M1710 Help

Hello all,

Okay, I thought I'd get some advice from the collective before I do something that could be considered moronic (wouldn't be the first time).

My M1710 history:
Late July 2007 - Purchased; Simply awesome in performance

Late Oct 2008 - GPU fries after a solid week of nothing gaming related, only watching movies/TV shows; GPU replaced along with heat sink and motherboard

March 2009 - GPU fries again after two weeks of nothing gaming related (course work picked up a bit); GPU, heatsink, and LCD replaced - all is well again

Early March 2010 - temps on GPU as recorded by Rivatuner begin climbing to over 90 C during one hour gaming sessions of Hellgate London, SW Battlefront, and SW Empire at War (all games I had maxed out in the past with no trouble, never getting above 75 C); dust cleaned out from outside (I'm not confident enough to open up the laptop and AS5 and clean just yet), back raised onto two erasers lead to max temps decreased by 5 C on average

The past week - One hour of Hellgate has lead to 102 C max with the screen sometimes going black and requiring a hard reboot (obviously can't tell what the temp was at these times); framerate takes a dive after about 45 minutes telling me the GPU is going nuclear; sometimes have noticeable lag between keyboard and program when typing (like now)

So, as I'm still under warranty until September (Complete Care), should I be calling Dell now to see if they can replace the GPU again before it completely has a meltdown and I'm stuck without a working computer for a week until the tech decides to show up? I'm a Comp Sci major, so my laptop is absolutely essential to my school work and my research (actually a part time job).

Any advice is much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

"(I'm not confident enough to open up the laptop and AS5 and clean just yet)"

You'll have to do it and clean the heat sinks. It's not difficult at all just go on utube there are few vids.

Or you chase dell up and you my get a new system

 

Thanks for the reply.

You mean I need to perform surgery on my precious? I must first acquire the necessary skills! Three year residency for general surgery plus x amount of time to specialize in electrical and reconstructive specialties should do it, right?

I'm just rather paranoid I'll screw something up leading to a cataclysmic failure of epic proportions.

All else fails, I'll call Dell (actually I've used the chat ever since the first failure - much better) on Friday to see what they can do.

 

its a known problem with the m1710 get dell to replace the laptop for a new one as5 and cleaning wont solve your problem and it will get only worse as time go, this is a problem with the conception of the 7950gtx

 

You'll be fine just chill. Make a note for every screw you take out. I can walk you through if you want me to.

 

Yeah, I"ve seen many users have GPU problems with their M1710 over the past year or so (since I started lurking here), though the replacement policy currently implemented by Dell is sketchy at best, seemingly heavily dependent on the CS techs/supervisors involved. I don't want to end up being forced into a replacement that also has heating problems and can't match the performance of my current setup. Then again, I don't want to/can't be stuck without a working computer for a month (seems to be the best case turnaround time for a replacement) if/when this card dies.

**twitch** How can you be calm?!?! We're talking about dissecting my precious!!! The mere thought of it is enough to cause a meltdown.... wait, that'll happen if I don't do something... Crap. **twitch**

I took notes as the second tech took everything apart to replace the GPU (the first tech didn't seem to really be comfortable with this model), I'm just not that confident in my ability to combine the physical coordination and mental concentration necessary i.e. I remember that I forgot something which takes my mind off of my current situation so I screw up something then... you see where this is going. I took a full 10 minutes to replace this hard drive the first time I did it because I literally stopped before every action I took and mentally went through the entire process to make sure I wasn't missing something or about to blow my computer to the moon (so to speak). Alas, I need to build my confidence. Why can't laptops be as easy to open and close as desktops?

If Dell is wholy unhelpful when I call sometime in the next few days (read: Completely ignores the issue or tells me to turn down the graphics settings <-- I will burst out laughing if they tell me this), I'll prepare for surgery. Do you mind if I fire some questions to you at that time?

 

Pretty sure the m1710 and m1730 get replaced with alienwares m17x's

 

That would be what I'm hoping for (or a full refund of my $3000 would be nice as well ), but I've read some people getting forced into an SXPS 1640, even from an M1730 with dual 8800s (Woodstock, where did you go?).

 

"Do you mind if I fire some questions to you at that time?"
Not at all just pm me
"full refund of my $3000 would be nice as well"
You won't get a refund not a chance I wish I would myself . If you get offered the sxps 1640 turn it down.

 

Turn down the sxps, it doesn't touch the m1710s performance at the time.

 

Thanks. Will do.
I've read about a couple users on another notebook board getting full (that's right. Full) refunds for their M1710s and M1730s instead of a replacement.
Look here (Pg. 8 for when he says he gets a refund): http://www.notebookforums.com/thread224572.html

Yeah, I've seen the benchmarks of the ATI 4670 and am not impressed. It barely keeps up with the 7950 GTX at low resolutions (I haven't seen many benchmarks run at 1200p but I can surmise they will be lower, likely due to the memory bandwidth on the card choked by a 128 bit bus).

 

My apologies if this counts as rez, but it made sense to post here than make a new thread on the same issue.

I finally pulled up the courage (actually, I just finished finals so I don't have to worry about going without a computer during school) to really clean everything out. It wasn't as bad as expected, though I didn't have any AS5 on hand. I'm still seeing temps get up over 100 C (max so far is 105 C) before the system just shuts down.

I just tried to connect via Dell Chat and got this message:



"This product model is not supported by Chat. Please call 800-822-8965 for any support related to this product."



Are the tech support people on the other end no longer required to be familiar with the M1710? Has Dell just abandoned those of us who still have the M1710, forcing us to call or e-mail?

Dell's e-mail system doesn't seem to be working for me (it also says that for more complex problems than those listed, use the phone system). Guess I'll be calling them...

Don't tell me dealing with Dell is going to be more painful than dealing with an overheating computer...