Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
Oh goody, another whiny m15x user with hardware ish on his old-school notebook.
But seriously I am curious if anyone can point me in the direction of resolution or whether or not anyone has had the same troubles and has fixed them or if anyone has figured out what to do in the meanwhile. Failing all of that I guess I guess i just want the official "you're screwed" from someone other than myself!
In April of 2008 I received a shiny new m15x. I was elated to finally have a gaming-worthy notebook as I was rarely home and i missed being able to play WoW and HL2.
Eitherway, after about 8 months i began having issues with the screen cover, specifically the hinge. It became tighter and tighter and tighter. At first I didn't think it was a problem. Sure it was "not usual" but I figured "Hey at least i can use this thing upside down and the screen won't slam shut for gravity!" So i ignored it.
Shortly thereafter I began having issues whilst using the 'external' video card, the high performance Geforce 8800 built in. Every few boots or so I wouldn't be able to see anything on the screen. Well that's not entirely true, if I am in a pitch dark room and squint really hard i can actually see whats on the screen. Its not usable in anyway. It's not even as though the brightness is all the way down its as if there isn't anything that could be considered as brightness at all.
Fast-forward to about 1 month after my warranty expires. (3yr warranty... naaahhh, whatamigonnaneedthatfor?!?!) So one year and one month has passed up until that point and i had intermittent use of my laptops monitor whilst using my high-performance card but it did work if plugged into an external monitor. At this point however the hinge had snapped off of the part on the plastic case (yes broken off jagged edges you get the idea) and slam shut was now the only setting for my monitor in fact to keep it upright i must rest it against a wall/bookend/something. Furthermore shortly there after the HDMI out port failed completely and now i cannot connect it to an external monitor.
What this has left me with is a reasonably fast laptop with 4gb of ram and a 200gb hdd, that will only operate off the 'internal' or low-peformance/barely any 3D graphics capability having INTEL card that was built into the motherboard. That's not a portable laptop as i need to rest the screen against something to keep it upright.
I would like it to be known that I have been very careful and before anyone suggest "Have you dropped it?" the answer is no i have not.
I wish i could go back in time and manufacture other complaints than "the hinge is tightening" before my warranty expired but I didn't and now thats not an option (unless i pay 300$+parts to replace everything, according to tech support).
I'm more than willing and capable of doing the work myself if I knew exactly what the problem was and maybe i'm making a mountain out of a molehill so to speak. It's possible that the issue could be mostly software related as far as the video card is concerned but i haven't been able to find a fix online so i come to you now. In case anyone here has had this or similar issues and has found a way to fix it. I plead my case.
Thanks!
tl;dr - laptop broken badly. geforce 8800 sends very very very dark image to screen and HDMI out port doesn't seem to work either. Sounds Familiar? HELP ME!!! & No i didn't drop it!
m15x circa 2008 Issues.
Discussion in 'Alienware Area-51/Aurora and Legacy Systems' started by Solifluction, Aug 10, 2010.
