All Desktop/Laptop Nvidia G84/G86 chipsets fooked

Overheal

If youre the shamed owner of any 8400/8600 series graphics chipset, desktop or otherwise, this pertains to you.

Gizmodo wrote:

Those overheating Nvidia laptop graphics cards that are dying en masse? The Inquirer is reporting that "all the G84 and G86 parts are bad. Period. No exceptions," on mobile and desktop. Those chipsets are in pretty much every GeForce 8-series graphics card below the 8800s (here's a complete list of cards and chipsets). Notably, that means every MacBook Pro since the Santa Rosa update has the bad cards, which fail at a "higher-than-normal" rate. The root of the problem is the substrate/bumping material, which Nvidia themselves had characterized as "weak." The G84 and G86 chipsets use the same application-specific integrated circuit, which the Inquirer has been told had no changes made to it during its life cycle—besides, Nvidia wouldn't change the assembly process or materials for a single batch, according to engineers. So Nvidia's official claim, that the weak materials were only used for a single batch, doesn't hold so much water. And as the Inquirer points out, their fix, to run the fan more to offseat the heat issue simply covers up the problem while it drains your battery.
If this is all true, Nvidia better have more than $200 million set aside for fixes. URL="http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/09/nvidia-g84-g86-bad"]The Inquirer[/URL

Its not good. And im royally pissed.

kaimera

Got linked to that today.

No probs thus far on the 8600M GT but **** me.

I assume I'd have to go thru Dell?

Wonder what my lappy can take instead.

Cmar-Ireland

What does this mean for an 8800GTX sli set up?

TerrorFirmer

Cmar-Ireland wrote: »

What does this mean for an 8800GTX sli set up?

Nothing. They're g80 and the newer 8800/9600 cards are g92/94

You won't get anything from Dell...unless it actually fails of course. You can only use Dell cards because they use a weird version of MXM, so you'd be limited to the 8600/8400...unless the newer 9500/9600 cards come in in the same format.

kaimera

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Nothing. They're g80 and the newer 8800/9600 cards are g92/94

You won't get anything from Dell...unless it actually fails of course. You can only use Dell cards because they use a weird version of MXM, so you'd be limited to the 8600/8400...unless the newer 9500/9600 cards come in in the same format.

Oh I meant if it fails *fingers crossed it doesn't*

Wont be happy with a bricked lappy over this.

conzy

No problems so far with my M1530 (8600M GT)

christophicus

kaimera wrote: »

Oh I meant if it fails *fingers crossed it doesn't*

Wont be happy with a bricked lappy over this.

I think i am in the same boat as you. I got the Vostro 1500, and now I see that it is possible going to die soon !!! Christ !!! I hope they get the 9600's in dells soon so I can get a decent working card.

Overheal

i havent experienced any problems either but my warranty is up in a month so this menas ill have to get it extended for another hundred bucks or so :mad:

I'd ship it off to them now but im flying again in 6 weeks, and Ive heard terrible horror stories about getting repaired lappys back off HP.

we all have to hope it goes to Class Action, pretty much.

Voodu Child

Ive noticed some laptop manufacturers have started putting out new bios's to change fan settings etc.

I hope its not a situation where they're trying to prolong the life of the card so that it fails outside the warranty rather than in it. Something to keep an eye on; it looks like the problem may be related to thermal fatigue/cycles as much as absolute temperatures.

Overheal

voodoo_child wrote: »

I hope its not a situation where they're trying to prolong the life of the card so that it fails outside the warranty rather than in it. Something to keep an eye on; it looks like the problem may be related to thermal fatigue/cycles as much as absolute temperatures.

unfortunately that does appear to be the situation.

TerrorFirmer

I was just thinking about how it'd suck to have one of those cards, then I remembered I actually have an 8400Gt in my laptop.

Temps are good on mine though, far better then my 8600Gt in the 1500 and it's overclocked as well.

Overheal

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I was just thinking about how it'd suck to have one of those cards, then I remembered I actually have an 8400Gt in my laptop.

Temps are good on mine though, far better then my 8600Gt in the 1500 and it's overclocked as well.

its not that the cards are overheating (though that is happening to a lot of HP laptops at the minute - for which a class action is being processed) its that the heat cycles on laptops are so severe: from Hot-Cold-Hot-Cold-Hot-Cold, its taking a toll on parts of the chip that were poorly manufactured.

The problem here is its being speculated that nvidia has known about the design flaw for well over a year - instead of reworking the design for 84/86 chips they went ahead and kept printing them anyway, as it probably wasnt considered an immediate problem - its just now that heat cycles on laptops are starting to reveal these issues. Which is why they have issued the driverfix to run the fan constantly - so it has a heat cycle closer to that of a desktop, but will still fail eventually.

I wouldnt mind so much if it was a desktop card - as id probably just upgrade that in another year anyway; but this is my laptop, and i planned on getting at least another 2-3 years of good function out of it before it started to require constant nursing.

