XPS M1530 Nvidia GPU

I am thinking about buying a used XPS M1530 with an Nvidia GPU card. I don't really see any threads of it burning out/Nvidia flaw like the M1330's. Does this happen with the Nvidia cards on the M1530?

 

Then you must have not looked very hard cause it has the same issues

 

Member since March 2009...look again and it does not stop. There are other brands that have this problem also.. But yes the 1530 suffers from this..

 

I think the problems are prevalent with Nvidia cards. But so far, I'm using the 8600M GT on XPS 1530 and have been playing alot of FPS games (Battlefield 2, FEAR, etc.), and so far I've had no severe issues with burning out and overheating. Take note that I haven't downloaded any of the newer drivers, and am still using the driver that originally came with the factory settings.

But yeah, I agree with HCW and BlackRussian. Many 1530's suffer from the problem.

 

I'd just like to throw in here, that the problem on the M1530 seems to be nowhere near as prevalent as that on the M1330. I've had my M1530's motherboard replaced, possibly due to the GPU, but it could've been related to the fan controller.

To be honest, I wouldn't really worry. You get whatever warranty you purchase the machine with, and Dell have added an extra year for the GPU. So, if you have 2 years, you get 2 years full cover + an extra year for GPU related issues. Seems like a good deal to me.

And look at it this way, if it up and dies towards the end of you warrantly, free upgrade.

 

It is agreed that the 8600M suffers from the same manufacturing defect as the 8400M (and several other of the same family), i.e. the whole solder bump/undefill issue.

However, while the 8400Ms in the M1330 were seen to die en masse (often in under 6 months), there havent really been similar problems with the 8600M in the M1530, not on the same scale anyway. I havent seen too many reports of them dying, probably no more than average for any component. Many people here have had theirs nearly 2 years with no problems thus far. A lot of this is accounted for by the lower operating temps compared to the M1330.

I would still not recommend buying a used one, unless it has a solid warranty. Better safe than sorry.

 

I'd disagree and say that I think the GPU's in the M1530's are about 50/50 compared to anything else. There are definitely ALOT more reports about them dying as opposed to other components (at least from my observations), but by no means as much as the M1330's. I'd probably go as far to say that the GPU issue, whilst it's very real and prevalent, is probably a little over-inflated and exaggerated. But yeah, the lower temperatures definitely help. The M1330's are little ovens. I'd say at a rough guess, 80% of M1330's have issues with the GPU, unless there are alot of people out their who haven't had problems who are keeping quiet.

Either way, I wouldn't worry. But yeah, don't get a used one. It's rumoured anyway that the new ones use GPUs which have a "fixed" die packaging. Whether that's true or not, who knows, but I have seen it on the interwebs (I think it was on this forum, actually).