Nvidia Sued by Laptop Owners Over Faulty Chips
Apple, Dell, and HP laptop owners are tag-teaming Nvidia with a combined lawsuit stemming from issues with faulty GPUs
While Nvidia’s technology may have moved on from the GeForce G84 and G86 fiasco, owners of that chip certainly haven’t.
In fact, five laptop owners who have the older, faulty GeForce hardware are now banding together to sue Nvidia, reported ComputerWorld.
According to court documents, the plaintiffs are seeking from Nvidia full replacement of the faulty chips and to pay unspecified damages.
Rather than recall faulty notebooks, manufacturers of laptops affected have gone through certain steps to help cover the problem. Apple promised owners of the GeForce 8600M GT-equipped that it would repair for free any faulty GPUs within two years of purchase date, regardless of extended Apple Care coverage.
Other notebook makers such as HP and Dell also extended warranties and released new BIOS software that increased the fan speed to better cool the GPU – hopefully warding off any defects from showing up.
Such measures were unsatisfactory for many, especially the five who are now suing Nvidia.
"This is a grossly inadequate 'remedy,' as it results in additional manifest defects, including, without limitation, further degraded battery life, system performance and increased noise in the Class Computers," the legal complaint read.
"Worse, this 'remedy' fails to solve the actual problem. Instead, this measure only ensures that the Class Computers will fail after the OEM's express warranty period expires, potentially leaving consumers with a defective computer and no immediate recourse," the lawsuit continued. "Finally, even after this purported 'update,' video and system performance is still degraded due to unacceptably high heat and part failures.
The plaintiffs are spread out in Louisiana, California, Illinois, New Jersey and New Mexico. Although among them are only laptops made by Apple, Dell and HP, if such a suit were to hold any water and move to class action status, it could be spread owners of other notebook makes. Stay tuned.
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And the Apple tax just gets higher and higher.
I had the most problems on my Sony Vaio with the 8400m GT chipset.
Apple has problems?? OMG OMG! Has hell frozen over??
Let me call Master Steve Jobs to make sure.
Uh, Guys, Dell and HP have the same issues. Not Apple's fault.
Hah, funny
Oh well that's what happens. The problem is so bad there are people on ebay just specializing in replacing and repairing the affected HP laptop motherboards. You see some of the boards repaired and resold, which isn't bad since you can pick up a system that just needs one of those new boards pretty cheap. Of course then there is the pain of taking it appart ^_^, but that's what I did to build my cheap DV6000 latop.
My Asus G1S laptop died two weeks ago. I did some video editing, put it to sleep, and when i came back, nothing. My 8600gt is dead and to replace it out of warranty would be "A couple hundred dollars" as quoted from tech support. I just want them to replace a faulty and recalled card that they knew would burn out. We need a class action lawsuit, this looks to be just 5 people.
Uh, Guys, Dell and HP have the same issues. Not Apple's fault.
So it's Microsoft's fault Nvidia wrote crappy drivers for Vista that caused quite a few issues, but Apple making a bad hardware choice isn't there fault?
Here we go again!
ahh.... my good old 8600m gs... wich stoped working after 1.5 year or so.. good thing i write a lot of e-mails wich made me get a brand new!!.. crappy motherboard with the same 8600m gs again so again its a matter of time.. Ans yeah it is nvidia fault since they decide what the materials are for the gpu it self. not to forget my 8600 gts wich also stoped working after the same period of time.. i learnd my lessons back to ati
It is good to know some people in this site are blind (FANBOYS).
no not rly actually, far from it i would still recommend nvidia over ati if it has the more bang for buck. But the trouble wich came along with getting a 'fix' for my laptop was a pain alone but when my pc went down along i.. well lets say i was rather pissd since i used em both for CAD work and some 3d work (student) and since i had no spair gpu i was screwed for a month or so. All in all it worked out eventually.. but yeh i my self wouldnt buy a nvidia chipset based on those cores anymore.
So is the first thing you guys do is look for anything in reference to apple and then post?
