m6400 Covet - Random World of Warcraft Crashes

I received a reply from Dell yesterday most of which I have posted below (with identifying items removed).

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The first thing we will have to do is establish whether the fault is being caused by hardware or software. A good first step would be to run the Dell diagnostics on the system. To do this download the diagnostics utility from http://ftp.us.dell.com/diags/CW1343A0.exe. After this has downloaded you will then get the option to either create a .iso file to burn to CD, or create a bootable USB drive.

After you have done this boot the diagnostics, by tapping the F12 key when the system starts up and then selecting the relevant boot device. Select 'Test System' and then 'Express' test. This test will take around 15 minutes to complete. It may also be a good idea to run the Video tests as well, which can be accessed via the 'Custom' menu.

Also, would it be possible for you to revert to the 64 bit driver listed on the Dell Support website? An updated driver was released on 12/06, and can be downloaded from http://ftp.us.dell.com/video/R223782.exe.

Thanks for sending the link to the forum as well, I'll keep the link on file and check it periodically to see if anyone else managed to get the problem resolved. A lot of the information (but not all) posted on the forum are valid troubleshooting steps, so feel free to try anything you come across on the thread.

 

My reply to Dell;

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I have run the diagnostics as you have suggested and received one error;

Error Code: 5300:0D23
Msg: VIDEO - No BIOS support for SMI interface function.

This may only suggest a feature is turned off in the BIOS so untestable I guess?

I also ran the video tests and all tests completed succesfully.

I've checked my previous driver downloads and I don't seem to have one for R223782 so its possible I didn't try this driver yet. I've downloaded and installed it now, so I'll see how that goes.

 

@ lozman, I ran those diagnostics and came back clean as well.

I have two more questions to throw on the table of discussion.

1) If this is a voltage regulator problem, why does it fail more often with certain video drivers than others?

2) If this is a voltage regulator problem, can it be caused by the E-port Plus replicator only being hot dockable? I think this might be a possibility since I only have XP installed and it scares me every time I dock and un-dock.

 

Video card replaced, going on 24hrs now without a problem. Normally would see something in 15-60 minutes so looks like it's good. I watched the tech replace the card and it's my personal belief that the video card might not have been the problem, though. There are a few power MOSFETS directly under the card (on the motherboard) that make contact through thermal pads to the heatpipe on the video card itself. I think in the process of him replacing the card, he ended up just getting a better mating to these devices and resolved the issue.

 

It appears that the threshold for failure is extremely narrow...eg, some people can run on battery alone without problems. I would speculate that different drivers might end up causing the card to pull minor power differences and that could be the factor here.

 

Yep I agree. I installed the Dell driver as requested by the Dell Tech and it seemed to fail far more frequently so I reinstalled the laptopvideo2go one and its seems a bit more stable now, albeit crashed about 5 tiimes over the weekend

Update: The Dell Tech also asked me to upgrade the BIOS to AO5 which is currently the latest. (I was on A04).

You can download A05 BIOS here... http://ftp.us.dell.com/bios/M6400A05.EXE

Having said that though it made no difference to the problem.

Dell have now booked out an engineer to come and replace my graphics card tomorrow. I'll post back after this with any updates.

Cheers,
Lozman.

 

Let me know if it goes well lozman

 

Dell engineer has been and gone. I was amazed at just how much he had to take off of my laptop in order to get to the graphics card almost to the point of concern since he didn't seem to worry about where he put the bits he removed; they were just all over the desk.

But, its all together now and looks just as he left it, so fingers crossed, the problem will now be fixed.

I'll give it a good test today and tonight and report back.

Cheers,
Lozman.

 

I've just started to run a video card stress test tool on my machine - It's not really appropriate to play WoW while I'm at work

The one I am using is Furmark (http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/) running at 1920x1200 resolution with 4xAA.

If anybody knows of any other test tools such as this please let me know.

I'll leave it running for the rest of the day and let you know how it goes.

Cheers,
Lozman.

 

Did your other card fail on this specific test.