All Desktop/Laptop Nvidia G84/G86 chipsets fooked

Dartz

My Laptop runs up to 70 degrees. Idles at around 60. I'm thinking its not temperature cycles as such, but the range of the temperature cycles that is causing the problem..

Other models that seem to suffer the most from card failures have been benchmarked at around 100 celsius.

A large amount of relatively small temperature cycles will be relatively harmless... but once the temperature goes above a certain point, the damage done per cycle is much greater.

The way I read this... because of the flaw, that point is much lower than Nvidia told manufacturers it was. Laptops that go above the actual point suffer more from failures. Laptops that run below are not affected.

The trick is getting the data in and finding out which model Laptops (not GPU's) are affected the most by the failures, and finding out what temperature they run their GPU's at...

the XPS 1330 is notorious for GPU failures. There are reports of them running at over 100C

The XPS 1530 fails fair less often, and runs near 30C cooler under load.

I wonder if this large temperature difference doesn't have something do with the failure rate. Feel free to show otherwise though, but I have personally heard of much less 1530 failures. Two laptop models is too small a sample size to draw any worthwhile conclusions

Saying All G84-G86 chips are bad is a bit of an oversimplification, I think. there could well be more going than this. It seems to me to have a lot to do with the design of individual models.

After all, I paid 1500 euro for one and would rather delude myself into believing everything is OK until it goes pop that getting pointlessly worried about it

kaimera

Hits ~70 after a stint at painkiller & some source games.

Maybe it's cos I'm wary of my card dying but I have noticed I can hear the fan at full when the game starts and then die down when I exit.

year warrenty is up in about 3 months I think.

Overheal

if you havent been experiencing inexplicable glitchy issues than youre probably fine. Ive had a few so i played it safe.

the fan goes to full cos of the driver. The app launches, the driver anticipates high gpu use and runs the fan before the difference in heat is allowed to get too great on the card.

but yeah its an ego killer when someone comes up to you and asks you why your pc sounds like its about to explode (cos of the fan-noise) :mad: I'm open to less whooshy, cooler alternatives but WC doesnt really seem an option

Dartz

The ability to melt an entire Cadbury's Dairy milk ceases to be an entertaining party piece the moment you reach behind the screen wondering where you left it and get it all over your hands. :P

Only glitches I've had so far have been related to a game engine problem with a single game notorious for it. Running Bioshock with Dx10, full settings and on something like 1200x700 resolution, it holds together pretty well.

Watercooling... well they'd have to fit proper heatsinks first... instead of Thermal pads.

maw

laptop---> Freezer

Cables to external game controllers and monitor will feed out easily between the door rubber seals, clocked mine at 15°C after hours of flight sim x:p:rolleyes:

Overheal

...........that cant be good for a laptop.

Silenceisbliss

Overheal wrote: »

...........that cant be good for a laptop.

yeah, he so ruined his very first post.... ah well

Overheal

well i was about to post last night that after a gaming session of TF2 it was running its usual slow self but stayed at 55 - thats before I noticed I had been playing on Power Saver Mode.. I'll give it a real run later :rolleyes:

christophicus

I know Overheal has already started a new thread about this info but I just want to keep all of the info in one thread. I am going to write to Dell and see what they are going to do, So I want to have all of my points of refference easily available.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/08/12/nvidia-g92s-g94-reportedly

Overheal

Ill leave it to the mods to decide that one: if ya's want it one thread please merge and re-title.

Silenceisbliss

so, is there actually a sound basis to claim replacment from your warrenty? or will dell simply deny allegations as nvidia are?

what are our options here? I'm not all to happy being so bloody careful the whole time with my temperatures.

somebody write to dell yet? get any response? someone get a replacment?

any bullplop responces?

Dartz

Of course, take everything The Enquirer says with a pinch of salt.


Even so, with all the bad faith drifting around because of this, if nVidia is sticking it's head in the sand and hoping it'll go away... the only thing that will go away are their customers...

And probably the company itself.

Like those credit crunchers who just throw the urgent letters in the bin and hope it'll all go away. It is somewhat disturbing. What bothers me though, is that everywhere I've seen this mentioned, they've all been linking to the one single article by The Enquirer...

Theres also an thread at notebook review by annoyed owners of a certain laptop model, listing how many failures they've had.

I still say that this is a weakness in the chip alright, but it must be being exacerbated by design qualities of the laptops themselves. Really need to see what models are failing, rather than what cards....

Nothingbetter2d

i got an xfx nVidia geforce 8500gt 512mb 450mhz core pci-e card...not the best i know but it was free..so i cant complain.... i never had any trouble with it though.

Tar.Aldarion

Does anybody keep getting device driver failed when playing games? I just get it playing css. Screen goes black, sound is in a loop and it recovers in 30-60 seconds.

