7800 GTX slowly dying

Well my nVidia 7800 GTX is slowly dying a slow but steady death. Being stuck at home over the past few years my Dell 9300 with upgraded 7800 GTX GPU has been freezing up more and more lately. This happens mostly while playing WOW (Fenris PVE Server) and has been getting worse unfortunately. Its not an over heating issue really, but I think simply the number of hours its been used. The card rarely hits 80c even during extensive and prolonged game play. The performance of the card has also dropped giving video stutters also lately.

I've cleaned out the laptop (a monthly thing with me opening it completely for cleaning), removed all the dust, replaced the CPU with the original 1.6 not pinmodded, removed and reapplied AS5 to the GPU 2 or 3 times. Nothing has helped. I think that with card being used so hard for the last year or so that its just had enough.

So...

1. I'm looking for a used 6800GO GPU. If anyone has one please let me know! Even if you have a dead 6800go I'd be interested. Not interested in the Ultra.

2. I haven't really looked at Dells latest laptop offerings. I game mostly since I'm home all the time now but don't wanna buy and pay 2 grand for a new system. Looking for suggestions or ideas on a new system.

3. Anyone have any suggestions on a decent gaming PC setup from Dell thats not gonna cost a fortune? I ask this since I'm looking at the new UltraSharp 2707WFP 27-inch Wide-Screen Flat Panel. lol its unlikely but the 24-inch is likely what I'll get.

Thanks for any suggestions. Ohh and Hello to all the oldtimers around here

I'm putting it back to original specs and I'm in hopes that it will work fine. If not then its something other than the gpu and it can go back to Dell since its still covered under warranty. Buying a new 7800GTX is simply not worth the 350 to 400 bucks they are still selling for. I only paid 12 bucks for it with the sale of my 6800go and the deal a few of us got from Dell last year anyways.

I'll likely be buying the Dell 24" LCD and building a fresh desktop for gaming anyways since they offer much better cooling. I'd still like to get this laptop working stable again though.

Hey Fidget! Nice to see you and a few other old timers still around!

Well I've removed the 2nd hard drive and left the slot open.. ie.. I didn't insert the original dvd-rom drive for now. Still not fixed and continues to freeze up. I have another laptop hard drive here so I'll pull the original drive out, install the new drive and do a quick WinXP install sometime in the next few days and see how that goes. My experience with failing hard drives typically included corrupted/lost files, odd noises and errors entries in the system logs. Non of which I've been getting. I have also run RAM tests on each module for an 8 hour period and together for 8 hours with no errors. I've even replaced both modules as a test and still had this freeze so its not the RAM.

As for what exactly happens... Regardless of game play, video/photo editing or browsing the web.. its all the same. Working as usual and there is a display freeze seconds before a system freeze/crash. This is mainly and most easily seen while gaming of course. Everything freezes with the exception of the mouse pointer which can still move around for about 5 to 8 seconds. During this time hitting the Caps Lock key does toggle the LED however you cannot Alt-Tab or Crtl-Alt-Del out or away from whats being displayed. As I stated.. within 5 to 8 seconds of this the mouse pointer also freezes and can't move. This is when its a complete system freeze/crash. It does not reboot or BSOD ever.

You have to hold down the Power button for 4 or 5 seconds in order to turn the system off.

Reasons why I'm thinking its the GPU..

• I'm seeing artifacts quite a bit in game play.
• With game 'Video' settings reduced it happens less.
• The GPU side of the laptop is noticeably hotter (not just warmer) than the CPU side.
• Its the most expensive part in the system of course

As for the GPU settings, they are stock and have been for quite a while now. While it was fun to push it a bit I never pushed it too hard and had reset ti to stock a long time ago.

At idle the GPU is typically around 45c which is warmer than it used to be. As I stated already I've reapplied AS5 to see if that helped but didn't. I've been working on hardware professionally for years so yes.. I know how to properly apply it. During game play (WOW PVP battlegrounds with a lot of movement and 30, 40 or more playing the GPU temp rarely goes over 80c per Ik9FanGUI readings. I've used another App awhile back while within 2c or 3c confirmed these readings.

Quite honestly I game a lot when I'm up and the system has had a very stressed life with the amount of game play its seen. I've ordered a CPU online that matched the original and still looking for another nVidia 6800 GO (non-Ultra) card to put it back to original specs to see how it runs. If it resolves the issues fine! If not well its back to the original specs and its likely something related to the mainboard. At this point I'll call Dell and see what they can do for me since I have the full 4 year CC coverage.

I'll let you know how the hard drive install goes. Any other suggestions are welcome.

|-007-| yeah its still got 2 years of CC warranty. However the problem is that I upgraded the gpu from the 6800GO to the 7800GTX over a year ago (see sig). The 7800GTX is not covered by the warranty of the laptop and the part only came with a 90-day warranty through Dell Spare Parts. So I need to find an original 6800GO card to pop back in for testing.