[mythtv-users] VDPAU blows up video card, film at 11

[Robert McNamara]

On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 5:09 AM, ryan patterson <ryan.goat at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 1:22 AM, Yeechang Lee <ylee at pobox.com> wrote:
>> Robert McNamara <robert.mcnamara at gmail.com> says:
>>> [A]t least one Myth dev (who knows quite a bit moer about myth than
>>> the average user) has a permanently *physically damaged* card as a
>>> result of testing VDPAU.
>>
>> !!! Tell us more.
>>
>
> Yes please explain how that is possible.  I don't want to call you a
> lier, but it is inconceivable for software to "physically damage" a
> hardware device (corupting firmware or overclocked hardware situations
> both don't apply).
>
> --
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> Ryan Patterson
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One of the devs (who can speak up if he desires) now has a card which,
following testing with VDPAU, will only display absolute corruption
when trying to access the hardware responsible for PureVideo/VDPAU, in
both windows and Linux.  Power cycling/moving to new hardware/new
OS/etc. all yield the same result.  Basic UI display is still
functional for him IIRC.  In similar reported cases people are seeing
corrupted display as early as the BIOS (although in the one case I'm
speaking of he hasn't seen that).

nVidia was not able to provide an answer as to why this happened.
There are several others with similar/same issue on the nvnews Linux
forum.  I don't claim it is an epidemic, but it has happened, and in
more than one case.  Software damaging hardware is more commonplace
than you might think if the software has a bug that drives the
hardware beyond its physical specifications.  Worth bearing in mind
for those using trunk.

Robert