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Dell M170 Video Card Compatibility???

post #1 of 2
10/27/07 at 2:18pm
Thread Starter 
The Nvidia GeForce Go 7800 GTX in my Dell is dying/dead.
When I try to play video files or games there is a diagonal line going from the upper left the bottom right corner of the screen; the upper triangle flickers black or shows scenes from the previous video I played. It occasionally locks up the entire computer.
The problems only show up when playing games (total war) or video files on windows applications (winamp, WMP, etc)
Videos played on web pages (youtube, filecabi, etc) work fine.
The Windows environment and all other applications work fine.
I hooked up to a second monitor and the same problems happened on the second monitor.
The 32 bit diagnostics showed no problems and the latest version of direct X didn’t help either.
My guess is that the video card is on its last legs and I was wondering if anyone knew what a suitable replacement is, and where I can get it?
The only GeForce Go 7800 GTX’s I could find are on Ebay for 300+. I know that the GeForce Go 6800 ultra shipped with early Gen 2 XPSs and I know that the GeForce Go 7900GS is the replacement for the 7800 GTX on the M1710 and I was wondering if either could also be used on my M170.
I’m comfortable opening up my system and replacing heat sinks but not with soldering so I need the cheapest drop in replacement. I don’t plan in over-clocking nor do I do any serious gaming. I just need to get my computer up and running again.
Thanks for your help,
Donnie
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post #2 of 2
10/30/08 at 12:39am
I have to tell you and the whole world. I just spent 2 weeks now doing everything possible, thinking its a bad Video Card. Heres the thing, its the heat sink.

Do all these steps and you should have your video card running in no time.

1. Take apart your laptop (may take some time to figure out what disconnects from where), and remove your video card.
2. Useing a star patern screw driver, remove the heat sink from the video card.
3. With a clean paper towel (not damp or wet), clean off the heat sink and GPU processor. There will be some old silver gunk on there from when it was first put together.
4. Once all surfaces are clean, apply a thin layer of OCZ FREEZE Thermal Extreme Conductivity Compound (better then the silver stuff). Make sure you dont put to much on or it will spill over the edge and get on the GPU board. Thin layer all the way around
5. Put heat sink back on and reinstall.
6. Before you put your computer back together, spray out all dust from the fans and heat sink grills.
7. Finally put your computer back together.

Now, once done with the hardware, its time for Software.
I have a Dell M170 Go 7800 GTX Nvidia. Dell assumed graphic driver for this card and so Nvidia doesnt reconize it at all. And by the way, Dell stopped making drivers for it back in 2006 . BUT Nvidia Beta Driver works.

1. Install Nvidia Beta Driver 167.51_forceware_notebook_winxp_32bit_international_beta. Search www.nvidia.com for it. (sry no time to link it)
This driver is way better then what Dell offers.

2. Install i8kfangui. Google it. It tells you the temperature of you CPU, GPU, Memory, Harddrive, etc... and also, you can control your fan speeds.
What I noticed is that my fan speeds were too low and the heat sink was off the GPU Processor, so I set my fan speeds to "Full speed all the time".

After you do all this, your Graphics Card should be back to normal. (mine was )
If not, check you memory (swap out ram with differnt sticks). If that doesnt work, then , your screwed, sry . Ebay sells new cards for 300 bucks (sometimes you can see private sellers for cheaper).

GOOD LUCK!!!!
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