Dell Motherboard replacement, anything new?

After some issues i had with my GPU, Dell agreed to replace both my Heatsink and Motherboard, and i wanted to ask those who have had replacements in the past; has anything changed since july 2008? (when i bought my m1530)

have they improved the heatsink, or even changed it? ( i got the aluminum one, crappy piece of engineering right there )
and im sure the GPU issues are still present, but do they run cooler now ?

im asking this because in July the "defective Nvidia GPUs" were still in the dark, and the news about them was a mere rumor...

Good times huh ?

any info appreciated!

 

I doubt anything's changed...though I do know that the new m1530s are DDR2-800s as opposed to 667s.

I might have to change out my motherboard as well - any idea where to buy them separately?

 

Try eBay. eBay is like a huge Dell spare parts store.

 

really? so the new motherboards can run ddr2 800 RAM? thats cool!

 

I'll have to check mine then if the part about RAM capability being 800mhz from 667mhz. I bought mine last Jan, had the mobo replaced once in the spring because I broke a mount trying to add AS5 (still not sure how). I know I added 800mhz ram to mine when I upgraded, but I never checked to see what its running at.

 

Wow, thats bad luck, i have applied AS5 like 5 times on this laptop and its alright... ( hehe i was new to this whole AS5 thing and how to apply it, but we all learn from our mistakes dont we ?)

oh and it would be nice if you could confirm if your RAM is running at 800

cheers

 

Okay, just tested my M1530 and it shows 667 in the BIOS. I also tested my 800mhz ram on 2 extra M1530's I recently purchased from the outlet and both of them showed it at only 667 as well.

I tried to look for a motherboard revision sticker like the M1330 has on the bottom RAM slot, but I couldn't find anything anywhere.

I do see that if you customize a new M1530, it shows the options for 800mhz RAM. I hope that some other people can chime in with what they know so we can figure out which mobo's can utilize 800mhz ram and which can't. (because I'd like to get on that does eventually

 

Now that I've searched and read abunch of other posts, it seems as though even though Dell is selling the RAM in the new 1530's as 800mhz, it still downclocks to 667 as it appears to be a hardware limitation for the Santa Rosa chipsets.

 

well poo... thats no good... well anyways thanks for all the help and info Tmax!

 

well anways, i already called the tech, hes gonna come by tomorrow, wish me luck guys "

 

*update*

Poor Dell techie got sick, so he called me like 1 hour before he was supposed to replace my motherboard to tell me, the poor man was just sick as hell, so they are gonna send me another one tomorrow, its no wonder since last weekend 79% of my grade in school ( including me ) did not come on monday because of a horrible flu epidemic... *sigh* oh well, good thing i got past that early

 

But dont forget. I am waiting for yours conclusions!

 

okay i just got me mobo replaced... YAY????? i mean seriously they got me gfx card wrong, yeah you heard right, they gave me the 8400gs hehehe, and they scratched my aluminum panel and my speakers panel, sigh....

well anyways i think i can do with a poor gfx card for a couple of days still havent stressed it yet, so i dont really know whats the highest temp, but idle temps are a little lower..

still gonna talk to dell again to get all those parts replaced, and hopefully, get a mobo that is actually clean, this one still had thermal paste lol

 

so the 8400 is just a temporary solution or a mistake?
And will they change the scratched keyboard bezel?

check the GPU revision with GPU-Z tool.. revision from 01 to 03 are the faulty ones.. The 04 supposed to be good.

 

Its a mistake, and yeah they will replace the aluminum palmrest and the mobo, im gonna ask for a brand new mobo this time, not a refurb.

and temps seem decent (66C max load on th GPU) but performance is just ugly...

anyways, lets hope the new mobos with the 8600 have the same nice temps