NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Forums › Dell Home (Inspiron, XPS, Studio) › Thought I had a bad video card...very confused.
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Thought I had a bad video card...very confused.

post #1 of 11
9/22/10 at 2:02am
Thread Starter 
So I thought I had a bad 7900GS Go video card in my E1705. Was showing the classic signs of a bad card...artifacts on the screen and distorted text etc. I looked at pictures of other people who had the same "bad video card" problem and it looked just like mine.

So I put an ad on craigslist and sold it as-is with the bad video for for $175. Got a buyer. Now here's the weird thing...I wiped the hard drive using DBAN and once the drive was wiped, the card seems fine now. I reinstalled XP and installed the 7900GS drivers and it's looking totally fine. What gives???? Have it running now for 10 hours straight and no problems. Can anyone explain this? What would cause a video card to go from bad to fine after a hard drive wipe and reinstall of XP?

Debating whether to sell it now.

Thanks!
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 11
9/22/10 at 3:06am
Driver corruption my friend.

It's not unheard of, in fact sometimes you can't boot correctly because of it and can get bsods.

Just to be safe I'd do some benchmarks with it. Or sell it and let people know what happened. If it was the gpu, it might have baked itself during the install, since without driver support it just goes onto the highest voltage and without fans on full could heat up alot, and if for long enough, well it might be enough for a self bake. I've heard of people doing this by putting their lappies upside down, turning off the fans and just letting the card run hot for half an hour. Benchmarks and rapid cooldowns and warmups will tell you if its a bad gpu, since if it was a shatty bake in the laptop, thermal stress should cause your problem to come back again if its a bad solder joint.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 11
9/22/10 at 10:56am
$175 is a good deal (for buyer) on an E1705

And yes, follow matchbox advice if you go through with the sale

cheers ...
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 11
9/22/10 at 11:29am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the replies! Sort of a newbie when it comes to benchmark testing as I haven't been in the PC world in a few years...what's a good benchmark to run that will stress my card?

Thanks again!
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 11
9/22/10 at 11:35am
3D Mark would do. If you are at it, submit it into NBF database

http://www.notebookforums.com/my-benchmarks.html

cheers ...
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 11
9/22/10 at 12:18pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by qhn View Post
3D Mark would do. If you are at it, submit it into NBF database

http://www.notebookforums.com/my-benchmarks.html

cheers ...

Dont know if Im looking in the wrong place...but all I can find is a pay version of 3DMark at their website...is there anything thats free that I dont have to spend $ on? Thanks!
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 11
9/22/10 at 12:28pm
No need to pay - you can use it for trial whilst testing - good for 30 days I believe.

cheers ...
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 11
9/22/10 at 6:25pm
Thread Starter 
So I was only able to get 3DMark03 and 3DMark05 to run. The others gave me errors when launching the program and wouldnt even allow me to get IN to the benchmark. Anyway, ran both of those benchmarks a few times and no errors and my card seems like its working completely normal.

Do you think this was a corrupt driver issue? I mean, the artifacts went away the second that DBAN finished its wipe of the hard drive, once it finished the hard drive wipe and I restarted, the artifacts were gone.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 11
9/22/10 at 6:52pm
I definitively hope that it was a corrupt driver (everything is pointing to it at the moment). It's a lot cheaper than a foobar GPU

cheers ...
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 11
9/23/10 at 1:13am
Indeed. And I have seen it before. Id look into a new hard drive though, it's obviously having issues.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 11
9/23/10 at 1:14am
At the very least run scandisk so windows maps the bad sectors and doesn't use them.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Forums › Dell Home (Inspiron, XPS, Studio) › Thought I had a bad video card...very confused.