cwinhall Posted March 3, 2009 Report Share Posted March 3, 2009 Well a few months back this happened, one day I came back to my laptop and it had frozen. Upon restarting it, it had artifacts (Even in DOS before windows starts to load). I sent it to a friend who cleaned all the dust away from the fans in the laptop and re-seated the graphics card and everything seemed to be ok. She then sent it back to me. It seemed to be working fine, so I updated the drivers, installed Left 4 Dead and had 2 or 3 games. Went down stairs for a drink and when I came back - the laptop had frozen and upon restarting.... you guessed it, the artifacts were back. I took it apart with the help of my friend again, and we put more thermal paste onto the gpu in the hope this might help (we believed it to be an overheating issue). Anyway, it didn't seem to help this time as the artifacts are still here. The strange thing is, it won't even enter windows with newest drivers installed, but if I go into safe mode and remove the video drivers - i can then enter windows normally but the artifacts are still there...?!?!? Here is a video on youtube I made about the artifacts... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIWi1srZusw Is this video card toast? I can't afford to buy a replacement 7900 GS, they are far too expensive, can get a laptop for nearly the same price!!! Any reccomendations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aliveanddead86 Posted March 3, 2009 Report Share Posted March 3, 2009 Sounds like the memory has fried on the card... I know it doesnt have anywhere near the same performance, but for a temporary replacement, look up ATI X1400 for the 9400 on ebay, as long as it is a dell module, it will work fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwinhall Posted March 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2009 Sounds like the memory has fried on the card... I know it doesnt have anywhere near the same performance, but for a temporary replacement, look up ATI X1400 for the 9400 on ebay, as long as it is a dell module, it will work fine. Is there any way of fixing this myself?? (As in replacing the memory on the card) Prices for a X1400 seem to be around £100£200 is this about right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blacky Posted March 3, 2009 Report Share Posted March 3, 2009 Yes, that is about right. You could change the memory ... but that is ... well... I have no idea how to do it. I just know there are people who know how and can do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Posted March 4, 2009 Report Share Posted March 4, 2009 I had the same problem. Three months later I got Dell to send me a new XPS M1730. I'm guessing your warranty is not valid anymore? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwinhall Posted March 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2009 No my warranty is finished. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aliveanddead86 Posted March 4, 2009 Report Share Posted March 4, 2009 (edited) Just keep an eye on ebay, a cheap one might come around, i paid £120 for my 7900Gs, so keep looking! Edited March 4, 2009 by aliveanddead86 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wolf Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 Very similar problem here with my inspiron 9400 and this card. Second time this is happening and not on warranty anymore. Dell doesn't have the card in stock anymore. Also cause blue screen of death with page fault in nonpaged area error. I don't care about the price but I wonder if there's a more up to date card availlable on the market from Invidia ??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted April 9, 2009 Report Share Posted April 9, 2009 Good luck... It's almost a waste of time to fix this issue. It happened 2 times on my mother's laptop. The warranty is not expired so Dell will change the card till the end of the warranty, only patching the problem for a short time each time. I also think that X1400 is not a decent option since 9800gs is by far a better and more expansive card (400$ US stock). The saddess thing is that Dell doesn't want to admit that it is a major issue involving many owners... and they even claim that the card is not available anymore when they got many in stock but only for people with valid warranty. To conclude... Dell sucks... Well at least they are producing arse kicking monitors! SquareP Square_PushR@hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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