Ripley M17x R1 questions

I am having a problem with my now out of warranty m17x. I got one of the first ones back in 2k7 and have been fairly happy with it. I believe it is the Ripley (now called R1 I believe) Only had two problems with it after I had it.

Current problem. For the past few months the screen is pink and then clears up after a second or two after coming out of power save mode. Today the display is blank. I noticed after trying to troubleshoot that the bios boot screen is VERY faint and I can't see windows at all. After looking on the interwebs, I see there is a flaw with the lcd power mode chip. I was wondering what the part price is on this and if it is easy to replace. Alienware recommends sending it in to ztronics.com. I don't think it's the GPUs, since I swapped each one in and out to see if there was a difference. Both times I barely saw the intel logo, so I am thinking it's not the GPUs and it is the lcd power mode chip.

Anyone hear about ztronics.com? I have replaced the keyboard and GPUs, so I am not afraid to try to replace the chip if it isn't much more complicated.

Also, I wanted to know if there were any upgrade options for the GPUs. I currently have dual 8800GTX (Nvidia). I think ztronics said I could go up to 9800 Gt. Would it be a good performance boost to upgrade? I am currently playing Shogun Total war 2 on it and the performance is good considering the age, but I wanted to know if I could upgrade the GPUs to something more modern to get some better performance or is the architecture rigged for obsolescence?

I might consider upgrading the motherboard and cpu if it's possible. Suggestions are welcome.

Thanks for the answers in advance.

Also, it came with 2GB and I upgraded it to 4GB. Would an 8GB upgrade be good or possible?

 

does no one really have any answers?

bump

 

I would guess the problem with the screen is a broken ccfl light. If you bring it to a repair shop, they can probably replace the ccfl bulb.

About the upgrades, I think you should post in area 51/aurora and legacy systems, because this is the subforum for the new gen m17x models, and the other one is for older models like this one. I guess people who have the same computer will be able to answer this better.

Have a nice day!

 

Will do, thanks.