Overheal

ive gotten it once or twice..

EIN

strangely enough i have searched and found no reports of vaio's with the same chips failing. has anyone here had a vaio fail with this issue?

i have an FZ vaio with the 8400M GT GPU and the curret temp is 54C

with ACPI temps of 42c...

be interested to see if any vaios have failed with this fault!

anyone?

Dartz

It's Thermal stress that's doing it.... so it seems to be the hotter-running Laptops that are dying. I made a post about it a while back... I cant quite remember where

Cunny-Funt

my mates vostros graphics card just failed on him there yesterday. (8400m) Artifacts all over the place then it turns black. On boot up he just gets this strange looking gray screen with dodgy lines going through. Parts of which start getting brighter over time.

So yeah the cards deffo fcked. Thing is my mate wouldnt be using it for much gaming at all. I've a vostro myself cept with a 8600m, and I'd be gaming a good bit on it.

Not had any problems. But I am worried. You reckon this is related?

Silenceisbliss

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

Not had any problems. But I am worried. You reckon this is related?

is what related?

ul be grand, if it fails, you have the warrenty. you just have to wait and see, and just try keep your temps from going really high... you dont want your card to be at 100c when on, and then cool straight down to 20 when its off.... just be wary

Silenceisbliss

sorry to bring this thread back to life, BUT.

I has a question. What are the symptoms when the graphics card fails?

my m1330 threw a MAJOR hissy-fit there this weekend and I spent nearly all my time trying to fix it.

by hissyfit i mean

• It started with not being able to connect to the internet.
• then refusing to turn on, and making me choose a "repair computer" option before the splash screen
• not turning off after I finally get it into safe mode or into normal windows
• if I manage to get into normal windows, there would be alot of random floating pixels, anomolies, and artifacts on the screen that would disappear if i refresh
• if I manage to get into normal windows, everything will lock up after a few minutes and the screen will go all static and flashy (like bad for someone with photosensitive epilepsy)

I tried everything in the book from restore points (which would work temporarily and then feck up). return to last known working condition. uninstalling all recent programs. uninstalling drivers and reinstalling the same ones or updated versions. nuking the registry. Virus scan with AVG Pro (which found a root kit...?)

eventually, nothing worked, so I completely formatted the Hdd and reinstalled Vista. even with a formatted Hdd during the reinstallation, the floating anomolies were still there!!!

installed anyway, still having random refusals to boot properly and to shut down properly and still would freeze and go static. but not as bad as before.

so I stuck with it, installed all the latest drivers. updated all the windows updates and SP1 and then some more updates......and now it seems to work perfectly again!...

ran orthos a while. fine
ran 3dmark06 a few times. fine
installed all my usual programs and used them. fine

wtf just happened to my laptop? any ideas?

is this graphics related you think?

Voodu Child

Some of those things sound graphics-card related for sure. Not all of them, but enough to make me worry that its the early signs of a GPU failure.

Whats your warranty like? If its nearly finished I would definitely call them.

Overheal

Bliss you could argue thats a GPU failure. Youre covered: all affected GPUs got their warrantees extended to 2-years. Its a free repair job, just get a hold of Dell.

The rest could be a side-effect of a larger cooling issue/instability caused by the GPU failure, kinda like the Red Rings of Death on the 360.

While this thread that i regret ever making is back on the top slot I'd remind everyone that Desktop and Laptop cards in both the 8 and 9 series are affected by whatever manufacturing fault caused these failures according to reports. If you have an 8 or 9 series card of any description and you are experiencing these problems, follow up on it ASAP. Meanwhile I've already defected to an HD4850 and Im never looking back.

Silenceisbliss

cheers for confirming my suspision lads. another question though.

seeing as its a laptop, what kinda repair could they do?...

I mean, if they give me a replacement card even, whos to say that card wont be effected either? or will that card come with a renewed 2 year warrenty????

Voodu Child

Silenceisbliss wrote: »

seeing as its a laptop, what kinda repair could they do?...

They'll replace the motherboard (this is the main system board, it contains new cpu, gpu, ports etc). The XPS has next day service, so a fella will just call out to your house and do the job there and then, takes under an hour.

I mean, if they give me a replacement card even, whos to say that card wont be effected either? or will that card come with a renewed 2 year warrenty????

I have to say, i agree with your worries. Personally, i'd be thinking seriously about getting rid of the system, demanding a full refund. You'll have no trouble demonstrating that what they sold you wasn't of merchantable quality, and that the relacement parts can't possibly be of merchantable quality, so you've got Irish consumer law on your side.

