing games. Should I worry or not?
I think that normally GPU should be cooler :/