Dell and HP balk at replacing bad Nvidia chip
By Michael Lasky
An old urban myth claims that the microprocessors used in PCs and other consumer electronics are designed to fail within days or weeks of their warranty expiration.
For tens of thousands of people who bought Dell and HP notebooks whose motherboards fried — often a few weeks after their warranty expired — there's nothing mythical about it.
The cause of the machines' fried motherboards is an overheating Nvidia graphics chip. The failure rate is so huge that Nvidia had to take a $196 million charge against earnings in the second quarter of its 2008 fiscal year in anticipation of the reimbursements that would result from the faulty GPU (more info).
What's particularly scandalous, though, is how HP and Dell first handled the deluge of complaints from customers with notebooks that failed after their warranties expired. The companies either charged the customers (victims?) for repairs or refused service because the systems were past the warranty period.
Even worse, HP and Dell continued to sell notebooks with the same Nvidia chip long after the companies were aware of the problem. (Ultimately, Nvidia released a new version of the GPU that didn't cause overheating.)
Unwary consumers who purchased the affected notebooks — no doubt based in part on the heady reputations of the vendors — were left in the lurch when their PCs failed, which usually occurred after 18 months or so. The purchasers had no recourse except to yell and scream at clueless tech-support reps.
When the heat from consumer complaints became as hot as the faulty Nvidia chip, HP and Dell relented and published a list of defective model numbers on their Web sites. Dell extended the standard one-year warranty to two years for the systems they identified as having the problem. HP offered a 24-month warranty extension for the specific issue.
However, instead of issuing a recall — as you would expect in such a clear case of a defective part — the vendors instead merely offered a BIOS upgrade. The "patch" for the affected notebooks made their fans run continuously in an attempt to lower the GPU-induced heat, which was cooking the motherboards onto which the chips were soldered.
This "fix" merely extended the time before the motherboards finally burned out while simultaneously devouring the machines' battery life — sort of like putting a Band-Aid on a coronary. Of course, notebook purchasers became further inflamed by the power drain on their systems due to the constantly running fan.
(Unlike Dell and HP, Apple quickly acknowledged the presence of the defective Nvidia chip in some MacBook Pro notebooks and offered repairs or replacements to its customers.)
How to get vendors to respond to your gripes
There ought to be a PC lemon law, like the lemon laws enacted in many states that protect purchasers of defective automobiles. Those laws came about because legions of consumers complained after they got stuck with cars — new and used — that were clunkers. Until such protections are available, you can take the following steps to get redress for your grievances:
§ Post a description of your gripe on consumer-complaint blogs. People who bought the defective HP and Dell notebooks would have been out of luck if it hadn't been for the rising power of Internet communities and blogs — ironically, some of which were on the vendor's very own sites. These grass-roots efforts demonstrate that consumers are not powerless when they own a lemon PC, even in the absence of a lemon law to back them up.
As the number of postings about the problem on gripe sites rose, HP and Dell could no longer hide from their customers. For example, the site HP Lies was created specifically for consumers to fight back against what the site calls "HP's cover-up of the Nvidia defect." A massive number of people who had bought now-dead HP notebooks that fried due to the overheated Nvidia chip not only spewed their venom at the company but also offered legal and logistical advice to others who shared their misfortune.
Surprisingly, many burned customers discovered the HP Lies site through links on HP's own Business Support Forum. Likewise, news of Dell's offer of a limited warranty enhancement with a list of affected units was reported at Dell's Direct2Dell user-community blog as a response to the thermonuclear anger expressed by unhappy customers at the site.
§ Take it to court. Many customers went the legal route and filed lawsuits that were consolidated into a class-action complaint against Nvidia, Dell, and HP last September. While less effective in getting a full reimbursement or replacement, lawsuits serve as a wake-up call to corporations and produce corresponding action to mollify the plaintiffs.
