Problems
Some chips of the GeForce 8 series (concretely those from the G84 and G86 series) may suffer from an overheating problem. NVIDIA states this issue should not affect many chips, whereas others assert that all of the chips in these series are potentially affected. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and CFO Marvin Burkett were involved in a lawsuit filed on 9 September 2008 alleging that their knowledge of the flaw, and their intent to hide it.
One reason for the high failure rate was because of improper selection of the underfill material for the chip. Underfill materials are a type of glue that keeps the silicon die firmly attached to the packaging material, which is where the connection to the actual pins takes place. On the affected chips, the working temperature of the underfill material was too low and allowed the chip to move slightly if the temperature was raised above a certain level, weakening the solder joints by which the die is attached. This eventually leads to a catastrophic failure, although the way the chip fails is quite random. The primary reason for the failures listed above, that allowed the solder joints to literally melt, is an overlooked software problem. NVIDIA's drivers assume that every card is based on a set reference design and the software controls the fan speed, as it should, based on that reference design. However, many 3rd party NVIDIA based video cards and especially laptops (where most of the failures occur) deviate from this reference design and the drivers often set the fan speed far too low, or even shut the fan off entirely. This in turn causes the overheating issues mentioned above, and leads to failure of the chip. The solution is to switch the fan control from "automatic" to "manual" in the NVIDIA control panel, and select a fan speed that can adequately cool the video card, preventing failure.
The result of these failures was a class action lawsuit and subsequent settlement to address problems with Dell, HP and Apple computers. Unfortunately, Toshiba did not participate in the recall process although some Toshiba Forum posters report that Toshiba has assisted them in resolving the issue.
Read more about this topic: Ge Force 8 Series
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