Dell XPS M1710 won't load - please help

I have an m1710 laptop. A few days ago when I wanted power it up it would start loading, but nothing would show on the monitor and the LED indicators near the media button would light up. The first one from the left would stay on and next two would flash together while the last two are off. I tried hoilding down FN key when loading so I can load dell diagnostics but it won't do that. Tried to hookup an external monitor but that didn't help. Tried powering up with the d key pressed in to run a graphics check but didn't work. Since the comnputer is no longer under waranty I took it apart and took out the Nvidia card and cleared the dust around it. Right after that the computer loaded fine but today it got stuch while in windows and when I tried loading it I got the same err msgs with the LED indicators. I talked with Dell locally and they told me it's 99% the Nvidia card. However how comes it worked and then stopped and worked and stopped again? Any ideas about what should I do?

 

if your gfx is toast then you might want to try the "oven trick" i have posted in a few place the way i did it but on mine it did wonder been using my laptop for two month now since i did the trick and i had no bug since i have also set i8kfangui to manage the fan setting on my 1710 as the way the bios manage them is useless

http://getsfn.com/dell/topics/usele...0_with_a_fried_nvidia_geforce_go_7900_gs_card

check at the bottom i have posted a pretty detailed description of how i did it

 

very interesting read!!! the oven stuff sounds crazy but not out of the question if my card won't start again. why do you think it runs and stops running after a while and stopps running agin? I don't have strange lines or anything, the computer won't load when there is a problem with the card (which the LEDs indicate according to dHELL). I downloaded the fan app and it can rwad only the CPU temp. all other fields are empty. Is this normal? Thanks!

 

well actualy the problem might be related to other component and not the gpu, but from what you are saying it definitly look like what mine did before starting to have those green line and ritual bsod regarding nvdisp

as for i8kfangui not showing the gpu temp go into the option and temprature control then go in the gpu tab and enable hardware sensor support, close option then reopen option and unthick again hardware sensor support and i8kfangui should now show you the temp for the gpu.

 

since my last post i disabled the nvidia card in device manager in hopes it will help but it didn't really... sometimes my computer gets stuck. sometimes i can reboot it and sometimes it won't load. usually after some time that it was off it will load more easily. this sound a little like a heating problem but this happens even when all the fans are running full speed with I8kfangui.

I ran dell diagnostics and all ok and tried running memtest (or is it memcheck?) but it got stuck after a while.

I have no problem ordering a new gpu or mobo. but how can I be sure what is the problem?

 

@ monomonster

I suggest you get what order the led's flash on startup.

They are used for diagnostics and point to what component is failing.

Google for led diagnostics for the 1710.

The info is also on Dell's website......somewhere. It annoys me that the Dell techy didn't give you more help with this aspect.

 

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