While HP, Dell and Apple have already admitted that its products are victims of the Nvidia GPU packaging issue, it took Sony a little longer to step up for its Vaio customers.
Earlier this month Sony finally issued an official statement (see here for image of statement) regarding its laptops that feature the faulty GPUs. It reads as follows:
In July 2008, Nvidia publicly acknowledged a failure associated with some of their graphics processors (GPU) due to a manufacturing defect in the graphics chip packaging. At that time Sony and Nvidia jointly investigated whether Vaio models equipped with this GPU were impacted by the issue. This investigation revealed that the issue had not occurred in such Vaio models.
However, after closely monitoring the situation, Sony has now determined that a very small percentage of computers with the Nvidia graphics chips may be affected.
These PCs may exhibit distorted video, random characters or a blank screen due to failure of the Nvidia graphics chips.
As part of our commitment to quality, for any customer who requires repair of their Vaio due to the Nvidia graphics processor issue, Sony will cover the cost of repair (parts and labor) at no charge during the first four years following the date of purchase of the models in question (see list below).
In case your model is shown in the list below, we invite you to contact Vaio support to arrange service for your Vaio.
- VGN-FZ11x, VGN-FZ18x, VGN-FZ21x, VGN-FZ31x, VGN-FZ38x,
- VGN-AR11x, VGN-AR21x, VGN-AR31x,
- VGN-C1Zx, VGN-C2Zx,
- VGC-LM1xx, VGC-LM2xx,
- VGC-LT1xx, VGC-LT2xx.
Nvidia recently revealed that the faulty GPU cost its business $119.1 million in the last quarter. Were you affected by the Nvidia faulty GPU flaw? If so, and it was a Vaio, at least now you're covered!
