Seems consumers are rather informed and didn't tax nVidia extra for the notebook failures of last summer. But my thinking is that nVidia should avoid this kind of fiasco in the future, else their reputation might take a hit, and consumers might respond more aggressively, once their reputation suffers.

Good to know they have their share of problems, but they do need step it up... I'm hoping their next lines of GPU's coming Q3-4 will deliver like they said. Even though G92's did not perform as well as i would have wanted, i was still impressed with my 8800GT. So, i think i'll give them sometime to work out the kinks...

This is outragous really. Many of these chipsets came in pretty expensive laptops. Me, myself, bought an Sony Vaio 2 years ago with the 8600M GS chipset and I get nervous everytime a game gets a hickup.

I think that nVidia should do a free replacement of all the defective units instead of having system builders turning up fan speed to lengthen the time before a serious hardware failure. It really doesn't show any responsibility on their part by only replacing failed ones and knowing that the others have the same problem but just haven't failed yet.

I don't know, a lot of my friends once they heard about the NVIDIA fiasco went all ATi on their notebook purchases.

Probably just a small sample, but it's good that NVIDIA is recovery rather instantaneous on this mishap.

I'll never buy another NVIDIA product. I bought a high end ASUS laptop expecting several years of life from it, but now I hesitate to use it for gaming (one of the main reasons I bought it) for fear of the graphics card failing. It will probably die in 6 mos after the warranty has expired. They should have given at least a 4 year warranty on every card affected. I hope they lose their a55e5.

I don't think nvidia should do much more than help AIBs with the warranty repair as far as discreet graphics go. Still, since laptops aren't so easy to fix and replace I feel they really should have addressed the problem more seriously than they did at first, instead of trying to bury their head in the sand, and could have done a little more to try and remedy the situation. Oh well.

I am so proud to say that I also own 1 of those pieces of dog crap named the G92/94. Not on a laptop but a normal desktop. Still it has affected more laptop owners that desktop users. But hey it's ok; our manufacturers didn't mind also loosing a sizable chunk of their own money, right? That's about what that arrogant Ujesh Desai said. Let’s see if those oh humble and forgiving manufacturers will come knocking next time when they need a new GPU.

In a buisness sense, bottom line type situation, they handled it perfectly. From a consumer standpoint, they're basically telling everyone who bought a PC with an affected chip to sit and spin.

"Yes, we know your notebook will fail, and we know why. But no, we wont fix it, we'll just make sure your warranty is up before it does fail. Sorry." Thanks Nvidia! (I've only had one 8600 equiped notebook fail on me, but one is enough.)

Now you all know why it is valuable to purchase a $300 protection plan (3+ year) for a laptop. Even being a responsible user, you can EASILY rack up over $300 of repair to a laptop in 3 years. And if the laptop is not expensive enough to justify the cost of the plan (that is less than $1500 or so), it is probably not a very good laptop. I guess my end note, at least for me, is that I plan on spending about $1800+ every 3-4 years on a laptop, either through multiple cheap ones, or 1 nice one.

Through normal use and wear and tear, I have accumulated about $800 worth of repairs all paid for by HP/bestbuy all due to the 3 year accidental/protection plan I got on it (was $350 on a $2100 notebook). Now the same plan (which still has a year on it) is also helping me sell the laptop to someone else. Easily paid itself off. I only had a go 7600 (so G73 I believe) and was safe from this, but had it been a problem, I would have been mad all of about 10 minutes, then packed it up and dropped off at BestBuy and forgot about it. Peace of mind can be VERY worth the cost of a protection plan.

Yes, and unless you have a backup machine as well as a complete data backup that you religiously adhere to, you could easily find yourself up the river for such a major repair. Simple repairs are one thing, but a motherboard replacement from dell/hp/gateway (Since most geeksquad's arent equipted to do that, both in materials and grunts) will surely result in a total data loss.

That's not peice of mind, that's having an expendable notebook. For a TON of people, a notebook is a required tool, not an expendable toy.

