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

Well, mine just arrived. Replaced the mobo YAY!

BTW, Does the replaced mobo has the new card, i mean a error less mobo? A newly manufactured one may be?

 

@benna: No one's 100% sure, but the general consensus seems to be that no, it doesn't mean that.

If you feel confidant, I'd suggest the copper mod. Depends on how long your warranty is for though.

Good luck with this one either way!

 

I bought mine when first released. m1330. The main board has been replaced 4 times allready. Last replacment was a week ago. Unfortunatley he'll be back this week. The last reapair included a new led screen, but the old screen was better. intermittenly the LCD flashes a verticle 3inch bar/lines on screen. Thank goodness I have the full warranty so all repairs are covered. Dell tech has an office setup at my work, knows the routine allready. sad but true!

 

Let me in this club.
The technician is coming tomorrow. Lets see how it works out.

 

Problem solved. I hope it stays good from now on.
Can somebody make a sticky or something like that who is following this issue from long time about the cause and the chance of recurrence of the problem.
Because this is a long thread to follow and understand this issue.

 

Well, I'm about to join the club. Frequent BSOD and freezing with artifacts on screen. Everything is back to normal at reboot, but it's almost a ticking time bomb at this point. At least I know it's going to happen, and I've had a chance to back everything up.

 

Add me to the bunch..

had my m1330 for about 6 months until the nvidia video card failed

3 different bsod's and crazy pixelated screens

i reformated back to the vga graphics and everything was great until the moment i installed the nvivida 8300m back on and right away pixelated screen of fail

so booted up in safe, uninstalled nvidida drivers, restarted and im back to using the laptop with vga graphics, i can use the comp fine just cant play any games cause they wont work with the vga graphics..

calling dell support tomorrow for my new motherboard

btw: i used old and new drivers with the nvidia graphics and it still flopped

 

It is extremely frustrating to read the magnitude of unhappiness that Dell users have had with the xps m1330--myself included.

I found another website/ discussion of this issue:
http://getsatisfaction.com/dell/top..._with_graphics_video_driver#full_conversation

They have a button you can press to state how many people have had this problem. I think we should direct everyone there and up that number tremendously-- try to aggregate all of us unhappy users. I think it will help make our case stronger!

 

I had an M1330 once. It was the biggest piece of trash on this planet. First and last time every buying a Dell. Lenovo's are the way to go.

 

Wow nice. The new studio XPS 13 looks good and I hope it isn't plagued by the reoccurring problems the m1330 has.

 

The screen on my laptop went purple just before the computer crashed first time last week. Then it happened again a few days later, but it always worked upon two reboots (first one gave me the line).

Then, just two hours after finishing my bachelor thesis (..!), it went stone dead. My one year warranty went out 3-4 weeks ago so I was prepared for an argument when I called Dell, but the guy on the other end just made me run a few tests which took about 3 minutes before declaring the graphic card dead and ordering a tech guy to come fix it tomorrow.

This was in Sweden and I'm really uplifted by the service so far. Let's just hope the tech guy doesn't screw up

Edit: So, the techie was just here, took him about 30 minutes to undo and redo the computer with a new motherboard, but now it seems to work al right. Simply excellent service!

 

Mine went bad about 1 year ago, and it has happened again today. I had the most recent bios as well. Looks like another motherboard..

 

Just a quick note of my experiences.

I have had my Dell M1330 (8400M, T7250) for 2 years now. The laptop was initially very quiet, but has steadily got noisier (as the fan is working harder). I don't play games but I do run lots of code (i.e.100% CPU utilisation for several hours to days at a time).

The laptop had just started de-clocking it's self during runs. I think the problem started to get really bad in autumn 2008, but the cold weather and lack of heating in my flat helped the cooling. Now the temps has picked up the M1330 was declocking itself to 39% or lower (from VISTA's reliability monitor).

SO, Phoned dell customer support (Yesterday Lunch) got through (to India?), very nice people at the support center, but they made me update bios (a05 to a15) and run diagnostics. But I did get the impression that they knew the problem and just had to do this.

