Dell Inspiron 9300 GPU artefact question

Hey all, hope here is the right place to put this up.

I have an old Dell Inspiron 9300 (~3 years old) and a while back the thing would not power up at all. The charger started to make a slight hissing noise so I bought a replacement from a random site via Kelkoo which was cheap and had good reviews.

After it turned up I plugged it in and left it to charge. After a few hours, I removed the charger only to find the laptop die after about 5 seconds - the battery is obviously damaged or dead as it is not holding a charge. When I powered it back up I was able to work on it but again, it had to be plugged in.

About a week of intermittent use I then found that my BIOS screen had artefacts on it, and it would not boot to Windows, sticking on a messed up artefact ridden screen! Booting in safe mode allowed me to get to Windows and there were no artefacts.

It all seems very co-incidental to me, these failures in a short period of time after getting the replacement.

There's the pretty little background, and here are my questions:


1. Is it possible that if the new charger was faulty, it maybe just about powered up my laptop but could be underpowering the Nvidia 6800 inside it??

2. Is it worth trying to get a new battery as well in case the above is true and my card is simply not having the necessary juice through it?

3. Is it likely that the new charger and the battery death and the GPU artefacts / death are connected (technically) or am I just an unlucky guy? I know that when something goes it can take everything with it but there was time in between the power problem and the GPU problem.


Question 2 is dependant on the answer to 1 obviously

The replacement charger is not Dell branded but is a 3rd party which is specific for the 9300.


Any ideas on this would be great even if only confirming my worst fears. If its a case that I could salvage this laptop then it'd make me feel better about the £1200 I spent on it. I know PC hardware and behaviour well enough to know that it sounds as though the GPU is screwed but I know laptops are strange beasts so I thought I'd ask the questions.


I have already looked for replacements for the GPU and I could build a new PC for the cost to replace that one part, so if I am screwed, is there anything to salvage or can anyone point me in the direction of a good project I could get stuck into so as not to totally waste an otherwise perfectly good laptop?? Its not like it is totally fried and burnt out.


Thanks for reading, sorry if it is incoherent - I've had a long day


Alex

 

First thing, it sound like a GPU failure to me.

A 3 year old battery would be "dead" too.

I recommend you get a new laptop for around 700-800 pounds to replace your old laptop. It will be more powerfull too.

 

Thank you for your reply DetlevCM, most appreciated. I will see what I can salvage out of my old laptop as well as power isn't a problem if I can get it working just as a file server or something like that. Can't buy a new laptop yet so I'll have to wait... PC is powerful enough for the time being but it was handy for working around the home

PS do you know how I'd go about getting a replacement card for my Dell?? I guess Dell directly or something, if they even have that sort of a part in stock.

Alex