m9750 Trouble - In need of some technical help. (And maybe a Hitman)

Hi all, Im wondering if anyone maybe has had a similar problem or maybe able to shed some light on my problem.

Basically let me set the scene.....about 3 years ago me and my ex (B!7ch) GF moved in together and we decided to buy a brand new m9750 to replace the big ol' noisy desktop that i had. She ended up buying it on her credit card and i gave her some money for it every month. We then split up about 7 months later and she took the laptop with her. We kinda stayed in contact since...until recently.

She offered the laptop to me last week for £450 its a T7400, 2 GB mem, 120GB HD, 1 x 7950 GTX and the UXGA screen so i thought why not as i dont have a laptop. When she came round to drop it off i powered it up and everything seemed fine, so i handed over the money. An hour later the fans ran at full speed and it instantly powered off, i tried to turn it back on but it only tried to power up for about 2 secs (lights on the hotkey bar lit up) then turned off again. I rang her saying that it was broken and that she had sold me faulty goods, her response was "It's your problem now, deal with it".

I've taken the graphics card out, reseated it and re-applied some good thermal paste (OZC Freeze) and its seemed to sort the problem.

Yesterday i ran Furmark on it for a stability test but i only get about 6/7 FPS and thought that that cant be normal so i tried 3DMark03. It was about to run the 1st test and the screen went blank, then blue screened with an error message and then flickered briefly. I powered it off and waited a few sec then powered it on, the screen powers up but im not getting any image at all on the screen so im guessing that it is now completly dead? But im also getting a bad feeling that its the motherboard that may have packed up.

Basically ive been done by the ex and im looking to resolve this problem as ive already forked up a load of cash.

Can anyone maybe give me some advice as to weather its likely to be the graphics card or the motherboard?



Thanks in advance.

Nella

 

Well, it looks like she only sold you the lappie because it started going nuts. My bet is that the laptop's radiators are full of dust and the fans arent pumping the heat out of the system. This means that the components can overheat. Usually there should be protections for that but it seems that they didnt work this time.

tbh. it can be either the motherboard or the gfx. Im hoping it is the gfx card as that can be possibly fixed with a little oven magic.

Once check which can be done is to turn on the pc and see if after some time you hear the OS login welcome. But first, you should double check that the radiators are clear of dust. After some time dust accumulates and makes it impossible for air to leave (or at least very hard).

Then you can try this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=385973

 

When you're in Windows, try running a temperature monitor (I'd recommend HWMonitor) to see what temperature your graphics cards are running at under different situations, then post your results here. That should tell us if heat's the issue.

I think he workded that out already.

 

Definitely check the temps with HWMonitor, you say you only put OCZ freeze on the graphics card, make sure that you also reapply OCZ freeze to the CPU.
It sounds like it's overheating and downclocking which would explain the low results you got from benchmarks.

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

The problem that i had was that the machine wouldn't display anything, it seem to power on and the HD light would flash but windows didnt seem to start as i got no tone. The fans and vents were spotless.

I have spent this morning taking all the the fans off the CPU and graphics card, then peeling back the thin plastic film that covers the SLi chipset, graphics card and the northbridge and then remove all the thermal paste that was left originally using some arctic cleaning solutions that i have, also in between the components using some soft fibre channel port cleaning pipette type thingys that i have. Then applied small amounts of OCZ Freeze on all of the surfaces.

Miraculously the damn thing has powered up no problems at all.

I left it running for about 30mins and then ran 3DMark03 on the standard settings and within 2 mins it switched itself off again, had to wait 20 secs before it would let me turn it back on. I try to run HWMonitor in the background but everytime i run 3DMark it switches off before i can see the temp.

Im currently running Go Orthos to stress the CPU to see its likely to be that, its been going for about 30mins and so far not switched itself off and the max temp of the CPU is reaching 75c. I'm guessing this isn't the cause.

Are there any good gpu stress progs that i can run windowed?


Neil

 

ATiTool should work as a good windowed GPU stress test.

Telling us idle temperatures of the GPUs could also provide a good indicator.

 

use furmark.

