m15x generation 1, is my 8800m GTX bad?

just today it started to not work under stress(ie games such as borderlands, crysis, MW2). it would only work until the temp reaches 80-90C, then i get a black screen and then it would resume after 10-30seconds. i ran 3dmarks 06 and it says "IDrect3DDevice9: resent failed: Device lost (D3DERR_DEVICELOST)". the laptop works fine as long as the GPU is not being stressed. Had it on for 5 hours, and GPU was at 67C. the GPU fan works like it should. heat sink looks good. i reapplied thermo paste. i don't really want to bake the GPU in the oven. I've never done that before. don't want to buy a new GPU either. any idea whats going on?

 

i would say that the temp on the VC while gaming can reach up to 82ºC and still be called normal. Higher than that it may be considered as overheating.
you said you clean the fan itself right? with compressed air?
try reseating the VC and updating the driver.

 

i can't remember if speedfan worked on my m15x, but you could use that to up the fan speed to 100% and then try playing a game. it worked for a friend of mine.

i have the 9800 and it runs at 80 degrees fine, idling around 65. once i taped a giant fan to the bottom of my laptop and i got it down to 50c.

 

btw

http://support.euro.dell.com/suppor...d=60EC97300BA883BBE040AE0AB8E10ED0&doclang=en

 

i reseated the GPU when i reapplied the thermo paste. cleaned the fan and heat sink with compressed air.

 

i couldn't figure how to get the program working properly. i don't think it's a heating issue. i think the card is bad. gona have to bake it. it works fine on battery mode. temps reaches 70C. it's almost like the gpu is receiving too much power or not enough power, and it shuts off.

 

The same thing happened to my 8800. I was able to boot to windows, but there was no picture and only sound. However, booting with integrated graphics was just fine. I baked mines three times, before the card going out on me completely.

 

i guess it's not the card. i just left the bottom of my m15x open and sat it ontop of my cryo lx. ran 3dmarks 06 2 times and it didn't crash at all. guess it's either the heat sink or gpu fan. the gpu fan is running, so maybe the heat sink is bad? is that possible?

 

I don't think it's the GPU core that's messed up, but the faulty connections on the video card. That's why baking it in the oven ''fixes'' the card. More info about this is in the GPU baking thread.

Also the message ''IDrect3DDevice9: resent failed: Device lost (D3DERR_DEVICELOST'' I also got a few times too while running 3dmark06. So this might be a warning sign.

 

how long did your card last before it needed to be rebaked?

 

Prior to the GPU blacking out, I was getting the same error message sporadically. Sometimes the "driver display would not respond and then recovered" while running windows resulting in the little triangle tray icon.The card lasted about 2 months after the initial bake. The GPU crashed my system hard. The second bake about a month with the computer only booting up to a black screen with sound. The last bake lasted about two weeks I think. All of these are just approximations though. Your's might last longer. But, don't bake it until you get the black screen of death like I did.

 

yea im not gona bake it yet. as long as i don't hardcore game on it, it works perfectly. only using it as my travel and school laptop. i game on my M17x. did you buy a new card? used card? i might sell it the way it is too. not sure what i'm going to do yet.