M1330 GPU fixed... more info.

I had a technician over at my place today to change the motherboard and harddisk of my laptop. He was a nice guy, about my age and we discussed a lot about the problems surrounding the m1330 while he disassembled and put mine back together.

So the information I got from him is that ever since the problem was discovered, officially since Aug 01, Dell has only sold computers with non-defective GPUs, at least here in Sweden.

So how do you get to know if you have a non-defective GPU in your laptop? Anyone with motherboard revision 04 (Rev: 04) or later will have the new, non-defective, GPU. The nVidia card on this board uses eutectic solders instead of the heat sensitive high lead ones.

You can find out what rev you have by removing the big L shaped cover on the back of your M1330 and of either of the RAM you'll find the letters "Rev:" followed by 01, 02, 03 or 04. 04 having the non defective nVidia GPU. Older revisions can also have the new non-defective GPU if they were sold in August, but I don't know if that can be seen.

More info:
I also got to know from him that all nVidia GPUs in the m1330 and m1530 models are defective, every single one, up until those built and sold in August, the high lead solder was used on every single card manufactured so all of them are affected.

He also told and showed me that this week, Monday to Friday, he alone repaired over 10 defective GPUs, he could show me because he was carrying around a ton of small extra cables that come from changing those units.

This said, the GPU still gets **** hot due to the construction of the M1330, which can lead to damaging the motherboard. If you own a m1330 and your warranty is about to expire I advice you to apply the copper mod.

Remember that this information comes from a Dell technician, it's not an official announcement.

 

Wow, this is very useful information on the whole Nvidia issue. Thanks for sharing.

 

Very interesting indeed. Thank you for posting. Earlier you stated that you had a defective GPU, and obviously the tech was replacing yours, but when did you order? Did he show you your MB revision #?

I just want to see if your real world experience supports what the tech told you.

Edit: I just realized some of that info is in your sig. Okay, so you ordered at the end of August. So far that doesn't jibe with what the tech said. How about your MB revision #?

 

This isn't true. The A04 motherboards have been around for a while and still fail with similar regularity.

 

Sad to hear it maybe isn't true. The tech told me that none of the Rev: 04 motherboards has failed GPU wise, maybe because of other heat problems, but he said he never had to change one because of a burned out CPU. I think the 04's were introduced in August, but I can't know.

Could any Rev: 04 owner around here confirm that their GPUs has failed them? Solder-cracking-wise, that is.

@jimmiem, I had Rev: 01, so that I had mine changed doesn't disprove anything about Rev: 04. I don't actually know if my motherboard was defective, but it had a high pitched whine to it and that's why I got it changed.

 

ok can u tell us, using gpu-z , wich revision of the nvidia video card you have in your fixed system please?

 

isn't there a motherboard REV: 00 too? Think I got it...Dell replaced it from a A01 to A00, 2 weeks ago....still hot though, but idles around 65C, before 75C.

 

True or not, thanks much for the posting. I don't think Dell will ever officially release any information of if/when they are shipping non defective GPU systems and this information will have to come from the repair techs or the worker who build the systems.

I too would be interested on what revision shows in gpu-z for the nvidia card.

 

There are problems with the eutectic approach too if not engineered properly. Did nVidia have the time to do the proper job with eutectic solder or did they just take their current design and change the soldering method?

 

Yeah, who knows :/. If those new GPUs start failing as well I'd say nVidia threw themselves down the drain, I know already that the next time I'm buying a computer I'll be looking the ATI way.

I'll check my GPU revision once I have more time, I'm about to move to Edinburgh so I might be absent from the internet for over a week. Sorry.

 

Hey,
Bought my 1330 in april, and used guifan8 to tell the temps until august (when i went to x64). The max heat he processor ever hit was 180 f and the gpu peaked at 190 f. After some mods (I opened the case and put a **** load of artic silver on the chips and the heatsink , and cut larger holes underneath the fan) the tempertures peaked at 140f and 170f. I even got the cpu down to 80f and gpu to 115f once! However, I was watching a video on my tv the other day (via) hdmi, and sudenly the ****ed thing shut down and the screen went nuts. So obviously i let it sit and unplugged everything for a little. When i booted I was so happy to see that vertical lines growing in shape and color had replaced my LEDs otherwise great picture. So obviously this sucks.
Already spoke to dell and they sent me a box, so its all ready to ship. Tok out my hard drive and turbo memory and wiped off all the thermal paste including the original crap. Cleaned up the external appearnce and all so it looks almost like new. However, those cuts i made under the fan. They are noticiable. After running tests, it appears that the fan stopped running (unless that is the after effect of the gpu failure) and now I dont feel like getting blamed for the breakage.

