What are the chances of my 8600m GT dying?

Im planning on getting a M1530 with an 8600m GT DDR3 and was wondering what are my chances of it dying on me. Also what would be some ways that I could prevent. Are there any mods that I can do? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

pretty sure manufacturers strive to keep their products from dying before they release them, you dont need to do any mods unless you plan on gaming on the planet venus.

 

I advise against the M1530. The failure rates on the 8600M GT on that laptop are astronomically high, and the laptop itself is more than one generation old, in terms of technology; it's got the Intel PM965 chipset, maximum 667MHz DDR2 memory and 800MHz FSB Core 2 Duo processors.

Idyllic, the 8600M GT is notorious for heat-related failures, and the Dell XPS M1530 in particular is commonly affected by this.

 

Still i thought it was pretty funny advising him on not playing on the planet venus due to its high temperature and pressure. But yeh i was about to say that it is an old laptop too, i was planning on getting it about 2 years ago before i got my hp a year later.

 

Mastershrooms absolutely right. Don't touch that thing, you'll regret it.

I had an asus G1S that died on me right out of warranty because of that video card. It runs hot (100-110c load, lappy would burn me if i touched the bottom) and runs poorly. Graphics performance isn't impressive, even when it's running at full speed and not being down-clocked due to heat.

When it does need to downclock (which happened to me all the time) any game you play gets very choppy and suffers from stuttering. Fear, Wow, all pains to play because of this problem.

All laptops have different cooling designs so the M1530 might keep it cooler than it did in mine, but I'd still say forget it.

Idle temps were 82c on the g1s btw. got a replacement g50vt and idle temps are 50c while full load temps are like 82c, like it should =p

 

To answer your question ; high

 

You could add ramsinks (to the GPU heatsink).
Do the copper mod.
Use the best thermal paste possible.
Undevolt the GPU.

OR get 3 year warranty.

But it is very likely to die. The G84 and G86 cores are known faulty.

 

I have NB with same card for two years almost and had no problems with it. Failure frequency of these card is high. I wouldn't sugest buying it as it is, as above already said, few generations old now and there are bettter, newer ones out there with almost same price.

 

My 8600GT is overclocked since december 2007, and never had any problem with it. And I do game quite a lot. My temps never went over 80º.

 

Same here with my Dell Vostro and 8600m GT. I gamed a lot on it for the first year and a half and got mine in July 2007. I also overclocked and temps were never much higher than 80C either.

I think the failure rate is higher than normal, but that doesn't mean it should be shunned as a viable option other than it's two generations old.

Now saying this, I just let a good friend borrow my Vostro for a few months while he'll be away for work, and hopefully it won't die!

 

I too have a Vostro, with an 8400 GS which is another card in the same series that does reportedly die a lot. I've never had a problem with it, and it never reaches higher than 70C.

However, if I had heard about the failure rate, I wouldn't have chosen it. So knowing what I know now, I would go with a more reliable card if it was available, preferably ATi if all I was doing was gaming.

 

There are two reasons you shouldn't get an 8600M GT:
1. It will probably die. (See my sig for an example.)
2. It's an old card that doesn't run well.

And to supplement, two reasons to avoid the M1530:
1. It's old.
2. It's pricey for something so old.

 

The whole 8600m GT is mostly hyperbole (I know there is a slightly higher failure rate). I ran one for two years overclocked and it never breached 90C. It still works, although I dont use it.

Now, unless the price is VERY good, I would advise against that notebook, and would definately recommend a copper mod as well as CPU and GPU undervolting.

 

Which ones would you recommend because I cant find anything for around $500-600 dollars with the same performance except for the M1530 on ebay.

 

Dont touch it, its an old card and yes the failure rate is higher.

My 8600mGT on my vostro 1700 has been fine though, i game pretty frequently on it although i dont think my model was affected as dell never released an updated bios for the 1700, only the 1710 and up were listed as affected by dell.

Still, you can do better than an 8600.

