Need advice

I have a 6860FX that I love. Few days ago it did a couple funny things ( thought maybe hard drive problem) but turns out more video card problem (i think) Had to uninstall nvidia drivers just so it could run. Has artifacts on screen during boot, but is fine in windows ( currently vga default driver - if I try any version of nvidia drivers I get a BSOD non stop).
Question is, obviously 3d isn't working and 2 d is working fine - is my video card done, or can it be flashed? Anyone else with similiar problem? Can a new motherboard be purchased? ( I tried looking with no results)

 

You could call Gateway and get a quote for repair.

 

Yeaaaaa, I've heard about their great customer service.......

Thats why I'm on this forum - seems to be the best for info on notebooks.
Just not in my case I guess.

 

There have been a lot of threads started by people with video card problems lately. You should look at those.

 

I recently had some very serious issues with a 9800M GTS 1GB video card in a 7805 FX. A bad BIOS flash was the problem. I had tried multiple flashing methods with multiple ROMs and nothing worked. Then this thread fixed it all for me;

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gat...nvlddmkm-video-crash-p-7805u.html#post5968373

If I were you I would run nvflash and get a copy of the BIOS then open it in nibitor and take a look to see if it all looks OK.

I would then try to search around and find some good BIOS bin files on the web for identical models and try flashing them using the USB boot. I think you have the 512mb 8800M GTS right? Maybe find somebody with the same laptop on here to email you a copy of their bios.

I had no luck until I used the exact versions of nibitor and nvflash used in that post, so many didn't work for me but those did for some reason.

It may not help you but it possibly could and the worst case scenario is that it will eliminate the BIOS flash on your chip as the problem.

It's entirely possible that the voltages or clocks or whatever, in your current BIOS flash was corrupted somehow. You won't know until you try.

Another option is to try some third party drivers from laptopvideo2go.com such as the ones from docx and see if they help.

If you can't fix it via software then you have a hardware problem with your video and there's not much you can do about that short of a new motherboard. (Assuming your video is soldered to your mainboard.) If you have a plug in video card, which I doubt but that would be nice, then you just have to find a new card to plug in.

Good luck.

Edit: I guess it's possible you could have an overheating issue as well but it doesn't sound like it. Although they can heat up pretty quickly if something is wrong. Maybe your heatsink isn't making solid, level contact with the GPU and the heat from any stress at all is causing a fast heating issue. Doesn't sound like this is the case but it's something to look at. If you try everything else you may want to pull the heatsink and take a look. It's a good time to install some quality thermal compound there at any rate. If your heatsink covers more than just the GPU chip make sure there is no gap on the other chips. That is very common and you have to get a copper shim, available at any hobby store, to make up the space. You will need to apply the compound on all surfaces, very light application, install the heatsink then remove it to make sure you are getting perfect squares of contact at each point.