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    Dell XPS m1530 Faulty GPU

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by mmikeman, Dec 24, 2014.

  1. mmikeman

    mmikeman Notebook Enthusiast

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    Just bought the girlfriend a Dell XPS m1530, pretty neat laptop it seemed at first it didn't have any issues until I was playing a game on it to test it and all the sudden the laptop went to a black screen of death, no beeps not even that hot either. Power cycled the unit and all the sudden my screen is full of artifacts and running in 16 colors on the next windows 7 boot, windows advised me the device has a problem stopping it from starting. Stumbled across the class action lawsuit regarding nvidia and the temp fixes some people have tried here, instead of hairdrying the chip I decided to run prime95 and seal all the vents on the unit for around 30 minutes, it did get pretty hot and I'm sure its bad for both the cpu and all the internal, but the point of this was to get the solder on the gpu hot so it makes contact again since apparently there was a recall 3-4 years ago for faulty nvidia gpus, let the unit sit 30 minutes powered back on sure enough gpu service and pic quality all restored, this seemed like a good fix but we know that the gpu is faulty so I'm guessing its going to come back again down the road and most customers have also reporting a complete dead laptop as well before using heat tricks to get them on so I'm sure its only a matter of time before mine does that too, my question is can this be fixed or somewhat covered up for now maybe for 6-12 months , some of my thoughts

    1) Flash firmware a08 + which makes fans come on at lower temps to keep gpu cool
    2) Apply artic silver 5/7 to the gpu heatsink remove that nasty thermel paste
    3) If it comes back again super heat the unit and then cool it fast afterwards (risky due to condensation)

    I'm thinking options 1/2 now that is working so it stays working, anyone here have an experience like this with the m1530 and how long did your resolution last before needing a new mobo or someone that knows how to solder gpus
     
    mmikeman, Dec 24, 2014
    #1
  2. Commander Wolf

    Commander Wolf can i haz broadwell?

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    I've tried to reflow a few of these with the oven, and the fix has never lasted more than a month.
     
    Commander Wolf, Dec 29, 2014
    #2