 

Well I don't know about ebay, but you can check xoticpc and sager, you can find a good laptop for a little bit higher price(I said almost remember). Bestbuy as well.

 

Check out the Dell Studio 1555. For that price (especially on the Dell Outlet), you can get one with the ATi Mobility Radeon 4570, which is a pretty solid card; I play MW2, Left 4 Dead 2, TF2 (lots of 2's ), and other games, and it runs them like a boss.

 

Even the 8600M GT GDDR3 in my G1S still runs fine. Probably because I kept the temps relatively low, after re-applying the thermal paste and removing tape from the vents.

 

I'd advise against the purchase simply because the card is old as already mentioned and you could do a lot better with your cash for a gaming machine.

I have a Vostro 1500 with a 8600m GT and it's not showing any sign of failure anytime soon (not running temperatures higher than 80 helps a lot).

 

If you keep the 8600m GT running 24/7 it will live the longest as it`s the themal cycles that damage the solder, constantly getting hot and cold cause fractures in it.

 

The Dell Inspiron 1720, Vostro 1500s and 1700s armed with 8600M GTs and 8400M GSes are not under Dell's list of affected G84s. As far as I know, they're the only laptops out there (Correct me if I'm wrong) that aren't affected by it. - Or - probably they're well designed and was blessed with adequate cooling.

All 1700/1500 Vostro and Inspiron 1720 owners, I can predict majority of your temperatures rise about 65 - 70 max. Even mine. If you hit 75 or above 80, your fans and heatsink are filled with dust. Get it cleaned for neater temperatures. As far as I know, it shouldn't hit above 70-75*C for 1700 and 1720 owners.

 

Finally some good news lol. Thanks for the info but where did you get your informtion from because I have never heard this.

 

http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/...nvidia-gpu-update-for-dell-laptop-owners.aspx

I'm not justifying that I'm right as I have said in my above post. Dell may not be right either.

I wouldn't bother if the 1700 and 1720 owners' 8600Ms are running fine and cool, which I have never heard of any problems for the past 2 years - yet.

 

I called up the people who sold me my Compal JFL92 (with a 512MB DDR2 8600M GT) and they said that they have not heard of problems with them. They're on the hook for the 3-year warranty either way, but it has not had this issue so far and if temperatures and/or temperature changes bother the 8600M GT, this machine has probably been torture for it.

The JFL92 typically operates between 70C and 78C when idle (always has and still does -- the lack of dust after 21 months is surprising) and goes up to around 90C when gaming. I also turn it on and off at least two times a day when taking it to work and while I lived near Chicago, the latter meant a ride through sub-zero temperatures during winter. The fact that the 8600M GT survived this (so far, anyway) seems to indicate that it's fairly robust, but it's always hard to tell with events that happen over the span of years (I could just have gotten a lucky one).

 

^^^Same here with the same model(JFL92). Gaming temps go up to 94C even, idle is 67-72C. Did overclocking as well.

 

100% fail rate the question is when...

It may last a year or it may last five. But that model is part of the defective batch so it is much more prone to failure than normal. If you game on it regularly I say your chances of it dying sooner than later are going to be greatly magnified.

 

beat me to it.

if you want a percentage fail rate, that number is 100%.

 

lol,

what guys you say is unreal,totally a bull"hit for me.

i bought my hp laptop in 2007,the thermal paste is not new,i havent cleaned the vents,i never opened it.only thing i do is running this laptop with a zalman nc2000 cooler,and the fan spins at full speed while gaming.(i make it spin)

after 2 years of hardcore gaming,nothing happened to this card,also i always overclock it the core is 650,the default is 500 and shader is 1300,default is 1000 and memory is 444,default is 400.

my gpu does not heat more than 78C while overclocked,playing four hours and hours.

only thing you should do is to run it with a cooler,use a good thermal paste,clean the vents,and control the fan speed.

although it is 2 years old,as i said i havent applied any thermal paste and i never opened the laptop the clean the vents.I know that by doing this i am sure that it will matter 5-10 C.But i don't do it.I can damage some components if i open,i can fail this gpu rocks even it is old,and runs cod4 at medium graphics smoothly,don't have bad thoughts about this card.