VERY NEXT day technician came around and replaced the Motherboard and heat sink in 30min. Laptop is now MUCH quieter again, but only had it a few hours.

INTERESTING THINGS THE TECH SAID:
-He has had a lot of practise doing the repair, hence the 30min for a complete disassembly... he was doing upto 6 a day...
-Nvida is copping the bill for the repairs
-Dell is fixing M1330 that are out of warranty (maybe because of the above).
-I got a 'revised board', he apparently asked what the revisions were, but...
-Before he was seeing the same people every few weeks to swap boards (he got on first name terms). Now after revised board it has been several months and none of the revised boards have failed.

It was a shame that it had the problem, but I am super impressed with the service (especially as mine came from ebay, with a owner transfer and I only paid £600, with 3yrs warranty ). It is looking hopeful from what the tech said that the problem is fixed.... maybe, hah lol! Well one year of warranty left.

 

I purchased my laptop (dell xps 1330) in December, 2006. I have a same problem as yours. When I was working the screen went green and then horizontal colored lines started filling up and I had to reboot it. I replaced motherboard and used external fan to prevent t over heat. But this problem happened again a few months later and ….
Finally I had to replaced motherboard for 3 time!!!!
Now my one year warranty went out and I haven’t any money to purchase another laptop or motherboard!!!! What should I do?!
Do dell support me?!
do u have any idea?? Thanks a lot

 

I just had the same problem the day after the warranty expired.

I just called Dell Spain and they reckognized this particular problem is frequent in M1330's and confirmed that Dell offers a 1 year extended warranty for this specific nVidia problem. They will send a technician over to replace the motherboard. So far so good, let's see....

 

Is my 1330 dying on me as well? I had my laptop since last January 2008 and I share some similar experience with some other members here. The laptop was really quiet at the beginning but now the fan goes on like crazy, although I don't really use it heavily. Also, for the first time, vista crashed with a nice blue screen yesterday (haven't seen a blue screen for a while). It started with watching a movie and I was using the forwarding button to scroll when all of the sudden the screen went crazy with different funny colors and the computer froze and a blue screen appeared with some message of a hardware failure (can't remember what it said though...something with memory) I had to hard reboot in safe modus, shut down and reboot normally again before I could use the computer again. However, after starting another video file again, the computer crashed again with the screen going wild with full of rainbow colors. Again, I had the same procedure before I could use the computer again. I didn't have any bad experience after that and will see tonight whether there are any issues. However, is this a sign that the graphics card is slowly dying on me??? Or could it be something else?

 

Ok, guess my 1330 or better the nVidia chip just died on me....see pics...wow...that was fast....yesterday, first signs and today, computer won't turn on or better, the screen remains black....it doesn't even get to the initial boot phase (or at least I can't see it).

What is really strange though is that I never used the computer for any intensive computing. I just used it for office applications and internet surfing....can't believe that this would already cause the nVidia chip to die....

Let's see how things go with Dell customer support....I'm currently in Korea for couple of month and since I bought my computer in Germany, it will be certainly a hassle to get the computer fixed.....

 

Well,

Slightly OT (but heat-related), my hard drive (Western Digital 250GB) failed completely and without warning first thing yesterday morning on resume from sleep...
Fortunately I had done a full backup (OneCare) onto a local USB passport drive a couple of days ago - and had a drive image also on the USB drive - but elected to do a clean and shiny reinstall on a fresh £59 Hitachi 250GB SATA from my local PC World. I also restored a handful of files missing from the OneCare backup from my online Carbonite backup, completed 12 hrs before failure.
Backups, I like 'em

So when the courier arrived this morning with the warranty exchange drive (a Fujitsu this time) I imaged the fresh install off the Hitachi onto the USB drive and copied it over onto the Fujitsu, locking the Hitachi away ready to go instantly in case the replacement warranty drive fails...