How does this become a class action suit? And how do we sign on if that happens?
So is the first thing you guys do is look for anything in reference to apple and then post?
Actually I look for any reference of Monkey Island 5 then post.
^
give em one for me and my dell m1330! i can't believe they weren't forced to recall or even FIX THE PROBLEM for subsequent releases of the chips.
just because it doesn't break in the short term, they thought they could get away with it. temperature sensitive chips just wont cut it, ESPECIALLY in a laptop! FU nvidia. enough to convert me to ati just to spite you (though i've always liked ati)
heh 8400's and 8600's arnt the only bad chip series we have seen at our shop fronts
i say f**k nvidia - im not buying there products for a while yet cause i aint trust them, ATi for me next time me thinks
I had the most problems on my Sony Vaio with the 8400m GT chipset.
i wouldn't touch vaio with a 10000000000 foot pole unless it was free because they cost alot for ok hardware just a step bellow a mac ick.
This is one reason why I never buy a laptop for performance video. Its much easier to replace a pcie card than a faulty mainboard chipset.
One word - finally!
First, my one Apple dig out of the way, because I can:
If Apple didn't use nVidia, which would thus make this only happen in "PC's" Apple would probably quickly run ads as to how this is a "PC" problem, and somehow by extension, Windows.
Second, I'm glad this is being taken to court as a stupid BIOS update to spin the fan faster doesn't really fix an overheating issue with poor silicon. Many XBOX360 owners can tell you that.
As the article states, it really just delays it.
Most importantly, apparently nVidia knew about it for quite some time, and (like the MS with the 360), prayed it just wouldn't be an issue.
They have to be taken to court for that.
To Apple's credit: they are at least apparently attempting to actually repair and replace the boards (I presume with better silicon?)
HP Did a good job, to most models, HP extended the warrenty perriod 6 months. Or if the laptop was out of warrenty, then it has a one time free replacement under that policy.
A customers notebook was covered under it, he was happy, as he bought that laptop from his x wife for $550.
And now hes glad he doesn't have a defunt laptop. No one likes giving free money to a x-wife for nothing haha.
My graphics card doesn't like iplayer. 8400M GT GPU on a Vaio (also thought i was getting 512 dedicated memory and got 64, but maybe i was being stupid).
On certain points on the new iPlayer is when it crashes e.g. during heros "I am Sylar" there is a point, also a point on the Jonathan Ross.
First time: A restart fixed it, played iplayer again and oh dear crash at the same point. Restart fixed it.
Second time: Different iplayer program. Crashed and took all day to try and fix. Now have updated the driver so hopefully the problem is solved.
My graphics card doesn't like iplayer. 8400M GT GPU on a Vaio (also thought i was getting 512 dedicated memory and got 64, but maybe i was being stupid). On certain points on the new iPlayer is when it crashes e.g. during heros "I am Sylar" there is a point, also a point on the Jonathan Ross.First time: A restart fixed it, played iplayer again and oh dear crash at the same point. Restart fixed it. Second time: Different iplayer program. Crashed and took all day to try and fix. Now have updated the driver so hopefully the problem is solved.
lol doesnt sound like anything to do with this article
Yeah i was wrong. It just occurred reading this post ironically. What happens is the screen goes weird, everything outlined in pink- hard to describe. Computer crashes then when it starts up i have lines all over the screen as if it is failing to initialise the previous graphics. It also starts up in low graphics mode.
It corrects itself randomly- this time after 30 minutes it just went back to normal after a restart, last time after a day while i was trying to get more information about it. So you don't think it's related to this? What can be the problem, just updated the driver and checked for newer updates but is the latest.
I'd like to know what happened with this, because my TX1410US I bought a while ago had to be replaced 3 times, and continues to overheat and shutdown for basically any reason - including windows media player. The AC connection actually spliced itself apart when the wires touched each other INSIDE the plastic covering. HP has refused to replace my notebook after they were aware of the defect for 2 years prior. I'd like to sue them as well for being jerks.