Blazer

Think you should change that title to Nvidia is fooked.
I think their days of charging €600 for a video well and truly gone if ATI stick to their current plan and deliver performance per dollar value.
Seeing the 4780 going for €223 on dabs.ie is a huge kick in the balls for Nvidia..
Since these cards are a match for the GTX260 and 2 of them beat the GTX280 in most of the games why would anyone spend €600 on GTX280 when you can get 2x4780 for €446.
I'm seeing a lot of people switching over to ATI including a lot of NV fanboys.
Myself I'm glad to see ATI back in the ring as Nvidia abused their position after they got released the 8800GTX (savage card by the way).
Releasing mickey mouse cards then after this (8800ultra/9800gtx) and way overcharging on them was sheer greediness on their part. Now it's time to reap what they've sown and they deserve every bit of it.
As long now as ATI don't follow them.:eek:

christophicus

I don't want to let this subjext drop as I don't want to get ****ed over by this.

There is a small update here

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20080725PD206.html

Basically some vendors are calling on nVidia to disclose more info, and in some case they are demanding nVidia to recall faulty products

Anyone else have any more info ??


EDIT Some more info.

Dell have released bios updates for some laptops to try and fend of the problem untill warrneties are over. From my understanding all it does is up the fan speed to max.

For some reason the Vostro 1500 is not there. I find it hard to believe that the 1510 suffers from the problem, but the older 1500 does not :? .

Overheal

screw it anyway my warranty expires in 4 weeks so ive sone away with waiting for nvidia's response and have asked HP to just replace the damn thing - all they can do though is swap out the motherboard and gimme a clean GPU that way. Until nvidia responds more intelligently that is.

K.O.Kiki

Wait what?
I was planning on keeping this (refurb) Santa Rosa MBP for life!!

Overheal

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Wait what?
I was planning on keeping this (refurb) Santa Rosa MBP for life!!

?

challengemaster

balls. Think I've a 8600gt in my vostro 1700

Tar.Aldarion

Have same, but it oes not go hot-cold-hot-cold, always on. :P

Overheal

Okay do me a favor anyone with an 84 or 86:

download GPU-Z

And tell me what your temperatures are.

I just came out of a gaming session (of Team Fortress 2) with a temperature of 71 degrees Celsius. On desktop it looks like its holding on at 62 degrees.

the only reason I ask is because my friend has an inspiron 1520 with the same card, and it only ever gets as hot as 49 (and thats while playing Call of Duty 4)

sebastianlieken

the one in my laptop can easily hit 100c. its bad. I know.

Overheal

send it in.

Tar.Aldarion

played cod there, it got feckin hoooooot.

Overheal

Tara Le d'Arion wrote: »

played cod there, it got feckin hoooooot.

but did you run the tool and get an actual temp? I guess hooot means skin-burn tho

TerrorFirmer

Overheal wrote: »

Okay do me a favor anyone with an 84 or 86:

download GPU-Z

And tell me what your temperatures are.

I just came out of a gaming session (of Team Fortress 2) with a temperature of 71 degrees Celsius. On desktop it looks like its holding on at 62 degrees.

the only reason I ask is because my friend has an inspiron 1520 with the same card, and it only ever gets as hot as 49 (and thats while playing Call of Duty 4)

Yours is normal, pretty good actually, I used to hit up to 100 on my old Go7400 and on my current 8400GT I hit 70-75 when gaming.....anyone topping out at 49 on a 1520 is either extremely lucky, or reading the temps wrong...

christophicus

I am getting 51 degrees on my 8600m GT just while web browsing.

Tar.Aldarion

Overheal wrote: »

but did you run the tool and get an actual temp? I guess hooot means skin-burn tho

Must try it later, only time it has got that hot, weird.

Voodu Child

8600M GT (DDR3 version, stock 475/700). Latest bios

Idle 55ish
Peak 80

Tbh, I don't think the problem is related to max temps (except for specific problems with laptops like the M1330). The 'general' problem (if there is one) with the G84 and 86 seems to be more about thermal cycles.

Silenceisbliss

for those of you who have been suffering from high temperatures and low battery lives. (This actually applies to everyone, not even just m1330 users)

the first i found is a great guide, but involves a certain level of know how and involves voiding youre warrenty. I am still to try this as i cant find suitable piece of copper as of yet.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268081

the second, i tried myself, I found thaat the voltages were set very very high by default to attain definate stability, I was able to reduce all my cpu voltages down to the absolute minimum of 0,95 volts while being orthos stable for an hour (i wasnt arsed letting it run for longer). dropped my load temperature by an astonishing 17c. unreal
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

Overheal

excellent post

kaimera

Overheal wrote: »

Okay do me a favor anyone with an 84 or 86:

download GPU-Z

And tell me what your temperatures are.

I just came out of a gaming session (of Team Fortress 2) with a temperature of 71 degrees Celsius. On desktop it looks like its holding on at 62 degrees.

the only reason I ask is because my friend has an inspiron 1520 with the same card, and it only ever gets as hot as 49 (and thats while playing Call of Duty 4)

idling @ ~50, been on all night with wmp11 playing and I had a movie playing at some point.

I'll see what its like after some painkiller

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?