 

Just tried FurMark, the GPU was at about 54c before I ran it. Upon running it it was doing about 20FPS but only lasted about 2 secs before the screen froze and artifacted before a flashing blue screen error and then nothing.

Every time i hit the power button now it seems to power up but im not getting anything on the screen. The HD light is flashing away is if its booting windows but im not getting the windows start sound like i normally do. So im stuck between the posibilty that the graphics card is to blame or the motherboard is faulty.

 

If it idles at 54C that sounds about right. However it still isn't clear if the cards are overheating.

It definetely sounds like GPU damage though. Then again, it COULD be a faulty motherbard like you say...

 

Try the magic oven and cross fingers lol

Also have you formatted ?

 

oven magic link:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=385973

 

As the other posters have said the idle temperature is fine, whats the GPU temp when you stress test it? If it's below 90 Deg C when it crashes then the GPU is probably the problem and I second what others have said regarding the oven trick on the GPU. If the GPU goes above 90 Deg C and then it crashes then the GPU is overheating and you should double check the thermal paste/fan.

Incidentally if you still have the original account details you may be able to phone up Alienware and order a Hd3870 for your machine (previous users on this forum have been able to order this in the EU).

 

I tried ringing Alienware today and they put me through to Dell, who told me they dont stock components and put me through to another company, they told me they only deal with desktop machines and gave me another number for a company called uklaptops.co.uk which i was on hold for 30mins for.

Well that was a laugh.

Dont spose you know how much alienware want for them?

 

Send her my way. Ill fix her

 

Odd, did you phone the technical support option (08002799751)?
Providing you get through to the technical guys they are the ones to order parts from. You need your customer ID to order it, if you get through to dell again tell them explicitly that you are having problems with your Alienware M9750 system and want to be transferred to the correct people.

 

Haha. Ya, no kidding. If that was me, I'd probably be in prison right now, LOL.

To the OP, it does sounds like the GPU is overheating, but I'm not really sure. Hope you get it fixed, and get some nice revenge.

 

Thanks guys.

I dont think it is over heating, but do think it is the graphics card.

I'll try ringing Alienware again monday morning.

Trouble is it was ordered in the ex's name and delivered to her parents address originally. Is there any way to find the Customer ID #?


Edit.

Im able to log into My Hive area and have found the account number, will that do?

 

You should be able to do it from the account number, you'll have to also confirm the name and telephone number of the account.

 

Lets hope you didnt wipe the disk.

As revenge, you could check outlook or web logins for saved passwords into the email account

 

what about there being a problem with both the battery and power brick. if there a problem with the brick it would cause a problem with the battery which would cause a problem with the system.
I've had a problem with my desktop video card when the power supply stopped working properly once i replace the power supply computer worked again.

oh and it all can start from the wall not putting out enough juice or just getting to old

 

Ok, rang Alienware this morning on the above number and spoke to some foreign guy who told me that they only stock the 3870 for people that currently have a machine that is still under warranty.

Do you think it is worth ringing them again and hope to speak to someone who might be able to help or am i pretty much screwed and need to keep an eye on a used one from ebay?

 

The 3870s WILL work, perhaps just keep ringing and asking, and hope you speak to the right guy eventually.

It's also a major upgrade. Even a single 3870 will do very well, get two of them and your machine will feel like an all new beast.

 

i will have some gpu's for the 9750 goin up in the nbr marketplace shortly

 

Yep please let us know! Always need spare parts

 

Nella just keep trying but dont whatever you do say it's for an M9750, they'll point blank refuse to sell you one if you say that. If you need just one card then phone up and say you have an M15x which needs a new video card out of warranty. Ask for the ATI M88 card (I think it's m88 on the system, it might be down as Hd3870 though) make it clear you are willing to pay for it but only have account details for the m9750 account.

 

Cheers for that, I'll give it another try. Called twice now, the last guy said he would send an email out but I've not heard anything and that was yesterday.

Im pretty screwed at the moment and its making me more and more angry
to the point I feel like going round and slashing her tyres.

 

Tried again and failed. i think the foreign (english wasn't great) guy was telling me that they only stock the card for people that still have a warranty.

Do you think it might be worth ringing alienware US or will that probably divert my call to the same people?

