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    Dead Graphics card?

    Discussion in 'Alienware M15x' started by kosti, Nov 20, 2015.

  1. kosti

    kosti Notebook Virtuoso

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    I bought a used Dell Ati 5850 MXM 3.0b card from an e-bay seller in China. The seller claimed the card was fully tested. I installed it today and all I get is a white screen on my display which will occasionally go black, then back to white again. My original Nvidia 240m works fine. The weird thing is I tried an external monitor through the display port and the 5850 works this way while the laptop's screen still stays white.

    I tried updating the vbios to version A02 from Dell.

    I also tried clearing the cmos.

    I am sure that the problem is a bad graphics card, but I didn't expect it to work with an external display. Any ideas or is there anything else I should try before sending this back?

    EDIT: I am 100% certain now that the card is bad. I looked at the card with a magnifying glass. I found a capacitor which is hanging by a thread on the pcb. Looks like it was hit and damaged. It is still soldered on but about to fall off if I breathe on it hard enough. I also found two lifted pads that used to hold another component (probably another capacitor). Both sides of the pads are damaged, so besides having to find out what value the missing capacitor was, new trace wires will have to be soldered on as well. Again, the seller claimed this card worked. It was packed well so it could not have been damaged during shipping which leads me to assume that it was simply not tested at all.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2015
  2. Raidriar

    Raidriar ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

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    You probably do have a bad card. I would suggest replacing with a 7970M or 8970M at this point.
     
    fatboyslimerr likes this.
  3. King of Interns

    King of Interns Simply a laptop enthusiast

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    That absolutely sucks man!
     
  4. kosti

    kosti Notebook Virtuoso

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    Anyone have a spare Dell 5850 lying around and a multimeter that measures capacitance? :D If I could find out the value of that cap, I may be able to solder in a new one and see if it works. Of course I will also need to retrace the broken pads. Here's a pic of the missing cap (my pen points to it):
    [​IMG]
     
  5. UPGI2AYDD

    UPGI2AYDD Notebook Consultant

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    If honest, they likely have a tore apart system which is likely just a motherboard in a shell and they stick the card in and fire it up, on a external display. If it fires up, they turn it off and seal it as functioning.

    Others will benchmark the GPU, but not many.