XPS M1710 Graphics dead!!

well there are several choices including the FX1500, FX2500, and FX3500 GPU's as well, but as you alreqady noticed the price for these cards are at a premium.

You could also drop the cheaper ATI card in, but gaming would take a major hit.

The 7900GS is a decent enough card, you would notice some performance loss, but when over clocked the 7900GS performs well.

I would check the for sale section here, and Ebay has some, just buyer beware make sure the seller offers a warranty of some kind in case the card is DOA, and check thier Reps.

There are no mods necessary to install a FX2500M into a M1710. The only modification that would be necessary would be breaking a small tab in the 9400 that blocks the second heatpipe. But you have a M1710, not a 9400 so this doesn't matter.

Copy - paste, much?

Hi Nonya24,

Yes I have posted the same message in different threads. Is this not allowed?
I am only trying to help out the people here suffering from Dell and Nvidia's crap. Thats all. No links, no emails. Please let me know if this is not acceptable here and I will stop.
Thanks,

Nonya24 is correct. That is not allowed on our forums. Please see our rules section if you have any more questions.

Bake the GPU in the oven, you have nothing to loose. My go 7800GTX came to life again through baking in the oven and it works great.

Hi,
Your baking in the oven is silly even if it worked for you. Did you know that there will be chemicals that will be released into the air in your house if you bake your GPU?

Your fix is only a temp fix and it will soon go bad again.

There is a special machine used to re-flow the GPU and you must know the heat up and cool down temps in order to fix it correctly.

Baking your card in your kitchen oven is not safe or the correct way of fixing this problem.

There are fixes out there, PM me if you want some more info. I would be glad to help out anyone.

These cards are selling for $325-$400 on ebay. But I talked to an ebay seller the other day and he told me I could buy direct from Dell for $175. Maybe check with Dell parts to see if there's any accuracy for this.
Even if this is a bulk price he's getting for like buying 5 at a time. I'm sure there are 5 of us (me being one) who would be interested in getting a 7950gtx for $175.

Hi,

Dell does not have anymore of these cards. They also do not have the FX3500 GPU's too. I just got off the blower with them. The guy who told you this is dreaming.

when you say bake you mean like broil or 175f could you give some precision my 7950gtx is dead or at least will only post true the dvi port and will have green dot

EDIT:
mouhahahahahahahahahaha! it work damn it, it does! 8min at 385f
method used
let oven go to 385f
set card in pie plate on small aluminium ball with gpu facing up
make sure you clean the card from all tape, hs compound and heat sink before doing so
leave in oven for 8min but shut down oven after 4 min but dont open door ounce the 8min mark is reached open wide the oven door and let it cool for a good 30 to 45 minute
reassemble laptop with new paste for the gpu and tada your done no more green line dot works perfect

just wanted to say its been ~25 days now my 7950gtx as been working perfect been playing a good 1 to 2 hour a day (graw, gow, etc..) and using it to work with mastecam and inventor a good 4 to 6 hour a day and no problem so far.

here is a more precise description of the way i did my "reflow"

*****THE FOLLOWING IS TO BE DONE AT YOUR OWN RISK AND IS NOT 100% GARANTIED*****
so basically here is how i did it:
1- open laptop and take out gfx card
2- unscrew hsf and carefully pry out hsf taking care not to squach or loose any of the blue thermal pad
3- clean gpu from the excess thermal compound
4- turn on oven at 190c "take note that the use of a oven thermometer is recommended as oven are not precise and you might have to play a bit with the oven temperature to get it close to 190c"
5- wait for oven to reach its temperature
6- while oven heat up prepare the gfx card by sitting it gpu upside up in a alumunium pie plate with little ball of aluminium to prevent it from sitting directly in the bottom of the plate also try to place the ball so that they touch the least amount of electronic part
7- carefully ounce the oven as reached its temperature put the plate with the gfx in the oven and close the door "this operation should be done rapidly as you dont want the oven to turn the heating element for to long to restablish its temperature"
8- wait 4 to 5 min and turn off oven "do not open door" leave it for another 4 min with oven at off and door closed, at this point you gfx should have been in the oven for ~9min at this point slightly open the door of the oven to slowly let the temprature fall for a good 30min **DO NOT TOUTCH THE CARD OR MOVE IT WHILE IT COOL** after that 30 minute periode fully open the oven door and wait another 15min before taking the card out of the oven, now be carefull even if the card might not feel that warm to the toutch the soldering joint are still weak and the card should be left for another good 15 min to cool down to room temprature.
9- you card is now ready to be reassembled i recommend you visit your computer shop prior to the whole operation and ask to get some ARTIC SILVER COMPOUND this will help eleviate part of the temprature problem *** carefull when applying the compound A.S. is conductive so care should be taken not to put any on the rest of the gfx and should be only a thin layer on the die itself ***
10- reseat the card in the laptop and reassemble the laptop, turn on the laptop and if all went fine you should be greeted by a fully working m1710

ps:mine as been working now for a full month without a bug playing a good 1 to 2 hours a day (r6 vegas2, graw, left 4 dead) and running some cad/cam around 4 to 6 hours (mastercam x3 and inventor 2009)

i also recommend you use I8Kfangui to monitor temp and set the fan to operate at slow as soon as it reach 40c on the cpu side and 50c on the gpu, i know this will shorten the battery charge but its that or a rapidly overheating lappy.

Another cool input on "baking"

cheers ...

Somewhere in Melbourne, Australia... an oven is being warmed up with a 7900GTX prepped and ready to go

[edit] 6:05PM AEDST : Just put this in the oven. Posting this from another laptop (the Compaq C302TU laptop that I played around with in the thread over here)

[edit] 6:15PM AEDST : As per ataxy's instructions, the patient is now at rest after the 8 minute treatment.

[edit] 8:25pm AEDST : (puts on "Borat" voice) GREAT SUCCESS!!! Posting this from it now. Cheers for the more precise instructions. Rep coming your way ataxy!

Another crazy "baker" and successful at that - Thanks for the feedback.

cheers ...

my pleasure glad it could help it is really unfortunate that dell did not make a better job on the case of this laptop and on a bios update that would have helped fan control

ps: there is a petition @ petition online in regard of the overheating of the dell m1710
http://www.petitiononline.com/XPSM1710/petition.html

The reason why it took a long time between edits of the post a few back was because I also made dinner (hot and sour pork fillet/mushroom broth) whilst it was cooling down. I'll have to posts some pics up.

I'm pretty familiar with that chassis after ripping apart my previous Dell 9400 numerous time to clean it and mod it from the single heatpipe 7800GS to the dual heatpipe 7900GS bought from Baltha'zar (spelling?) off here a few years ago.

tought i should add this to help other with the setting of i8kfangui
for your own info and for others
in i8kfangui go to option:
autostart --
select autostart

temperature control --
select enable cpu temperature control and enable both fan and set it as follow
1 60c - 50c -slow - fast
2 70c - 60c -fast - fast
3 80c - 70c -fast - fast
4 85c - 80c -fast - fast
select enable gpu temperature control and enable both fan and set it as follow
1 50c - 40c -slow - slow
2 60c - 50c -slow - fast
3 70c - 60c -fast - fast
4 80c - 70c -fast - fast

advanced--
temperature compensation
cpu temp. offset 2c
gpu temp. offset 10c

thats about it if anyone as question post ill do my best to help

yes, remove the heat pipes, and any thermal pads

Clean off any thermal grease.

basically you want just the board no attached items.

also some feel placing the board so that the large MXM connector is facing up is the way to go.

after baking you should apply new grease, and pads if you have them.

If the pads are still in decent shape you can reuse them