7901 video crashed

Everything was fine, then I installed a game called Portal 2, and the video went wack and locked up the laptop, now the computer crashes trying to boot with Nvidia drivers, but will boot and run fine with standard vga drivers.

 

Did you try reverting back in time to before the install of the game?

 

Ya, didn't work. Switched to a cloned backup drive, didn't work, which is strange. i have not tried my ububntu drive yet. It's like something hurt the gpu enough that it won't run with nvidia drivers, but runs fine with windows standard vga drivers, or messed up something in the bios? i also can't run powermizer since drivers won't boot.

 

Ok so it never booted again after the game install. Also did you ever get to play the game after the install just thaty on a susequent reboot it refused to actually boot up?

EDIT; a failed DST table could be an issue too. You either can remove the cmos battery and power on button for 20 seconds without the AC or laptop battery to clear it. The other option is to power on then hit the power button to shut down before the DST posts. This will then boot showing the DST failed to post and reset it.

 

Tried both methods, no difference. Ubuntu had no video, only lcd black screen, also windows 7 with Nvidia drivers, which never loads.

 

Seams to be either hardware or bios problem. Only 2d drivers work and load and run fine.

 

Did you overclock the video before this? I ask as it sounds like the video card has said goodby................

 

No, not running any over clocks.

 

Other than if it were not cleaned and alowed to over heat I can't see a reason for it to just die out. Of course with any electronic device there is the occasional unit that can't cut it and dies out on its own.

Now it could be the vbios got corrupted, this is very rare but can occur, so you may want to try a flash of the 07 version bios, this may not be your fix. Worth a try as it is free.

Also when you did the power down did you get the dst table failed message? it is very important as the DST will not reset without it and if the table is corrupt or wrong there could be a resource conflict preventing the 3D initialzation..............

 

Not sure, tell me more about this. I did get something with a failed to shut down properly/repair, which requires the W-7 disc. How would I flash the vbios?

 

no this is a bios error, when you are booting up, if you have silent disabled, you will see the DST post, it tells you about the cpu, hdd's etc in a text screen. instaed of this you will first get a ext screen "DST failed to post" and then the sxcreen will show the devices.

Failed to boot windows and repair is not the same...................

Normally you do not flash the vbios alone, vbios though can be included within the standard bios flash.

 

Also cannot get any hardware monitors to detect any sensors for the gpu.

 

all that is OS level stuff trying to access via drivers to the device. You need to get the device to initialize to the bios and if the DST table is corrupt then it will not.

I am not saying this is you issue but can be one. It is possible the device is done. to be sure it is not a bios issue you need to be sure the DST table initializes fresh. The reason is cmos has it stored, once it is corrupted or off it will continue to boot with the bios level error until the reinitialization.

The only garrenty of this is to see the text screen at boot that the DST table failed. Once you see this and if there is still is an error you can eliminate that as an issue.........................

 

So I have the dst table un-hidden, but blips by so quick I can't read it. Any way to pause it?

 

yes you can hit the "pause" key. it probably will even under an error say there is a vide card as the resources are already assigned to the table. instead of seeing the DST table you need to get it where first you see "DST table failure" that will go away and then the DST will populate, this means the DST table is reset by hardware values..............

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gateway-emachines/584229-p-6860fx-8800m-gts-dying-dead.html

Same issue, now it's fixed.

F***ing Nvidia cheaped out on the soldier and that's what causing the GPU to crap out requiring a whole new reball/reflow to fix the issue. If there were enough of these occurring there'd be a lawsuit like a lot of the more popular Dell's and HP's. I will never be buying an Nvidia-based laptop again. I should never have to do this. I've treated this thing very well from the time I bought it 3 years ago and this crap happens. Anyways, good luck

 

So, if I flash the bios, do you think any hardware conflict might hang things up and cause bios failure?

 

Well, flashed the bios from windows, and now have a nifty paper weight. Makes pretty colors and alot of vertical and horizontal lines. anyway to revert?

 

flashed too what version?

 

79.07 now I just get continuous cascading waterfall of lines and colors nothing else. Cannot enter bios at all.

 

I haven't seen any bios version for the 79xx that is dos level or just the ROM file for emergency flash. While I haven't heard of a 260m going totally south it appears you have one. I am not sure if a solder reflow will do it for you.

It does appear however you have a bad board. you may need to find that guy who redoes gateway boards on ebay...............