My laptop Dell xps M170 has burn 2 video cards within the last 2 years

My Dell XPS M170 has burn 2 video cards within the last 2 years.



I have bougth my laptop back in FEB 2006, and on APRIL 2007 my nVidia 6800 Ultra got burn, due to thermal paste got dry. After that, I bought a nVidia 7800GTX in MAY 2007, and by JUNE 2008 the 'new' video card also got burn. I was supervising the video card temperature all the time and it never was over 60 celsius degrees (140 farenheit). Nevertheless the thermal paste got dry again.

If anybody give me some advice it would be great! I can't keep buying a videocard every year.


Now my windows XP looks like this:

 

Which thermal paste did you use with your video card? I generally use Arctic-Silver5 on all of my desktops/laptops, and these have been in place for years without any problems.

 

Aww man.... here we go with another overheating and damaging vidoecard thread.

First off, let me give you an important quote for notebook owners (especially ones that own gaming notebooks):
"If you take care of your notebook, it will take care of you."

If you are careless (by not monitoring temps, doing routine cleaning out of the vents, and/or using it on any surface thats not a hard/clean/flat surface), then that would explain your predicament.

That said, please read the following and visit the NBR Cooling Central.

lemme give you the Copy/Paste to rule them all.
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If you are overheating... usually any temp over 90C degrees is bad.

when was the last time that you cleaned out the fans and vents thoroughly...?

if never, then thats why.

1) remove battery
2) remove/unscrew the panels on the bottom of the notebook to get to fans and vents (if possible)
3) use flashlight to look through vents for the dust (if you cant see the light on the other end, then the vents are clogged up)
4) go outside, get some compressed air (cans or compressor @ 50 PSI) and give the vents a good airing out all directions ( concentrating on the vents)
.... you might want to brace the fan blade(s) when airing it out (with a toothpick or paperclip to prevent it from spinning out too much)
.... or use short bursts (1-2 secs) of air instead of bracing the fans.
5) go get some Q-tips and swab the fan blades and the area around it
6) then go do a second airing with compressed air (all directions again focusing on the fans and vents) to push out the dust that was dislodged from the Q-tips

7*) Now go use the flashlight again and look through the vents (shine the flashlight from the fan, you look through the other end) for anymore dust clogs.

8) Then start up the notebook... and let the fans cycle up (use the Fan Toggle at max speed if your system has it) to push out any other dust that might have been stuck.

If all goes well you should be able to close up the notebook and...

you're done.

*repeat this step until its cleaned out.

Thats pretty much it.

Just make sure to do this every two-three months... it should take about 15-20min per cleaning if you want to be thorough.

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Gaming notebooks are a new thing, you must realize that you have to take some extra care of them over typical use notebooks:

1) Battery: to maintain the longevity of any rechargeable battery
- you must NEVER overcharge it [especially for long durations of time] by keeping it plugged into AC
- when it reaches 100% you should unplug it and let it discharge to 5-15%, then plug it back to power
- OR you can just charge it to 50%+ and remove the battery and store in cool place.. not the fridge [remember to use it occasionally 3-4 time a year to charge and discharge it].

2.) Heat: to prevent a healthy notebook from overheating
- ALWAYS use the notebook on a clean, hard & flat surface
- RECOMMENDED to be used on a notebook cooler... namely the Zalman ZM-NC1000 or ZM-NC2000
- check your fans underneath occasionally (at least once a month or two) for any dust clogs [clean them out with Q-tips and air cans/compressors]
- ALWAYS monitor the temps (CPU, GPU, HDD, etc..) to watch for fluctuations, which would indicate overheating by dust usually
(for Clevo notebooks) use the Fan Toggle to switch all fans to Max Speed when gaming and such.

By doing these simple things, your entire system will easily last for more than 3 years.

 

I haven't used any thermal paste, I have never modified my laptop since I bought it is the same as when I bought the 7800gtx card, I just install it, the thermal paste is the one from fabric the weirdest thing of all is that the temperature sensors never showed overheat.

 

Since the first incident with my 6800ultra I was checking the temperature monitor, and cleaning my PC all the time, I can’t believe than in 2 years, both of them seem to be damage by the same circumstances.

