From Newsgroup: comp.misc

There has been a lot of discussion in Western countries about the
rCLright to repairrCY: the idea that a piece of equipment should not
simply be discarded if/when it breaks down, but the owner should have
the option of getting it fixed at a reasonable price.

In China, they are being forced into providing repair facilities for
things such as Nvidia GPU cards, which were obtained through, shall we
say, rCLinformalrCY channels, and therefore cannot simply be returned
under warranty <https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/underground-china-repair-shops-thrive-servicing-illicit-nvidia-gpus-banned-by-export-restrictions-companies-resurrecting-banned-ai-accelerators-at-a-rate-of-up-to-500-per-month>.

Even if the warranty had expired, could you get such cards repaired in
your country, or mine? Almost certainly not.

Ironic, isnrCOt it, that China is being forced to innovate new kinds of business models that are being discouraged by Western BigCorpsrao, as a
direct result of action by Governments that are trying to prevent the
products of those same Western BigCorpsrao from falling into the hands
of the Chinese.
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

There has been a lot of discussion in Western countries about the
"right to repair": the idea that a piece of equipment should not
simply be discarded if/when it breaks down, but the owner should have
the option of getting it fixed at a reasonable price.

In China, they are being forced into providing repair facilities for
things such as Nvidia GPU cards, which were obtained through, shall we
say, "informal" channels, and therefore cannot simply be returned
under warranty <https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/underground-china-repair-shops-thrive-servicing-illicit-nvidia-gpus-banned-by-export-restrictions-companies-resurrecting-banned-ai-accelerators-at-a-rate-of-up-to-500-per-month>.

Even if the warranty had expired, could you get such cards repaired in
your country, or mine? Almost certainly not.

"Reuters reports that repair workshops in Shenzhen usually replace
fans (which suggests that they service A100 and H100 cards) and can
diagnose memory or PCB failures (which applies to both cards and
SXM modules). They can probably also replace passive components
like capacitors, inductors, resistors, or MOSFETs, fix damaged
pins, and resolder GPU packages.

One firm charges between $1,400 and $2,800 per GPU, depending on
the repair complexity..."

$1,400 to replace a fan? I think you'd find someone to do that in
Western countries if you looked hard enough. I diagnosed a memory
failure in an old high-end Nvidia GPU, then pulled it all apart.
Replacing the fan (which was brittle and cracked from heat stress)
wouldn't be that hard, but pinpointing and replacing which of the
BGA memory chips was at fault and replacing that (maybe only to
find it's actually an addressing issue in the huge GPU chip) is
miles beyond me. Indeed reapplying the fibrous thermal stuff they
glued on top of those chips is beyond me.
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