Big shout again to Dell customer service care

 

Well, add me to the list as well. A few months ago the LED backlight died and had to be replaced. Now, as its 1st birthday present, the laptop decided to get me the beautiful vertical lines.

Needless to say, I'm kinda pissed off and almost regret buying this laptop. Is there anything I can do? Also, my warranty is a "return to base" type, but I'm not gonna drag my down to the lab for a problem that's entirely their fault. Not to mention Dell support here (Israel) is virtually nonexistent, so I don't really know who can I talk to.

The frustration..............

 

Dell replaced my mobo a few days ago (two working days after I called Technical Support). The box it came in showed REFURBISHED in big letters. The guy told me that the new GPU "should be fine as he never had to go back to replace the mobo a second time...". This doesn't shound very reassuring to me.

I am going to call Dell on Monday to see if they can sell me an extended warranty.....

 

It will fail. Just give it time.
I got my 1330 in the first batch that went out. Mobo had to be replaced 6.18.08.

Then it failed again on Sunday. Technician just left.
Dell isn't making any changes other than releasing a new bios that has the fans run higher. All it does is delay the problem. It DOES NOT solve it.

I have a three year on this lappy. I'll be selling it before that runs out.
Good luck!

 

I ordered my 1330 when they were first released, there was delay after delay but finally shipped. I love this notebook! But, i've been thru 5 mainboards (due to the same problem) each time. I'm glad I got the full extended warranty. I will definatley get rid of mine before the warranty expires...

 

I just had my fifth failure today. This computer is a dog. 3 mother boards, one HDD in 2 years. Just purchased an X301 to replace this. I have bought Dell's since they were PC Limited -- have 5 now. Will never buy another one!!!

Still have a year on the warranty but this is ridiculous.

 

They are always refurbished, I'm afraid...

My first replacement had a working GPU but the firewire port was "loose", for lack of a better word... almost as if the board was used...

 

My machine finally has vertical lines =[
My warranty expired 9-2008.
I just found this post from this thread: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/...ment-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx

would my machine be able to get this extended warranty if the machine was bought on 09-2007?
I'm scared to buy a motherboard with this happening again.

 

Ring Dell and find out! I think you should be covered.

 

Awesome looks like they will be granting me the warranty extension for free. Should I go for the intel graphics rather than the nvidia? will this extend the life of the laptop?

 

If you've no real need for the nVidia graphics and they'll agree to swap for one without, then that will take care of the issue going forward (barring other oddball issues that just happen now and then for no good reason).

My M1330 with the 8400M-GS died after two days of ownership. I RMA'd it for a refund then waited patiently for a similar one with the intel graphics (don't need the higher end graphics for my use of this laptop) to coincide with another 15% off outlet coupon. It should be arriving tomorrow. Yay.

 

As I already had this 'vertical line' issue when i first bought my M1330 (couple of years ago) and replaced new motherboard, since last week it happened again!! which is my warrant finished last year!!. this giving me a headache
This 'vertical line' issue suddenly came up and it happened occasionaly but slightly different than last time.

After it happened again, it seemed normal after tried to boot few times but a while ago the screen goes yellowish and then turned off by itself.
So i formatted and re-installed vista home premium then my M1330 became extremely SLOW!!! like 80s computer....

is there any chance that i can get a replacement without charge? coz my warrant is expired. this giving me a real headache!! not again..

anyone can give me an idea how to fix this problem?

any comment would be appreciated..HELP!! So eager to destroy DELL..

 

Hi there!

I just had sadly experienced this same issue, and I contacted Dell yesterday. They were immediately aware of the problem, and it wasn't a stress trying to get it resolved.

They wanted to get a tech out to me tomorrow, but I said I wouldn't be home all day except on Friday - so that's when someone is coming.

I have done a bit more research, and I've got some questions.

1) Does the replacement mobo actually fix this, or just replaces it with the same type of motherboard that's likely to die again in 11 months time (that's how long mine has taken to die)?

