Repeated Dead Video Cards / Mobo Replacements

I've owned my M14X for under 6 months now, and I'm in the process of sending it back presumably for its second motherboard replacement. The first time was to address an unstable NVIDIA card, and I'm guessing that this will be the case this time as well.

i7-2720QM
8GB DDR3-1600
GT555M 3GB
500 gig Dell SATA replaced with 120 gig Corsair Force GT (running just fine at 6GB/s SATA so I'm hoping they don't update my BIOS)
Stock BIOS, A05 I think

I bought this not just for the gaming, but the CUDA processing. I don't use hibernate (disabled it, removed the file), and have no crashing/freezing issues related to the HDD. Currently in a dual-boot setup running Ubuntu and Win 7 Ultimate. Gaming has been fairly limited - Crysis 2, Skyrim, and a little Combat Arms - but I do push the GPU pretty hard sometimes with some piece of code recompiled for CUDA.

When the GPU dies, I get artifacts and choppy renders, as well as random crashes out of programs (yeah, I know Skyrim does that anyway). Currently can't even boot into Windows and open up the NVIDIA panel without the system going into a locked up state where the it loads the GPU up and freezes the system as it gets hotter and hotter. Fan works fine, and there's no dust blockage.

Is this constant parts replacement something that I can continue to look forward to?

Should I be contemplating dropping another couple hundred dollars to upgrade to an M17x if they offer me a refund?

Anything to do to mitigate these problems?

I'm kinda stuck, and kinda regretting this purchase.

 

Your corsair is an SSD like mine, not a hard drive. I had similar issue when I first got it in 2010 with my m11x R2. I believe it might help to update to the latest firmware from corsairs website. It means wiping your drive though....

 

To be clear, I have no issues related to the HDD whatsoever, only the graphics card related problems. And those don't go away when I swap the spinning drive back in.

The Force GT has worked flawlessly, and I'm very, very, VERY happy with the performance. Dreading the probable upgrade to A08 when this goes in...Hoping I can reflash back to something that doesn't suck.

 

i think so - its like the m1330 all over again.

 

As I said in another thread...I'd gladly swap for an equivalently-specced M17x, even a refurb. I'd even take the credit for this one applied to a new or refurbed M17x, if my wife hadn't been laid off yesterday.

I'm debating whether I want to disable the turbo mode or hyperthreading in an attempt to cool the thing down when I get it back, or if I want to just keep using it as normal in the hopes that Dell will make this right if they can't get me a working M14x.

 

Got it back today. The sheet that it came back with said that they'd performed an OS reload with nothing else, and it resolved the issue...but the keyboard was flashing the same as it did when I first got a mobo replacement.

I figured "OK, let's see whether that's true," and ran two Unigine Heaven benchmarks (highest detail/FSAA/etc.), one with the driver it came back with (265.something) and one with the latest official nVidia reference drive (285.something?). It ran fine with the old driver, and about 2 fps and between 20 and 30 points better with the new one.

Dropped the SSD back into it, and I found that they'd either replaced a tab that I broke...or also replaced a motherboard. The SSD, with no changes made since pulling it to send the laptop back with the stock drive in it, booted fine. It even benchmarked fine - something that it would NOT do prior to whatever repair was performed.

Dropping the back-reved Killer driver on it so I can get online now, but it looks to me like this was more than just an OS reload.

Not cool.

 

if you have noticed any hardware changes, they could have replaced something.. i shipped my laptop back to them just yesterday and mades sure to put marked colors that they wont notice. 7beeps was my problem and it should be a CPU/mobo problem.. they said they would just replace my motherboard but i dont know.. i have read that they might replace our systems sent back to them with refurbs.. that would be scary..

 

Don't particularly care if I get a refurbished box - I got one in the first place, with the understanding that it'd be a like-new return.

Day 3.5 of use, and I'm seeing SSD problems with a frequency I've never had before. I said initially that I'd never had SSD problems before, but that's only semi-true. After the SSD install, I'd had instances where it wouldn't boot to Windows every once in a while, but it always worked after a hard reset, and it never failed to boot to Ubuntu, so I didn't worry about it. After getting the laptop back with "just an OS reload" (see above for my reservations on the truth of that statement), I've had no less than 3 dozen lockups during boot, and it's now also failing while booting to Ubuntu.

I'm currently sitting, waiting for it to repair Windows 7 after 6-7 straight failed boots. It's been sitting here for close to an hour.

Not cool.

Edit: And now on Monday AM we've just got beeping on startup. $*#&!!!

Edit II: On the phone with Dell now. 1 beep on startup. Pulled the battery, pulled the A/C adapter, drained the power, and retried startup, now getting 7 beeps. So BIOS/MOBO or CPU, or both.

 

wth? 3.5 days, seriously? this is madness... man, demand a new laptop or you'll be sitting on that spot where you will hold your breath every time you turn on your laptop hoping it wouldn't beep..

 

so 2 weeks later and they are coming to swap my mb again tomorrow! 6 weeks no machine!

 

**EDIT** GOT THIS WORKING, SEE POST 13 FOR THE ISSUE.

Yeah....3.5 days. Got it replaced Wednesday, and it worked great for...another 3-3.5 days. Was working fine every day until tonight, and tonight I boot up and get almost zero graphics performance. Fired up Unigine and GPU-Z and realized that the GPU isn't really generating any heat. At all.

Check my before and after Unigine outputs.

Before, GPU-Z shows 79*C-80*C Max:

After - GPU-Z shows 53*C Max:

This is a drop of 71% overnight. No changes to BIOS, no changes to drivers, nothing.

I need a machine. I bought this specifically because I wanted something powerful, small, and reliable. It's powerful, but it's much heavier than I expected, and reliability doesn't even begin to enter the picture here.

I can't keep doing this. It's not just a gaming box, it's what I use for work. I need another option, and spending more money isn't going to be an option right now with the wife out of work.

 

ok so got mine working again after they replace cpu and mb. then i had the crazy issue with the newer nvidia chip and no drivers! fixed that though with the modified inf

 

Resolved mine as well. The GPU temps should have tipped me off.

Bad UPS with my power supply plugged in was resulting in a power connection that was flickering on and off - on enough that I didn't notice it when I checked, but off enough that it was dropping the box to low-power mode. And I have pretty much all notifications disabled, so I wasn't seeing it in the taskbar.

So far, so good, today. Plugged direct into the wall.