What are the chances of another bumpgate by nvidia?

[notty22]

Heat was also a issue with xbox 360's
There is no real official data on exact failure rates, according to wikipedia for the first shipments/ generation 25-54 % failure rate.
I've heard of people going through 4 of them.

Electronics industry newspaper EE Times reported that the problems may have started in the graphics chip. Microsoft designed the chip in-house to cut out the traditional ASIC vendor with the goal of saving money in ASIC design costs. After multiple product failures, Microsoft went back to an ASIC vendor and had the chip redesigned so it would dissipate less heat.[
One possible cause of the General Hardware Error may be cold solder joints. The added mass of the CSP chips (including the GPU and CPU) absorb the heat flow that allows proper soldering of the lead-free solders on the motherboard, therefore, the solder has not properly melted underneath these chips, which can lead to voids (air bubbles) and weak spots in the solder known as cold solder joints. Because of prolonged constant temperature changes inside the console, the voids cause cracking. Some officials claim this issue does not exist, and claim it is caused by a confusion over this issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems

 

[s44]

About the same that AMD has one.

 

[Madcatatlas]

Hey notty, why are you turning this into a xbox thread? we dont want to hide the fact that there was a bumpgate on nvidias flawless track record, do we?

 

[Voo]

but they chose different ones. AMD went with one alternative to Pb, nvidia with another.

Yeah but considering that almost the whole electronics industry is using lead free solders and doesn't have those problems it seems more like Nvidia just miscalculated something. It's not as if those changes came out of the blue and surprised Nvidia from one day to the next. The different recipes for solder and their properties are pretty well known, so if at all Nvidia decided to want to save some money

Also the problem in such cases is usually not the absolute temperate, but more the varying temperature - temperate changes in general are much more harmful to electronics than higher constant operating temperatures.

 

[96Firebird]

Hey notty, why are you turning this into a xbox thread? we dont want to hide the fact that there was a bumpgate on nvidias flawless track record, do we?

Perhaps you should re-read the thread to see why the Xbox was brought into discussion... Just a thought.

 

[Acanthus]

Usually, when a company has a recall, they learn their lesson and don't have that problem again.

Like that time they released card-killing drivers twice

 

[3DVagabond]

My concern is not only the likelihood of some game stopping bug from a manufacturer, but just as much what they will do if one should occur.

Instant and complete recall, like Intel just did? Or, will they try and deny it until there's a class-action lawsuit against them?

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I think rather than asking if NVIDIA will have another bumpgate, you should consider how they'll handle if they do.

AMD handled the TLB bug acceptably, imho. They immediately acknowledged the problem, fixed it (albeit with a performance retarding patch), and you can RMA those CPUs. Intel handled the Cougar Point SATA controller bug extremely well, imho. They pulled product out of retail channels and replaced defective boards asap. NVIDIA, on the other hand, obfuscated the issue, left it to notebook manufacturers to do the right thing resulting in totally hit or miss service, and now the settlement is a crock. It's made me, personally, very leery of their products. Fortunately nearly their entire line of GPUs is inferior to AMD's, so I doubt I'd be buying their power-hungry GPUs anyway.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

My concern is not only the likelihood of some game stopping bug from a manufacturer, but just as much what they will do if one should occur.

Instant and complete recall, like Intel just did? Or, will they try and deny it until there's a class-action lawsuit against them?

Beat me to it by 3 minutes!

 

[ZimZum]

Like that time they released card-killing drivers twice

If you count the 590 release drivers, its actually 3 times.

 

[styrafoam]

Perhaps you should re-read the thread to see why the Xbox was brought into discussion... Just a thought.

I think it was to show the various ways different companys will attempt to address design flaws when they occur, while another company hide thier issues and never even try. Then they will be sued and forced to pay restitution in a very half assed manner. Am i right?

 

[PingviN]

Chances of a similar hardware-failure is not that likely, but Nvidia did show how they handle customer care when the shit hits the fan.

 

[notty22]

I think many peoples perception of how many cards actually failed, and customer experience is clouded by Charlies rhetoric. Rants and personal incentives for his career.
I'll show an example with his Sony laptop on fire story. This plays off of Sony's many battery troubles in the past decade.
My Sony Vaio just caught fire | SemiAccurate


Report: Charlie Demerjian's Sony Vaio catches fire | TG Daily

This is representative of his style.

You hear the same things in this article. Sony does not care, blah blah blah

 

[Arkadrel]

You hear the same things in this article. Sony does not care, blah blah blah

Sony doesnt seem like a company that does care much.... look no further than their half arsed security and them loseing 77million or more user/passwords/bank accounts/birth dates/names+residence ect ect.

Apparntly Xbox net was once hacked, nothing got out, because they "care" enough about their users to protect their privacy/info.

 

[notty22]

I don't fault people for those things effecting their buying decisions.

I don't like some aspects of Sony myself.

But I still love their Televisions. No longer a fan of their expensive laptops/ or their lackluster followups, game support on the hand held gaming systems, once they sell the expensive hardware.

 

[taltamir]

You hear the same things in this article. Sony does not care, blah blah blah

On the one hand, Charlie is a hack...
On the other hand, sony and EA HATE YOU and will intentionally engage in actions that lose them massive amounts of money (and that anyone who isn't retarded predicts ahead of time will lose them massive amounts of money) just to screw their customers as much as they possibly can.