 

and if you say that my fan will die because it spins fast,i will replace,i won't hesitate giving a small amount of money.

 

2 years has not been enough time for your particular card to fail.

100% fail rate.

 

2 years is not a long life for a laptop, and it doesnt matter if yours has not failed yet, what we are saying many other users have had failures. Many in the 1-3 year range when a good gpu should easily last 3+ years or until you get rid of the laptop.

You can play the lottery one time and win, and say that we are calling out BS that there is only a 1/110023040322304 chance to win the lotto, but you would be wrong and the statistics wont change. Just because you are an exception to the general rule currently dont let that sole fact persuade you that the information is false or that we are making this up.

So really just like the lotto this question comes down to chance. Do you like to gamble? If yes then go for it, if not then its probably not a good idea. Now me personally I see the point of a gamble to be when you can take something small and leave it to chance to get something big.

You win the chance you gain, you lose the chance, you lose. but in this case there is not much to gain since the gpu is so old/slow and there are really good deals on newer better non defective products. So then with that said why would you want to gamble on this?

 

okay masterchef,

I beleive that this card wont fail or die. now 2010 is coming which means 3 years.I will post if this card fails.remind me that

I strongly belive that this card won't fail,but we will see .

 

My 8600m GT (XPS 1530) has not died, so my personal failure rate has been 0%.

Sort of screws your statistics, eh?

 

niteh,

I agree.I strongly belive that 8600M Gs never fails,when overclocked properly,used properly and cooled properly.I dont know anything about Gt but Gs doessn't fail.

By the way,what is the difference between a 8600 gs and 8600 gt?

If it fails,then cook it and bring it back to life if it is possible,it can work.

I don't beleive how others gpu's failed.sounds weird.

 

Nvidia admits that the G86 and 84 cores are faulty.
And it cost them a lot of money, I think I read somewhere near $200M.
So that is a fail.

I would say every GPU has a 100% failure rate if you use it long enough.

For the 8600m, I would give it somewhere around a 40% chance of failing within the first 3 years. Which is a very high rate. BTW that's just my guess, I have no proof that 40% is the magic number.

 

It all boils down to why you would even buy the M1530? It's old and overpriced, you can do much better anyway.

 

Yes, of course... but this statement is also true of every other piece of electronics made by mortal hands. Nothing we create is eternal.

That's not a trivial difference. If it lasts 5, I won't care if it breaks down because by that time, I'll probably have bought a new machine. Realistically, this laptop only needs to last 3 years (which is why I bought a 3-year warranty for it).

BTW, I've never seen any conclusive evidence of every G84/G86 card being flawed. Some 8600M/8400M cards are certainly defective (that's what Nvidia paid Dell, Apple & Co. for), but the only source I've seen that speaks of all of them being bad is Charlie Demerjian and his opinion of anything and everything regarding Nvidia is rather well known.

Interesting bit of trivia: if you check the Steam Hardware Survey, you'll see that the 8600M is still the most popular laptop card. Its share is declining, of course, so soon this will no longer be the case, but it's been on top for a long time.

That said, there's no point in buying a M1530 now -- it was a good laptop two years ago, but time moves on.

 

Youre right, - your solder will be fine, but your fan will go in no time.

Yeah, thats a totally arbitrary number. You are basing that completely on hearsay and anecdote. Nvidia never released stats on percentage failure within a certain time, and they never will, because it might spur a recall. People will always report their 8600's failing, what you fail to recognize is that the 8600 was a VERY popular card. There are lots of failure stories about it becuase there was lots of purchases of it.
(see steam hardware survey in above post).

 

Thanks for all your responses guys but is there anything I can do to prevent it from dying? Copper mod, better thermal paste, laptop cooler?

 

All three of those will certainly help, along with undervolting via nibitor if your card lets you.

