Doctor, I have these bumps …

Peter G. 9 Dec, 2008 at 5:42pm ET Article published in Tech

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.

Comments

9 Dec 2008 ~ 5:54pm Linc We could break these stories if only we had an electron microscope laying around...
9 Dec 2008 ~ 6:01pm BuddyJ /me adds electron microscope to the things we will need when we get our new offices and testing lab.
9 Dec 2008 ~ 6:22pm Thrax Woops.
9 Dec 2008 ~ 6:24pm Garg

Inq wrote:

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.
9 Dec 2008 ~ 6:45pm mas0n
9 Dec 2008 ~ 9:00pm bjbroderick Hey, Inquiring minds want to know...
10 Dec 2008 ~ 10:19am DrLiam Too much Science x_X;; Very glad I know this now though!
10 Dec 2008 ~ 10:20am Thrax Needs moar science
10 Dec 2008 ~ 10:50am Leonardo

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 Dec 2008 ~ 11:14am Thrax NVIDIA has pretty much hated TheInquirer for years.
10 Dec 2008 ~ 11:19am BuddyJ 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.