2) Is it the same GPU chip, or an updated one? The person on the phone said they send an "updated motherboard" which shouldn't go wrong

3) I have also read elsewhere that dell extend the warranty. Does this automatically happen, or do I need to request it?

4) As this is only my first replacement, I guess they wouldn't offer me a Studio 13 instead?

By the way, I'm from the UK.

Thank you.

 

need advice:

I just got the vertical lines this morning... should i be panic and contact the technical support now? it was working normally again after several reboots. My warranty should be over 6 months ago, but it seems that m1330 gets an extended warranty period? I am talking about this http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/...ate-limited-warranty-enhancement-details.aspx

anyway should i contact them now, or just give more attention to my video card temp in the future?

 

I would contact them now.

Regarding the warranty, I sent an email to them about extending it (because mine ends in liek 6 days) their reply was no!... I even quoted that page.

Anyone else have any information about that, any my other questions in my last post? (On page 118)

Thanks.

 

Can anyone please help with confirming whether the replacement motherboard actually resolves this fully? If not, I'm going to try and get rid of it as it won't be under warranty, and I don't want it dying again in another few months.

The engineer said it does, but then I've heard of others having theirs replaced multiple times?

Thanks a lot

 

I had a replacement motherboard put in my 1330 last Summer.

I don't know whether or not its because of the heat at the moment, but I've recently been getting a few graphics card crashes and started up once with vertical lines.

Hopefully it's just because I'd left it on for a bit too long for the past week or so and not turning it off or putting it on standby as much as usual in combo with the recent bit of heat in the UK and nothing too serious.

But replacing the motherboard definitely does not fix the issue.

 

Folks, first of all, thank you all for sharing information. It is very helpful. I found my way to this discussion after my M1330 died on me a few days ago. It had all the symptons that everyone described. I called tech support and obviously it is a known common problem so they are going ship out a "new" motherboard and have a tech come out to do service.

However, I am a bit skeptical about dell now and wondering if I need to get extende warrenty. Did anyone experienced failure "again" after the replacement? Fortuantly I still have 1 month left on my initial 1 year warrenty, but now I am wondering if I need to add 2 more years ($290 USD not cheap at all) I've been a long time dell supporter, but this is a bit disappointing with so many people having this problem. (almost seem like a scam to scare/force people to buy extra warrenty...sigh..)

 

Look above your post.

Mine is failing at the moment and I'll need a replacement before long.

I would not bother getting more warranty unless you plan on keeping the laptop for the entire duration of the warranty.

I say this, but I have a 4 year warranty on mine haha

 

Dell is not changing the design flaw. Instead they release a BIOS update that turns the fan on more frequently in hopes of extending the life of the board.

It's not a question of "if" it will fail. Only "when".

I'm on my third with two years of warranty of life left. I will be selling this computer before my warranty expires. Dell really left a bad taste in my mouth on this one.

 

It's a shame that we've got these GPU issues because I really like the M1330 except for this huge unacceptable graphics card issue. I've been forced to run on powersaver mode to keep the GPU temp down in hopes that the system won't fail on me at the worse time ( when I'm travelling ). I've already received a replacement motherboard A04 revision June 2008 and so far, touch wood, this one hasn't gone south yet, but I'm under no illusion that at some point this one won't fail as well. I used to be an always Dell person, but when the time comes to purchase another notebook, I'm afraid I will be looking at all my options.

Compromising with powersaver settings because you don't know how long you've got before your computer's motherboard dies is really a pathetic approach to take with a system that originally cost me $2000

 

As i'd spoken with dell about vertical line issue, i explained to them that my warrant is expired and had the motherboard replacement once already and the same problem occurred again, they told me i have to pay coz of warrant expired but i assumed they already recognize the graphic card issue and also they can check the replacement service from my detail, they finally accepted free replacement.

the thing is like most of other ppl said the problem is 'when' its going to happen again..i told them even if i get the replacement no one can tell whether it will fix the problem permanently or not...

i will get the replacment tomorrow..but...i really disappointed with dell..
coz this is my first time using laptop..
my other laptop in my office is older than my M1330 and its way better , quiet, not overheating much..