 

If there is no thermal paste being applied between the GPU and its heat sink, then I can see why the GPU is getting fried. However, if the replacement video card was installed by a certified Dell tech, then I can't him him/her overlooking this critical step.

As far as the GPU heat sensor: does anyone know where it is physically mounted? Is it in or near the NVidia GPU, or in the laptop's heat sink assembly? If heat isn't being properly conducted into the heat sink, then I don't know if the latter can skew the temperatures being reported to the BIOS.

 

lord_shar. when I bought my laptop with the video card 6800ultra, after a year and a month, it burned with no alarm, (I always provide maintance and cleaning to the laptop). Then i open the video card to see what was the failure and i found that the thermal paste was dry. there was nothing between the GPU and the heat sink.

After that I bought the 7800gtx at dell, I installed and it works great until another year and one month and the failure happen again.

 

Sorry for all the questions... just trying to help

If there is no thermal paste conducting heat between the GPU core and heat sink, then that explains why the video cards are getting cooked. Today's GPU's run way too hot to function long term without a heat sink goo bridging the micro-gaps between the GPU core and heat sink. One of Arctic Silver5's selling points is that it never completely dries out, thus maintaining max thermal conductivity. I typically use AS5 for CPU's, but there is absolutely no reason why it can't be used for high temp GPU's. The trick to applying heat sink compound is to spread it over the core's contact area as thinly as possible while still completely covering its visible surface.

If you want to find out if Dell uses heat-sink compound in their M710 GPU's, I suggest calling Dell XPS Premiere Tech Support. They can give you the answer you are looking for, but if their answer is "no," then I will be very surprised.

 

cleaning the notebook the right way is what most people do not get.

the fans are not as important to clean as the vents are... which is where the dust gets clogged the most.

 

From the picture on the Dell webpage
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsm170/en/sm/video.htm#wp1006368
it looks like the heat sink and video card come in a single piece. Where would you look to find the heat sensor?

 

Thanks everyone for the posts, I gonna see what Dell says about is matter, unfortunately I have to buy "again" a video card, and get some AS5 for it.....and selll it!, i dont wanna wasted more bucks in that old XPS.
Alienware FTW!!!!!

PD: DEll sucks!, never buy it!

 

Usually Dell's products have at least a 1-year warranty. How old is this video card from the date of purchase?

 

@ yatusabes: I hear ya... my 7800gtx is dying on my M170. I wonder if its got anything to do with this news article about nvidia chips being defective:

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4483

Now I'm not sure what to do with this laptop. buy a new 7800gtx from dell for $550? ya right. Buy a used one off of ebay for $250 which is around 1/2 the value of the laptop itself?

 

Well here's my story

my 2,5 years old XPS M170 with a 6800 sumthing card inside was a good one. I never did OC never played around with thermal paste. just cleaned every 6 month the FANS and the rest from dust. I monitored the temps all the time.
i never had any problems. but then there came the day as my screen was green - (yep no blue screen)

1. I called DELL.
2. the other day they send someone and replaced the Graphic Card
3. after 3 days of working I couldn start the M170 anymore > quiet and Black screen.
4. I called DELL.
5. again, some one came one day later and they replaced the Motherboard !
6. one week later, same old story , while surfing the net, black screen and system full stop.
7. I called DELL
8. They replaced my M170 - Now I'm a happy owner of a M1730 - free of charge. I just extend the 1 year to a 3 year warranty contract !

conclusion : if you buy such overbreeded hi performance desktop replacement sexy laptops, always do a 3-year warranty contract ! it's worth the money if you ever have problems.

