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    Inspiron 8500 Diagnosing video problem, fixability

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by lesliesp, Jan 16, 2010.

  1. lesliesp

    lesliesp Notebook Geek

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    Received a 8500 as non working. I had planned on just pulling the hard drive and memory for re use. It boots up correctly very intermittenly and I am trying to decide if it is worth fixing. The problem is the display, lots of vertical and horizontal bars, nothing static. You can make out some of the display but not enough to be usable. Other times it boots up with no problem except the display is centered on the lcd. A driver problem doesn't seem to be the cause. I am thinking a bad or intermittent video card. Are there other possibilities and is this unit worth repairing?
     
    lesliesp, Jan 16, 2010
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  2. Commander Wolf

    Commander Wolf can i haz broadwell?

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    I'd second your guess that it's a bad video card. Whether it's worth replacing is really up to you. I see replacement cards for about $30 to $40 on eBay. Else you could try baking the GPU. Ultimately I don't think the machine is worth more than $150 to $200 whole; you may just want to consider parting it out.
     
    Commander Wolf, Jan 17, 2010
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