I really want to sell my m1330 and get a new one..other one..
anyone think i can get other model rather than m1330 instead of motherboard replacement??
errrrrrrrrr

 

I have had 5 replaced and I now have issue with it again (only a couple of weeks of use) -- video crashes and power on with no video... Classic signs. Have bought Dell's since they were PC Limited and this is my LAST..

Message being written on a Lenovo X301

 

I purchased my m1330 during November of 2007 and the motherboard died in late May of 2008. The second motherboard failed a few days ago and I am left with a dead laptop that is only good for displaying vertical lines.

I tried contacting tech support earlier today but was not able to get a hold of anyone because I was forwarded to out-of-warranty service by their computerized phone system. My system's initial warranty lapsed last November but the Dell site still shows: Rapid Response Depot 183 days remaining.

How are those of you with the extended video warranty getting in touch with tech support? Do I just need to argue with the out of warranty department until they forward me to someone that can help?

I would like to have it replaced with the Intel graphics but imagine that is a lost cause.

 

I also have the problem and I will call Dell tomorrow to get my motherboard replacement.

Is the Nvidia GPU built into the motherboard or can it be replaced with something else like an ATI? Will Dell offer another GPU?

 

I have already had one replacement a few months ago, and fear another one may be coming up. Has anyone been successful in getting an XPS 13 replacement? Not a big fan of the XPS 13 because of the added weight and thickness, but I need a stable 13 inch laptop with discrete graphics.

 

Yes, it's built in. No it can't be replaced. The only other option would be to abandon the nvidia GPU for Intel and get rid of the problem entirely. Prepare to do a bit of talking to Dell on why you want to abandon the Nvidia GPU for an intel chip though. No other GPU is available for this model.

 

I get to join the club too!

For about a week my XPS m1330 has been acting up, running real hot, fans cranking like crazy all the time, and this is just casual internet browsing, e-mail, and an occasional YouTube video. I thought it was a software issue so I formatted and reinstalled Windows, updated all the drivers, including the latest BIOS (A14?). Now it just locks up and the screen turns random neon colors and shuts off. Turning it back on gives me the vertical rainbow lines. Even completely cooled off now it will not turn on. I bought the computer less than a year ago, in July 2008. I "chatted" with Dell today and someone is coming to replace the motherboard tomorrow (hopefully) or Monday (agh). I'm concerned though that it's just going to sh*t the bed again in 10 months and I'm going to be out of a laptop I paid over $1300 for! Maybe I should use the new motherboard as a selling point and sell it for a MacBook! I probably won't buy another Dell... ever.

Has anyone ever gotten Dell to buy back your computer or give you a newer model due to this issue?

 

So, if i have the intel integrated graphics, then I should not expect in the long run to have problems mentioned in this thread?

 

Correct. It is the nvidia GPU that is causing all of these issues.

 

I am thinking about buying a brand new M1330 with the Nvidia GPU. Are the newly manufactured versions re-designed or do they have the same design flaw?

 

I've got stripes towards the middle of my screen where the colors are lighter than the rest. It's not rainbow or very noticeable unless I'm watching a movie but it's annoying. Is that part of the nvidia issue or not?

 

Hi, I'm also having a lot of trouble with my 1330 which is several months out of warranty, but still within the 2 year GPU warranty. I rang tech support the first time for no display. The display eventually came on and I got a BSOD while troubleshooting - the STOP error code signalled a HDD failure. I fitted a new hard drive and again I was getting no display or a display with vertical lines (the fault is completely intermittent of course). Today the Dell tech explains that it is a loose connection to my LCD monitor which I suspect is complete and utter BS. The odd thing is if I hold the 'D' key while powering on, it runs a diagnostic that cycles through different screen colours which works fine everytime with no corruption. Can anyone else with display problems try this test for me? Any ideas on how I can convince them to replace the GPU? Thanks...