Area 51m 5500 766sn3 - Video Card Fan Power Cable

Wow this place has changed! I hope this is the correct sub-section as I no longer see the old problems/repair section.. If not, I apologize in advance.

Hello alien boys and girls! After about four years of loving my alien, he's starting to show the signs of ageing. About two weeks ago I fired up the alien in hopes of finally finishing the Star Wars: Empire at War campaign (as the empire! ha!!) and after a few minuets of play my lappy screen went plaid. I have two bars going down the screen with green/blue blocks. I understand this can be the symptoms of a dying video card or video card corruption.

I've been researching my replacement options and have come across and am in contact with MXM-upgrade. Not being able to find any ATI 96/9700 pro cards online, (am I just not looking hard enough?!) I'm hoping that I can pick up something from them to get my machine up and running again.

On to the issue I'd like some assistance with.. While performing the alien autopsy I believe I may have messed up the video card's fan cable that runs from the module housing to the mobo (See attached image 28, it shows the wires I'm talking about). While trying to unplug the cable the top of the white plastic connector basically disintegrated and allowed the wires to pull free. It looks to me that the bottom half of the connector is still plugged into the mobo, but is proving rather difficult to remove. Can someone please telll me what this connector is called, what the best method is for repair, how the power cable from the video card housing is supposed to be removed (apparently I did it wrong? ), and if this is something I could pick up from radio shack or the like. You can't really tell in the pic, but, the two metal pins that go into the plastic connector housing are there.. the plastic piece is just missing..

Edit: I'm adding two more images, 32 and 34, these of where the fan power cable plugs in. I apologize for the quality of the images, I'm using my blackberry..

Any assistance is greatly appreciated!

PS: all my reps are belong to who?!

Wow.. tough crowd.

I received bad news from MXM...

So essentially my 4 year old, $2300.00 Laptop is now a fancy door stop?

I have issues trusting people that charge $75 - $85 bucks to run a system defrag, lol.

Is this chip a "BGA" chip? Would any of these work?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Yeah, lol, meee tooo!

I've done some more searching and found a card on ebay that looks almost identical to the one I have, but it's a 256 mb version (x700). Anyone have any ideas one using one of these?

So after calling numerous computer shops all across the US, I finally give up and call AMD/ATI directly to see if they have deadstock and wouldn't mind parting with it. They have this card, but they won't sell it to me because I'm not a business. Alienware won't sell it to me because I'm not in warrenty (who freakin is after 4 years). So, basically it's a big scheme to get people to blow more money on a machine that will be a nice shiny door stop in only a few years.

Alienware can shove it, I was looking at new desktops online and was thinking I could get one for my gaming and use the laptop for work, but now screw that. I never want to deal with these people again.

If you want a good gaming rig, build it yourself. No wonder these people got bought out by Dell.

@ littlefrankus 10 years =/= 4

@ alienrod I have tried ztronics, and they have one of the go cards, the lower end one, for about $300. Slightly ridiculous, and the go cards maxed out at 64mb memory, vs the ati that was actually a 128mb card.

The problem with alienware (or any other manufacture) is that ATI has these cards in stock. They won't sell me one because I'm not a business that sells laptops and alienware won't purchase one from them and sell it to me because they'd rather I buy a new laptop from them (lol). Welcome to a disposable economy, created by greed. It's sad, but, it looks like the sheep follow, obviously.

If you want a new ATI Radeon 96 or 9700 pro, your only option is to buy an xbook p5011 for $1949.99, or a siemens lifebook n6010 for 1859.99, or a powerbook g4, or any other "new" laptop that still uses this "no longer supported" card. How can you still sell laptops with outdated hardware? That's rhetorical btw.

Thanks for at least trying to assist alienrod, that assistance is appreciated.

Thanks mate. I believe those dell cards are too big for the alien. But I don't know for sure, that's just from looking at the pic's of them online.

I took it to a shop.. will hear back from them next weekish. Until then, if anyone wants to sell their 96 or 9700 pro....

PS: Where did all the regulars go?! What about that one scary guy... and DarthBevis!!

Ya'll up and buy Sagers or what?

The scary guy was Roided.. if you remember him, lol. I don't know why that just kinda popped in my head just now. Darth never worried me. Well I worried about him.. but not like that. heh.

Anyway, the local shop found one of these non-existant video cards! They quoted me $239.00 for the card plus labor, grand total of about $400 existant dollars! I don't get why obsolete hardware is so expensive! lol!!

And I'll stop being a smart-arsey now. But this really is BS.. had I been able to purchase the card from alienware or even a second hand computer store like excel or ztronics, it would have saved me $200 bucks.. but, I guess you gotta play the game. Oh-well.

It's like they want to hoarde these old parts for some strange reason.. Guess they need spare parts for a Smithsonian display for Monopolies in Americ.. I mean computer parts of the 20th century..

The card the comp store bought was not the right one.. so they sent it back. They called this morning and said they're unable to find this card at any of their contacts. Back to square one, and down $60 bones.