14 DAY TRIAL // The reported faulty chips from NVIDIA, those that made the company lose serious credit and important Q2 revenue, have finally got a possible explanation. Things are heating up for the Santa Clara based company, as the "certain versions" of the previous NVIDIA notebook graphics cards said to be faulty seem to have a thermal problem which is actually rumored to expand to all G84 and G86 chips, both in mobile and desktop configurations.
It seems that an unnamed substrate or bumping material used in the manufacturing process is the one affected by the heat. Since the system of the notebooks experiences more heat cycles than desktops do, the mobile graphics cards are those that failed first. The same problem may to occur on desktops as well, although most likely after the end of the warranty period.
According to NVIDIA, which refused to comment on the issue, only HP was supplied with faulty chips. Still, analysts doubt that the company managed to design an entire different line of material or assembly process only for a single manufacturer, and say that the entire chip family is likely to experience the same issues. Dell and ASUS notebooks that came with G84s and G86s have already been reported with the same problems.
The conclusion is that all the G84 and G86 parts are likely to fail at a certain point. Since exactly the same ASIC is used on all of them, desktop cards are also included. NVIDIA would not give any substantial explanation for the problems, but it blames the suppliers for it. The batch of end-of-life parts that used a different bonding/substrate process is the official reason for the issue, but some believe it to be sand in the eyes, since both G84 and G86 use the same ASIC across the board, and the company made no changes during their lives.
NVIDIA seems to be on the road to hell lately. Besides getting into trouble with Intel earlier this year, which resulted in a possible Nehalem processor without support for NVIDIA chipsets, its position as the leading manufacturer of high-end graphics cards could be shaken by the launch of AMD's new HD 4870 X2. Also, the graphics cards manufacturer has been recently filed a law suit by Rambus, for an alleged infringement of 17 patents.