8400M GS dying?

Is my 8400M GS dying?

The other day I started to have intermittent 'display driver has stopped responding and has resumed' messages after the display blanks for a bit.

I checked my performance. In RTHDRIBL where I used to get high 40's to low 50's fps, I now get in the 20's, 30's, and 40's.

Then I checked some of the games (which I haven't played in a long while). Colin Mcrae Rally 5.0 and UT 2004 are so stuttery that they are unplayable.

I tried various driver versions thinking that the latest driver version from windows update was causing it, but have not had any success.

I also uninstalled Avast anti-virus and Rivatuner in case bad settings were the cause.

WEI score used to be 4.1/4.7, and is now 3.7/4.5

 

Same thing happened to my M1330 last Monday.

And a day later... the dreadful crash & vertical lines.




.

 

Did anyone else have these symptoms before it died?

My game fps just sucks now--totally unplayable!

 

what resolution were you running RTHDRIBL? I have gotten that error message occasionally but nothing happened to my display. It was usually after coming from sleep or booting so it was not a sudden flash on/off of my screen that i could differentiate between an error and just normal booting process.

btw, is it normal to reach the 70's playing flash games?

 

RTHDRIBL was running at the default 640 x 480 in windowed mode.

I don't play flash games, so I don't know the normal operating temperature. With graphic intensive games and the copper mod applied I get no higher than low 70's.

 

wow. i have the 4 yr warranty so i am refraining from the coppermod for now. plus i have no experience in doing that kind of stuff. when i do dual monitor or just fullscreen movies I get into the high 70's sometimes 80's With spore at the highest playable settings I was into the 90's.

 

with GTA IV... i got 104 once after playing for 2 hours straight

 

It looks like my GPU is starting to crap out. Today I started getting artifacts all over the screen. I powered down and re-booted and it is okay for now.

How bad does it have to get before Dell will replace the motherboard?

 

just go to dell chat and say ur graphics card is failing... they'll come and fix it..

 

I'll call them tomorrow. I'm in Canada and I don't think I have on-site support. Last time I had a keyboard problem they wanted me to send in my unit.

 

Had same thing happenning with mine. Few days later it died with vertical lines.

 

15 minutes of cod4 = at least 105 for me

 

So after two calls with XPS support, I finally got them to agree it is a hardware problem. I went through various diagnostics, and having passed them, I did a clean install of Vista, with Windows critical updates, and the latest video driver off the Dell web-site, with no success. Luckily I have a spare hard drive so my original setup is not lost.

So now I have to:

1. undo copper mod
2. replace T8300 with original T5450
3. re-install the hard drive that I put the clean OS on
4. replace vostro black keyboard with silver keyboard
5. mail it in and wait 7 - 10 business days to have it back

Overall I'm satisfied with the support received over the phone so far. I just had to jump through lots of hoops, but they were logical about it.

I guess they have to be careful before replacing expensive motherboards (although they should have done a re-call in the first place knowing the GPU would crap out sooner or later).

 

So an interesting thing has happened.

After I did all of the above (replacing CPU, removing copper mod, etc.), I booted up and my GPU problems were gone!

I think it had something to do with extraneous thermal paste GPU that after time spread around to some bad areas.

I re-installed everything including the copper mod and it's okay now!

I'll see how it goes in the next few days and will see if I have to cancel sending it in for a motherboard replacement.

If I send it in for mobo replacement anyways, and if they find there is nothing wrong, will they not do the replacement?

 

I bought my m1330 last december, and i didnt know about the gpu problem until today!!! About 2 weeks ago i noticed a major performance drop in all my games, battlefield 2142, oblivion...

i updated drivers, but nothing helped, so today i researched and found that the m1330 8400 has overheating problems?!?!? ahhhhh I have a 3 year wawrrenty, but still, i dont like having my laptop opened.

i decided to check my temps and my gpu idles at 75C!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
processors are at 62C

is my gpu about to die soon??

 

possibly.

Try running 3dMark06 and see if it can even run it. If it runs it you should get 1400 - 1600.