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766 Video Card(?) Issue

post #1 of 8
12/9/06 at 9:55pm
Thread Starter 
Hey there, im new to the forums, and am here because of alienware's failure to help me on an issue that has kept my computer away from me for about 4 months now.

To start, the only two places this problem occurs is in World of Warcraft, and when i run 3dMark05. I boot up these two programs, seem fine for a second or two then BAM, crazy artifacts all over the place. Updating my video card (ati 9700) drivers does nothing. As far as i can tell, it is only in these two programs because when i got my laptop back last time, i was able to play Quake 4 for an hour or two with no problem at all. I relayed this info to Alienware support, but now that i've gotten it back AGAIN after a month of it being away, it still does the same thing upon arrival. My motherboard has been replaced, and my video card has also been replaced (4 times total now) and had a problem with a faulty RAM module, which hasn't been a problem since. I'd truly appreciate any and all ideas you can come up with because im sick of having nothing done when i send it back to Alienware for repairs.

If you need any additional info from me, just post and ill respond as soon as i can.
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post #2 of 8
12/14/06 at 3:44am
Let's start with these:

1. Have you tried playing another game (like Quake 4) more recently? From your description I would expect this to happen with any 3D game.

2. When you exit the game, do the artifacts persist? (Do you see them on the desktop?)

3. You say both your motherboard and video card have been replaced? When was your motherboard replaced, and when was your video card last replaced?
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post #3 of 8
12/14/06 at 12:44pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Modal
Let's start with these:

1. Have you tried playing another game (like Quake 4) more recently? From your description I would expect this to happen with any 3D game.

2. When you exit the game, do the artifacts persist? (Do you see them on the desktop?)

3. You say both your motherboard and video card have been replaced? When was your motherboard replaced, and when was your video card last replaced?

1) Yes, actually, after the latest repair (got the comp back this past saturday), the problem now occurs in every game i have tried.

2) No, one i exit the game, the artifacts stop.

3) The motherboard was replaced about a month ago, when the computer was first sent in for this problem. After i got it back, the problem still persisted, so i sent it back and they replaced the video card, and i got the "fixed" computer back last sat. I haven't had more than a week total with my comp since sept.
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post #4 of 8
12/14/06 at 11:50pm
At this point, it definitely sounds like a hardware issue (it sounds like a bad video card), but see if you can answer these questions anyway:

1. When you start a 3D game, do the artifacts appear *immediately*, or do things look normal for a few seconds beforehand?

2. Can you describe the artifacts? Are you seeing horizontal & vertical lines all over, repeating patterns, or crazy triangles?

3. Did you say your laptop is a 766 (a few years old, used or inherited?)
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post #5 of 8
12/15/06 at 1:19am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Modal
At this point, it definitely sounds like a hardware issue (it sounds like a bad video card), but see if you can answer these questions anyway:

1. When you start a 3D game, do the artifacts appear *immediately*, or do things look normal for a few seconds beforehand?

2. Can you describe the artifacts? Are you seeing horizontal & vertical lines all over, repeating patterns, or crazy triangles?

3. Did you say your laptop is a 766 (a few years old, used or inherited?)

1) It usually appears immediately upon entering the game.

2) Crazy Triangles that make me want to tear my eyes out.

2) yes, its a 766, i bought it before the summer of my freshman year of college (summer '04), and still have a year left on warranty.
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post #6 of 8
12/16/06 at 3:06am
So, it sounds like your video card is broken (it doesn't sound like an overheating issue). The symptoms sound like the ones I experienced recently (see http://www.notebookforums.com/thread180492.html ), but since you don't see any artifacting outside of games, it means that something in the 3D pipeline is broken. It *could* be repairable, if it happens to be a few very specific ball-grid-array connections (see my post in the other thread), but it may be that something inside the GPU or board is permanently burnt. It doesn't sound like a motherboard problem, since it's unlikely a problem that specific would occur with two motherboards in a row.

On the bright side, it sounds like you have an extended warranty. Have you tried to have them send you a replacement video card? You said they replaced it a few times already, but I'd hope they would test the damn thing before sending it back to you. If possible, have them send you the replacement card, because it will be faster than shipping your laptop out, and you know for sure that you're getting a different (hopefully new) card.

Also, they have a very limited quantity of those cards left- I don't think Alienware is out to get anybody, but I would be more trusting if they sent you a replacement video card rather than require you to send in your laptop (at which point you have to take them at their word that they actually replaced your card).
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post #7 of 8
12/16/06 at 10:20am
Did you try lowering the AGP bus speed from 8X to 4X? It often helps with such issues.
There should be an application for that in your master CD in the AGP driver folder, it was called AGP utility or something. There was a tutorial how to do this for ATI cards in this forum, but it was some time ago, try to search for it.
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post #8 of 8
1/3/07 at 7:31pm
I had similar probs right from the beginning, until someone suggested to me that I should set AGP back to 4x instead of 8x (ATI menu, Smartgart). This solved all my probs, check it out!
You won't notice a difference in performance.
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