Gateway P6860-fx garbled display

Bought this machine in 2008. Initially after the first year it started shutting down because of overheating... but around late last year, it started shutting down randomly, without me even running a game.

To make things worse, now it has started showing me a garbled display, and when i try to login to windows vista, it gives me a 'activation error'

First things first though, I know that a garbled display generally means an issue with the graphics card.... but I thought Id take an opinion from the folks here first.

This is what my display looks like :



This is not a dual display feature or anything

After a bit of googling, I found a post similar to mine in Yahoo answers, with no satisfactory solutions.

Now, my question is what should I do next? Should I try to open the laptop up using the disassembly guide available on this forum?
Is this issue because of overheating due to dust accumulation??

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Try changing the default resolution/refresh rate.........

 

I assume you have tried compressed air already to blow out the vents. What is the temp at idle?

 

Tried changing all that, the drivers everything. Still teh same result. Weirdly enough though, when I uninstalled the drivers (had to do it through Safe mode, since kept getting a BSOD through the normal boot process before getting to the windows logon screen), the display worked fine (no garbling, no junk characters etc) for about 5 mins, and then went back to looking like a badly tuned tv station on its own.

Finally opened up the laptop and got to the 'removing the motherboard' part, but I realized that if its a TIM issue, then theres no point in getting to the GFX card, right? So i just cleaned the air vents and put it back together.

I'm running out of ideas here, so not sure what to do next, apart from formatting the hard disk and resintalling everything or maybe installing an older version of NVIDIA drivers. But then again, if it was a driver related issue, the main boot screen (Gateway Logo etc) wouldnt look garbled.

As far as the idle temps go, I wasnt able to measure that. Tried using GPU-Z, but didnt see any temps being written to the log file??

Any more ideas guys?

Edit: This is how my laptop display looks now. But the solution given does not work, coz while taking it apart and putting it back together again, I believe I disconnected and reconnected the LCD cable.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gateway-emachines/334705-p-7811fx-screen-distortion-fix.html

 

anybody, somebody??

 

What do you see when you use an external monitor (HDMI or VGA)? If the video looks OK on an external monitor at the same/higher resolution, it probably isn't the GFX components (unless its the LVDS signals that directly drive the LCD panel; kind of looked like a vertical sync frequency issue in the original picture).

 

It seems like an unstable GPU that's on it's way out. This is a known problem among the 8XXX and 9XXX series laptop cards. Your best bet is probably a good bake.

 

Hey thanks for replying!
Yup, this I gotta try, will probably till me whats wrong, my GFX or my display.

Isnt this like way too risky??

 

It's not risky so long as you follow the directions.

What it is, however, is temporary, and getting the motherboard out to do it is the PITA. Start saving for a new laptop.

 

Are you still able to play games (what I mean is start them and see that they are running)? My GPU is bad as well except that I can still see my desktop just fine though when my P-6860FX first starts up I see vertical lines on the right side of the LCD and then a bunch of horizontal lines right before the Windows splash screen. I can do everything except play games. Videos that are high quality are not smooth though. Here's my post about fixing the GPU or replacing it with an upgraded one (though this option would require a modified BIOS): http://forum.notebookreview.com/gateway-emachines/584229-p-6860fx-8800m-gts-dying-dead.html

 

The problem is that here in India, all I have is a microwave, which is no good. Size wise as well. So not really an option.

Forget being able to play games. I did some testing after un-installing the drivers, and heres what happens


Step 1: After booting windows, I get a terribly garbled display. Is no good at all.


I connected my lappie to my TV as well through HDMI, but it looks bad there as well.

Step 2: I install the 266.58 drivers for my OS, and everything looks neat and clean.........





Step 3: The cleanliness lasts for about 5 mins, after which I start getting BSOD's or windows keeps getting stuck.




Step 4: I run windows in safe mode, and what I get is this (the original screenshot that I posted)



So my question is, is this a hardware or a software problem? If it were software, the HDMI out shouldve looked fine, right? Similarly, if it were a hardware issue, the installation of drivers should not have fixed the display, albeit only for 5 mins.

Appreciate the help guys!

 

Ok, theres some progress here. I got rid of the drivers using Driver Sweeper, and now the display looks fine, running on default drivers.

But now, I cant seem to be able to Install any drivers that I downloaded from laptopvideo2go. There are about three different ones that I tried, but when I run the setup, I get an error saying no matching hardware found etc.

Any ideas?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gateway-emachines/584229-p-6860fx-8800m-gts-dying-dead.html Sounds like your GPU needs reballed. Cost me $137.50. Good luck

 

I hope it doesnt come down to that. Will give a last try by doing the following:

--> Reinstalling the OS
--> CLeaning all vents and applying a new layer of ICD7
--> Updating the GPU bios

If all of these still do not solve the problem, then ive no idea what im gonna do with it.