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    XPS M170 Broken

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by Tim50, Sep 11, 2008.

  1. Tim50

    Tim50 Newbie

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    I bought my Dell XPS M170 in 2006 so the warranty is up. The last 2 weeks while I was playing the on line game City of Heroes my screen suddenly went wacky, by wacky I mean it got these horizontal colored lines then went black. The laptop was still running but no screen image. I pushed the power button and shut down the system then re-started the system with no issues and went back to my game only to have the same thing happen again, this time the laptop will not boot back up. The 3 green LCD lights flash as normal then they go out, the fans barely run and nothing powers up. My system is a 2.13 ghz 2 gb of ram intel pentium M770 with a Nivida GForce Go 7800 GTX. Is my system broken for good?
     
    Tim50, Sep 11, 2008
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  2. MystiklMayhem

    MystiklMayhem Notebook Consultant

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    your computer wont even boot up? i might be wrong but i suspect the motherboard is dead.
     
    MystiklMayhem, Sep 11, 2008
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  3. Tim50

    Tim50 Newbie

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    That's what I was afraid of. Ya, the green LED's flash then go out, no working light on, screen is black, power light is lit but that's about it. Thanks for the response.
     
    Tim50, Sep 12, 2008
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  4. Thaenatos

    Thaenatos Zero Cool

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    I second the motherboard as the culprit. A shame since thats a sweet rig you have there.
     
    Thaenatos, Sep 12, 2008
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  5. MystiklMayhem

    MystiklMayhem Notebook Consultant

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    So from this point, i guess what you do is up to you. i dont know if replacing the mobo is possible or financially wise. Personally, i think id try to sell the laptop as is, sell it as a bare bones or something. Whatever you choose, good luck to you.
     
    MystiklMayhem, Sep 12, 2008
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  6. spike109u

    spike109u Notebook Enthusiast

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    I have an identical XPS M170, and experienced a similar problem several months ago. I had the 6800 graphics card, and one day while playing a game colored lines appeared everywhere on the screen. The only difference with mine was that it still booted up if you tried enough, but with tons of artifacts that made it barely readable. I was able to understand enough of what it said in diagnostic mode to discover that my video memory had failed. I'm now running a 7800 GTX in place of the 6800 because I don't want to part with this system just yet. I'd try to get it to boot into diagnostic mode before you give up, because swapping graphics cards is relatively easy. They even come with the heat pipes already installed.
     
    spike109u, Sep 12, 2008
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