Nvidia pushes the limits of performance in its ARM chips, which usually find a home in the company’s Shield devices. The newest Tegra X1 is incredibly fast and powers the new Shield Android TV box. However, Nvidia is now issuing a recall on some of these devices because another component, the hard drive, is prone to failure. This isn’t the first recall in the Shield product line, either.
This recall only affects the $299 Shield Pro, which is the version with a 500GB hybrid hard drive. The standard $199 Shield has 16GB of flash storage only and is not of concern. According to Nvidia, some of the hard drives used in Shield Pro units are faulty and will degrade over time. The only remedy is to completely replace the unit, which is what Nvidia is doing.
So how do you know if your Shield Pro is affected? Nvidia says the surest way to know is to install the newest v1.4 update on your device and see what happens. If your box gets stuck on the Android fastboot menu during the installation, you need a replacement. Even if the device eventually finishes installing the update and boots, you should request a replacement as performance will only get worse over time.
Defective units will be replaced by Nvidia, but this has to make you wonder what’s going on over there. The Shield tablet was just recalled a few weeks ago because of the risk of battery fires, and now this. Hopefully this is the only issue that pops up with the Shield Android TV, which is otherwise by far the best Android TV box you can buy.
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