What kind of normal wear and tear do your computers go through? Do you drop them down the staircase every day at lunch? I've never had to take a laptop in for repairs due to "normal wear and tear." Come to think of it, I've never had to take a laptop in for repairs at all.

It is all Apple and I-Phone's fault !

I just found a laptop with the GeForce 8600M GS at a local computer store that was "refurbished". I asked the salesman what the reason was for the return. It was a video issue where the screen went black. They replaced the motherboard. I asked if they would consider a in-store extended warranty and they refused. The laptop has a 7 day in-store refund and 30 day warranty for defects. I told the salesman about the known issue with nVidia chips and he knew about it. He knew that he was selling a product that will eventually fail. He argued that this happens with all computer products. I argued that not all products have know failure rates that make the product practically useless beyond the rediculous 30 day warranty they offer on something that has already been proven to fail by being refurbished.

What is a travesty is that they are waiting for some poor shmuck that things this laptop that is worth $1000 and is marked down to $670 is a great deal when in reality he is paying $670 for what is in effect a 3 month lease on a computer at best. This laptop will fail yet the unsuspecting consumer is left holding the bag. That is why nVidia should be sued to the fullest extent of the law.

People who sell products that they know are defective should be put out of business. The customer should have the option to replace the part completely with a new part that is not defective. End of story. No excuses.

When I buy a product from a retail establishment that product should have a reasonable life expectancy of two to three years. Not three months. Not six months. But...that is why they have warranties...at least we have that option in order to protect ourselves from getting shafted.

Now when I see an nVidia logo on a product I have to wonder if it is a brand new untested product that may fail and if it does chances are that I will be left holding the bag...much like the unsuspecting consumer that will buy the faulty chip that I have found in a retail establishment...still for sale. Ready to fail. Unsupported.

nVidia...because I know your attitude towards producing products that you do not support I fail to see the reason why I should buy any of your products no matter how well they perform at any price point. If your company should happen to fall as a result of criminal practices and you disappear from the GPU landscape...you will not be missed.

Ah.....isn't living in a monetary, competition-based economy grand?

I have a HP/Compaq laptop which has died 6 times in last 2 years. Right now I am in talk with HP to replace my motherboard with a board having diffrent chipset preferebly one from another manufacturer.

unfortunately, huge snafu's like that are an industry standard and ATI and Nvidia have been taking turns at it for a long time... Maybe consumers will grow a collective conscious and get fed up with it, maybe this will Larrabee's road in, who knows anymore...

"According to the filing, Nvidia said it would incur a $150 to $200 million charge for the quarter, with the money covering warranty, repair and return and replacement."

"Rather than recall faulty notebooks, manufacturers of laptops affected have gone through certain steps to help cover the problem."

Sounds like NVIDIA is offering replacements, and in fact taking a hit for it, but the manufacturers of the laptops are squeezing around the issue to save money on processing and board replacement. Am I the only one that interpreted these events this way? seems like this class action suit is implying that NVIDIA is in the wrong for not somehow forcing the maunfacturers to do recalls.

Or I'm missing something /shrug

Magicandy: Yeah, actually it is. Otherwise, the one 'laptop' at the government COMPUTER store (which would be right next to the government BREAD store, one per prefecture), would weigh 15kg, have an 8088 class cpu, no gpu, and would cost $15K. Purchasing it would be like waiting in line at the DMV.

The 'monetary, competition-based' economy is what revealed the fault. Do you think the government bureaucrat running the COMPUTER store would ever admit a mistake? Ever try to get a government agency to correct something? Or do you just get a welfare check from them?

Phew! This was about those crappy portable chipsets. I just ordered a daily deal on NCIX (BFG GTX260 OCed) this morning, and my heart skipped a beat when I read the title!

i sure as hell wont buy another nvidia products for a long time till i know for sure they have solved there BS issues - i have seen too many 9800GTX+'s, 8600's, 8400's and HP laptops featuring nvidia chips come down its not funny.

Not sure about "never" for nvidia depending on word of current series etc but i do know most of ASUS's high end products will pass a prime and atitool test combind but WILL NOT REBOOT UNTILL IT COOLS DOWN.

