M6400, black screens. I need some help!

Dell swapped out my graphic cards 2x and it works now...
when it shuts down, the center back of laptop, next to the power connector is very hot?

call them and ask them to come and replace the graphic card... or go with the ATI version...

not really windows issue for me...

 

Off topic?

GK

 

lol... not really... i too had black screens when i was playing games and noticed my graphic card area was very hot... at times too hot to touch...

there's threads about these even in dell forums and basic consensus was to swap out the card... fixed mine after 2 swaps...

 

I understand now... I'm slow today!

GK

 

hahaha... tis fine... i'm slow every day...

 

Try removing one of your RAM sticks and see if that helps. If so, swap the one stick with the other and test if the ram is defective or the slot is defective. GL

 

The area that Kinghong mentionned is also extremely hot to touch in my M6400 as well. As I described this is the 3rd time that they are installing the GFX card. Btw, can I really ask for the ATI version?

I had another long discussion with DELL and they said that they will not replace anything until I reinstall Windows. I will call them again today because yesterday I had 2 more black screens that have nothing to do with gaming. In one case I tried to recalculate the Windows Index (since I put the second disk in I have not done and I just clikced on it while fulling around in the Control Panel) and the second time when I tried to install the original drivers that came when the machine was shipped. What do you make of it??

If I do reinstall Windows (which might not be that bad a thing after all) I will go with Win7 and most probably I will also get an OCZ Agility 2 240GB for the OS and some crucial software and let the rest on the 2nd HDD.

 

tvicious I have not ye swapped the RAM modules arround but I run all the diagnostics concerning RAM (the ones that are run before the main diagnostics panel is shown and that take more than 20 min to complete) and all came back OK.
Shouldn't a problem be picked up there?

 

If the shutdowns are chronic, testing each RAM module/slot individually would be a simple and prudent step to be sure that hardware is not suspect. Then you can move on with some added confidence.

At this point, the video is suspect. But a re-image is prescribed by Dell and again, would be a worthwhile step before moving on to replacing suspect hardware.

Moving to Win7 now makes sense in the course of troubleshooting, since Win7 will be a solid improvement that you will want to integrate with your system asap. However, you might want to hold any other hardware changes until you have isolated and fixed the shutdown problem. For instance, an SSD and old system drive might introduce some issues that just delay the video debug. I would put Win7 on the existing drive and see where the shutdown problem stands... just plan to re-install Win7 more than once. And maybe Win7 on the old drive will be performance enough for now.

GK

 

What BIOS version does your system have now? I am experiencing exactly the same issue, but the PC did not shut down. It just went black and hanged. I am wondering if drivers or BIOS would be the problem. I have already downloaded the latest Directx SDK, so that shouldn't be the case.