Recently nVidia announced that there was a heat issue with their G84 and G86 model graphics cards (8 series video cards on laptops). Initially we were told that it was an “HP only” problem, but now Dell is releasing BIOS updates to several laptops with that card, saying that the BIOS update “updates nVidia BIOS.”

Basically the update changes the fan state so the GPU fan runs earlier (in some cases, all the time). This is supposed to “help regulate the GPU temperature.”

So far Dell has only released the update for the following laptops:

(See http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/07/25/nvidia-gpu-update-for-dell-laptop-owners.aspx)

There are plenty of other laptops that have the G84/G86 chip, yet they are not in this list. Take the Inspiron 1520 for example. Not only is it the laptop I have, it also comes with an 8600M GT and is not in the list. BIOS Rev. A07, though, includes an “enhancement for thermal control.” This could possibly be part of the whole GPU fix, seeing that the timestamp seems to be in the range of these other updates.

Either way, if you have a laptop that is in that list, you should probably update thy BIOS. Since several people are reporting that their GPU fan runs almost all the time now, you may see a decrease in battery life. I’d also recommend keeping tabs on that fan, as I’m not sure what the MTBF for a laptop fan is..

(I have the latest BIOS on my laptop and the fan seems to not act unusual. It’ll run when playing games, but otherwise it’s not too bad).

Further Reading…

~Jaker