Did my card just fail?

I think my 8400m GS may have just failed. I just updated to the A13 BIOS revision via the Dell website and when I restarted (maybe just coincidence) I started smelling burning coming from the back vent. Now I get 25fps whenever I try playing CoD2, no matter what driver I use. I used to get 125fps. All of the other games I've tried run much worse than usual as well. My card used to idle at around 63c, but is now idling at 72c. I know that all of the G86 gpus are faulty and a lot of people have had problems with their 8400m GSs, did this just happen to me now? What typically happens when a card fails? It seems like when a card fails you can't even boot to windows, which I'm able to do fine, but it doesn't account for that burning smell. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

Doesn't sound like a failure. That temp really isn't much. Are other programs (not games) running slow as well? Sounds weird to say the least.

 

TY for reply. Yeah other games are running slowly too, I can't even run fullscreen flash videos without lag now either. I forgot to mention that my laptop was making weird lightsaber-esque noises today whenever I moved it around (could this be important? lol). I am stumped on this one.

 

That is really weird.


It doesn't sound like a video card failure.


As for the low fps, are you on power saver mode? Is your computer plugged in to the power socket properly?

 

It sounds to me like there was dust or dirt inside the machine that is just getting hot and burning. Have you ever blew it out with compressed air?
This could cause performance to decrease but its not likely. like he said above me, check if you are on power save.

 

Oh and I also suggest going back to the previous BIOS

 

I am plugged in and using the high performance power profile. I'll try blowing it out, but it seems like if this were the problem my performance would decrease slowly over time, not suddenly go down by 80%. I am actually not sure that going back to the old BIOS is even possible without a manual flash (something I'd like to avoid).

 

Ok, try blowing it out with compressed air and then suck up the dust with a vaccum throught the fan. If this doesnt work, then try to go to a previous BIOS. if you cannot... call Dell ( I know that this should be a last resort )

 

I think it should be possible to go back to the older BIOS. It should simply rewrite your new BIOS block.

 

I flashed back to the old BIOS and I'm still having the problem, meaning that this probably wasn't related to the new BIOS. Another weird thing about this is that my latency is up by about 20 from what it usually is.

 

thats really odd, I have mine 8400m gs fail on me recently, but mine just goes artifact->black screen dead. So yours doesnt sound like a failure per se, but what alarms me is the mention of smoke. so it could be hardware damage. best thing you can do is to call up dell

 

I spoke with some customer service rep over the net this morning and they're going to replace the motherboard for "possible GPU problem." Maybe this is using a hatchet instead of a scalpel, but they're going to fix a few other things while the technician is working on it so it all ended well. Thanks for the help guys, I guess this problem will remain a mystery (Dell doesn't even know what it is!).

 

Yeah like the other members said, it doesnt sound like a failure.

I think youd best replace it by the Dell technician