M1330 Display Issue (Vertical Lines on Reboot & Crash & Vertical Lines)

With my M1330, HWmonitor and Riva Tuner reported GPU temperatures 23C (41.4F) higher than i8kfangui did (before calibration).

Once you get your M1330 fixed, check its GPU temperature with other programs besides i8kfangui and see if you get the same result. My M1330 had a Penryn T9300 processor, but I don't know if that affects i8kfangui.

 

That temp seem very low. Even with air conditioning, the core temps are still above 35C for me.

 

23C isn't the temperature. It's the temperature difference.
HWmonitor and Riva Tuner would report the GPU temperature as 66C at idle (just sitting there with the laptop turned on, not doing anything).
At the same time, i8kfangui would be reporting the GPU temperature as 43C instead of 66C.

 

Ohh I see now. Woah thats crazy since the fan only kicks in at around 45C automatically. Considering if it is 20C higher for Riva Tuner, we're talking about ~65C

 

Geez! I'am not alone, mine died yesterday after all the symptoms experienced which i have read on this thread....bought November last year. Still have no time to send to service center. Since it still under warranty ill keep my finger crossed.

BTW this is my 3rd Dell unit, i had an Inspiron and XPS M1210 before without any problems.

 

Had my motherboard and fan replaced, the fan says A02 on it but the tech guy screwed the heatsink on so tight that I can't replace the thermal gunk with AS5. does anyone know the exact screwdriver required to undo the heatsink?

 

Make the time - it WILL die.

Murphy's law says it will - at the least desirable time.

 

Don't you have dell's XPS premium "we-make-house-call-the-next-day" service? I got a year automatically and in the EU, the Notebook is by default under "general" warranty for a period of 24 months...

 

Thinking about getting one and got scared with this thread.. Anyone had heat/gpu_fail problems with non-dedicated gpu? intel's x3100 I mean. Or the problem is only 8400/8600 nvidia related?

Thanks

 

The problem seems to be limited to the M1330's that came with the 8400 Nvidia card. No one with the X3100 has posted that they have the problem.

 

I'm another member of this club

Mine died monday last week, but with a slight difference, I got white screen instead of colored screen .

Hopefully Dell in Brazil had replaced the MB even that this laptop just have warranty in US, were it was purchased, and not in Brazil.

What worries me is that if there is no sollution yet, it will probably have the same issue again in 6 months or so (mine is from Dec 07) and will be out of warranty. I'll have a nice US1900 paper weight in my desk

Regards,

 

Well, I had to call Dell up to check up on the status. Dell has informed me that I should expect a 3-5 week turnaround time to have my notebook repaired. That's just terrible. I'm actually considering selling it now after it gets repaired.

 

Waiting to get my FOURTH mobo replacement tomorrow. Dell is also replacing the HSF assembly at my request. The fan in this system never seems to kick in to a higher speed, unlike my other M1330 that I bought last month (with static audio issues) which sounds like it speeds up into "turbo" mode to deal with the heat. Thanks goodness I have full CCW coverage on both systems.

 

I had to add exactly 10C to get it to match the (more) accurate RivaTuner value which matched nvidia's own nTune.

My two mobos and two HSFs produced exactly the same figures:
60-70C in 2D-mode (the fan rotating between 3K and 0, respectively).
85-95 during the 3D benchmarks in 3DMark06.
100C during Lost Coast demo (Valve - Half Life 2 HDR tech demo).

 

I am working on the middle east and that is where i bought that piece of crap. I have to bring it back to the store where i purchased .

 

Wow, I'm not looking forward to fixing this again next year. It seems Dell's international support department is practically non existent. XPS has contacted the office multiple times and has gotten no response. If it keeps going this way, my options are falling to the $400 round trip cost to send this to the states and back to get fixed.

I'm wanting to sell this even more.

I did get one number that seems to be some sort of international support line, where no international support workers work...at least not during the night in the US. I'll have to try again late tonight.

 

Im also in the dead mobo/8400gs club too.. Im pissed cos my mobo was an a01 and they replaced it with an a0!(refurb I guess - so it will die quicker), it already took 2 weeks and I dont want to go thru it again to get a newer revision. At the very least they should update the motherboard and fix the cooling! Not just replace it with another mobo that will die later. WTF? What policy is that?

DELL wakeup! This is not acceptable on a $2.5k product, this is my first and last Dell product, I shoulda listened to others. This is a Dell design fault and what happens when our warrantys expire? Are we expected to pay $500 a pop for new mobo?

And a question, if I ask for a non 8400GS motherboard will I be better off? I will not play any games on this POS now thats for sure.

 

I tried, they (XPS customer service) said they are not allowed to do that. Only what you ordered is what you will get as a replacement.

 

Well ok, the "Middle East" is quite a broad region but I'll take your word for it.
Still, know that Dell's Ireland facilities are responsible for their "EMEA" operations and EMEA stands for Europe, Middle East and Asia... .

Good luck, in any case!

 

If by "International" you mean anything but mainland U.S. *for* customers who purchased their Notebooks in the U.S., then I have no personal experience to share with you (sorry).

I will say this, though: U.S. military bases in remote areas like Okinawa, Guantanamo Bay and current "conflict areas" are bound to have delays and hiccups with any Company's support system, wouldn't you tend to agree?

Now if you bought your Dell in Okinawa (meaning through a local Dell Sales representative), then maybe you have more reason to expect quicker responce times.

So which "scenario" was it?

 

"Einmal ist keinmal".

But if it happens to the same person* again (and there are a few here who have had that [dis-]pleasure...) then I think it would be the consumer's right to declare the unit - as configured - faulty and not capable of functioning "as advertised".

Under those circumstances, I would hope that Dell would agree to send out a third mobo equipped with the non-discrete Graphics subsystem for the non-gamers.

Actually, that side of the coin is pretty straight forward. For those that bought the 1330 with the desire for a portable-gaming solution could even argue that Dell should offer the possibility to replace their 1330 with a 1530... !

*Although we would all like to point out this thread (and it's many "club members") to Dell, for everyone one of us, there are at least a few thousand 1330 owners who haven't encountered the problem... . Thus Dell will always argue that it's a manufacturing/ assembly issue and not design, so I wouldn't hold my breat for a "recall" anytime soon.

 

i'm a member of this club now, i'm so mad b/c i researched laptops THOROUGHly and this is my worst nightmare!!

my laptop had the vertical streaks/white thing occur over a week ago, i disabled the video driver and put it on low colors, resolution. (i'm not as tech savvy as you guys )

so skimming this thread has been a total nightmare for me. why hasn't this piece of **** been recalled if it doesn't work. the tech people are coming out to replace the video card and i guess the motherboard (?) sometime this week.

 

ps. i don't think i even "need" the nvidia...if i ask to downgrade the videocard, will that fix everything?

 

It would -- if Dell allowed you to do that.

 

i'm sorry this thread's really long and a bit overwhelming to read all in one sitting, but are you saying dell won't allow you to downgrade? has anyone else requested this?

 

Dell only wants to replace parts with the same part you ordered the computer with.
You can try calling them up and asking them though.

 

Im wanting to know the same thing about downgrading.. Thats infuriating if this is the case!. What do they have to lose? Surely its cheaper for them to allow us to have a choice of a lower spec proven board.. I just dont wanna be caught out when the warranty runs out.. I have already decided i wont play games on this heap of junk, so i might aswell downgrade. sux!

 

I don't think dell allows you to downgrade...but it doesn't hurt to ask.

There have been exceptions, especially if you have a leverage of a corporate purchase agreement. I've been able to request/negotiate slightly different replacement parts before. Never a downgrade though...

I'm going to sit and wait for the new latitudes then see if I have enough leverage to get me an entire new laptop. This m/b replacement is not a solution until they fix the real root cause of it.

But truth to be told, dell is probably the best of the bunch, you will not be getting this sort of service from another marque....

And it seems to me Dell isn't particularly motivated to fix these, as all these m/b failures will be claimed to the board OEMs...perhaps even with the tech charges.

If you could get extended warranties, please do.

 

Yes they might have ok service but thats only to offset their poorly tested and designed equipment. Its always better to be preventitve than fix mistakes. I want a car that doesnt just have airbags, I want car that has ABS to stop me getting into trouble in the 1st place. Dell just has an airbag to soften the blow to your wallet. Rant over.

 

Same thing happened to me. My graphics card was completely fried and had to get a new motherboard. If it happens again there will be heck to pay. I hear from a lot of people in my area that they have had the same thing...

 

I just purchased my M1330 a couple of hours ago... you guys have me completely freaked out. Now, I'm starting to second guess my purchasing decision. This kind of stuff doesn't seem to happen to Apple ?!?!

 

Expect the worse and hope for the best

 

My next notebook will be an macbook pro, but I'm waiting until a few more updates and probably won't get it until the end of next year to the beginning of 2010. Hopefully, this notebook won't give me too much trouble until then. I was planning on passing it over to my wife.

 

Okinawa has a dell storage on island to support all the bases here. Even though I purchased this guy the same method the military does (through the states), the XPS customer support isn't familiar with the international support. I got ahold of the international support department last night and they've told me that the process should go as the comm squadron here has told me. They get ahold of Dell Japan, Dell Japan delivers the parts from their warehouse. The turnaround is 1-2 days, not 3-5 weeks. I now have a person dedicated to my case in international support because the Dell department that arranges the international support hasn't sent any response back to the XPS department. Also, the international support department that I spoke to is a different part of Dell. Hopefully, they should have a status in 24 hours.

 

why on earth wouldn't they allow you to downgrade the videocard!!!!!!!!

WOW, im just completely disgusted by this. my friend even suggested to call customer service and threaten to dispute the charge with my credit card company.

seriously, nobody should be tolerant of this unless there's a permanent fix. i don't know about you guys, but i don't have the time to go around replacing motherboards and juggling phone calls with tech support. i'm a college student with limited money and when i cough up over a grand i expect a laptop to work for more than six months at at time.

has anyone sent any emails complaining and gotten anything other than "oooh well just send you a new motherboard"

 

I spent about 3 hours on the phone with Dell tech support last week trying to deal with this problem and it got nowhere. Pretty infuriating experience talking to a "tech" that keeps trying to resolve the problem with things even less that what I did before searching for this thread.

After using it for a day or two after that it now crashes with the vertical lines as soon as I push the power button so I know the video car is fried. Hopefully they will at least agree to replace the board somewhat quickly the next time I call.

Like others on this thread I a quit troubled by the the seemingly unfixed problem of the likely design flaws with our machines.

 

Yes I do. Four engineer visits later. Laptop still dead. Engineer only brings one part out on each visit. Argh. Useless.

Less hassle IMO to do a collect and return service, rather than having to wait in the whole time. A friend had a Macbook Air fixed that way in six days. Mine took two weeks at which point I've given up ever getting it repaired.

 

Just wanted to let everyone know that I talked to a tech who knew exactly what the problem was. Said that the mobo and cooling system was frying graphics card (as stated in this thread) and that the new mobo's and fan fixed this. They are pulling a mobo from the factory line and are quite sure that will fix the problem. He also said the new units do not have this problem. That's what he said, let's hope that it works because I can't tell you how many people bought this machine from my recommendation.

 

I wonder if the refurbs have been retrofitted with the "fix".

 

Well yes, I did get a new fan revision (A02) but the replacement heatsink itself is 100% the same as the original. The only thing an improved fan can do is move a little more air - at the expense of a little more noise...

But regardless of this "A02" fan, my temps haven't dropped even a single degree - and I tested both old & new in the same exact way, in the same ambient temp... .

So when you get your *new* fan, please be so kind as to take a pic of it (and the heatsink too) and please also note the revision #s of both heatsink and fan (as they are different),

Thx

 

There have been 1330 owners that started with an A04 mobo and it died... only to be replaced with an A01 to make things even more absurd.

So, no offense to msftjunkie, but I'm not going to hold my breath on the updated-mobo theory (it's like a conspiracy, but maybe not up there alongside the "single gun theory", hehe)

 

I am one of those that had an A04 replaced with an A01.

 

Pretending to be a prospective buyer, I asked the guy in the online chat window on dell's website about whether there was a design fault in the m1330, and he said there is no such problem.....

 

the tech guys going to replace my mobo in 5 minutes, i guess we'll jsut have to see ugh

 

Well, add me (late) to the list. For the past two months I have been searching for "m1330 nvidia overheat" and never came across this thread. Today, after the Dell Technician came and replaced my motherboard, I searched "m1330 motherboard replace" and here I am. How depressing to see names like "Flamenko" pop up, half way through the thread. These were the guys whose threads I was reading when re-installing Vista and then XP, and who were so happy about their computers. And now they have the same problem. Sigh.

My story slightly different but worth documenting I think:

Received new (refurbished) computer in March 08, with A04 motherboard and NVidia card. Days after receiving the computer, maybe even the same day, experienced a screen freeze and then BSOD, with a "Memory Parity Error" message. This occurred multiple times, so I did a complete reinstall of Vista with SP1 slipstreamed (thankyou Flameko) and thought I was good to go. (Also, BTW, ran extensive diagnostics, plus 12 + hours of memtest to make sure my hardware was okay. Everything came back fine.) Then it started happening again.

Thought possibly I had a bad wireless broadband card. Called XPS premium tech support and was told to connect the card directly to the router. After failing explain that wireless broadband doesn't use a router, I gave up. Disabled the card in the bios, and had the same problems: system locksups, with occasional blue screens. Eventually couldn't reboot into Vista at all, would just boot to a bluescreen and then reboot.

At that point I wiped the drive and ran all the diagnostics again (12 + hours worth, everything comes out fine), then did a clean install of XP with SP3 slipstreamed. Started happening again. After 4 solid hours on the phone with XPS tech support, I managed to convince them that my graphics card was overheating (this I had deduced by watching how and when my computer would lock up or BSOD-- only after some hours of graphics intensive work, like word-processing or watching or transcoding a DVD-- I don't even PLAY games!!). At first they wanted to replace my memory, but I argued that if I could run Memtest for 15 hours without a lockup that meant my computer worked perfectly well as long as I bypassed the graphics processor.

So guy comes today and replaces motherboard. Refurbished, in big bold letters on the package, also revision A04. I say to him, if this is exactly the same board, how will it fix the overheating problem? He says, well, maybe there was a faulty batch of GPUs. Troubled by this hopeful logic, I did my search, and landed here.

Where have we landed? I think I should probably extend my warrantly from one to three years. I think I will pitch a fit if they won't downgrade me to an integrated graphics board should this happen again. (By the way: I DID ask Dell if they would downgrade me to integrated graphics, and they refused.)

Somebody on this thread suggested that certain NVidia drivers would improve performance, others said no. I REFUSE too buy an external cooling solultion, or stand to elevate my laptop-- the reason I paid the big bucks is because it's thin and light for goodness sake!!! And as for the well meaning person who suggested that we turn on our air-conditioners to keep our computers cool I say-- That means my 3 pound mobile computer is effectively tethered to a seventy five pound cooling solution. Surely that can't have been part of the design concept.

I have downloaded Riva Tune and 3DMark. Having never used these before, my plan is to install and start Riva Tune, then run 3DMark and see what happens to my temperatures. After that, leave Riva Tune running all the time, so see what happens with normal computer use. And then what? Just wait for it to fail?

I have owned twelve dell computers over the past 20 years, five of them running in my home right now. I have NEVER had issues with any of them.

Sigh.

 

AMEN, i completely agree

 

Is there any one who buy this XPS 1330 in the last 2-3 months who have this problems? Just wonder i get my tomorrow, and are curios what i have to look forward to get

Sorry for bad English, i write from Sweden.

 

I just had a replacement mobo Monday and the problem appeared again the next day... so assuming that was a refurb'd or a new one of the old style... I asked the tech about that, how did I get one with the issue. He did try to explain but not sure I understood. Well, I just hope it'll be working again. My poor Dell tech hopes so too, he has been to my house more times than I care to admit.

 

3 months old, had to get my motherboard replaced.

 

Dell Tech installed my THIRD motherboard replacement (refurb AO4) yesterday along with a new Heat Sink Fan assembly (AO2). The system has been running 24 hours now without a problem. Not sure if it's fixed now, but if it fails again Dell will replace the computer (a refurb, no doubt). The only bright side to this fiasco is the prompt and full support from Dell to ship parts and the Tech to schedule the repair visits promptly.