MayDay! M5550 video help.

Hello all,

I'm new here at NBR.com and in a bit of a pickle...

I've got an Area-51 M5550 with the NVidia Go 7600 video card which when I install any driver I can find dumps if I do anything more graphically intensive than play solitaire.

I have tried the three drivers available on the Alienware site (84.71, 86.28 and the 165.32 beta version) as well as the 92.91 driver suggested on this site in another thread.

A little more info for anyone who might require it, if I run on the default Windows driver things look pretty basic but I can surf the web, watch YouTube etc, but when I update the driver and surf I get strange artifacting and videos or even downloads send the machine for a loop causing complete lock up.

I have sent the machine into the repair depot (where it sat for over 2 months with no status updates dispite multiple calls and emails) and my warranty expired while AW had it so they don't seem to want to help me at all anymore.

This is my third Alienware box but my first laptop. I'm beginning to really regret my decision to purchase this laptop which sucks because both my desktops are still working great. I feel like I'm being punished for my brand loyalty.

Anyhow enough whining! Any help anyone can give would be great.
Thanks in advance.

Mykal

 

Sounds like overheating. Are the artifacts consistent? Or only when you reach a certain temperature. Download HW monitor to monitor your GPU temps.

 

Thanks for the reply. ^_^

Once the artifacting starts it does not end until I restart. It usually starts with just some little flecks drifting a quarter inch right or left and gets progressively worse until the screen is totally unreadable. Eventually the screen will flash to black and when it pops back up the entire screen will look like some demented tartan. At this point Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing and I have to hard boot.

So I grabbed the HW Monitor. Without a driver installed it shows nothing for my GPU so I don't have anything to compare for you. With any of the drivers installed and sitting at an empty desktop I'm running at 60 degrees even. Surfing doesn't seem to cause much difference, up to 61-62. I can't tell for sure what temp I'm at when the screen is jibberish of course but unless it spikes rapidly I don't think it's all that high.

What temp should I be looking for? Should I look into a cooling plate? Even if it doesn't fix the issue they sound like not a bad idea for the future if this thing ever straightens up...

 

I had this problem with an ATI card built by a 3rd party vendor (i forget which one) in an old desktop I owned... i think the card was a Radeon 9600... but that doesn't matter. I first noticed the problem in Doom 3, that after a short amount of gameplay, some of the vectors appeared to get misplaced and parts of models would get terribly out of joint... for example, one of the splines on someone's face would spontainously fly through the wall behind me, giving them a no-face look (because my camera was technically in their face)...

the problems progressively got worse until eventually, I swapped it out for a different video card and scrapped it (ironically, the old one I had originally replaced)

imo, it's a video card memory fault. the only other time I've seen errors even remotely simmilar, have been memory faults (eg RAM), however, with the memory for the GPU being integrated into the GPU, there is no difference in this case.

imo, your video card is dying. don't stress it, plan to either buy a new one, or upgrade your laptop.

only preventative measures I can say are: try to find out if it's a thermally activated problem. if so, ensure your fan is running and there is adequate airflow through the heat diffuser for the card. (this may include de-dusting the fins)

I won't lie, you might have to get a little messy for this one.

best case scenario, your fans are dusty, a little spray-air and you'll be good to go, worst case: your video card is bunk, you'll need a replacement (probably paying a premium to get one that fits... )

though AW is pretty good for keeping stock like that (from what I've heard) and there's always the obvious solution... ebay.

I'm hoping it doesn't come to that.

 

Yeah,

I was afraid it might be hardware not a software issue. Thing is that when I sent the machine in the first time Alienware supposedly replaced the motherboard and the video card. Unfortunately when I got it back it still didn't work. I had to get escelated up to a supervisor to have them take it back to look at it again but this time they said they couldn't replicate the issue. Of course they won't tell me what they did to 'test' despite my very clear explanation of when the issue occurs and what happens.

I don't want to be a pain in the neck or raise some huge stink but I do want my machine to work and feel that Alienware should see to the repair since the issue initially happened while I was under warranty and my warranty expired while they had the machine for what seems to me an unreasonably long time.

Thoughts?

 

I'd definitely call the roswell team. they seem a bit more interested in making customers happy...

Let them know that you had it in for repairs before the warranty was up, and they didn't even repair the unit, it's the same as when you sent it in.

They might be able to do something for you... worst case, you could get billed... might be hefty too, upwards of a grand wouldn't surprise me.

personally, I'd check the fans myself, take the actual fan out of the computer and look at the heatsink fins... if there's a big pile of dust, clear it out, put everything back together, and try to reproduce the problem again.

you might get lucky.

 

yeah, pull it apart and clean out the dust. might help. how long have you had the notebook, and this problem?

 

I pulled out the card as I did when initially troubleshooting and it looks clean as a whistle. I guess this makes sense since it's supposedly a replacement.

As for the history... I got the machine in late May of 07.

By November it was shutting down for no apparent reason if I left it sitting dormant. This happened very infrequently so I just ignored it at first. Then it started happening more frequently (and while in use) so I got in touch with the Alienware support team. They had me update drivers and see if anything changed. Of course since the issue was still very sporadic it took quite a while to determine if each step was having any effect.

By the New Year about 25% of the times it would shut down the system clock would reset to Dec 2002. At this point I was asked to try different hardware related fixes (removing the CMOS battery, reseating cards etc.) to no avail.

Mid March the whole artifacting thing started and before long the machine wouldn't even boot. The really odd thing was that at it's worst it wouldn't even POST. Powering on would just bring up a white screen that would slowly fade to black.

At this point I called Alienware again and did some basic troubleshooting (barebones boot, etc) to determine where the fault lay. When nothing seemed to work I finally got authorization to send it in for repairs. Then I waited for my shipping lable. Just over a month later I got an email with the label. This despite a number of calls and emails requesting a status report.

April 22nd I shipped my baby back to the repair depot. June 18th I received it back, again with no responce to emails or calls other than that they would get back to me when they knew something. In the box was a little sheet saying that they had replaced both the video card and the motherboard and that I should be sure everything worked within 14 days.

Well, when the machine started artifacting again the first time I openned MMORPG.com I called back. At this point they told me I was out of warranty and that I should take it to a computer store. I explained that while yes I was out of warranty I had been waiting on the machine to be repaired for the better part of three months and that when it stopped working it was under warranty and I would like it repaired.

I was then transfered to a tech supervisor who when told the long dull story said he would bend the rules and have it repaired. So back it went. And now I have it back again, with another little sheet, this time saying they could not reproduce the error. Meanwhile it still artifacts as soon as I open any webpages more complex than a search page.

So yeah, mucho frustration. /sigh

 

I have the same laptop-same exact issue.The problem is the 7600go video card.I went on ebay and purchased a nvidia 8600m gs 512 meg and it solved most of my problems.the other issue I found was the cd burner/dvd combo drive caused a lot of heat as well if used for any real length of time.so I now use a external bluray burner and all is golden -plays games,movies and now blurays with the 8600 installed.you will need the m5550_BIOS_2.06w bios update and the modded inf file for the 8600m drivers -but it will work great when done.

 

yeah, new card would be the best (if not only) solution.
and the only place where you may find one is ebay.