§ Skip low-level tech support and go directly to the top. If you have a PC problem that's been proven to result from a defect, ask to speak to a high-level tech-support representative, who will be more empowered to address your complaint — and likely more knowledgeable about the issue as well.
Be persistent, but keep your cool (which may be more than your PC is doing). Advice at the HP Lies site suggests going the corporate route and obtaining a case manager to get free repairs or a replacement, which standard tech support might not provide.
§ Buy an extended-service warranty. HP and Dell customers who had extended warranties got no-charge repairs and/or replacements for their Nvidia-murdered systems. Because cheaper components are used in most of today's low-cost computers, chances are those components will fail sooner than in the past. Extended warranties generally offer no- or low-hassle tech support and repairs for up to three years beyond the standard warranty.
PCs may be unreliable and vendors unresponsive to customer complaints, so it pays to know your options.
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Call to learn whether your Dell or HP is covered
By Dennis O'Reilly
You can't rely on the information you find on some vendor Web sites to determine whether your overheating notebook qualifies for a free repair or replacement.
In a case recently publicized by Windows Secrets, you would need to contact the company's tech-support staff directly to find out whether your system is covered by a special extended warranty.
One of the more-disturbing trends in the computer industry is the silent recall. In such cases, a vendor replaces faulty equipment only after the customer complains about it, rather than actively contacting buyers of the defective products.
This appears to be the approach HP and Dell are taking with notebook computers they sold — computers that use a defective Nvidia GPU (graphics processing unit) that overheats, burning out laptops and tablets.
WS contributing editor Michael Lasky described the problem with these notebooks in a Top Story in last week's newsletter. He included links to a Dell forum thread and an HP forum thread, both of which describe the problem and provide more information.
However, several readers asked us for specific pages on the vendors' sites, to determine whether a particular notebook is affected. Unfortunately, the problem seems to affect even more Dell and HP models than are listed by the vendors. Trevor Valentine found out first-hand how difficult it is to find this information:
§ "Interesting article (especially to an owner of a possibly defective Compaq laptop). Curious to see if my wife's laptop was affected, I went in search of the defective lists that Mr. Lasky mentioned. This proved a tad tedious, as both Dell and HP seem to have done their best to bury any mention of a defective GPU.
"Here are the lists that I was able to find. I hope that other readers will find these helpful. Interestingly, the second Dell link has this posted:
Dell will offer a 12-month limited warranty enhancement specific to this issue. For all customers worldwide, we plan to add 12 months of coverage for this issue to the existing limited warranty up to 60 months from the date of purchase for the following systems ...
"HP lists all affected models along with instructions on possible 'resolutions.' The only lists I could find from Dell were listed on one of the corporate blogs."
HP's site offers document c01087277 with a list of Pavilion and Presario models the company says are affected. Dell hosts a forum post by "chief blogger" Lionel Menchaca that lists 10 Inspiron, Latitude, Precision, Vostro, and XPS models. A later Dell post lists 15 models.
I have personal experience that the HP list is incomplete, because an HP tablet that I owned — a Pavilion TX1100, which used the faulty Nvidia chip and got fried after only 18 months of use — is not included.
Tom Rupsis reminds us of another way to get a replacement for a defective product whose warranty recently expired:
§ "Michael Lasky's 'Dell and HP balk at replacing bad Nvidia chip' article suggested purchasing an extended-service warranty to cover expenses related to the overheating motherboards. As an alternative, look into the features provided with the credit card that may have been used to purchase the laptop.
"Many cards provide extended warranties at no additional cost to the consumer. I made use of this benefit when an HP laptop keyboard failed after 20 months. My MasterCard World card covered the cost of replacing the keyboard, even though HP's one-year warranty had expired."
Several readers pointed out that extended warranties for electronics equipment are often a waste of money, as a Consumer Reports article from November 2007 describes. However, the extended warranties offered by most major credit-card companies are usually free. This may be a good reason for you to charge your next computer purchase.