Better late than never
Three weeks after first acknowledging the NVIDIA die/packaging problem, Dell has announced it's prepared to to more about it than just offer a BIOS update.
The direct2dell blog has announced Dell will be offering "a 12-month limited warranty enhancement specific to this issue. For all customers worldwide, we plan to add 12 months of coverage for this issue to the existing limited warranty up to 60 months from the date of purchase for the following systems:
Dell Precision M4300
Dell Precision M65
Latitude D820
Latitude D830
Latitude D620
The hyperlinks are to the BIOS updates to make the fans run enough to, hopefully, prevent the die/packaging problem from becoming a, erm, problem. We guess the message for those systems listed that don't have a BIOS update is "you're on your own."
Even after this delay, Dell still doesn't seem to have worked out precisely what this enhancement entails. The short blog entry adds: "Details of the service plan will be available in the next few weeks. When I have more details to share, I will do so."
HP managed a "Limited Warranty Service Enhancement" of its own three weeks ago so it's not clear what the big delay is for Dell. Perhaps it's haggling with NVIDIA over how much of the $196 million NVIDIA has set aside to deal with this matter ends up in Dell's hands.