Whoa...what a pain it is to try to get Dell to fix a laptop! I bought mine from a Canadian company (since defunct) on Ebay & they never did an "ownership transfer", now Dell won't take it in for repair, won't help with the ownership transfer, yada yada yada. After talking with 19 different people at Dell and getting 19 different stories and the full-on runaround, I've decided to try and fix the damn thing myself.
It boots up but the screen is blank. Booting while holding the FN key it goes thru the self-test and fails the graphics part, then the screen comes alive and you can see it going thru the rest of the tests, but it's in a small window and it's still a little messed up - vertical lines running thru the screen.
So I'm going to gamble and try replacing the video card. It's a 7900GS, Dell p/n DG008. New ones are $350-400. I see 'em on ebay for $150-200. Sucks to pay that much for a 2-year old video card. Anyhow I see one guy's selling a UF814 which is the dual heat pipe version...hmm...tempting.
So my question is: I've seen instructions for swapping out the single pipe 7900 for the dual pipe version - it doesn't look too hard. But the instructions say to change the bios first and I can't do that because the screen is blank. Is it possible to put in the dual-pipe card and then change the bios? What will happen if I put in the dual pipe card and try to boot up with the old bios?
Thanks for your help guys!
Dave
It boots up but the screen is blank. Booting while holding the FN key it goes thru the self-test and fails the graphics part, then the screen comes alive and you can see it going thru the rest of the tests, but it's in a small window and it's still a little messed up - vertical lines running thru the screen.
So I'm going to gamble and try replacing the video card. It's a 7900GS, Dell p/n DG008. New ones are $350-400. I see 'em on ebay for $150-200. Sucks to pay that much for a 2-year old video card. Anyhow I see one guy's selling a UF814 which is the dual heat pipe version...hmm...tempting.
So my question is: I've seen instructions for swapping out the single pipe 7900 for the dual pipe version - it doesn't look too hard. But the instructions say to change the bios first and I can't do that because the screen is blank. Is it possible to put in the dual-pipe card and then change the bios? What will happen if I put in the dual pipe card and try to boot up with the old bios?
Thanks for your help guys!
Dave
