wow, that is the EXACT problem I have, and I couldnt have described it better. I'm going to make a call to pctorqu first thing today once I get home from DC, and I will notify you of what they say. I feel the exact same way, I cant live long without a high end laptop and that I paid all this money just to have it shut down after the first 4 months. Yeah, mine started out the same way...occasional small triangles and artifacts. Now when I play UT2K4 (god, i dont even bother with EQ2 or Doom 3 anymore) for more than 5 minutes, it will start to artifact. After about 15-20 minutes, it will get so bad that I will literally be unable to see where I am going or who I am firing at. Even staring straight at the ground will produce unwieldly results. I can exit out, but again, I will have the random dead pixel problem too. Restart fixes it, but this is absolutely unacceptable. I've noticed, however, that when it artifacts, the temperature takes a plunge as if the GPU isnt working as hard. There seems to be SOME correlation between temperature and artifacting, although I wouldnt see why becuase it is always far below anything near critical (it usually maxes at 57, whereas preartifacting, it would get to 63-66 during gaming and be in the safe zone). Do you too have an extreme edition processor? There may be a link. Nice (although not really, you know what I mean) to hear I'm not alone.

strife, i have a northwood, a few weeks ago i started noticing lag in my games and after about 30 mins. of playing my menus on my games began blocking out, with large black boxes on the corners, etc. i'm not sure if this is considered artifacting, but then the black boxes began to affect my game play. my unit had a constant temp of 52C when idling (the fans never shut off). i'm not sure what it was when i played games, got much hotter tho. i replied to another one of your threads telling you to pull the panel off your heatsink and check to make sure there are no clogs. compressed air would not remove my clog from my heatsink. after removing the clog, my temps dropped back down and cycled b/t 40-50C. this helped my games, i stopped noticing the black boxes and it didn't seems to lag anymore. i still notice a little lag in CS:source, but all other games seem to be fine. again i have the northwood, so i hope this will help you out. i'm curious to see what sager says about your problem, i hope this isn't the beginning of a very bad problem. my unit is only 4 months old as well.

It is amazing on how many individuals have had this problem after having the system for a period of time. I too had a problem with artifacting the same as listed above. Everything normal and then suddenly artifacting in all areas of the system (games, surfing, etc). I contacted Hypersonic and they had me return it and replaced the motherboard/video. I ended up getting the new BIOS this way.

But it definitely seems to be a common problem with these systems. How about they replace all 8790s (and GX7's in my case) with the new models. Ok... time to stop dreaming.

The problem definitely isnt with heating because it doesnt get up to gaming temperatures when artifacting. Before it started artifacting, it would go up to about 63-66C every time I did anything at all that involved the graphics card, even run a GBA emulator. Now with artifacting, it tops out at 58 (highest I've seen it go), which means (or would appear to suggest) that there is something hindering the function of the GPU, be it software or hardware malfunction. I have cleaned out my system as I said before, and I did see two dust bunnies in the fans. I tried to remove them with a needle, but gave up and figured I was satisfied with the job I had done after removing a dustbowl from the inside of my laptop.

There does, however, seem to be a correlation between artifacting and heat dissipation in this case. If I turn the fans on turbo, it will slow the eventual artifacting, however it will not stop it from completely destroying any hopes for gaming for over 10 minutes at a time. I have taken a couple of screens in an effort to help explain.


This is what UT2K4 looks like about 3 or 4 minutes into it. Rapidly appearing/unappearing triangles take over your screen in a mess that resembles something of an animal being slaughtered infront of you, and its insides being thrown against your screen...in 32x speed.


This is what happens after you get out of the game and try to go to a website. It starts artifacting pretty badly like this if you try and scroll down.

Hope this helped spark a bit more interest in this particular problem and/or solved a couple questions.

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=54321

same problem, different thread

I just got my 8790 back today from sager. It had the same exact problem: artifacts ruin any game that uses 3d acceleration. I dunno what they fixed, but have been playing some games now (vampires: bloodlines) for 2-3 hours @ stock clock with no artifacts at all. So whatever they did fixed the problem for me. Also it seems my machine is running a lot cooler than b4. Normally idling temp is 45 ish with my laptop cooler and 60ish gaming. Now it's idling at 40ish even without the cooler, and gaming is 50ish w/out max fan. So i'd definitely recommend you RMAing your machine.

Your screen shots look exactly like mine. I RMA'ed my 8790 this week. Hopefully when I get it back he artifact problem is gone. Its wierd how all these artifacting problems are appearing around the same time.

RMA is the only option here. I understand them fighting because I did the same thing for several months (had to send mine to Taiwan, tho'; details in my review) due to money issues.

However, for all involved, the sooner you RMA it, the sooner you'll get a working unit back. And as for what Ratmyr said, I'm of the same opinion, really. There's got to be a point where this gets to be too much. I figure fix it ASAP, so if it craps out one or 2 more times, then at least there's the possibility of being covered under warranty. Since these've been discontinued, how long are motherboards going to be available? I have an idea that, at this rate, we're all going to find out sooner or later.

For everyone w/ these problems, do you have the older original models (like mine? One of the initial units sold by PCT in March) or the newer WSXGA+ models? I'm thinking that the older units are the ones that are more susceptible here, but I wanted to ask and make sure.

Problem with trying to guage the heat of the GPU is that we simply can't do that with any available tools. Mobmeter only presents CPU heat and that area is way on the other side of the machine. Try cleaing out the area underneath the keyboard and see if that makes a difference.

I think that the GPU is under the QWE123ESCF1F2F3 area of teh keyboard and the CPU is below the power button. Mat be wrong; but that's the areas that get warm (Hot) on occasion. Not the left wrist pad - thats teh HDD, Bluetooth, and WiFi "Heaters".

i got mine around march and rma'ed it last week.

Same here

Mine was of the April bunch and I received it in May. The screen shots you showed above (especially the web) was exactly what mine was doing. It got worse if you kept rolling the scroll bar up and down fast. I knew it was something that I had to get fixed right away and so I rma'd it. No problems since and I am going on almost three months now.

When I started having problems, I did the "loosen the screws" bit, completely cleaned it out with spray air and other items. Just could not find a solution. Oh well, definitely happy now.

Forgot to mention (and can't figure out if I can re-edit my post). When my problems started, I had to seriously downclock my system. And even after awhile, that was causing the artifacting as well.

Wanted to share that in case someone has done this and thinks this has solved their problem. Thanks.

I ordered mine in July and got it in the beginning of august, so its the newer version with the WXGA+ screen. When you guys clean the keyboard, did you remove the keys? I'm going to pick up some dust off right now and give it one more try. Sager should be calling me within 2 hours to set up and RMA

I ordered mine in July and got it in the beginning of august, so its the newer version with the WXGA+ screen. When you guys clean the keyboard, did you remove the keys? I'm going to pick up some dust off right now and give it one more try. Sager should be calling me within 2 hours to set up and RMA