Disabling Graphics Card

A QUICK QUESTION :

Is there a way i can run the laptop without using the card? in case of desktops its possible to use the standard VGA. But what about laptops with integrated cards?





BACKGROUND ABOUT MY PROBLEM :

I have a dell xps m1530 with a NVIDEA 8600m ...( its old i know)

anyway..a few weeks ago the laptop was all of a sudden dead..would not start-up/boot. the power light went on and HDD indicator just flashed once.

I gave it for repair. The people said that some IC of the power unit got blown and they replaced it..

The same happened the day after i got it repaired. Gave it again. They said the same had happened and told that this was a known issue that the 8600m/8400m series cards heated up and cause the IC to blow and nothing can be done about it.

I got the IC changed again. I'm probably gonna go for a new laptop now but want to keep this one in running state at least..

What can i do?

 

Regardless of if you disable the driver or not, you still use the laptop graphics card to output video to any screen.

Without the driver the OS and GPU fall back to a "standard VGA adapter" interface. But you still use the GPU.

There isn't much you can do. The GPU is dying and/or dead. Pull the hard drive out of the PC and move on.

The 8400/8600 problem that you speak of it not actually a power issue, but an issue with the GPU itself and a manufacturing defect that causes them to die early and often. Dell extended the warranty on those GPUs to a three year warranty so you might be able to get it fixed (it sounds like maybe you've been taking the computer to a local repair shop?) but the GPU will just die again sometime in the future.

 

ok..sounds logical..

ya my warranty was over so i did take it to a local repair shop.
didn't know about the extended warranty.. anyway i guess nothing can be done then..hunt for a new laptop begins!

thanks..

 

Yep, I went through the exact same thing last year (and the extended warranty had expired). I pulled out the drive and trashed the notebook because a new board was almost the cost of a new machine, while being told the same thing would happen again.

 

Most Dell laptops (unfortunately not the XPS) have D Dock connectors on the bottom and also have an option in the bios to boot from the Dock video card or internal video card. In those cases then you could use a D Dock and a graphics card in the dock. Sorry to hear what happened. It's just another (of TONS) case of a failed nvidia GPU.

 

There, I fixed that for you.

 

Most laptops during the D series era had the dock connector for the D/Port and D/Dock, including Inspiron. It wasn't just business class Latitudes and Precisions. The 17" XPS 1710 used the same dock, but unfortunately they stopped putting the dock port on the 13" or 15"s (1330, 1530) or the later 1730. The Inspirons stopped including them after the 8x00, 6x0 and 5x0 (m)s.

 

enjoy the search.. this time don't buy NVDIA like i did if u don't want shoddy overheating parts.. but yeah u can't do anything.. not worth spending on a new motherboard.