My laptop has the nvidia bug, and no warranty..

I'm the owner of a vostro 1400.
Unfortunately my warranty expired 7 days ago, and guess what.. Today my computer decided to catch the nvidia GPU bug and fail on me!
I'm getting the usual symptoms, stupid amounts of heat, multiple images on screen etc etc.
So I rang dell after hearing that they are now giving out an extra year of warranty to cover the nvidia problem.
The guy I spoke to on the phone had no idea what I was talking about and told me he would get the techs to send me a quote to get my vostro fixed.

$392 for a new motherboard!

I really don't want to pay that much when I was planning to sell it anyway, and get a newer dell studio laptop.

So what can I do? Can I order another 8400M GS from the dell store and put it in myself?
Can I do anything to avoid paying for a whole new motherboard?

 

Um, I think I'll ring them up again and talk them into extending your warranty a few days. This is bull, and it failed on you due to a known bug.

 

Call up again and hopefully you get a different person.

 

I'll give it a go.

 

The Vostro 1400 line is barely a year old... Don't they have 3 year warranties?

I don't know about you....but if they don't fix this for you, I'd vote with my feet (ie: buy a HP or a Lenovo) next time around...

 

Nope. I only got the 1 year warranty (wished I didn't)
Having a good whinge to dell now, asking if they'll extend my warranty for an extra couple of days while they fix it.
Then I'm going to sell it and get a newer machine.

 

So angry..
They won't give me a 'grace' period!
So it looks like i have to pay $392 for a new motherboard which i don't want to do, cause I probably wouldn't even get $500 trying to sell the thing!
What am i supposed to do??

 

Surely there must be some Nvidia graphics chip class-action lawsuit you could join..

Nvidia has taken an accounting 'charge' for this issue, and is reimbursing manufacturers for customer repairs. In a SEC filing, Nvidia stated, "We intend to fully support our customers in their repair and replacement of these impacted MCP and GPU products that fail". (source).

 

Any suggestions?

 

This article clearly states that Dell is extending the warranty by 12 months on the Vostro 1400 for GPU-related issues.