 

[Barfo]

I think many peoples perception of how many cards actually failed, and customer experience is clouded by Charlies rhetoric. Rants and personal incentives for his career.
I'll show an example with his Sony laptop on fire story. This plays off of Sony's many battery troubles in the past decade.
My Sony Vaio just caught fire | SemiAccurate


Report: Charlie Demerjian's Sony Vaio catches fire | TG Daily

This is representative of his style.
You hear the same things in this article. Sony does not care, blah blah blah

I haven't read anything from SA in years, nor do I think Charlie has the kind of clout you imply. People heard about bumpgate because it was a
big enough thing to go to the courts, Apple dropping them and people complaining about dead or dying computers everywhere.

There's also the fact that Nvidia tried to cover it up and when that failed they gave their customers a s**tty settlement

 

[notty22]

I don't think Charlie has that much clout.
Nvidia has a booming business.
But I see his influence in people parroting misinformation in forums.
You are wrong about Nvidia trying to 'cover it up'. They run a business.
Their first reaction to any rumors/complaints are to sure consumer confidence. That is standard practice by any company. They agreed and participated in a huge settlement to settle actual losses.
Everything else is drama you are particpating in.

edit: If you take Charlies style and apply it to the Sony story it would sound like this.
Sony has been intentionally engineering faulty batteries in their laptops for a decade. They know that they will catch fire and explode in some cases. They pay bonuses for these bad engineering marvels and keep making new generations of crap to screw potential customers. /extreme sarcasm.
That is his take on Nvidia in a nutshell.
Actual quote from Charlie :

"[Also], always use a hard surface, and avoid Sony products if you value your house, cat, or children," he added.

edit: In regards to Apple , you are making stuff up. Apple regularly drops and picks up Intel/ ATI/ AMD / Nvidia hardware for its own purposes.
If at one time Apple laptops only used Nvidia, was it because AMD only had faulty crap as a alternative ? Obviously not.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Nope bumpgate is old news. Next one is shhh..... drivergate.

Just when the soldering starts to fail on the 5XX series cards nvidia unleashes a bad batch of drivers that kills the 5XX series off. Nvidia apologizes and offers a free download of Hawx 3 with the purchase of a 6XX series card.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I think it was to show the various ways different companys will attempt to address design flaws when they occur, while another company hide thier issues and never even try. Then they will be sued and forced to pay restitution in a very half assed manner. Am i right?

Not really.

1. The xbox used an ATI chip, so ATI GPUs aren't magically immune to this problem.
2. With proper temperature control, it would probably have been fine. Same with nvidia, say if they'd said the max safe temp was 70C vs. 90C to reduce the amount of variation in temps that occurred and cracked the solder.

MS didn't admit to their design flaw until July 2007 (the xbox was released November 2005).

 

[T101]

Considering that Nvidia introduced fermi, aka 4xx series, as a hot powerhungry thing with an architecture that they admitted was a mistep, id say the chances for a new bumpgate is high.

Not buying another laptop with nvidia hardware in it, thats for certain. The limited cooling options basicly means your better off with AMD Radeons that are cooler and less powerhungry and WAY less prone to exploding.

Where did they say that it was a mistep? And where is your evidence that they are more prone to exploding than any other IC? I run both AMD and Nvidia cards, and they both run hot, there is very little difference as I see over the 4xxx 5xxx 6xxx series Radeon and the 8xxx 9xxx 2xx 4xx series GeForce. I build system and sell them, and I see no higher a failure rate in either case. They are about equal. Same goes for CPUs and chipsets as well.

 

[Madcatatlas]

Xbox proved a bad thread derail, so its now on to Sony?

Nvidia proved its first, second and third priorities are all "make more money". In any other company its make more money and try not to screw your customers over too much incase you have a bad streak of luck.

If bumpgate was handled well, i wouldnt be one of many who got screwed by having a laptop with all my work, failing on me after 1 year. and then another.

personal experiance: Im on my third 8600gt m card/laptop now, not to mention my secondary lappy from back then, with a 8400gs burned out just after the two year warranty time, leaving me with essentially a dead product.

If nvidia states that their product will either cook itself, kill, destroy, or explode upon becoming 2 years old, atleast id have the option of taking that into account when i make my hardware choices.

fermi 1.0 being as hot as it is, aka 480, im pretty sure we will have more and more reports of that particular card burning up/dying.


@notty, man dont take stuff personal, no need to send me threatening PMs. Im not going to reply so stick to public channels for your angry feedback.

 

[taltamir]

Everything else is drama you are particpating in.

edit: If you take Charlies style and apply it to the Sony story it would sound like this.

Charlie's style is dialing drama up to 11. The internet is naturally full of drama... 99% of people taking the very real issue with nvidia products and producing drama about it never heard of charlie yet still have the same "style" as you say. But this is natural. Every time anyone messes up the drama explodes. We saw it happen to nvidia, MS, AMD, intel, and more.

 

[blastingcap]

Charlie's style is dialing drama up to 11. The internet is naturally full of drama... 99% of people taking the very real issue with nvidia products and producing drama about it never heard of charlie yet still have the same "style" as you say. But this is natural. Every time anyone messes up the drama explodes. We saw it happen to nvidia, MS, AMD, intel, and more.

He's overdramatic but that doesn't invalidate the underlying facts. Do you think NVDA wanted to pay several hundred million dollars in bumpgate settlements in court for fun--or because they were forced to do so by the facts?

 

[Jionix]

It's just as likely that AMD will have a bumpgate next. There is no good reason to think one GPU maker is more likely to have this happen than the other.

The thing is, "Bumpgate" isn't the nickname for the manufacturing failure that happened, it's the nickname for Nvidia's cover-up and denial of the situation (Ala, Watergate)