TL;DR
1) I need a new cover for the cpu,gpu, heatsink, fan area. Help me find one (bonus points if i can do rush order !)

2) How did you fix the gpu ? I am able to do the mod probably, so did the tech explain it ? If it can be done its probably worth a shot.

 

bump. Any help?

Can someone find the bottom panel part number ?
(the one for ram,gpu,cpu,fan)

 

hellooooooooo? immel/ please post gpu rev.! XD

 

Hey, finally got internet access in my new flat. Well, what can I say, my GPU broke down, or something like that. Whatever drivers I install I get hardware errors/bluescreens/random shutdowns.

Dell is sending a laptop replacement within 15 days, I bought the laptop in Sweden and I'm getting the replacement shipped to Scotland. I love their service.

I'll post the GPU rev once I get my new 1330.

 

Hello all,

I am in chance to purchase this notebook, so I would like to know if the gpu problem is solved by now (for new m1330's)?


It is a great notebook and my first choice, and intel gpu isn't a solution (besides, because i live in Croatia, here we only have offered three uncustomizable m1330 configurations, and the intel one is too weak overall).

 

im sorry to say but this problem still occurs. The only way to extend the life of your gpu is to do the copper mod.

 

Thanx for the quick answer. Guess i'll just bite the bullet and purchase the thing - i have three years of reassurance that any failure will be repaired... and who knows, maybe they'll ycome up with a better solution in the meantime.

But it still annoys me endlessly - finding an almost perfect notebook for my needs and then discovering it has a major flaw.

 

yes i was gonna sell my m1530 because of this problem..but i decided to keep it and so far i have not gotten any problems. i hope the same happens to you .

 

From what I understand, the solder fix is not part of a revision, due to the hardware components themselves not being affected. But any machine shipped since august should have the fix.

 

How come dell doesn't fix the known problem. If this is a known issue with a viable solution yet they still are sending the notebooks "as is". Shouldn't they apply the copper mod in factory?

Is the M1330 more prone to failing? There are other notebooks (vostro 1310) that use the 8xxx GPU but most threads here are about m1330.

 

Well, this is the XPS forum.

 

the guy never posted his gpu revision XD....

 

GPU revision will not change, the solder itself changes, not the chip itself.

 

Does the new solder look any different than the old one?

 

im starting to doubt the existence of revision A04.....

 

You should not be able to see the solder, so you can not tell, only by the time when you got your laptop, any from August on should be ok. I went through about 4 motherboards and 2 replacement laptops (replacement, warranty broken parts) and was dealing with someone far beyond tech support, and they told me anything produced after mid august should be fine, and they purged the old inventory. Latest one being sent out late october, and I at least believe that it has no issues, runs like a dream.

 

I just had my M1330 mobo replaced...8 months out of warranty. I bought the laptop the same month it first came out with a one yr onite warranty. Over the year i had the speakers changed, the mobo changed (now for the second time) and also the screen changed - so it is very poor build.

However, i must say that ive received excellent customer service (probably because it was an onsite warranty and an XPS). Phone conversations never took longer than 20mins and all repair were carried out on site the following day by the engineers.

I just spoke to a dell advisor, and they assured me that dell has agreed to cover this overheating GPU issue for FIVE YEARS!...not the 12months that were initially suggests. Although this gives me SOME reassurance, im planning to do the copper mod just to save the hassle of constant mobo replacements. Technically this voids warranty, but you can always put the thermal pad back on before you return it for repair and they'll never know

Im not planning on keeping the M1330 for long, just ordered a Vaio Z. Hopefully that'll live up to the challenge that M1330 has failed miserably.