The DA white dwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, as analyzed in the
papers for Data Releases 1 and 4, show an increase in surface gravity towards
lower effective temperatures below 11500 K. We study the various possible
explanations of this effect, from a real increase of the masses to
uncertainties or deficiencies of the atmospheric models. No definite answer is
found but the tentative conclusion is that it is most likely the current
description of convection in the framework of the mixing-length approximation,
which leads to this effect.Comment: to appear in the proceedings of the 16th European Workshop on White
Dwarfs, Barcelona, 200
