Nvidia G92s and G94 reportedly failing

[DK2]

Shock Media! I think the National Enquirer invented it, CNN perfected it, its now industry standard.

[DarKStar]

Originally Posted by t0m

i dont know anything about it either, but the way media works, all he had to do is go to those forums and sites and find the testimonials you are talking about and blow them way out of proportion to come up with his article...

....or you can go at the source and contact some distributors or stores who are dealing with a ridiculous amount of returns that never before they experienced, and I can confirm this myself because I know better to rely strictly on enquirer articles, but from what I was told, it's not affecting just NVIDIA, but there is an increasing return rate for motherboards, hard drives and graphic cards - As to NVIDIA, it's already crying about a 5% decrease in its profits and stocks, and it seems they haven't learned from their past mistakes - I think they've gotten away easy for the disabled video acceleration on 6 series (if memory serves), leaving current customers in the dark, since that was an ADVERTIZED feature of the card - they did fix this on future card revisions. Now to be honest, I'd rather pay $100 more on my card than to deal with a failing card and having to RMA it 4 times (example) like some people have reported doing - This is the price for cost cutting, at the expense of the customer. NVIDIA is going to lose big on this, because already people have lost faith and moving to the other side - thank goodness there is competition to keep the PC alive. People saying this will shut NVIDIA's doors is over doing it, it might nt, but it will put a major dent in their already slippery reputation - it would be a shame really - it will harm not only NVIDIA but their board partners - and what's to say that some of their partners will stop using NVIDIA chipsets and use AMD/ATI exclusively :)

[t0m]

Originally Posted by DarKStar

....or you can go at the source and contact some distributors or stores who are dealing with a ridiculous amount of returns that never before they experienced, and I can confirm this myself because I know better to rely strictly on enquirer articles, but from what I was told, it's not affecting just NVIDIA, but there is an increasing return rate for motherboards, hard drives and graphic cards - As to NVIDIA, it's already crying about a 5% decrease in its profits and stocks, and it seems they haven't learned from their past mistakes - I think they've gotten away easy for the disabled video acceleration on 6 series (if memory serves), leaving current customers in the dark, since that was an ADVERTIZED feature of the card - they did fix this on future card revisions. Now to be honest, I'd rather pay $100 more on my card than to deal with a failing card and having to RMA it 4 times (example) like some people have reported doing - This is the price for cost cutting, at the expense of the customer. NVIDIA is going to lose big on this, because already people have lost faith and moving to the other side - thank goodness there is competition to keep the PC alive. People saying this will shut NVIDIA's doors is over doing it, it might nt, but it will put a major dent in their already slippery reputation - it would be a shame really - it will harm not only NVIDIA but their board partners - and what's to say that some of their partners will stop using NVIDIA chipsets and use AMD/ATI exclusively :)

i agree. this is the first time in my history with pcs that i have had a 'defective' part. i did my first rma ever, and in return i got my second defective part =( (my 680i motherboard).

i also remember reading an article about them encouraging partners to use cheaper pcbs and essentially cut corners. (on some of the cards in question right now)

[DarKStar]

Well I've heard some VERY disturbing news lately after some discussions with people in the industry, about poor components - Remember the infamous bulging / leaking caps that datied back 2003-04 ? Well it seems there are new problems surfacing - someone I know running a shop says he is getting a large amount of returned graphics card and power supplies - NOT because of chip problems but because of burnt resistors and caps - Someone even claiming they've noticed bulging caps on a new product - enough to raise your blood pressure. Same guy also told me that hard drives are failing like crazy - I had an argument with him saying it is impossible and he tried to convince me that he sees a 50% return rate on Maxtor & Seagates and 4 out of every 10 gfx cards returning the same week ! I must be lucky then (knocking on wood). It appears the high-end capacitors can last about 20000 hours, now I assume that most components don't use that, and a more realistic figure is 8000~10000hours - weird because I have my old ASUS A7V133 motherboard that has tons of caps on it, it worked from 2000~2007, 24/7, never turned off, and doesn't have ONE bulging cap, they are all intact and the board ran rock solid.....so I dunno - people I know around me keep telling me about a 40-50% failure rate - that is scary ! So much that the store I purchased my parts from ages ago before I did business online, was telling me that they stopped offering in-store extended warranties because of the overwhelming returns lol

[NyteOwl]

I must say I've never seen that high a failure rate in any brand of HD's though the old MiniScribe's came close. It was over that for IBM's glass paltter drives but that was a particular model problem not a whole problem. Segate have been the most relaiable for me through the years.

Yes, I have a Tyan in my internal web-server that dates back to 1998. It has been in almost continuous use and not a bulge in sight. I think the problem is not so much with capacitor (or resistor) technology, but with manufacturers today trying to use the cheapest components (and thus lower quality generally) they can get way with to cut costs - quality has suffered in the pursuit of profit and speed to market.

[DarKStar]

Originally Posted by NyteOwl

I must say I've never seen that high a failure rate in any
Yes, I have a Tyan in my internal web-server that dates back to 1998. It has been in almost continuous use and not a bulge in sight. I think the problem is not so much with capacitor (or resistor) technology, but with manufacturers today trying to use the cheapest components (and thus lower quality generally) they can get way with to cut costs - quality has suffered in the pursuit of profit and speed to market.

Yes but what I don't understand is that they report those capacitors have a life time of around 8000 hours (for the ones they use on motherboards now) - how is it that we have both used motherboards for years, 24/7, and not one has bulged or leaked, and the boards running rock solid ? I've never used cheap generic power supplies, always used the top of the line ones with strict power regulation, even tigther than the current Intel specs, so maybe that helps, there again even PSUs are affected by this :D

[NyteOwl]

I think that may be a large aprt of it. If they spec at worst case scenario then people who go longer, perhaps due to using quality ancillary equipment will be happy, and those using less than spec will have no reall cause for complaint.

The cause for complaint comes from those using quality ancillary equipment and experiencing early failures. Then there is a problem somewhere.

[DarKStar]

Originally Posted by NyteOwl

I think that may be a large aprt of it. If they spec at worst case scenario then people who go longer, perhaps due to using quality ancillary equipment will be happy, and those using less than spec will have no reall cause for complaint.

The cause for complaint comes from those using quality ancillary equipment and experiencing early failures. Then there is a problem somewhere.

What about QUALITY components that are affected like some quality PSUs.....

[NyteOwl]

May I should whisper this but I've personally never had a PSU fail yet - even old cheap no-name things (like the one in my 386 from 1991 or the one in my 8088 from 1987) are still going strong.

I don't doubt failures happen and I've seen some from friends, colleagues and clients. Most of the time it has been due to a minor but critical manufacturing flaw rather than a failed component.

[Chilly]

Originally Posted by DarKStar

What about QUALITY components that are affected like some quality PSUs.....

Just because a PSU is made by someone whos known to produce quality PSU's, does not mean they used all Quality parts in all the production of said PSU. IE they cheaped out on the caps or something for a certain line of PSU's, or on the second run, so while the first run product used top notch, the 2nd run may of used 2nd run quality parts.

I notice this when comparing my MBP to my friends MBP, mine has a overall solid feel, buttons responsive, etc, my friends does not feel as solid, buttons such as power button do not feel solid and "clickly" (his felt squishy, while mine feld solid and clickly) and etc, that being said thou, his MBP still feels and oozes of quality if you have never seen or used mine.

Unfortunately since I'm an early adopter for most things I see this alot, products that I own feel solid and etc, and then friends buy the same product down the line, feel cheaper in comparison, because of this most users do not notice the difference.

Its a sad race to the bottom to quote Sony