Area-51 M9750 compatible video card replacement

7950GTX cards and 8700 cards will fit in the machine... does it only do this when you have it hooked up to an external monitor...also it wouldnt hurt to check and see if your video card is seated well in the computer...

the 7950 GTX and the 8700 GT will work, as well as the 7900 GS from the M9700 (if you are looking for the cheapest replacement). I'm also going to test to see if the Radeon 3870 from the OCZ Whitebook (Alienware NOW has it as the M17) will work on the M9750 and I will get back to everyone after my findings.

dont know if the bios will recognize the Radeon Card... also the new m17 is alot thicker than the m9750... so cooling could be an issue...

Yeah, the BIOS and cooling might be issues, but since both chassis support Dual MXM-III (though the M17/Whitebook has one MXM-HE slot) and since I will have both notebooks in my possession/ownership, I might as well try. If I'm able to get it to work, I'll also post temps and other essentials.

That would be kewl I guess you could always use the OCZ laptops bios and see if that will work...

Make sure it's not just your inverter panel. Those are relatively cheap and they do fail.

to AREALLYBIGMAN...Did you ever test any other cards on the m9700
?

LOL, hey Johan....

I am in the exact situation as you. Your screenshots are 100% exactly the same as what my 9750 shows currently and I have been on a hunt for replacement cards too. I want to stop using my lcd-tv for the display and get drivers installed (BSOD too), so I dont have to look at the gawd awful 4bit display with the vertical red artifacts.

So far no luck and AW suport gave me same option for either vid card 8700 @ 300+ / 7950 @ 400+. I will probably put this laptop away for awhile until the cards drop in price then maybe I will get the cheapest replacement just to have it running decent.

It was my first experience with AW and it took them 3 tries to get my order right. Already (9750 is only 1yr and 3 months old) I have to drop at least 300+ dollars on it after paying 2000+ for it, originally. Hate to be one of those few kicking themselves for not adding the warranty before the 1yr warranty was up, but I am.

Just wanted to rant a little too and bump ya up.... meanwhile I am going to purchase another notebook (non-AW) and throw this in the closet until I find a solution for it. Nice to know I am not the only one is this situation....

I just wanted to give you guys a quick heads up.

I had this EXACT same problem on a friends AW 9750. At first I thought it was a bad video card, because it seemed to be getting really hot way too quickly. I removed the heatsink and video card, reseated video card, and applied new thermal paste on GPU and memory controller.

Still had the artifacting and would only show up on external monitor.

So then I decided to remove one of the sticks of ram, to see if maybe one of them was bad. I removed the top stick and fired it back up, and bam, it worked fine. I then put the old stick back in, and it still worked. (?!)

The weird thing is, I reseated the ram previously and it did not fix the issue. Maybe there was dust in the ram slot or something, not really sure, but I am going to leave it running overnight and see what happens.

It also strikes me as weird that a RAM issue would cause the internal LCD to stop receiving video and artifact on an external monitor.

Regardless, I hope this helps you guys to resolve your issue.

Scratch that, fluke I guess.. After having it on for a coupe hours it started doing the same thing, and I am now back to square one.

It really looks like a video card issue, but I'd hate to buy one and have it not fix the problem.

yeah my 9750 is packed back up in its original box in the closet. I have since bought an asus n80vn-gp011c to replace it. once i can get a replacement 7950gtx cheaper for the 9750, i'll whip it out again.

I landed an 8600gs on ebay for 70 bucks, hopefully it fixes the problem.

WOuld you sell your m9750 haywood? without video card

The 8600 is not compatible, so I am back to the drawing board. Looking for a 7900 or 7950gtx card, but they are expensive and hard to come by.

hey guys, it's been awhile since i've last posted. i have the same problem, too. all of a sudden, my screen was doing something weird and when i rebooted, the artifacts showed up and got those series of four lines going through my screen. luckily i had warranty and got a replacement card. now i have another problem. after i put in the new card, the laptop started up just fine. and had it on for less than an hour. then the next morning, when i tried to turn it on, the screen wouldn't turn on. the laptop would stay on for a second, maybe two at the most. the fans would turn on and then stop. i can hear the hard drives spin up and then after several seconds turn off. everything shuts off. when i take out the video card and turn it on the laptop stays on. do i have another bad video card? i read another post where the owner had a third party check his laptop out and they determined that the video card wasn't sending power to the motherboard. do you guys think i have the same problem? i'm trying to figure out what is keeping mine from turning on and staying on. i talked to someone at cs at alienware and they're sending a new heatsink, which i'm waiting for. however, i don't think that's the problem, since the fans spin up and i applied new thermal paste.

to HH: where is this inverter panel that you mentioned? how would i go about fixing it, if that's the case?

does anybody else have this problem, too? mine started in november 2008 and mine was only a year and four months when this happened. anybody find a solution yet? i'm going to see if the new heatsink works. if not, then i'll probably ask for another replacement video card. and if THAT doesn't work, then something else is wrong.

i got a first replacement video card and tried to turn it on, but i got the same problem with the computer turning on for a second or two and then shutting off completely. i got my second replacement card last week and it seems to have fixed the problem. however, i did notice some cracks in the gray thermal pad that goes over the video card on the new heatsink. no problems so far, but the fans seem to turn on earlier than usual. i think i'll be applying artic silver pretty soon just to make sure.

so a new video card solved my problem.

The inverter panel is the panel just below the screen that has the power button on it... Here's AW's knowledge base article on the inverter and lcd cable.

It sounds like the system is trying to check the hardware during boot up, and doesn't like what it sees. I would remove and reseat the memory, and make sure all the vid card connections are solid and try again.

Can you get it to boot in safe mode? Hit F8 repeatedly while booting, and if it gives you the option, try to boot in safe mode. This shuts off all extra programs and hardware that isn't needed, and will boot the vid card in vga mode. This is 2 dimensional mode that bypasses the 3d engine on the vid card.

If it'll boot in safe mode, but not normal mode, it could be a bad vid card.

If you have a dry heatpad on the gpu, you should replace it. You should also check the cpu heatsink.

I apply arctic silver to all my systems as soon as I receive them, whether they're home built, or built by a company like Alienware.