Nvidia Reports Large Quantities of Defective Notebook Chips

[LukeD]

Has there been any word or update from Lenovo on this issue? Have ThinkPads even been identified as notebooks with this problem?

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4483

[ConnectDon]

Here's the SEC filing (emphasis mine):

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Item 8.01 Other Events.

On July 2, 2008, NVIDIA Corporation stated that it would take a $150 million to $200 million charge against cost of revenue to cover anticipated customer warranty, repair, return, replacement and other consequential costs and expenses arising from a weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of our previous generation MCP and GPU products used in notebook systems. All newly manufactured products and all products currently shipping in volume have a different and more robust material set.

The previous generation MCP and GPU products that are impacted were included in a number of notebook products that were shipped and sold in significant quantities. Certain notebook configurations of these MCP and GPU products are failing in the field at higher than normal rates. While we have not been able to determine a root cause for these failures, testing suggests a weak material set of die/package combination, system thermal management designs, and customer use patterns are contributing factors. We have developed and have made available for download a software driver to cause the system fan to begin operation at the powering up of the system and reduce the thermal stress on these chips. We have also recommended to our customers that they consider changing the thermal management of the MCP and GPU products in their notebook system designs. We intend to fully support our customers in their repair and replacement of these impacted MCP and GPU products that fail.

We have begun discussions with our supply chain regarding reimbursement to us for some or all of the costs we have incurred and may incur in the future relating to the weak material set. We will also seek to access our insurance coverage. We continue to not see any abnormal failure rates in any systems using NVIDIA products other than certain notebook configurations. However, we are continuing to test and otherwise investigate other products. There can be no assurance that we will not discover defects in other MCP or GPU products.

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Don

[LukeD]

Thank you, Don!

[biowizard]

My T43 uses an ATI (AMD) Radeon X600, so I guess that's OK. I think Lenovo have used ATI in many of their models.

Brian

[amace]

It would be nice if they said exactly what chips are having problems.  It says older graphics chips are having issues, so does that mean my T61 will be ok?  It would be nice if they gave more specifics.

[pattk]

NVDA dorpped 30% on July 3. If you don't hold their stocks, you don't feel the pain.
It might have something to do with the T61 graphic BSOD crash problems.

[biowizard]

While my ThinkPad T43 is safe (ATI), I wonder whether this also affects workstations? (OT alert ...) - I've recently bought an S10 workstation, which uses nVidia graphics. It's working at the moment!

Brian

[kr00zn]

I think the bottom line is that until Nvidia discloses exactly what GPU's are affected, we won't know what systems are affected. 

According to this blog/article:   

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9244 

"(Note: I’m trying to find a Nvidia advisory for this download, but the drivers are based on the model of chip. The rub: Nvidia hasn’t detailed what systems are impacted by this glitch. In a nutshell, this driver may be available, but good luck finding it on Nvidia’s site–it appears to be an OEM first strategy)."

[LukeD]

Thank you, biowizard, amace, pattk, and kroozn!

[sktn77a]

I think by "previous generation" they mean the 8000 series chips - ie the "current generation" of notebook chips, to the real world!