 

Right, I've just received my laptop from having the graphics card professionally repaired by uklaptops.co.uk on a no fix no fee basis and so far it seems to be working fine *touch's wood*

Just ran 3DMark03 to it and scored over 20,000 marks, just wondering if that is about right for a T7400, 2GB, 1 x 7950GTX?

Temps idle are 53C and during 3DMark03 85C Max.

I ran Furmark and temps went to about 98C before I thought i'd better stop before I break it.

Are these reading about right then?



Thanks

 

Glad that you got it repaired.. Hope it continues to work fine for you.

 

Thanks fella.

Bought a m17 off cleverpseudonym so will prob look to sell the m9750.

 

Nice to hear you got it sorted, although i'd be seriously concerned about that 98 Deg C temp you got!

 

Well I thought I'd clean off the thermal paste and re-apply some OCZ Freeze just incase they had applied some standard stuff and ran Furmark again.

This time the temp took a lot longer to get hotter, I let it go passed 98C this time and just as it was about to hit 100C the fans kicked into overdrive and the temp started to reduce rapidly, once it got down to 85C the fans speed reduced and at that point i was happy that everything is ok with it.

 

While that is still not going into the danger overheating zone (where thermal shutdowns and rapid deterioration occur) that's still running very, VERY hot.

It works, that's good at least. But at those temperatures it might deteriorate over time and break again-especially as it's already been repaired once.

Still, if you're not using it for that much longer then fair enough.

(If it stays at 85C after the fans get it back down, then that's fairly safe.)

 

So are you finally going to sell it?

 

Hello

Reading this post I have come up against the exact same problems. Can you tell me how much your repair cost? And what they did?

Kind Regards

Tom

 

if no repairs => i'm interesting in buying parts of your laptop (s) ..;

soory for the rolling again ^^

 

What parts would you be after and what price?

the specs of my laptop are as follows


1 | AREA-51 M9750


1 | AREA-51 M9750 17" WXGA W/ CAM BLACK


1 | AREA-51 M9750 ACCESSORY SET BLACK


1 | CORE 2 DUO 2.00GHZ T7200 4MB 667MHZ


2 | QIMONDA 1GB PC2-5300 MODULE/Y9530


1 | 9700 INTERNAL MINI-PCI TV TUNER REMOTE


1 | 9750 INTERNAL MINI CARD TV TUNER WITH COAXIAL



1 | 9750 NVIDIA 7950 GTX WITH 512MB DAUGHTER


1 | SEAGATE 160GB 5400RPM SATA


1 | 8X DVD+/-RW NEC AD-5540A REV 1


1 | INTEL PRO WIRELESS MINI-PCI 3945ABG LEAD FREE



1 | INTEL MOBILE INTEGRATED HIGH-DEFINITION AUDIO



Kind Regards

Tom

 

the motherboard itself, that is the part i am looking for

thank you for giving the heads up!

 

Sue the B17ch.

 

you dead? i need your MB!

 

Why not just buy one from ztronics rather than bugging everyone on this forum who has a faulty m9750 for theres?

 

if you can't get one from a user get it from ztronic they ship fast and are relyable i recived a part from them it's in god state

 

Ztronics => 330 $ mother board + shipping in the US.

http://www.ztronics.com/en/laptop-parts-by-model-number/alienware-area-51-m9750/alienware-area51-m9750-laptop-motherboard/flypage.tpl.html

I'm in France (Shipping from ztronics is a no go) and can almost get working m9750 for 600 $ ...

If someone is willing to get the MB for me in the us... then send it to me in Europe... then it could be a solution...

 

no not dead, email me - I keep forgetting to look at this thread.

[email protected]

 

y sent you an email, did you get it?

 

Watch out with Ztronics btw, i ordered several stuff from them for the M17 R-1 and the things they sent me where for the m9750..i emailed them about it hoping that they accidently made a mistake but they never replied back to me. So i was stuck with items that dont fit...

When you order from them make sure they check twice that its 100% compatible with your laptop.

 

Or pay with PayPal

 

They don't have that payment option .

 

what m9750 parts did they send you?

 

Bottom cover, battery, powerbrick.