Nvidia Warranty Costs Much Higher Than Expected
Posted 08/08/09 at 03:38:24 PM by Justin Kerr
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Nvidia’s second quarter profits are evidence that poor quality costs much more than just bad PR. The company recorded a charge of $119 million to cover warranty costs associated with faulty die and weak packaging materials used in its graphics chips. This is significantly better than the $196 million it had already written off for the same reason, but it was still much higher than analysts were expecting.
Most of these issues can be traced back to a faulty solder bump that was discovered in its 8M-series mobile graphics chip. Nvidia estimated at the time that the warranty costs could be somewhere in the range of $200 million, but clearly the $315+ million they have already spent shows they were perhaps a bit overly conservative in their estimates. This might be a result of the problem reportedly cropping up in G92 and G94 series mobile cards as well, but Nvidia has been pretty tight lipped on the issue.
When asked to comment on the charge Nvidia downplayed the impact and described them as a small distraction. Nvidia President and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang claims it hasn’t impacted Nvidia’s ability to launch new products, and he expects profits to rise in the near future. Huang is being optimistic, but he is likely hoping to reassure investors who saw the company’s revenue drop this quarter to $776.5 million from $892.6 million only a year ago. “The company has invested in new products such as Tesla, a graphics processing unit for high-performance computing, and low-power Tegra chips for mobile devices. The products should start contributing to the revenue stream soon”, Huang said.
To all the people having problems with HP laptops:
Submitted by forumdude123 on Sun, 08/09/2009 - 11:22am
This problem affects all hp laptops that are out on the market (except the latest version maybe).
http://hplies.com
HP was given lots of money by nvidia to fix this problem, but hp pocketed the cash and claims models dv9500+ are not affected by the recalls. My hp dv9500 laptop had my life on it, and its display died suddenly and right in front of me.
If you have an hp laptop, backup your data and image the drive ASAP. As soon as your wireless lan card dies on the laptop, know that the end is near.
Can they really get away?
Submitted by dag1992 on Mon, 08/10/2009 - 8:35am
Can they really get away? It's been so widespread with all the same symptoms. Mine crashed every two weeks after the LAN card died. My VAIO on the other hand runs great, what's wrong with HP?
mobile graphics
Submitted by damiananderson on Sun, 08/09/2009 - 5:35am
if you want a laptop that will last you have to look for one with intel graphics i repiar laptops and pc and i have see so far 7laptops with these graphics isuses from nvidia and about 2 with issues from ati in less than 2years and all were months old diffrent brands but never one with issues from intel.
Intel might be fine and
Submitted by Caboose on Mon, 08/10/2009 - 12:29pm
Intel might be fine and dandy if you want an IGP, however if you want something with a little more kick to it, or even a dedicated solution, then Intel is not the brand you need. I find that ATI's IGP's are the best around. I've had fewer problems with ATI laptop and desktop graphics solutions than nVidia or Intel. IMO, ATI builds a much more solid and stable graphics solution. Not to mention, their chipsets are far superior to those by nVidia...
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
my Dell has a 8400 GS card
Submitted by nekollx on Mon, 08/10/2009 - 7:56am
my Dell has a 8400 GS card in it.Had it for about a year now. It's actually a refurbised model and has been problems free. Now the original i bought 3 years ago (a xps 1210) that was nothing but problem. It was RMAed (in warenty) about 5 times for the exact same problem (GPU/Motherboard) until my brother chewed their head off. Mad them look at the frequent support calls and hand them send me a replacement. my 1530 has yet to fail me. But i plan to keep my warentee going for the next 2 years just in case.
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My 8400m is still going but
Submitted by Pentium 0 on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 4:30pm
My 8400m is still going but the hp dv6500 its in puts out an ungodly amount of heat so i dont give it too long. T7500(65nm)+8400m+FUJITSU-hdd-of-fire+only one cooling fan= Hell Portable.
Submitted by dag1992 on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 3:35pm
Let me add to the list of HP horror stories, my humble little dv2000's wifi adapter died after a year, the volume and media buttons no longer work, and now the screen only works when it's plugged in and turned on twice. Yet my nVidia gpu is still going strong. But there is no excuse for a laptop to completely die after just a year or two of normal use, this is a much bigger problem than just nVidia I'd say.
Submitted by Caballera on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 2:12pm
My HP DV9700T's 6800M graphics just died also. I purchased this notebook in June of 2008 and unfortunately it 'broke' at the end of July 2009 and is out of warranty. HP of course won't fix it. A notebook that cost close to $1.400 should last more then a year and shouldn't require me purchasing expensive additional warranties. Now my laptop boots up but I can't use anything other then 'Standard VGA Graphics', if I try to use the proper drivers it's extremely distorted and unuseable. Also my gf's DV9700 that was purchased 2 months before mine also died (same graphics card, same issue), lucky for her it had one month left on the warranty so it was repaired (rather poorly as there were marks and scratches all over her laptop on return).
Submitted by forumdude123 on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 1:43pm
The only reason that the warranty costs were lower than they expected is because they did not cover all the models that were affected by this defect.
My laptop, an hp dv9500 series notebook, crapped out after 23 months of use, because the nvidia 8600m gs in it died. HP did not cover the costs of repair, and many are having this issue.
Shame on you nvidia for screwing your customers.
Dell Inspiron 9400 Nvidia Geforce Go 7900
Submitted by Jesterace on Sun, 08/09/2009 - 4:14pm
I almost wonder if my 7900 that I had in my Inspiron 9400 had the same flaw as well. One day it just went, of course the laptop was out of warranty and Dell would not fix it for free. Although the tech support I had on the phone was deterimed that it was the screen and not the GPU. So I went on ebay and grabbed an Ati card. I was glad the 9400 has a modular design so that I could install a replacement GPU.
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