The IT Nerd

The Inquirer is running a story that Nvidia is about to release an x86 processor to the world:

“THE HOT RUMOR going around IDF is one that we discussed a long time ago when Nvidia bought Stexar: that the company will do an x86 part.”

It makes sense. They have the ability to do that. But before you line up for one, consider this: Nvidia needs a license from AMD and Intel to come out with an x86 processor. The chances of that happening are pretty much zero:

“The problem NV has is that both major x86 players have a lock on the technology, and they don’t want any new players in the mix. VIA certainly has a nice part with the Nano, but they barely got out under the threat of a lot of legal fighting, and Nvidia certainly doesn’t have the x86 patent leverage VIA has. NV is basically locked out unless Intel and AMD both decide to be magnanimous, and we would not recommend holding your breath waiting for this to happen.”

Also, I think that Nvidia has other issues to deal with at the moment that may take its focus away from doing an x86 chip. So while this is an interesting rumor, I don’t see it happening.

The news might be worse than previously thought. According to The Inquirer, the desktop versions of the G92 and G94 chipsets are just as defective as the laptop chipsets that everyone is focused on:

“A little digging revealed what this, and more, is all about, and it’s far uglier than just the ‘notebook’ version. It seems that four board partners are seeing G92 and G94 chips going bad in the field at high rates. If you know what failures look like statistically, they follow a Poisson distribution, aka a bell curve. The failures start out small, and ramp up quickly – very quickly. If you know what you are looking for, you can catch the signs early on. From the sound of the backchannel grumblings, the failures have been flagged already, and NV isn’t playing nice with their partners.”

Nvidia has to step up to the table regardless of whether this is fact or not and clear this up once and for all. Users of their chipsets have the right to know if the Nvidia chipset they have in their computer is faulty or not. If they are, users of their products have the right to a speedy replacement with a part that works. If Nvidia doesn’t do that and these chips are faulty, then they deserve to be run out of business.

It’s truly that simple.

As I’ve reported on two occasions previously, Nvidia has had a major problem with the laptop versions of the 8400 and 8600 series graphics processors. Now some actual numbers are coming out about the number of laptops affected. The number is as many as 18 million. Where do I get this number from? Check out this Register story about the numbers and the costs involved. It’s a very interesting read.

Now say you’re HP or Dell or anybody else, what do you do? BIOS updates that turn the laptop fan on more frequently or permanently have been released by Dell and HP. Great. But all that means is that the graphics chip that fails because of overheating issues is cooled a bit more. Thus pushing the problem out until after the warranty expires, and at that point it becomes a source of revenue. Not only that, but that laptop is going to be really noisy.

As for Apple who uses these chipsets in the MacBook Pro line of notebooks, there’s ample evidence to indicate that they have issues as well. Curiously, Apple hasn’t come out with any sort of kludge fix of any sort like HP and Dell have. Therefore Apple laptop owners may be visiting the temple of Steve Apple Store Genius Bar in the near future for a repair. I hope they bought AppleCare.

All I have to ask is this, where does the queue for the forthcoming class action lawsuit begin? Because you know one is coming.

UPDATE: A MacBook Pro User sent an e-mail to “The Steve” on this issue and actually got a response claiming that he thinks the chips used in the MacBook Pro notebooks are fine.

You’ll recall that I posted a story about Nvidia having a problem with their mobile graphic chipsets and having to take up to a $200 million charge as a result. Well, here’s a plot twist that I didn’t expect:

• The Inquirer (an IT news website based in the U.K.) has claimed that “The short story is that all the G84 and G86 parts are bad. Period. No exceptions. All of them, mobile and desktop, use the exact same ASIC, so expect them to go south in inordinate numbers as well. There are caveats however, and we will detail those in a bit.” Click here to read the full story.
• Ars Technica asked Nvidia to comment on what The Inquirer. Their comment was “As a result, it is very unlikely that your NVIDA based notebook product is affected.” The story then goes on to point out that if the Inquirer claims are true, then Nvidia is comittng fraud. Click here for more.

So, are these chipsets bad or not? I’ll guess we’ll wait and see. If they are bad in huge numbers, it’s a safe bet that $200 million won’t cover it. Or a bunch of execs are going to get perp walked if things go really bad.