Doctor, I have these bumps …

Peter Gill (Buddy J)

December 9, 2008 5:42 PM ET in News, , , , ,

Oh dear. Things aren’t looking good for NVIDIA today. The Inquirer took it upon themselves to check out the new MacBook Pro’s GPU to see if attached to the laptop’s motherboard using the same soldering method that has been blamed on the suicidal NVIDIA chips around the world.

NVIDIA said it didn’t use that method.

The Inquirer decided to double check anyways.

And with an electron microscope and a sacrificial MacBook Pro, they found that, oops, maybe the new Mac has the so-called “bad bumps” after all.

11 Comments:

  1. Lincoln
    9 Dec '08, 10:54 pm

    We could break these stories if only we had an electron microscope laying around...

  2. Buddy J
    9 Dec '08, 11:01 pm

    /me adds electron microscope to the things we will need when we get our new offices and testing lab.

  3. Thrax
    9 Dec '08, 11:22 pm

    Woops.

  4. Gargoyle
    9 Dec '08, 11:24 pm
    Quoting Inq

    To say definitively what the bumps are made of, you would need to buy a Macbook off the shelf, disassemble it, desolder the chips, saw them in half, encase them in lucite, and run them through a scanning electron microscope equipped with an X-ray microanalysis system like this.

    That is exactly what we did.

    That's pretty hardcore.

  5. mas0n
    9 Dec '08, 11:45 pm

  6. bjbroderick
    10 Dec '08, 2:00 am

    Hey, Inquiring minds want to know...

  7. DrLiam
    10 Dec '08, 3:19 pm

    Too much Science x_X;; Very glad I know this now though!

  8. Thrax
    10 Dec '08, 3:20 pm

    Needs moar science

  9. Leonardo
    10 Dec '08, 3:50 pm
    We could break these stories if only we had an electron microscope laying around...

    Well, unfortunately, back a few years ago when we overclocked the electric tea kettle (Bothered & Co, I believe), we got carried away and also overclocked our electron microscope as well. Buddy J thought it would make magnified images "faster." (Buddy J also lost an eye in the incident.) GE would not accept an RMA. Can you say S.O.L.?

    On a more serious note, that was awesome investigative work by the Inquirer. I bet it will be LONG time before they get any review material directly from Nvidia. But then, they probably wouldn't want it. Hey, maybe Thermalright can develop a heatsink with a specially shaped base for these problem GPUs, 'intentionally' engineered to cool defective "bumps."

  10. Thrax
    10 Dec '08, 4:14 pm

    NVIDIA has pretty much hated TheInquirer for years.

  11. Buddy J
    10 Dec '08, 4:19 pm

    I'm sure the gradients we see in Thermalright bases, so commonly misconstrued as "machine marks" are really well-engineered thoughtfully designed reliefs for the bumps, built with a tolerance of .01 to account for the use of a quality TIM.

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