If it dies then frying it is a pretty good way to extend its life a little further.

 

I think you are all exagerating this problem.. but that's just me. I have a T61p with a 570M which is an 8600M GT core and it idles at 40-43, which is not too shabby at all. The problem is with the solder that attaches the GPU to the motherboard, and with the chip packaging material shrinking too fast or not fast enough. I believe if you keep it at constant reasonable temp, it won't fail at all. The problem happened to people when they gamed very hardcore on it without knowing that rapid cooldown upon exiting a game could damage it. I monitore temps of the GPU on my T61p when gaming, at peak in the Bioshock demo temps got to only 70, this is at 1400x900 and maxed out graphics. I keep the fan on max during gaming. To the person who commented on the fan failing quickly if you left the laptop on all the time: a simple fan replacement is much easier and cheaper than a motherboard replacement, which is what your laptop would require if the 8600M GT failed. I plan to play GTA 4 on my 570M (8600M GT) without too much heat or trouble.

 

Life has a 100% failure rate. The best way to prevent it is to not be born, but if you're reading this, you're screwed.

 

Here's something that will cheer everyone up.

1 in 3 laptops die in first three years

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/154921

 

Who cares? That is irrelevant, it is a known fact that laptops have much higher failure rates than a desktop and high failure rate in general. Bottom line is that if you know how to take care of the laptop you won't ever need to worry about your 8600M GT failing.

 

Ok. I stand by what I said: the 8600m gt has a 100% failure rate. Of course, all gpus have a 100% failure rate, so that isn't saying much. The problem is that the mean failure time of the 8600m gt is something like 1.5 years, whereas normally the mean failure is somewhere over 5 years.

So your individual card may last 10 years. It is still going to fail eventually. You could buy a different card and it could fail in 3 months. But, in the end, the probability is high that an 8600m gt will reduce the life of
your notebook. (regardless of the TLC you provide for it)

 

If it's anything like the 7600go on the HP I owned, until the gpu went belly up and ended up selling the $1500.00 notebook for $120.00, after 1 yr. 8 months of use, then I'd say your chances of a defective gpu are 100%, no matter what updates you get !

Wasn't any chance of me paying HP close to $500.00 to fix "THEIR" defect, because all they would have done was install the same MB, with the same "Defective" GPU !

Will never buy HP anything again !

 

thinkpad knows best makes a good point; the 8400/8600M series failures weren't due to extreme heat on its own, but rather the thermal expansion and contraction resulting from heating up and cooling down.

 

Really, but how do you prevent that? It's normal process, you can't avoid it.

What masterchef341 states makes sense. Average failure rate of a normal card (with xxx hours of use) is 5 years, 8600m (and 8400m) cards are only about 1.5-2 years.

But I'm sure there's lots of other factors involved. Sounds like nVidia or any of the major laptop vendors didn't care to investigate the failure mode (usage) that caused the issue. It would at least have been nice to know that "if you do XXX or YYY then it will likely fail after ZZZ amount of time". Then perhaps users could at least find a workaround to minimize the chances of it happening to them.

But by now isn't this all water under the bridge? They've already gone through three iterations of GPUs now, and very few new laptops come with an 8600m or 8400m video chip. Just avoid it when buying a new one. Or if you have one, just know you're possibly on borrowed time and start saving for a new laptop. Most of these laptops are probably 2-2.5 years old anyhow, and since nVidia or any major vendors don't seem to care to do anything about it, either take a replacement motherboard to extend its life another 1-3 years and move on.

 

Of course it's a normal process; that's the nature of matter - it expands when heated and contracts when cooled. But evidently there was something about the architecture of those 8400M and 8600M chips that made certain solder joints especially vulnerable to stress caused by these thermal processes.

 

Right. But my point is that it's a known issue. If you're not having problems, then great. If so, then either get it replaced by warranty, or if not under warranty then pay for the replacement or get a new laptop. There's no other option.

Just move on and don't worry about it. If you're too worried then best to cut your losses and buy a new laptop.