Defective Radeons in the Wild

by Marco Chiappetta — Wednesday, August 01, 2007, 12:30 PM EDT

DigiTimes is reporting that a number of defective ATI Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 series graphics cards slipped into the channel due to a bug in AMD's diagnostic and validation software. And it appears that in addition to some smaller players, many of AMD's largers partners, like Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte were all affected.

"AMD's official graphics card diagnostic and validation software was recently discovered to have a bug that failed to detect defective ATI Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 graphics cards, according to sources at graphics card makers.

Channel vendors pointed out the problem with the cards was due to an error in the BIOS application process.

The issue was not only encountered by small makers, Asustek Computer, Micro-Star International (MSI) and Gigabyte Technology all experienced the problem too, noted the sources."

According to the report, only a small number of the defective cards actually made it into the hands of consumers; the rest are either still in the channel or on their way back to AMD for repair.

Tags: Radeon, ECT, Ive

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com

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