Is my M1330 GPU dying? Symptoms not typical...

I am dual booting Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit and Windows 7 b7000 32-bit. The laptop has the copper mod on 7/28/2008 with very good results. It lowered my idle for GPU by 11C and full load by 21C (very good in full load). But my two recent BSOD from Vista and Win7 make me think my GPU is dying, but it doesn't have the typical vertical line problems like other owners. Likewise, it's working perfectly fine after each BSOD (until the second one in Win7).

BSOD in Vista (see attached picture):

*** Hardware Malfunction
Call your hardware vendor for support
NMI: Parity Check/Memory Parity Error
*** The system has halted ***

No event viewer log or memory dump available. Notice the short black bars visible on the blue background. I don't know where those bars are coming from. There are a few white words were NOT static. Some text were shifting during the photograph.

BSOD in Win7 (no picture due to automatic restart):

See attachment of mock-up made in Vista desktop. It's nowhere near what I saw, but it has a similar short strokes of light on a black background. My background was a picture of GREEN grass blades.

The second BSOD occurred while watching YouTube on the same day as the one in Vista. Basically, the screen was fine then suddenly it turned black with short strokes of color showing through where the icons are. About one second later, the screen gets to the classic BSOD blue, but this blue is black instead with the same short strokes of color. And then the laptop restarts after the memory dump, and everything is normal again including the POST.

The GPU averaged around 60C while the CPU was about 50C using HWMonitor. I never had these weird looking BSOD, especially ones with artifacts. It's the artifacts that make me more suspicious. Log file from Windows 7 below:

Steps taken to diagnose (in this particular order):

In Windows 7: Ran rthdribl for 20 min. CPU = 75C, GPU = 90C max. No visual problems or artifacts or BSOD. Everything works fine.

In Vista: Ran rthdribl for 30 min. CPU = 75C, GPU = 91C max. No visual problems or artifacts or BSOD. Everything works fine.

Ran the Windows Memory Diagnostics:

Extended mode, 4 passes, 10 hours, no problems detected
Default mode, 2 passes, about 20 minutes, no problems detected

I will keep this post updated, but is this a sign my GPU is dying? Bad memory?
My regular warranty expired a month ago (figured), but I'm hoping Dell still has that GPU-related failure warranty available.

 

It looks like bad memory.

What were you doing when you got the BSOD's?

If RTHDRIBL is not giving you problems, I doubt it's your graphics card.

Do you get the same FPS in RTHDRIBL that you got before?

Mine was drastically lower and kept getting lower when my GPU was going south.

 

Yes the GPU Depot warranty is with your computer, it's 1 year since DOP.

Just run your service code on support.dell.com and look at warranty information

 

Looks like my graphics just got screwed again in Vista. It happened so suddenly, and I wasn't viewing any video or listening to any audio. However, I was using the Internet with Chrome, Firefox, and IE7 opened.

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/3695/1stscrewedgraphicssuddeen2.jpg

About thirty seconds later, the massive artifacts changed to the picture below (need to view at full resolution):

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/4743/2ndartifactsimmediatelyvc0.jpg

At this point, the laptop is frozen. I cannot tell if it was already frozen or not when the first picture was taken, since I was running to grab my camera. The first shot is out of focus. In the second shot, you can see my CPU = 60C and GPU = 69C and the fan was spinning at medium speed. The GPU temp is corrected with a +10C offset so that it matches HWMonitor. Otherwise, it would have read as 59C, which is wrong.

Just finished running RTHDRIBL again for 30 minutes with NO problem or performance degradation. The FPS has remained unchanged since I last ran it. CPU = 80C max, GPU = 95C max. I notice the max temp for GPU under load has gone up significantly since I first performed the copper mod (which reached about 80C max for GPU). Again, the laptop works and displays perfectly fine after the hard shutdown. There's currently no artifacts of any kind during and after the boot-up POST. The cause of crash is undetermined since Vista did not have a dump log. The laptop just froze rather than generating a BSOD.

EDIT: So far, a common thread during each BSOD and this case was the internet. The Intel 4965AGN was active and connected to my router. The Dell 1505 was already disabled in Device Manager.

 

Artifacts look exactly like your GPU is dying.

 

hmmmm maybe one of your GPU's is not in properly? Thats weird to be getting artifacts on a new notebook...

 

This laptop has been with me for a year. I don't game or do anything GPU intensive. Almost all of the time, the GPU averages 65C-70C.

It's not "new" in any sense, but because the symptoms is not typical, I can't be certain if it's the GPU or something else. A friend of mine with the M1330 recently had Dell replaced his motherboard since his GPU died suddenly with the vertical lines. Mine seems to holding on even though I have stressed it with RTHDRIBL about 30 minutes after each problem without showing any artifacts.

 

you know its my bad, i misread i thought it said 1340 i thought it was the new one .....

Did you try contacting dell?

 

It just happened again today. The laptop was all nice and normal until my graphics got messed up again. It looks similiar to the link below, except the pattern is different. I have a picture of the new one too for proof later on.

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/3695/1stscrewedgraphicssuddeen2.jpg (the new one is similar to this except different patterns)

What's new:

This is on a CLEAN installation of Windows Vista using a DIFFERENT graphics driver. The previous installation used Dell provided drivers (A10), and this one is the beta driver provided by NVIDIA for notebooks.

It seems to be random:

Immediately after the artifacts, I decided to run RTHDRIBL again for 30 minutes. And again, I see NO problems or performance degradation. So for kicks, I downloaded Prime95 (with multit-thread) and run for 7 hours using the maximum stress on RAM setting. And again, there's NO graphics problems or other artifacts. During the time, the CPU reached 89C and GPU reached 83C.

How do I approach Dell with this? It's not reproducible on demand so far, and it seems to work fine now. The only thing I have are photographs of each occasion. And of course, I have no idea if it's GPU-related.

Where do I send these photographs?

In summary for the month of February:

1 BSOD (extremely rare type too), 3 corrupted graphics and frozen, freaking thing is not reproducible on demand!

 

this happened when the radeon 9600 in my inspiron 8600 was failing on me.

exactly the same. i was quite puzzled about it too, because it was quite a random occurrence and not when it was at load etc.

a restart fixed the issue, but it would come back from time to time. i'd get the GPU replaced ASAP before the extension to the warranty runs out, cos my 9600 lasted about a year with this issue before it finally kicked the bucket. thankfully i had a 3 year warranty on my notebook!

its uncanny how similar the photo u took is. i'd never seen it before either.

 

Looks like its running in 3-colour mode.
Is it some new Windows Blinds theme

 

It finally kicked the bucket and gave me conclusive proof. Linked are pics of the vertical lines. I also have it on video . My service tag says I have until 12/2009 for my Rapid Response Depot warranty. I am not sure if that's the GPU warranty or not, but my actual warranty expired in 12/2008.

Which is the easiest method for talking with XPS Dell?

Phone (might be difficult since I have work 6am and won't get home until 6pm).
Live chat
Email

Is it worth it to ask for the Intel X3100? I don't do any gaming, but I *might* use AutoCAD (that's a big might too).

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/9467/gpudead1.jpg
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/9868/gpudead2.jpg

Has anyone tried trading it up (for more cash) for the XPS 13? Just a thought...

 

Send an email just go to theit homepage and under contct us here is a link http://support.dell.com/support/supportrequests/create.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

 

Thanks. I will get a pre-paid box next week. Unfortunately, I won't have the laptop for at least 1-2 weeks.