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Geforce Go 6800 replacement

post #1 of 8
2/20/08 at 12:32pm
Thread Starter 
I've had an inspiron 9300 with a geforce go 6800 in it for over 2 years now and I've never had a problem with it until a few days ago. Out of nowhere the video card just craps out from what I assume would be overheating. After a couple days of looking the only place I've managed to find a replacement is on ebay but it seems a little pricey for such an old card. I was wondering if anyone here might know where to get one or know of another card that would fit in without too much modding for a reasonable price. I read the thread on this forum about putting a geforce 7800 or 6800 ultra in but I don't know if I want to try that since I don't trust myself enough to do it right and I can't afford a new laptop if I mess it up.

Any help here would be great, thanks.
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post #2 of 8
2/20/08 at 12:34pm
if you can replace the 6800, its more than likely you can put in the 7800 by yourself... i think it just requires a bios mod, dont quote me on that tho
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post #3 of 8
2/20/08 at 4:00pm
by the way: did you patch your bios on your 6800 card so you could overclock it?

I think that's what did my 6800 in... it ran fine for years, then all of a sudden, the machine became VERY over the area around the LOP: keys, where it turns out the video card is... even when mostly idle, the card would be that hot... eventually the memory gave out.

Replaced with the 7800 and it runs far cooler.

Note that I didn't actually overclock the machine... just flashed the video card bios... just wondering if 6800 bios flashing is fatal, eventually...
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post #4 of 8
2/20/08 at 4:29pm
hm, out of no-where, from overheating? Either you overclocked it too much and never noticed the heat, or the dust in the heatsinks got so bad, that the cooling crapped out. I have a gen-2 (practically the same computer) and i have to regularly (means like yearly) clean out the dust. And im oc'd.

Check the WTB forum, on this site.
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post #5 of 8
2/20/08 at 10:37pm
Thread Starter 
You guys are assuming I know something about this stuff, I don't really even know what the hell bios are. Before my video card fried I would have thought overclocking would mean that you have more than one alarm clock next to your bed. I've never tampered with any of that stuff, it ran fine when I got it so I've never felt the need to mess with it. I'm pretty sure it overheated since I never cleaned the vents out, and after it crapped out I found that the radiator thing on the card was jam packed with dust. It still works slightly but it's very temperamental, the screen is usually partially scrambled and it occasionally locks and whenever I try to run a game involving 3d it will scramble and lock up almost immediately. Basically what I'm asking is if there's a fast, cheap and easy way to fix this, or am I shooting for the moon here?
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post #6 of 8
2/21/08 at 12:46pm
Your card probably just died, it happens.

No, lum didn't "patch" his BIOS because it was already unlocked by default as were all vanilla 6800's.
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post #7 of 8
2/22/08 at 6:22pm
I would replace the card with whatever you can get cheapest. I swapped in a 7800GTX when they were under $300, but they are more scarce now. The 7800GTX running at medium performance (where I usually use it due to heat/battery concerns) performs similarly to the 6800 running at regular 3D performance (it's max setting). The 7800GTX just offers the option to run faster when needed.
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post #8 of 8
2/22/08 at 6:36pm
Make no mistakes, the 7800GTX is significantly better than the vanilla 6800go but it just really isn't price efficient.
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