yet another SCARED XPS M1330 user...advice needed

man, where you I start... basically I bought this baby off ebay at a pretty good price and some nice specs -

XPS M1330 CORE 2 DUO T9300 2.50GHZ, 800FSB, 6MB CACHE
13.3" WXGA (1280X800) WHITE-LED DISPLAY
BIOMETRIC FINGERPRINT READER
TUXEDO BLACK & 0.3 MEGA PIXEL CAMERA FOR
MEMORY DUAL-CHANNEL 2048MB (2X1024) 667MHZ
160GB SATA HARD DRIVE
8XDVD+/-RW SLIM SLOT-LOAD DRIVE, INCLUDI
AC ADAPTER 90W - 3 PIN
PRIMARY 6-CELL 56WHR LI-ION BATTERY
PRIMARY 9-CELL 84WHR LI-ION BATTERY (2nd battery)
CARRY CASE
128 MB NVIDIA GEFORCE 8400M GS
TV TUNER- AVERMEDIA AVERTV HYBRID NANOEX
INTEL PRO WIRELESS 3945 802.11A/B/G MIN

but after reading some of the scarier stories about the faulty nvidia chip, I dont know what to do!

basically, reliability is the single most important thing for me, I have very sensitive data, and I dont want this piece of crap breaking down...

here are my choices -

1. sell it ASAP
2. stick with it and see what happens
3. wait for the 9-series geforces to be integrated into dells lineup and just opt for an upgrade of the gpu
4. call dell and ask them to change the laptop to exactly the same specs except with integrated video (is this possible?)

the buyer stated that his previous one broke and the one I have is a replacement... theres still 10 months of warranty, and as you can see it has a good CPU, and came with lots of options...

btw, im based in the UK currently...
all suggestions welcome.

 

u said you bought it off ebay, do u know how old it is? That would be the best way to tell how likely it is to break down.

 

o and i dont think the calling dell idea would work since u didnt buy it from them u bought it off ebay and i doubt its still within the 21 day return policy.

 

the previous owner had it for 2 months, if theres 10 months warranty left on it... he can easily call them and change it to my name and adress...

but yes the 21 day period is long gone... but still as anyone ever been able to "downgrade" a laptop?

 

hmmm, 4 would be ideal. you might even be able to swing it. just tell them you've changed your address. i asked for a downgrade (admittedly before they had made the thing) and got a discount of £19. but if they did offer you a discount, it would be paid to the "real" buyer.

i'm not sure what dell's policy is on taking the thing apart and changing the components.

you'd also have to find out the details of the warranty. i don't think it sounds promising.

finally, is it possible the GPU has already done permanent damage to the motherboard?

 

ah, if it's 2 months new then it sounds like:

a) no damage would have been done.
b) you might be able to organize a deal with dell. however, you'll probably have to pretend you are the original buyer.

are you certain the thing is only 2 months old?

 

i think if you ring up, say that it's far too loud/too hot and you've been reading about the defective GPU and "can't believe i wasn't made aware" etc.., and if you then say you would be happy with a downgrade, then i think you stand a chance.

 

if not, then consider sticking with it. remember, you should have an extra year's warranty covering the GPU, so if you only want the thing to last about two years, then go with that. if something goes wrong with the motherboard/GPU, i believe the hard drive should remain in tact.
however, if you want more reliability and a laptop that will last longer than 2 years, sell it ASAP and buy a new one with integrated graphics, or even a different laptop altogether.

 

I just emailed them asking for a downgrade blah blah blah lets see what happens... apparently this laptop was bought in june and has broken down once, because thats what the listing says...

 

hmm, find out the details of the breakdown.

 

Don't worry about the graphics card it should be fine, your only option is to sell as Dell won't fix anything unless it breaks, and if it does they don't let you make an changed to the configuration whilst it's in there.

If you are that worried sell it, but your laptop should be sound.

 

the thing is I launched a game yesterday Medieval 2, just to see what will happe, and about 3 minutes into it the temp of the gpu jumped up to a whopping 97 degrees (celsius)...

 

There's actually a year and 10 months warranty on the laptop for the motherboard ...

 

but if its 76c at idle, how long will the actual gpu last me?

 

the seller had the following to say;

it was bought on june 8th and the warranty is valid until 07.6.2009 (June 7th).

"Funny you should mention geforce. I had that exact problem with the original and thats why it was replaced with this one (which is the new motherboard revision). However this one is fine I played many 'intensive' games on and did a significant burn in before selling it and it does not suffer from the artifacts that the early models did

I gave this machine a good burn in, I installed World of warcraft (which I play a lot), Oblivion which is very gpu demanding also and it plays like a dream

Basically this laptop is reliable, Dell sent two engineers out before they offered to swap it which I suppose was a fair enough."

 

Basically dude you got ripped off. If you bought an M1330 off Ebay chances are the person selling it KNEW it was old and didn't want to risk it breaking. They were actually probably out of warranty too so they figured they would just ebay their laptop before it broke to get the most out of it and then bought a real computer from another manufacturer with montevina. I mean you can try and ebay it and hope you get a good deal or you can just keep it and hope it doesn't break. You can't upgrade a graphics card and you would have to get a whole new board for the laptop. Since chances are the new board will be smaller since the new montevina laptops don't emit as much heat you might not be able to get a new board and even then you'll have to ebay the board and install it yourself.

Edit, an engineer from dell can NOT tell when the chip can fail. The only way you can know for sure is to ask Nvidia what chip numbers are faulty and they won't even tell you. They can only tell you that it is working and offer to replace it if it isn't. IF you don't have a warranty on it then basically I wouldn't trust anything the seller says. It could be 2 years old and getting ready to fail in another 2 years.

 

when I enter the service tag into dell website it says it was bought on 08.6.2008 and warranty expires 07.6.2009... sooo no its not 2 years old.

 

Did you apply the new BIOS? I would just transfer the warranty over along with the addition year for the GPU and not worry about it. They aren't going to swap out the motherboard with the integrated card either. You would have to buy a new motherboard.

 

yep I applied the new bios, its A12 now.
also cleaned out some dust bunnies, now gpu is at 65c idle.
warranty is until next june.
gonna ask him about extended warranty as well.
the motherboard is apparently A00 (C0 in cpuz) so thats apparently good....

Basically I think my fears have been allayed... or have they?

 

Do the copper mod. My idle GPU temp went from 60 - 65 to 50 - 55, and load went from 94 to 72.

Do a search on this message board.

 

wouldnt that void my warranty? also you seem to know stuff so can you tell me the following;

I installed a fresh Win Xp pro SP2, but for some strange reason the laptop takes a while to load up when I turn it on... the Windows Loading screen goes quickly but I can move my mouse and the icons dont appear for a while... I have defragmented the hdd using 3rd software, run a virus scan, cleaned the registry, curbed startup applications, but still! the problem persists!