Many analysts looked past the current problems and remained optimistic.

"We expect continued graphics share gain in the coming year, reflecting design wins on new notebook platforms," ThinkEquity analyst Suji De Silva wrote in a research note.

Nvidia shares rose by $0.27 Thursday to close at $16.45.

Though market analysts have predicted that hardware will have a tougher year than software, in part because of component shortages that may not clear up for several months, the boom in tablet computers has injected excitement into the personal computing market. Tablet sales by 2015, according to a report this week from BI Intelligence. The report forecast that the tablets will generate a market valued more than $100 million by 2015, achieving a sales run rate 500 million per year.

Tech investors also appeared to take the long view on storage vendor NetApp, which Wednesday said that for the quarter ending Jan. 27 profit was less than a year earlier, but that sales rose. NetApp had net earnings of $120 million on revenue of $1.57 billion, compared with earnings of $186 million on $1.29 billion in sales in the same period a year ago. Its guidance for the current quarter was for revenue of $1.65 billion to $1.73 billion, on earnings of $0.60 to $0.65 (excluding one-time items). On the high end of the guidance, the results would beat expectations of analysts, who are forecasting earnings per share of $0.63 on sales of $1.69 billion. NetApp shares rose $2.14 to $42.74 Thursday.