Vostro 1700 Problem - long

Hello

I purchased Dell Vostro 1700 in Aug 2008.
Desc:
Dell vostro 1700
CPU T7500
memory 2GB
GPU 8600m GT 256 ddr2
Harddrive1 160 GB
harddrive2 160 GB

First period
Everything went fine at the beginning, right after the buy, I reinstalled the OS, I installed newer drivers for GPU from laptop2go to increase the game performance, at that time i checked for new updates for both vista and dell bios and such. Things that you normally do, if u are little into computers. During the first period everything was top notch. Games went overall well, good speed, and good fps. On rare occasions the famous "nivida stopped working" appeared, but it was just to minimize and maximize the game and all was good again. I also replaced the hard drive to a faster 2.5" one and added remaining one to the second slot and since it wasn't identical hard drives i didn't use any raid options, just 2 separate hard drives. When the GPU as hot as 70 or so but it mainly was about 60 during play.

Second period
After a while, maybe 6-12 months after the buy i started to update to new drivers for vista/GPU/ bios. During that time i realized that the system felt slower. Games went in lower fps. I cant recall what it was that caused this. But something happened, probably over time. I have a theory about maybe new drivers to GPU, because as always i wanted to be updated and get the "max" out of the GPU, which made me update the drivers more frequently.
After that i tried to reinstall everything, try to locate one of the first GPU drivers i installed from laptop2go, all clean system with no updates (vista). Then i installed some games, like Teamfortress 2. And it was still not as it was before. I installed Rivatuner and other monitoring application to increase the performance but no success, the only thing rivatuner did was to make the nvidia stopped to show more than ever. In Vista it downclocked the GPU once it reached 50 degree. I could never go up to more than 50 when playing.


Third period - present
I bought a cooler, reinstalled to Windows XP from vista, made fan speeds run fast speed all time with Precision fan control 1.3. No matter what, even when its running at stock speed GPU its still never go past 50, if its reach 50 degrees flickering appears and i need to tab out and tab in to remove artifacts, artifacts that shows on the screen, like a icon on HUD that shows at walls and such. I even tried to downgrade Bios in the belaive that maybe Bios makes some kind of GPU downclock. But apparently its the GPU bios i guess.

I'm really annoyed.

things i have tried:

• I have coolpad
• Tried different GPu drivers
• Updated/downgraded Dell bios (A0-12 versions
• Tried both Vista/XP perforamce
• Disabled poweroptimazier (in Vista/XP) through different guides.
• Used rivatuner to increase clock/ use stock speeds at fix speeds.
• Runned ATI tool for artifacts for 1h 30 min, which negative results. But find max clock resulted in artifacts showing up. - which i dont know how to interpret.

Things that i wonder about

1. finding max clock resulted in artifacts showing up in ATI tools. Is that normal or not?

2. Can it have to do something with dell? Some people saying they made the GPU run at slower speed / downclock faster since the news about faulty in Geforce 8600m series? If so how could i download the GPU bios without knowing that?

3. Could the GPU card be broken?

4. anything else im missing out?


Maybe some people here have similar problems, if you solved this issue or know the answer - please write here !

Best regards
Annoyed Dell vostro 1700 owner
Mike

 

You have done everything i would have done. Does the computer function correctly when you don't game? Call dell and try to seek support. You still have warranty. I think it's either the motherboard or the gpu.

 

If your artifacts show up on an external display, you almost certainly have a GPU failure. (1) is definitely possibly if your GPU is dying, (2) just isn't true as far as I know (3) is very likely given your symptoms as a whole, and (4) probably not.

If you're under warranty, definitely call up Dell and ask them to fix the problem, otherwise the GPU on the 1700 is actually replaceable (without swapping the motherboard), and you could fix the problem yourself, given that you can find the appropriate GPU.

 

The artifacts start to show after a little freeze (screen flickering). The freeze always accour when i reach EXACTLY 50 degrees Celsius. Anyone else had this problem?

Im still trying to figure out if it can be something else than a GPU failure. I mean its still ok, about 1 freeze each 3 hour. But ofcourse the GPU power is not as good as it was in the beginning.

My warrantyperiod is over and its not listed as a defective model on Dells extended warranty for certain models (just 1710 and not 1700).

edit i use a external display 24".