M1710 Graphics Card Dead, Help

Hi there,
I was playing GRID on my Dell XPS M1710, and got a load of corruption and lines on the screen, and the laptop shut went into a kind of safe mode. It has never been overclocked, and dust has been cleaned recently. Now, when I turn it on, I get artifacts and corruption even at the BIOS screen. I've tried reseating and reinstalling the drivers, but it hasn't worked. I'm going to call dell tomorrow, but as it's out of warranty, I don't expect much help. There's no way I'm buying a new GPU, (they cost more than the laptop is worth), so I'm going to try and fix it. I'm going to use the oven fix as a last resort, and would appreciate advice on anything else I can do to fix it, as well as any tips when performing the oven trick. If anyone is selling a 7900GTX/7950GTX for a decent price, you may have a buyer

 

graphic card is dead my freind. If you have a warrenty dell will replace your motherboard and grahic card. However you could buy a warrenty, then a few days latter call them up and they will honnor it

 

Do you reckon they would though? It would be obivious to them that I'd taken out the warranty just to fix my GPU. How much does a warranty cost anyway?
Thanks

 

Well when i contacted Dell europe/india/ where ever the hell they are, the manager said to me....if you had got a warrenty then called us up. We would of fixed it for free.

To repair the system it would be £450. The warrenty for a year is probably £160 something. I would call up and find out. But what ever you do dont hint that theres something wrong with your system. If you see fit get the warrenty, then call up in 2 weeks time with the problem Who knows you might end up with an updated machine even lol However due to the age of the machine they might not be willing to give you a warrenty.

Personaly i wished i had got the warrenty, then made the claim. I miss my m1710, was one of the best laptops iv had. Lasted over 3 years till my lack of maintance resulted in it over heating due to fluff/dust in the heat sink.

 

Oh yer i wouldent bother doing the oven trick. I did it...machine worked for about a week then the same happened lol

 

Thanks for your help, £160 seems an awful lot for a 1 year warranty, but I guess it's better than paying £400 for a new card. Who knows, I may even get an m1730 out of it

 

I had exactly the same spec as you on my m1710, sold it for spares and repair on ebay for £200 pounds lol

Anyway give them a call and see what they say

 

There's been an interesting development - I reseated it and it works fine now, although I haven't tried playing a game. My idea is to buy the warranty, take some pictures of it working to prove it's OK, then play a game and if/when it breaks send it back.
Sound like a plan eh?

 

bump, has anyone got a good reason why I shouldn't do the warranty thing?

 

The final say lies with you, maybe your card just became a little unseated.

 

Well, I talked to dell today and I can buy a 3 year warranty for £160, so I'm going to buy that and claim on it, hopefully I'll get sent a nice m1730

 

woah a 3 year warrenty for £160, thats very cheap! Your system will probably last a long time. Stick with the m1710 as long as you can really, its a good machine. plus it has a bass speaker, something which is sorely missing from the m1730

 

It seemed cheap to me as well, I've talked to them and will buy it on Friday. If it goes wrong, I guess I'll just have to get a free M1730

 

Maybe you'll get a free M17x.

 

lol I seriously doubt that, but a man can dream.....

 

Well, I rung dell again and a very rude indian guy on the phone sold me a 1 year warranty for £110 (my system is too old for a three year one apparantly). The laptop seems OK at the moment, so I'm going to see what happens, as now I know if it does go wrong I'll be OK

 

Well, the engineer came and replaced the GPU today, and my laptop is working fine. No new M1730 for me though, although now I might sell this and buy one.

 

I did exactly this. I bought a five year warranty (I only had 1 previously) for around $300. Called the same night I bought the warranty and tech support got the ball rolling. Seeing as the cards that I had, two 8800GTXs in SLI, cost something close to $800 new (at their inflated rates) and clost to $500-600 now, I saved money here--also, since those cards are rather old and the only ones that fit a couple different models of laptop, unused standalone replacements are very difficult to find. I recommend this.

Also it's possible that your warranty was extended on your GPU alone if it was an NVIDIA mobile card, the company basically admitted to ty build quality on the series around the time the 1710s were being built, so Dell extended the warranties on those parts for a year.

Edit: , I should have read the whole thread.