Silenceisbliss

voodoo_child wrote: »

They'll replace the motherboard (this is the main system board, it contains new cpu, gpu, ports etc). The XPS has next day service, so a fella will just call out to your house and do the job there and then, takes under an hour.


I have to say, i agree with your worries. Personally, i'd be thinking seriously about getting rid of the system, demanding a full refund. You'll have no trouble demonstrating that what they sold you wasn't of merchantable quality, and that the relacement parts can't possibly be of merchantable quality, so you've got Irish consumer law on your side.

im in germany at the moment until january. its a whole other can of worms

Silenceisbliss

emailed Dell technical support outlining my problem and what I have done, very detailed and all, all the invoice numbers, service tag numbers etc. I get an email after like 3 days asking what the problem was....after I had described in perfect detail with pictures and all.... asses.

called tech support here in germany, they have a guy dispatched and he'll do the repair at my house tomorrow. sorted. until the next fail anyway....

Silenceisbliss

well the dell tech guy is here right now and hes after gutting my laptop and puttin the new mobo and gpu in now.

asked him if it was a common problem that dell techs are having lately
....big grin on his face (like, oh ****...)

then I say, its all nvidias fault though and theyre some gob****es
....he agrees with me straight away.

funny.

at least it shoul dbe working now in a few minutes anyway.

RichyX

Were the 9300M cards effected by all this?
I haven't been able to track down a proper list of exactly what cards are dying.

Overheal

RichyX wrote: »

Were the 9300M cards effected by all this?
I haven't been able to track down a proper list of exactly what cards are dying.

Most decidedly yes.

Last month, the Inquirer made the shocking accusation that every Nvidia graphics card with the G84 and G86 chipsets were bad (every 8-series card up to the 8800 basically). Nvidia said that's crap, but the Inquirer said it was all a big cover up. Now the Inquirer is reporting that "four board partners are seeing G92 and G94 chips going bad in the field at high rates." That would mean all of the GeForce 8800 GT, GTS and GS desktop cards, the mobile 8800s, and most of the 9600 and 9800 series graphics cards are defective. All summed up, the Inquirer is saying almost the entire run of 8 and 9-series GeForce cards are defective and "going bad in the field at high rates." More than that, they say that Nvidia will continue to cover it up because the cost of admitting the nature of the problem would be devastating, meaning we'll never know for sure. We'll just have to watch for anecdotes to pile up. We're really hoping they're wrong on this one—that's a lot of graphics cards, and if true, it could basically destroy Nvidia. URL="http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/08/12/nvidia-g92s-g94-reportedly"]Inquirer[/URL] - [I]Thanks Jagslive![/I

HP has confirmed that Nvidia's faulty GPUs have created faults with 38 different models in its slimline PC range. Nvidia's GPU problems have so far been confined to laptops, but HP says Nvidia parts are also to blame for the problem in its desktops.
"HP is aware that certain Nvidia chips used in the HP Pavilion Slimline Desktop PCs may experience issues," the company claims in a statement sent to PC Pro.
"Some of these computers may not boot or may not display video. Computers experiencing either or both of these symptoms, attributable to the computer's motherboard, are eligible for HP's Limited Warranty Service Enhancement."
Several of the PCs on HP's list of affected models are sold specifically in the UK, including the Pavilion s3015.uk, s3040.uk and the s3115.uk.
Nvidia says the issue with the HP desktops isn't necessarily linked to the laptop GPU issues. "It is slimline, notebook-like design but there is no conclusive evidence that the failure mechanism is the same as the notebook issue we announced in July," the company's director of product PR, Luciano Alibrandi, told PC Pro.
"We are working very closely with HP to determine if/how the Nvidia chipset is involved in the failures.

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]ADVERTISEMENT[/FONT]

Modern PCs are complex and OEMs determine their own warranty and repair programs based on their individual testing."
Earlier this year, Nvidia complained it was being prevented from revealing the full scale of the problem with its GPUs by its PC partners. "The truth is our obligations to our partners limit what we can say," a Nvidia spokesman commented. "We need to leave announcements to our partners like Dell and HP."
"I know there's frustration, and it would make my job easier if I could give out the facts that I know, but we have obligations to our partners. We discuss it constantly, and the company would like to be more upfront about this - but we can't be."
Nvidia is currently being sued by its shareholders for allegedly covering up the problems with the faulty GPUs.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/230097/has-nvidia-problem-hit-hp-desktops.html
http://gizmodo.com/5035980/inquirer-pretty-much-every-nvidia-geforce-8800-9600-and-9800-graphics-card-is-defective

RichyX

Overheal wrote: »

Most decidedly yes.

Thanks for the reply.
Sad news as I was looking to get myself a Windows laptop with that card.
If I go with the ATI equivalent I'd say there's sod all chance I'll get Mac OSX running on it :mad: