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

Ahhh... this is great! We have two m1330 at home. Wife's computer started to show a 2"-wide vertical green bar after some usage. I knew that a new mobo was in order, but I didn't know that mine may die soon as well... The problem is "intermittent" at the moment. It doesn't happen all the time and when it happens, a reboot -sometimes- takes care of it for a while.

I'll contact them to get the mobo replaced. We are both running BIOS A09. Should we update to A12? Is the fan is on continuously using A12?

Thanks in advance!

 

What horrible luck. Yours seems to be in the beginning stages of it eventually dying and unfortunately your wife's computer is in the same boat, maybe farther along. Updating to the A12 probably won't change a thing other than maybe buying you more time. It's not that the fan is on continuously with A12, but it's certainly more aggressive.

I did the reboot thing for a while and managed to get more time out of it till it eventually wouldn't boot altogether and the replacement motherboard was the only thing that got me back up and running.

 

Thanks for the reply. I installed Everest today on both machines. Mine showed 65-70 GPU readings under A10 with nVIDIA ForceWare X 174.12 with normal use (web surfing, e-mail, etc).

I installed A12 to the other machine last night, and when I installed Everest this evening, it showed 50-55. So, I went ahead and installed A12 to mine, uninstalled the 174.12 and went back to DELL nVidia XP drivers (R173730). Now, my computer shows 50-55 as well while surfing the net, typing docs, etc etc. Occasionally it goes up to 60ish if there is anything CPU or HD intensive...

If this approach buys time for us, I am OK with it. In the mean time I hope there will be some kind of a solution to this from DELL and/or nVidia. I dont want to get a mobo replacement now and then if/when a solution is presented, repeat the same thing... Then again, nothing may happen and I may need to consider extending the warranty on these. Another alternative would be to get a new mobo towards the end of the warranty coverage and immediately apply the copper mod.

The version of the drivers shows "Forceware 156.83". I would be interested in upgrading to a newer version most people are running without extra heat if there are additional benefits...

Cheers!

 

I poke my head in here once or twice a week to see if anything has changed.
I cannot believe that Dell is still not acknowledging that there is a problem here.

How can it possibly be in their best interest to continue to replace mobo's.

Thank god for my 3 year warranty.

 

I need to add myself to the "club".

I purchased my M1330 in August 2007.

I had my first MOBO replacement in early 2008. I don't remember when off the top of my head but I'm thinking it must have been February or so?

This time tech support didn't hassle me nearly as much as they did the first time. They were quickly able to decide that it was a good idea to replace the motherboard (MOBO) again. I also asked if he could send a heat sink fan replacement (HSF). He said, why do I think that's a problem? I simply quoted the URL to this topic and he said ok. I'll be glad to ship a heat sink fan replacement as well.

A couple of items of note to you guys:

I have the 9 cell battery
I have a 3 year extended warranty on it
I don't always use a laptop desk so maybe that has something to do with it? I'll make sure to use it. I also have one of those cooling units and I'll try using it on the new one after it's replaced.
I don't do a lot of gaming on it but sometimes I do (WoW)
I usually use it for audio (Audacity or itunes) and web design (dreamweaver and photoshop)

I have tried upgrading bios/drivers. It never helps.

One thing I have noticed of importance is... I haven't heard the fan lately. So I'm wondering if there was a problem with the HSF? Like maybe mine isn't working or something came loose and that lead to catastrophic GPU failure.

The other thing I saw on both of my failures that many of you haven't reported is the NMI Parity Error blue screen.

We'll see how the new MOBO/HSF works and if the fan comes on more often.

I'll update you guys in a few days.

- Fittsy

 

I had the same blue screen error when my Mobo/GPU went out a couple months ago.

I updated my M1330's bios to A12 & downloaded the latest NVIDIA driver posted on Dell's site right after getting the mobo replaced and I purchased a notebook cooler last month that I now use all the time just to be safe.

 

Hey,
After Purchasing a Notebook Model HP Pavilion DV9299ea Entertainment on a Business Rental Scheme from PC World just after 1 year the Machine has failed "Nvidia GFX has Melted Down." I just thought I should let everybody know a few things about PC World and there (Dirty underhanded tricks.)

They told me I had not taken the Extended Warranty and that the Machine was only under Warranty for 1 Yr from the Manufacturer "Lies" The Machine in actual fact has 2 Yrs Standard HP Warranty which they do not honor nor tell there Customers about They try to force everybody to take there Extended Cover Plan Warranty... e.g I phoned there Company Head Quarters in Sheffield and ordered there Extended Warranty before I found out that my Notebook was still under HP Warranty. They asked me for 10 Payments of £58 a grand total of £580 for a 4 Yr Cover Plan Extended Warranty Can you imagine having to Pay almost £1400 for the Notebook and then a further almost £600 for Warranty? Grand Total of almost £2000 for a Notebook now worth around £700? (If it was working.) The Notebook hardware has failed after just over 1 yr... I found a lot of information on the Internet about why as well as I knew it was a Thermal Issue with the GFX.... And I had all the same Classic Symptoms as all the other Melt Downs reported on Blogs and Forums through the very same GFX failure my Nvidia 7600 go mobile 526 RAM.

Nvidia GFX Manufacturer has been selling faulty chip sets for all Note Books, Laptops and workstations as it has slowly transpired it's not just Notebooks and Lappys for the last few yrs... They Include the 7s and 8s Series of Chip sets... And the big Company's keep selling these units even though they are aware of the current situation with there Chip Sets Also they did release some information to Customers that they would be releasing some driver to initiate the Fan/Cooler so its always on creating more cooling So what about your Battery consumption on all the Mobiles after that kicks in and sucks all the current

 

What a rant!!! Wrong forum... And misguided fire...

BTW, how on earth did you manage to "melt down" a puny 7600 in a monster 17" chassis??? Been using it on top of the oven or something??

 

I had this problem a few weeks ago and Dell came over and replaced the motherboard. The computer seems significantly slower now, though, and struggles with basic tasks but is also noticeably slower when doing video conversions (converting a 70 minute divx file to mp4 used to take about an hour, now takes 2-3!)

I bought a relatively "stacked" machine at the beginning of this year (2.4ghz core 2 duo, 4gb RAM etc..) but it seems sluggish when doing basic things like browsing websites and playing music in winamp at the same time.

Any ideas please?

 

hmmm, so you've checked to make sure that the motherboard replacement was done correctly and everything was put back where it should by monitoring all your temperatures on your system to make sure they don't look unusual? Sluggish computer could be a sign of a system struggling thermally. Do you have any prior system testing information saved either from software or from a website like PCpitstop to compare your previous numbers to the current motherboard you have? How about just a general comparison with other systems through pcpitstop to give you an idea if you are underperforming?

And this is why I'm leaving this one for last because it's usually the one that gets the "of course I did, what do you think I'm stupid", you aren't running with any powersaver settings on, because I'd say that Divx conversion number matches my times when I forget to switch it from powersaver mode to performance or dell recommended.

 

Ten Dell models have defective Nvidia GPUs
The Inquirer
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/27/dell-models-defective-nvidia

 

Well my laptop just took its second dive since Oct 07 - (I knew I was in trouble when the Dell tech who replaced my MOBO the first time told me he had just done the exact same replacement earlier in the day)

On Friday I had some idiot at Dell trying to tell me it was because I had XP Pro instead of Vista - what the moron didn't understand (even after I told him several times) was that this problem occurs even with the HD totally unplugged - NO OS AT ALL!!!

Now Dell wants me to ship it back for an 8-10 day turn around. I am really feeling queasy about sending this bugger off.

I am going to call back and see if they will send a new MOBO w/integrated graphics - this is insane.

So here I sit with a 5 yo laptop that works fine other than the fact that it is a turd and the battery only lasts 30 min.

 

Well, I might as well pile onto the 87 pages of posts on this thread BTW - is this a record? Think Dell has figured out they have a serious problem yet?

Anyway, I got my 1330 with the 8400GS last Nov. In early June I started having graphics issues. First they replaced my screen, then my memory, then my motherboard last week. All was well for ....4 days....then today the same problem again.

They're coming on Wed to replace my screen and motherboard again. Let's see if it takes....

 

Direct2Dell (the Dell blog) is reporting the issue and is providing links to BIOS updates for effected machines.

And I quote:
The issue is a weak die/packaging material set, which may fail with GPU temperature fluctuations.

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/07/25/nvidia-gpu-update-for-dell-laptop-owners.aspx

M1330 is included and they claim that flashing the BIOS to A12 will fix the problem, but that if your machine is already experiencing problems that flashing the BIOS won't help.

BTW new MOBO and HSF came Thursday morning. Tech even came to my house at 7:15 AM so I could get to work on time, although he obviously had a day job and handled a conference call with his employer while he was fixing my laptop.

Everything seems to be working fine at the moment. Even took it on the plane this weekend and watched some DVDs. Have not had time to play any games yet though.

On the other hand if Nvidia and Dell both agree there is a problem and the problem is related to a Die/Material set then can't they release a new MOBO which doesn't have a defective Die/Material set so those of us getting replacements won't have to deal with this issue?

 

Well it's only a matter of time - I just got a 3rd MOBO and screen. I am sitting here doing work and I had installed Deskscapes on Vista (creates a nice background effect). I decided to check the temps - I'm on the A12 BIOS. Here's what I got.

CPU cores maxed at 70 while working, but idle are running 51.
GPU was running at 91!!!!! It's running 75 at idle after I paused the Deskscapes background. This app is basically the same as Dreamscapes on Vista Ultimate as I understand it.

My guess is that at 91 degrees the GPU will fail again in a week.

Thoughts?

 

Possibly, but i've gotten my gpu that high with WoW but I don't have it on consistently as you do with deskscapes which could mean early gpu failure (but i doubt it would fail in a week). Maybe two or three weeks?

 

Well I just tried Deskscapes with MOBO #3, the other 2 failed on their own... I've taken Deskscapes off now and have a GPU temp between 68 and 76 - still high in my opinion for basically idle.

 

I got my motherboard replaced because of the GPU failure. With the new board, latest drivers and A12 BIOS my GPU goes up to 106°C !! (at which point it starts to throttle and game slow to a crawl)

The weird thing is that at no point do the fan run "full speed", they stay at slow or medium (that is to say, I do not hear the fan at their loudest level).

My laptop is basically useless for games now

 

Jeez, 106? I'm hoping your fan IS connected. I'd check to make sure...

 

The fan is connected and spinning. In fact it seems the cooling sink is correctly attached and in contact of the chips. There's also no dust to speak of.

My CPU was already reaching over >82°C and throttling before I seriously lowered the voltage with RMClock.

My only guess is that the logic managing the fan is broken because it should blow full speed well before reaching such temperatures. I tried reverting to older BIOS, doesn't change anything...

 

Just had my 2nd mobo replaced. This sucks.

 

Try tightening the screws that are on the heatsink.

 

so for the people that have had this problem fixed since dell's press release...

how long were you without your lappy?
is the problem likely to reoccur?
what BIOS do they suggest you use?

i'm from australia but i just moved to japan 10 days ago, problem started for me last night...am now trying to talk to an english-speaking dell rep to get it fixed. GREAT NEWS EVERYBODY.

oh and ps. i have a feeling this is related to a problem i was having a couple of months ago where the computer couldn't wake up after the screensaver had been on. the screen went black but the HD and CPU were obviously still working. i never found a solution for it so i just disabled the screensaver.

 

I live in Washington State and my computer was gone only 3 days. Left my house Tuesday and was returned Thursday.

The screen saver issue you saw - mine started the exact same way.

As of right now I am on #3 including the original, and am planning on having it die too....

it came with the A12 bios loaded.

I am sure you already have seen this, but just in case...check out this thread to keep the GPU temps down...so far mine is averaging about 10C lower at idle with the mod.


http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268081

 

I too live in Washington state and they had the tech to my house by noon the next day. And they sent me a free spare battery with the motherboard.

 

Checked that, they are as tight as possible.

I still think there's something wrong with the fans (either the thermal probe that is used to start them, or the software that control them). When using I8K I can force the fan at a higher speed, which means the BIOS isn't doing it's job properly.

(saddly I8K isn't a long-term solution has it keeps fighting with the BIOS over the proper speed, giving an annoying on/off sound)

I think I'll call support and pray I get to talk to someone who understand what my problem is (rather than ask me to reinstall Windows )

 

Try removing the heat sink assembly and reapply the thermal paste for the CPU and reposition those blue thermal pads and put it back together. I heard somewhere that the thermal control MIGHT be the northbridge and maybe it is not getting a good thermal transfer to really detect the correct temps. Or could be the GPU.

 

Looks like mine freaked out, updated video driver and bios, and it seems to be ok at the moment...My warranty expires on Sept 4....anyone have any luck on getting this replaced post warranty?

 

I doubt you'd be able to replace it post-warranty. Most Dell reps after hearing the story and reading your customer profile on their database will not replace it for you. If anything they'll basically say "screw you for not extending the warranty" and that'd be it. I haven't gone through the process yet, so I don't know for sure, however it'd be idiotic on Dell's part to replace a system that isn't covered by THEIR warranty. It is a business after all, not some consumer-first charity. One lost customer isn't a big deal for them, they sell thousands daily.

 

Seriously I should have got a mac

 

Yeah; then you'd only likely lose your hard drive within a year Seriously, EVERY computer/maker has issues.

 

Well, it worked, then it didn't...My screen is more of a jumbled mess than the vertical lines. When I restart it, it just goes to a black screen. I just bought the 5 year extended warranty to cover it, since my regular warranty expires next month.

 

its because of the defective Nvidia GPU batch with bad packaging causing the chip to die with heat fluctuation

 

So, if you have a bad video card, can you boot to Safe Mode?...Dell tech wants me to do a System Restore/Wipe clean to see if that is problem...I can boot into Safe Mode, just not anything else...

 

I had this exact same problem. The principle cooling fan stopped working altogether, only I did not realize this until about 3 days after this first happened. So of course I was trying to troubleshoot it. Well uh.. needless to say that burned the hell out of my gpu. Once I realized the issue I called Dell up (a pain until I used the XPS specific line) and they sent a tech with a replacement motherboard.

The first round of support didn't go so well. The "new" (refurbished) motherboard was dead on arrival and they also neglected to send a replacement heatsink/fan even though I made it very clear that this was the problem component. Thankfully, they were very quick with the next motherboard and this time they did send the fan/heatsink.

I'm currently using my repaired system, and everything is more or less ok, and I'm hoping it stays that way.

 

There's a secondary one ?

 

No, not normally. But since this incident I've purchased a cooling pad, so there is now a secondary and tertiary fan. Which will definitely pick up the slack in case the principle fan decides to die again.

 

(repost from another thread, just FYI):
my 6 month old m1330/8400 just died 1 week ago showing the typical GPU-failing symptoms first, and then shortly after total failure. got an on-site repair and the engineer replaced the motherboard and cooling unit.

as far as i can remember, i have approx. the same GPU temperatures with the repaired lappy as before with the defective one. both running on A11.

idle temps are CPU:47/48 GPU:72 (env. 25°C)
since A11, fan is on constantly on @medium, also during idle.

i think my GPU temp. is probably higher than normal as i drive an external TFT with 1900x1200 + Vista (glass effects) + closed notebook (=more trapped heat).
i dont game, but max GPU temp i can get (around 90°) is by using the FF piclens plugin (3D picture wall).

will soon try A12 to see if GPU temp gets lower at all. we'll see.
>> followup: now updated to A12 BIOS: exactly the same temps a before. was to be expected, as the fan was running all the time before already.. :-/

i have a feeling that this was not my last repair because of the GPU. i certainly will extend warranty if i haven't sold this thing within the next 6 month already

 

has dell taken responsibility for anything yet, will they

 

No.

Who knows? And I'm not entirely sure why they should - it's NVIDIA's mistake, not Dell's.

 

Just had my motherboard replaced! God they give the runaround when calling/dealing with them...They sent the wrong motherboard and when the tech called them to get the right one sent back, they started asking him to do a bunch of "useless" things, (this after they made me reformat, run tests, etc...)

 

Tech support has been pressured into taking a denial position with this GPU issue in order to try to save the company a buck while it gets paid by Nvidia for all those replaced motherboards.

Nvidia payoff money + continued sales of the defective Nvidia chipped M1330 - Less customer replaced motherboards = more profit for Dell

 

Callanish, i think you have hit the nail on the head and are exactly right. (unfortunatley) as i too alike all other here and those who have not bothered to contribute ot this forum, have suffered for it.

only optimistic view, get waranties upto date and extended if possible.

unfortunately this laptop we all have is not mainstream in large Enterprises or prestigious Govt Ministires. If only it was, their complaints and legal suits would have changed things.

interesting note, soemone else mentioned, to help keep temps down(wont solve the problem, only prolong the inevitable), is by unplugging the charger cable(run on batteries), the temp on the GPU start dropping imidiately. In fact running on battaries now im running at the coolest GPU temp ive ever had (averaging around 55-58C on battery and generay web surfing)

lets hope DELL do the HONORABLE thing , fix it or allow replacement board/machine to another model without the GPU/HSF design problem. But reality is they are yet another USA giant corporation only interested in quarterly and annual numbers, aka PROFIT

all the best all and keep up this informative, yet painful for all of us forum )

 

Unplugging the cable puts the GPU into low power mode. The exact same thing can be used by using rivatuner and setting the clocks to something really low (275/301 for me). I had requested a while ago changes to be added to rivatuner to allow the clocks to be tweaked in that way so we're good to go. You'll just have to look up the clock power multiplier in the advanced settings. I would actually highly recommend doing this for casual use as you use less power and don't stress the GPU as much. Don't do the pulling power method as lithium batteries die much faster that way. NiCad's are the batteries that like to be discharged.

 

Add one to the list here. Screen went south 2 days ago. Found this thread yesterday, phoned Dell pronto. Customer Support was pretty good, tried flashing BIOS to A12, screen promptly went into meltdown again with the Dell guy dialled in, so he immediately arranged for a technician to call. Came today, replaced mobo in about 20 minutes. And so far so good - yey! Can't fault to customer service so far.

 

Ok well my computer screen started flickering just now and showed the message "display driver has stopped responding and has been succesfully recovered." I already had my motherboard replaced once. This is the first time that this has happened since my motherboard replacement. I really hope my computer doesn't die on me again. I'm kind of scared because I was reading comments from here and one person said that they had a warranty that was supposed to expire in 2010 but because they had a lot of service calls (motherboard replaced 4 times I think) their warranty was voided. That's pretty ridiculous and unfair and I hope it was just an unfortunate case of that customer speaking with a bad Dell employee.

It's sad because I really like the laptop, I just hate that I have to be afraid of using it when I paid so much for it. I really hope that Dell finds an acceptable solution soon and doesn't try to sweep this under the rug... it's too big a heap for that to work

 

I brought my Dell XPS m1330 laptop in December 07 and it came with bios A08 installed, around Feb I updated the bios to A09.
The laptop had been fine for everything I was doing, surfing the web, word apps, general vista stuff and playing 2D games such as Age of empires etc...Anyway's around May I installed a 3D game called Rollercoaster tycoon 3, it was the first time I'd played a 3D game on the laptop. The game settings were on high, I started the game, played it for no more than 10 mins before the game just froze then the laptop would crash and re-start. I originally thought maybe I had the settings too high so I tried RCT 3 on low settings, same situation occurred again. So I tried other 3D games such as Half Life 2 and team fortress i hit the same problems as before. Actually around the same time as the in-game freezing problem I started hitting problems with my system not recognising my hard drive. One morning I turned on my laptop as normal when I got an "Disk read error occurred press ctrl+alt+del to restart" message, so I checked the bios everything was fine, restarted, got the same message again. This went on for about 15+ restart attempts then it just worked, windows Vista loaded as it normally would, I was a bit bemused by this but it seemed fine. The Rest of May and June the laptop was pretty much working fine apart from the odd, random "disk reads error" at start-up but it only occurred occasionally so I didn't make an issue of it.


So 3/4 weeks ago I installed the new bios A12 and latest nvidia (175.97) driver, that's when the MAJOR problems started to occur. First of the disk read error problem, it started happening a lot more, I'd say 1/5 of the start-ups.
Once I get past the start-up issues vista seems to all of a sudden start running really slow, almost to a standstill. It can happen at any random stage, from 1 hour to 3 hours later, it just starts running really slow. I may add this doesn't happen all the time but once or twice a week, a restart seems to sort it. What is more disturbing is the last 2 weeks I have started getting the problems "sinstoic" had. I'd be surfing the internet when I'd get weird dots, almost as if you'd lowered the colour to like 4 bit, then it would degrade and I'd just end up with artifacts then the vertical lines in many different colours. The laptop then freezes up and restarts. This is now happening 2/3 times a week. What is concerning me more than anything is the short burning smell I have noticed Thursday and today when the problem re-occurred.
I've re-installed vista, drivers and bios but the situation seems to slowly be getting worse. What is more concerning it seems to me that ever since I installed the latest bios A12 and nvidia drivers these problems have exculated. If this continues I am going to have to contact Dell, the reason why I have kind of put off contacting dell earlier is because I need my laptop as I have no other computer at this moment.

The question is do I have a hard drive problem as well have a graphics card problem or is it just the drivers causing this....

Do I have a serious problem...

How long will it take if dell take the laptop for repair...as I really need a computer...

Advice would be much appreciate.

 

i'm in japan and dealing with dell support is REALLY difficult since they don't speak much english and i don't speak japanese...

anyway they are trying to get me to re-install windows (which means i have to wait for my family to send me my vista cd...another 2 weeks without lappy!) before they take the computer in for service (which itself will take two weeks over here).

is there ANY way this is a vista issue? the guy i was talking to said it could be vista SP1 that is causing the trouble. but based on this thread i HIGHLY doubt that. would uninstalling SP1 help at all?

 

vista has nothing to do use this issue, the problem exists on XP also.

 

Just tell them you tried re-installing windows and it didn't help. I've had the same problem and when i re-intalled windows i still get the same problems.