NVIDIA Reports GPU Failures in Significant Quantities of Laptops

This is probably why our MBP's are so HOT! If you can still buy AppleCare, you better buy it now just in case!


Article from Engadget:

NVIDIA says "significant quantities" of laptop GPUs are defective, stock tumbles

If you're the type to watch the late stock tickers, you might have noticed that NVIDIA's stock just took a pretty big hit, down 24 percent to $13.56 -- that's because the company just informed investors that "significant quantities" of previous-generation graphics chips have been failing at "higher than normal rates," and that it's lowering its Q2 estimates due to pricing pressure. NVIDIA will be taking a $150M to $250M charge against earnings next quarter to cover the cost of repairing and replacing the affected chips, but didn't specifically announce what products were defective, just that they include GPUs and "media and communications processors." Laptop makers have apparently already been given an updated GPU driver which kicks in fans sooner to reduce "thermal stress" on the GPU, and NVIDIA says it's talking to its suppliers about being reimbursed for the faulty parts. That's great and all, but we'd really rather know which chips specifically are failing -- if you're serious about playing in the big leagues, you better come clean, guys.

This worried me as well. It's interesting to note their suggestion that their discoveries are only the tip of the iceberg, that, future problems with current and past cards are possible. Ouch! I hope this doesn't affect us. With that, I've taken interest in finally downloading smc fan control for this notebook. Can anyone answer this for me:

Even if you set the fans at a higher default speed (or load speed), will they still speed up if the heat rises and requires such an increase (on top of what i have already increased)? Anyone know exactly how this is handled? Thanks in advance. :apple:

i hope they get it fixed in less then a month untill i get mine :D
plus the screen gap on all the mbp are somewhat defective for a $2,000+ laptop

If Apple's parts are included in this, expect some sort of Replacement Program.

Tracer

If Apple's parts are included in this, expect some sort of Replacement Program.

How do you replace a GPU that's part of the logic board? It's not a card-style mobile graphics card.

Do you think that this mistake by Nvidia could encourage Apple to start using the card style GPU's to be safe?

did they use the same or different NVDIA cards for the santa rosa MBP vs. Penryn MBP?

did they use the same or different NVDIA cards for the santa rosa MBP vs. Penryn MBP?

Its the name, just different amount of VRAM. It kind makes sense because my 128MB 8600 diode runs very hot...about 20*F higher than my CPU. We will see what happens in the next week.

Hey, there are two threads about this. The other one is here - though this thread is larger I think the other one is in a more appropriate section.

That said, I think this is bad news for nVidia - on top of the news that Apple went with OpenCL instead of nVidia's CUDA technology, this event will make things especially hard for them.

Its the name, just different amount of VRAM. It kind makes sense because my 128MB 8600 diode runs very hot...about 20*F higher than my CPU. We will see what happens in the next week.

GPU's do tend to run hotter then the CPU. My Penryn MBP's GPU is running at 137 F and the CPU is currently at 113 F( not fully warmed up yet). On my 12" Powerbook G4, the CPU would run at 114 F and the GPU at 129 F once warmed up.