Some good product that is.

In all fairness, i do have a second machine i can use while my laptop is being repaired. Also, if my laptop fails due to the video card, guess what, i can copy the hard drive because it is 100% fine - so i dont have to do without my data during the repair. Geek Squad is NOT fit to repair the laptop, i agree, thats why they sent it to HP. And as for your final comment, the "wear and tear" i mentioned is as follows:

the hinge broke lose from the frame due to stress over a year and a half of opening and closing the laptop, it happens, my dad had the same problem.
The HD DVD drive (ya its from those days) stopped opening, they replaced it completely no questions asked.
The hard drive was replaced completely unknown to me due to a pending failure - now this I will agree is iffy, as I lost the data on the drive, fortunately for me I had already wiped it to prepare for selling, but this I can agree was a shock.
Well the hinge was being repaired THEY broke the webcam, which they then fixed.
And yes, the keyboard and motherboard have been replaced due to me spilling a drink on it, figuring this may happen or something like it, is why I had the plan to begin with. This is the only thing I believe was MY fault and frankly is not uncommon with laptops. (and the motherboard worked fine because I cleaned it up myself, I had them replace it since I could and didn't want to have to worry about it)

So hopefully that clears up "wear and tear" for you and everyone else.

To the others who gave me thumbs down, ask yourself this, would you rather have paid 100-200 more and known that you would be ok than have to be scared of using your laptop or having watched it fail all together?

My 8600gt in my Asus laptop broke. the Asus costomer support said I was out of warranty and I am SOL. She said I might as well buy another laptop.

I have a laptop with a 8600gt in it - dell originally replaced the card - which sadly was with the same card again. I got no extended warranty out of them and since the whole economic crisis i havent had a word out of dell - so seems my 'case' is stuck up in the air.

There are still planty G86 / G84 stock laptop in Indonesia. Let use this to educate people not to but it . p.s. I have one too , Dell Latitude D630 with NVS 135M aka G86GL.

Well, well, well, so I can expect Nvidia to pay US 350+ for the motherboard replacement for my friend's notebook. And I am talking about a Geforce Go 7600. Thanks God my own notebook discrete GPU is as reliable Ati Radeon

would there anyway to use some sort of OC tools to artificially make temps higher and fail faster within warranty and make them replace these en masse?

I recommend a laptop to my brother a year and a half ago. He has a 7600 go chip that has heat issues. Now I feel guilty for suggesting he spend $800 on that notebook.

ok dude and dude? when you replace a defective part with a "completely" new part to fix a product does it not become refurbished then? you're acting like they replaced the motherboard with the exact same faulty one. do you know they did for a fact? or just because you suspect they did makes it so? and I thought most warranties on "new" things was 2 years so uh, what's the problem?



this part of your statement is clearly biased. I have bought plenty of nVidia products and not had failures on them. and the failures I have seen on nVidia desktop cards were caused by faulty fans the manufacturer chose to put on the cards. if I had to choose between the two evils I would chose the evil I know anyways as the problems I have experienced, in the past I admit, from ati were just plain atrocious nightmares with drivers. I had to re-install a whole OS to fix a sound driver problem caused by installing one of their video cards. that is ridiculous and believe me a lot of people tried fixing that issue. I am sure there was something we missed but the fact that happened at all is proof ati is not infallible either.

btw, I think it's schmuck! =P even spell check here agrees.

heck I think the comments on this article is mainly filled with a bunch of buzzard nVidia haters looking and hoping to find a carcass ruffling yall's feathers up.

also the article if it is accurate clearly states that...

...so it is NOT nVidia that made that particular decision.

and lastly, for those claiming they are "afraid" to use their laptops or game with them - 1) wth game can you play on an 8600? I am sure there is a few like WoW maybe, but that's hardly a "gaming" video card I think. and 2) wth wouldn't you push your system to a) get the most out of it and b) get it to fail "within" the actual warranty period so you can get it fixed! and do NOT say losing your data. the majority of the people on this web site should be capable of backing up data in some fashion and know better than to store everything on a primary OS drive.