Nvidia has recently been in a lot of hot water due to faulty products, and recalls for various products, partly blamed on their Quality control check failures, resulting in angry customers. In a recent addition to the list, Nvidia has announced the recall of some Nvidia Shield Pro Android TV. According to the company, only 500 GB units of the product are affected by the fault, and the 16 GB units have been reported to be fault-free although problems could likely arrive. One of the reported symptoms of this issue is the failure to update properly during a System Upgrade, and the system gets stuck in the Fastboot menu, rendering the device useless, or technically called, bricked. Nvidia traces the problem back to the hard drive and mentions that the problem can worsen over time.
Nvidia has issued an official statement on their forum, stating an apology and reassuring customers that the RMA procedure will be quick and hassle-free. They note that the device is eligible for replacement if the fast boot appears during a system upgrade to version 1.4 and if there are severe and persistent pixelations in all the tiles of the top row of the Android TV home screen, rendering the text unreadable, and its not fixable with a reboot. Even though it has been suggested that a cold reboot by pulling the plug solves the problem of the fastboot menu, Nvidia insists on applying for a replacement as update 1.5 would have a similar problem if not 1.4. Nvidia promises fast replacement services, with dispatching the device right after the paperwork is complete, before receiving the faulty unit back. They have also extended the support to users beyond the US provided there are no shipping and customs restrictions.
Nvidia Shield Pro is a 4k Android streaming box launched in June, touted twice as powerful as the Xbox 360 while using half the power input, packing Nvidia’s Tegra X1 mobile super chip, 3 GB of RAM, and 500 GB hard drive, priced at $199. This serves as the second infamous recall made by Nvidia, after the massive recall of last year’s Shield tablets for faulty batteries that posed a possible fire hazard, and also a fiasco about the GTX 970 VRAM. No reason as to why update 1.4 causes the fault to appear has been given by Nvidia.