Defective Nvidia GPUs in Dell Laptops

You might have heard about it before, but NVIDIA has had some problem with defective chips recently and at Dell, up to ten different models carry potentially defective Nvidia GPUs. Previously, HP laptops were also reportedly using these chips as well, which is not a surprise given that they all come from the same pool. At this point, it’s not very clear how many laptops are affected and what the precise cause is (other than “overheating”), but just this morning, I had a friend telling me how his Asus G1S (GeForce 8600M GT) fried. It was fortunately replaced by Asus without any further problems. Dell has issued a patch to alliviate the problem, but it seems to do little more than cranking up the fan speed, making more noise at the same time.