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Customers start to receive Nvidia SHIELD tablet replacements

by Mark Tyson on 25 August 2015, 11:08

Tags: NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

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At the end of July Nvidia issued a recall affecting many SHIELD tablet owners. If you bought such a tablet between July 2014 and July 2015 and found, via the system status control panel, that your device had a battery type 'Y01' you were advised to take part in the recall process to get a new one. Put simply, Y01 battery equipped SHIELD tablets are a fire hazard, though we never saw any reports of this hazardous nature in the media.

According to a recent report on Fudzilla, those who participated in the recall program have now started to receive new Nvidia SHIELD tablets. It says that "Nvidia doesn’t want the old tablet back; it will remotely kill the device, how nice is that". Furthermore the report states that Nvidia suggests you rid yourself of the old tablet following your country's guidelines for electronics waste disposal.

If you do have received a replacement for your old hazardous tablet Fudzilla advises you to backup the old one properly before you turn on and register the new one and Nvidia remotely kills your old device.

Some SHIELD owners say that they got a return mailing box to send the faulty unit away for recycling/fixing but apparently you can just say that you've already binned it without Nvidia causing any fuss – and that may indeed be true. After all who wants a device which is a fire hazard in their home?

Apparently some users are living dangerously by installing a custom ROM on the Y01 SHIELD before it is 'killed' so they can use it as a spare Android tablet. For those who have taken that path, and are technically inclined, doing a DIY battery replacement on a Y01 SHIELD appears to be possible (including video walkthrough) and should make your old SHIELD safer. (This paragraph - no advice intended.)

Have any HEXUS readers received their replacement Nvidia SHIELD tablets yet?



HEXUS Forums :: 11 Comments

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What a waste. I'd have happily bought one and an official battery and done a replacement… Society is getting dangerously wasteful nowadays.
I've not got mine yet but I am now intrigued about installing a custom rom and doing a battery swap so I can have a backup device or gift it to a mate.

@ cheesemp, i'd have done the same but I don't think the average tablet user would be able to. Also Society is already dangerously wasteful ! which is the reason the planet is being destroyed.
cheesemp
What a waste. I'd have happily bought one and an official battery and done a replacement… Society is getting dangerously wasteful nowadays.
Definitely agree, although I thought that tablets were one of those things where you can't do a battery replacement. Would love to replace the battery on my 2012 model Note10 tablet.

Wonder if the battery issue is the reason why Shield tablets are now becoming hard to find. Dabs, Scan, eBuyer, etc don't seem to have them and Amazon's only showing the 32GB model. Or have they heard about an X1-powered replacement…
Still waiting on mine :(

I've not powered mine on at all. I've always been suspicious of this device, it makes some strange noises when it's idle, almost sounds like a fan inside it if you put your ear up to the speaker grill. That or white noise, it's hard to pinpoint.

One time, it did make a high-pitched squealing noise - only ever happened once and lasted about a minute while the tablet was off. I did report it to Nvidia nearly a year ago but they said it was fine and only to contact them if it did it again.
If anyone is thinking of trying to save there old tablet before its too late have a read of this:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/shield-tablet/general/kill-kill-switch-shield-tablet-xx-t3179489

your tablet may already have the kill switch enabled, so its worth checking.