No evidence of bricking

Posted Apr 22, 2009 17:41 UTC (Wed) by rakoenig (subscriber, #29855)
In reply to: No evidence of bricking by proski
Parent article: Danger with NVIDIA drivers 180.29

If the error occurs the system boots exactly to the point where BIOS/Video-BIOS want to identify the display. Since the EDID data is corrupt the system locks up, so you don't even have a chance booting with an external monitor attached. So you have an expensive brick that keeps your desk at moderate temperature (to quote Jonathan).

The only way to "repair" this requires opening the housing and will make the customers warranty void. So the process is contacting the vendor and letting someone from them repair it with the proper tools.

BTW: This issue seems to be happening on drivers of the 180.xx series only. Debian 5.0 with packaged 173.xx drivers are not affected.

Rainer (that "bricked" and repaired his H270 several times)

No evidence of bricking

Posted Apr 22, 2009 18:34 UTC (Wed) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

Thanks for the details! That's bad indeed.

No evidence of bricking

Posted Apr 22, 2009 21:22 UTC (Wed) by gnb (subscriber, #5132) [Link] (2 responses)

Although the fact that the system is bricked at that point seems as much a
BIOS deficiency as anything. The BIOS could do something sensible like look
for an external display, or try falling back to some lowest common
denominator display spec. and hope the hardware can manage this, or just boot
with no video and hope the OS supports a serial console. Simply dying because
the EDID is garbage is feeble.

No evidence of bricking

Posted Apr 22, 2009 23:19 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

You're surprised that a BIOS is crappy?

I've had systems whose BIOSes went into an infinite loop because a hard
drive was larger than they expected, or because two hard drives were
attached, or because the keyboard was not attached, or because the wrong
model of keyboard was attached, or because the machine was plugged into a
docking station with an attached display which was not made by the right
vendor.

These days I'm rather surprised if I attach *anything* I didn't buy with a
PC to the machine and the BIOS doesn't toss its cookies over the side.

I think I may be getting cynical in my old age.

No evidence of bricking

Posted Apr 23, 2009 8:29 UTC (Thu) by gnb (subscriber, #5132) [Link]

>You're surprised that a BIOS is crappy?
No, I realize that's the standard. Disappointed maybe.