Nvidia has uncovered a problem with some older graphics chips that shipped in "significant quantities" of laptop PCs, the company said Wednesday. Nvidia hasn't determined the exact cause of the problem but said it relates to a packaging material used with some of its chips, as well as the thermal design of some laptops. Modern processors generate considerable amounts of heat.

To tackle the problem, the company is releasing a software driver that will cause system fans to start operating sooner and reduce the "thermal stress" on the chips. The driver has been provided to laptop makers directly, said Derek Perez, an Nvidia spokesman.

View: The full story @ PCworld


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(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #1 Posted by FunkyMike on 03 Jul 2008 - 14:13
WAIT WAIT WAIT .. stop the press. This took Nvidia and the laptop manufactures 4 years to figure out???? Ever since Geforce FX????? Give me a break.
Quote this comment #1.1 Posted by IntelliMoo on 03 Jul 2008 - 17:06
(FunkyMike said @ #1)
WAIT WAIT WAIT .. stop the press. This took Nvidia and the laptop manufactures 4 years to figure out???? Ever since Geforce FX????? Give me a break.

Makes sense, nv takes months to acknowledge their flaws, so this doesn't sound surprising at all.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #2 Posted by ir0nw0lf on 03 Jul 2008 - 16:55
You ought to look at their stock prices today, right now down like 30%. Ouch.
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #3 Posted by rooster1469 on 03 Jul 2008 - 16:59
It would seem that the stones being thrown at glass walls have finally broke something...but on a more serious note...I had purchased a Compaq Presario with the Turion x2 that has the Go 6150 IGP around 3 years ago...and have had nothing but problems with it overheating and black screens of death...and, Eureka!, finally HP support sent out bulletins to those of us that actually registered our products, that there was an enhancement program (enhancement...lol...) to fix this problem. Mine came back after a week's time with a new mobo as the gpu had burnt out.

I am not a fanboy of any one particular GPU manufacturer...but let it be known that I have more than this reason to not have a desire to buy anything of Nvidia's again...pure and simply...the Go IGP's are junk.
Quote this comment #3.1 Posted by qjleckey on 04 Jul 2008 - 07:34
Yeah, but only if your laptop is one of the one's that they've listed as part of the program.
Getting them to fix anything else is damn near impossible.
Luckily after explaining it was a variant of the atlanta/athena issues, they replaced my mobo and my laptop has been running fine since.

Although, it did take two mobo's before it was fully resolved, and the first new one reported itself as a different model and brand.
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #4 Posted by +rm20010 on 03 Jul 2008 - 17:57
Finally. My laptop's 7400 Go chip fried once.
Quote this comment #4.1 Posted by Scirwode on 04 Jul 2008 - 03:03
Mine as well .

Scirwode
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #5 Posted by shinji257 on 03 Jul 2008 - 18:18
Hmm... interesting. Now I do know that my GPU seems to run awfully hot but I have never had it crash or burn out. I never got worried about it until I saw it start to hit in excess of 80C. Even then I took apart the laptop and found several balls of dust stuck in the fan as well as the heatsink for the GPU. Afterwards it ran fine for a while. Later the fan finally kicked the bucket and I had Dell send me a new one to install. Now it runs fine at 55C-65C sitting on my bed. Never once had my system crash due to the GPU overheating though. Not even when the GPU was literally cooking at 88C. Regardless I might be interested in that program however I don't think it will do anything for me due to the fact that the fan is separate from the actual card. The card in my laptop only has passive cooling to it.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #6 Posted by n_K on 03 Jul 2008 - 18:27
I've got some acer with an nvidia go 6xxx chip, and its always worked flawlessly I've had it on for 3 days in a row sometimes and had no overheating problems
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #7 Posted by Telly on 03 Jul 2008 - 21:23
I'd be very interested to know which chips were affected by this. I've recently sent back a HP laptop with a 8600M graphics chip which I believe fried itself. Currently waiting on a report as to the exact problem, but a blank screen (sometimes funky colours) and no output from HDMI/Monitor or S-video led me to believe it was with the GPU.
Quote this comment #7.1 Posted by +rm20010 on 04 Jul 2008 - 14:57
For me, blue lines were running across the BIOS screen and the GRUB boot menu was all garbled. Vista refused to boot in anything other than safe mode with the default VGA driver. That made it painfully obvious the GPU was at fault.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #8 Posted by virtorio on 03 Jul 2008 - 22:29
Well that could explain a few of my laptop failures over the years.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #9 Posted by +/ -Razorfold on 04 Jul 2008 - 02:49
Oh so nvidia is fixing 1 problem in their drivers.

Now we can wait another 4 years for them to realize/acknowledge their drivers suck....
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #10 Posted by RobertH on 04 Jul 2008 - 14:09
I'd be interested to know which products *might* be affected. Why are they not saying?

I have a notebook with an 8800M, and said GPU has been overheating recently (no its not dust). I have been in forums recently and seen a number of other 8800M owners posting about 'high' GPU temperatures. Makes me wonder.
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