I like DELL and would buy the next time again a DELL !

cheers
tom

 

I'm in the same boat as the original poster. My video card finally burned out with a flash and and a crash. Funds are low and I'm trying to find an affordable card equivalent or close to the quality as the 6800 ultra. Can anyone give me some ideas. Thanks

 

rngdpnkr, go to ebay.com

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-XPS-M170-Gen2-NVIDIA-GeForce-Go-7800-GTX-HF594_W0QQitemZ120328081397QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item120328081397&_trkparms=72%3A1205|39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A12|240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

or

http://cgi.ebay.com/NVIDIA-GeForce-Go-7800-GTX-for-Dell-XPS-M170-Gen2-HF594_W0QQitemZ160295058628QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item160295058628&_trkparms=72%3A1205|39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A12|240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

 

No probs here my one(see sig) has served me well and still is but I've taken goot care.
The GPU is going strong. The laptop was starting to get hot not long time ago and I had it ripped to pieces and cleaned, tepms dropped by 20 C!!!

Still very happy with it even if get a new laptop I'm gonna keep it.

 

Yeah my go 7800GTX died on me too. Though I had it overclocked. However I think the heatsink was faulty at the beginning, I had insanely high temps even at stock. Even if I cleaned the computer very often and applied AS5 and reapplied.

Now it´s standing here beside my M1730 and collecting dust. However I want it to work again and will probably buy a go 7800GTX off Ebay.

My M170 before it died performed insane in my own means. I had optimized XP Pro so much for it. So I want it up and working again, too bad the GPU´s are expensive

I mean for a single core 2.13GHz CPU and a go 7800GTX overclocked to 446/1200 I had Crysis running with a custom configed by me at an average of 33 fps at 1280x800, not bad at all.

 

I've had a similar problem to others here.

My Geforce 6800 ultra burnt out in my M170 after 2 years and next day Dell came over and replaced it.

It lasted a week. They came and replaced it again, and the motherboard as well. That lasted a month. I should mention at this point that I'm not overclocking or playing any full-on games. Temperatures are always stable. Playing World of Warcraft for a whole day never got past 50c

I prefer to use an older version of the driver with the old Nvidia control panel since that gives you a temperature monitor, something missing from some stupid reason from the new drivers.

Anyway, Dell came back and gave me a new M/B, a new Processor, a new LCD, and a new geforce 6800, and cleaned the machine so it was like 100% new. all they didnt change was the memory!

Well... 6 months later and the same has happened. Randomly while working in word there's a sound like a soft zap and lines shoot all over the screen. It crashes and won't boot back into windows except safe mode, with lines all over the screen.

I called Dell and gave 'em hell this time. They sent out one of their 'top engineers' who re-serviced the machine and told me that all the Graphics cards they put in a reconditioned... hence why they don't always last long. apaprently they've had alot of problems with that same card.

So.... now my warrenty is almost up. I've got a month and a half to either pay £100 for another 2 years warranty or make some other decision, cos this is driving me mad. Does anyone think I've got a case for demanding I get a new laptop from Dell, like someone else did?

Or do the drivers make such a difference? I'll try the latest drivers from Nvidia this time, see if it lasts better....

 

"pay £100 for another 2 years warranty"

I got three years for that price 5 moths ago.

 

I went through a 6800 Ultra and two 7800 GTX Go's on my XPS Gen 2; the video cards just didn't last. In new games, the 7800 GTX would operate consistently in the 90-100C range, even after freshly installing/cleaning it. I bought my XPS Gen 2 in March 2005 and Dell replaced it with an m1730 this past summer. It probably had something to do with the fact that I bought two more years of warranty last spring because they didn't want to work with me on the issue before that.

I miss my XPS Gen 2, it's my favorite chassis and it was as fast as a high-end desktop at the time I bought it. But I decided I'd rather have it replaced than let the video card die a few months after my warranty runs out (or get replaced at a less convenient time because Dell had no more video cards). The m1730 was a nice hardware upgrade, and the 8700m's in it only heat up by 10C under max load. I've never heard of anyone burning out a video card, so I think the m1730 will last a long time.

If I still had my XPS Gen 2, and it was out of warranty, I'd focus on getting a new machine rather than trying to keep it up and running, at least for gaming. Those video cards are just too expensive to keep buying. Selling is probably a good idea.

 

pffft, my m1710 burn out 2 7950m gtx in 2.5 years. No spare part available, no warranty. $3500 invest down the drain.

And my video card never go over 70 degree.

 

mine was 12 months with extension