Is my p6860 done for?

I posted this question on yahoo answers but I figure I try here before I give up. Here is a picture of my screen when I boot it up: ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting . The screen stays divided and very fuzzy when windows continues to load. It's very hard to see but I managed to do a system restore which fixed it for maybe 30 mins. I also tried hooking it up to two other external monitors but neither worked and I'm thinking it doesn't even recognize the 8800 gts. I could try to reinstall the drivers but again, it's very difficult to see. Any things I could try would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

Are you saying that the external monitors showed the same screen as your internal? If so then the GPU is on the way out.

cheers ...

 

New main board will fit right in and be quad compliant, 7901.
GATEWAY P-7901H P-7908U LAPTOP MOTHERBOARD MB.WEU01.001 - eBay (item 150543504329 end time Feb-03-11 10:01:56 PST)

 

Sorry I wasn't being clear, but it didn't allow switching to the external at all. I'd press fn+f3 and nothing would happen. I tried with hdmi and a regular vga screen. Also when I run a dxdiag, it doesn't recognize the 8800gts.

About the motherboard, is that my only option? I'd be very reluctant to spend 400$ to keep an aging laptop alive.

Thanks guys.

 

Think of it this way, you get a 7901, with your lower processor and case, for $400, that can upgrade all the way to a quad processor. You keep your computer, it's just better.

 

You could look through here.
Gateway p items - Get great deals on Motherboards items on eBay.com!

If you're really not interested in replacing the motherboard, or parting it out, you could sell it to me(dirt cheap).

 

Your GPU is dead and since the GPU is soldered into the motherboard you would have to get a new motherboard or a new laptop. Same thing happened to my 6860fx.

 

I recently had the same problem and it turned out to be my video card was bad. I looked on ebay and found this:

Gateway P-6860FX P-7805u UC7807u MOTHERBOARD Repair - eBay (item 110545515222 end time Feb-06-11 14:08:36 PST)


I sent it off and they were able to repair it for 125.00. Its a flat fee and and covers any repair necessary. Its better than buying a new motherboard. Hope this helps..

 

Ok thank you guys for the help. Jaime, I will probably try that motherboard repair. 125$ definitely isn't bad.

 

Dang, I don't post for a few months and nobody mentions "the oven trick" it works and its free!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gateway-emachines/446015-baking-p6860-motherboard.html

Oh and my p6860 is still working fine if anyone is curious. It has been about a year since it broke.

 

You could also try this on your gpu.


Plastic Welding Kit with Air Motor and Temperature Adjustment - Plastic Welders - Welding

 

Hm this baking method sounds interesting, I may have to give it a go. On one of the other threads though some guy who claims he repairs motherboards legitimately says that baking it can cause permanent damage so then when you do try to get it repaired, its beyond repair. Is he just saying that so he doesn't lose business or should I really be concerned when doing this? Is baking/heating it probably what these guys do?

 

yes baking can cause other damage! does it usually no, but you always take that chance................

 

Sure, if you leave it in for too long you can mess something up but sending it off to some guy that does a half-assed job and keeps you coming back every month with $$$ to "re-fix" your motherboard is a risk as well.

The principle is the same, the legit repair guys probably just have a heat gun that only heats up a specific part of the motherboard while you have to heat up the whole thing in an oven.

Of course if you invest into a heat gun yourself you can probably do just as good a job as the pro.

One more thing, if you do manage to get it fixed make sure you turn powermizer off. I don't know how big of an impact this will make on the longevity of the fix but when I had it enabled my fan would come on and off and the gpu temp would constantly fluctuate by 10C at idle which might have caused the gpu problem in the first place.

 

Aaarrghh, my P6860 has video issue which is very similar to yours. Split screen with distorted video. External will not work. I'm pretty mad considering I bought new about 2 years ago maybe less. Out of warranty of course.

 

Well sometimes that happens to a product under warranty. My mom had a Sony that literally 2 days after warranty blew the G-Board. It was a solder issue as well but since it was 2 components with a cold solder joints I redid them myself. Had to redo them about once a year until we replaced it.

Problem with these is the reflow seems to last for shorter and shorter periods of time. In th end the system needs to be replaced.............

 

I might have a similar problem, for about 3 or 4 months now, my GPU decided to do this Diagnose video card problems by comparing with example corrupted screens(look at first picture). It started after the gpu crashed with all weird red lines from Left4Dead 2 and restarted the same. Now I have mostly weird red and blue lines. And the drivers don't even install cause it doesnt see the gfx card at all. Funny thing is, once in a whie the gfx card decides to "fix" itself and make these things go away and the pc recognized it gfx card again. Last time, the laptop was on the bed (where chance of overheating occured) and I was looking at a youtube video and BAM! it works again. But soon after I installed the drivers again, it went back .
I wonder if that $125 fix would be a good idea, as I do indeed have the money now. Or should I try to get a job in the summer (a long time away) and build me a desktop with a GTX 460 for about $800-$1000

 

Yeah, the problem was off and on at first for me as well which is strange. I'm gonna try to oven trick monday, I'll report back with the results then. I'll be happy if I can get a few more months out of it, probably will be building a computer this summer or so. Thanks guys

 

Alright so I finally got around to baking the mobo and it worked, which I'm really happy about but it's not over yet. During the baking, the solder on the gpu heatsink i believe melted and separated the bar from the mounting piece. So i rebaked that peice and got it to connect as best as possible. After I put everything back together, it booted fine but the gpu overheated and shutdown. I thought maybe I forgot to plug the fan back in so I took it apart and got the fan running, so I figure the overheating is due to the heatsink not being 100 percent intact. So the next time I boot it, the screen is really dim, can't even make out most text. So I hook it up to an external screen and it looks perfect. The last issue being that so far it hasn't been able to take a charge but I'm hoping that's the power cord or something be because the plug is pretty worn. So, any advice on hooking up the heatsink better and has anyown experienced a really dim screen( I replugged in the monitor several times)?

 

Wait, you baked it with the heatsink still on ? The orange thing with the fins ?

 

Unfortunetely yes.. ha. I realized shortly afterwords how easily I could have removed it earlier but I just figured since it's all metal it'd be fine. Was this a irrepairable mistake?..

 

Don't know really. See if you can find a replacement heatsink.