DV9500 and Nvidia 8600M GS

you should prob take out teh HDD too, to prevent too much damage.
this could potentially damage other things though too, like the LCD and DVD drive. do so at your own discretion!

 

Damn it. Last night I had the same problem happen to me AGAIN.
I dont know what to do at this point... I know if I call hp, they wil make me pay $400 to fix it, just like last time. I dont have money to buy a new one.

 

I called hp, and demanded free repair/replacement.
They said no way, because the laptop is way out of warranty. They said that I would have to pay to get it "repaired" again... with the defect happening later down the road AGAIN. I talked and argued with the case manager for about 32 minutes.

 

Well, I had this problem on my dv9700 last year... covered under warranty, they replaced the motherboard at no cost.. now we're headed into a new year and no more warrenty left.. and the machine is acting up with the same issues as before.

ATM, I can't run anything graphically oriented without the artifacts and finally the blue screen crash.. I can get on the internet and do lite word processing with only a slight lag in response.

I have used a cooling pad since day one, not that it really helped.. ironically other laptops I've owned that I never used a cooling pad did not have a problem.

The recall you've listed here doesn't seem to apply.. I maybe wrong but the issue and symtoms appear not to be related.

Anyway, I'm computer saavy.. I can replace the motherboard myself.. but I suspect HP will still charge me the same 400 dollars for the replacement.. I'll fiind out. There does seem to be something wrong with either the cooling, the geforce 8600m gs, or both. I would sure loved to see this issue resolved completely by a replacement of the chip or a design change..

I loved my HP.. it was sleek and HP was very responsive to my problem the first time it happened under warrantee. I can't say the same for other laptop manufacturers.

doran

ps I have also replaced my power supply twice for shorting once under warrantee and once on my own..

 

I feel your pain. If you feel you have nothing to lose try this:

first, download gpuz and note ther temperature for the GPU. Mine was between 86-91... Anything higher and it would crash. Notethe temperature after normal and maybe heavy usage.
Then, take apart your entire laptop. Clean your CPU and your gpu with non lint tissue or whatever. also clean the heatsink and contacts with the CPU and gpu. Use compressed air to blow away any and all dust. I had LOTS. Apply the thermal grease you get from radioshack... The ceramique one only. Apply it to the heatsink by following the directions on the PDF file on the website of the thermal grease (it's name slips my mind... Arctic silver?) by applying the grease and using a plastic bag to spreadt it and wipe excess. And apply it directly to the CPU and gpu as well following the direction on the PDF file from te website. Do not wipe excess, instead try to apply it correctly the first time.
Reassemble the entire laptop and test it out, while keeping an eye on temperatures. My temperatures have dropped to an average of 65 for the gpu and the CPU hasn't seen temps north of 90.... Yet. Before a temp of 101 was "normal".
This may or may not work for you, but if it does, you have just extended the life of your notebook by another year. I had to pay 400 for my
mobo to be replaced but alas this came back. Until i fought with hp and did not succeed in getting a replacement nor a free repair.... I tore my pos apart and did this and I'm very happy with the result. On my mobo, the chipset chip thingy was in between the CPU and gpu location. It did not come with grease or compound on it... Except for a thermal pad. Save that thermal pad and do not put grease on it... Because I don't know If it will change something for the worst.

 

Here is my story. I wouldn't be surprised if my machine was another victim of this unfortunate trend:

My dv9543cl with the 8600gs finally died, but in a very awkward way. The machine had a two year warranty and was sent it twice in Jan. 09 because it was overheating.

Basically, at the Windows 7 shutdown screen the display became distorted. When I turned it on again, the bios was normal, but the Windows 7 loading screen again became distorted and the machine blue screened. I then waited half an hour, and as I was driving home I tried it again. This time, it worked perfectly. I managed to get the blue screen error code written down. The graphics card was normal in the device manager. When I got home and booted up, the screen was now split into 4 with black lines and a purple shading. This applied to Windows and the bios. A system restore also did not change the issue. When I shut it down again and turned it back on, it was in the same state. The bios also only featured the main info page, and Windows 7 for some reason would only work in safe mode. I could not even get a Ubuntu live cd to work.

The machine had served me very well, but it was essentially used as a desktop and was really on used from August 07-December 08 and August 09-March 2010 (2 years).

I'm just wondering if some connection could be loose, or if the machine's motherboard just went? The temperatures went down after HP replaced the heatsink (during the 2nd repair), and it has always used an antec cooling pad. Nevertheless, I've never seen a progressive computer failure like this.

At this point, the machine's display is illegible and distorted. It had a two warranty (Costco extended it) but currently has no coverage.

Here was the blue screen code:

BCCode: 124
BCP1: 0000000000000000
BCP2: FFFFFA800451C038
BCP3: 00000000F2000040
BCP4: 0000000000000800

 

Don't let your laptop over heat... At first sign of symptoms, determine if you have warranty or not. Then open up your laptop like ibdid and follow the procedur.

Overheating too much will destroy the components and no amount of cooling will work. You will then have to replace.

 

@ caedeskhan The graphics chip is toast i'm afraid.

 

The above advice was right...

In any case, HP discounted the repair to $200 and offered me a 1 year warranty on it. Is that worth it, or am I better off selling it for parts and building a $600 - $800 desktop? I never traveled with it, and own a second laptop for taking notes in class.

 

If you have a second laptop i would sell this one and build a desktop. $800 can get you some really nice parts.

 

Thanks for the advice. I think I may very well build a new desktop, but I'll wait till Christmas for the best deals. I'm also done with Nvidia and HP for now....

 

Personally i wouldn't say that. nVidia is in quite a bit of trouble nowadays indeed (i've been active in the nVidia forums lately), but HP offerings aren't bad if you take good care of them. I'm posting this from my DV9000 which is still on its first mobo and had no interventions on the 8400M whatsoever.

However i will agree that my DV5 with HD3470 caused a fair bit less trouble than the 9000 did. But IMO that's the way computers are - you do bash your head against the wall in the first two weeks setting up the system, but if you do take your time to get rid of every quirk, once you're past those two weeks the machine will perform flawlessly. At least mine do. The DV5 is soon to be one year old and the 9000 is going to be one year since i bought it - it's probably about 2 years since it it was made.

 

I would say take the repair+warranty from them (as long as the warranty is the entire notebook) and then repeatedly send it in for overheating, at which point they should replace it with a new notebook (i had to send it in 4 times, and on the 5th time they replaced my dv9543cl with the dv7 in my sig.

 

I dunno why people have problems with their laptops with the nvidia graphics. I've got a dv9743cl since new (purchased in ?2007-2008?)and have never had a problem with it.

 

I've had mine in for twice for fried motherboards. Still overheated. I placed the laptop on an open weave fluorescent light diffuser with a 1" x 1" x 19" board across the back to prop up the vents and it hasn't overheated in a year. I don't move the laptop often, so this works well. Oh, and I vacuum the vents about every two months.

I still hate HP for selling this to me when they knew full well for almost 6 months that there were horrible problems. Dammmnn them.

 

alas, my laptop wont run more than 5mins due to the nvidia problem

i decided to replace it...
not sure what to get though. i argued over and over again over the phone for a free repair, and they declined. they told me to buy a new laptop. then i opened it up, cleaned it, and then used thermal paste on the cpu and gpu. it ran good for another 3.5 months and now it has finally failed.

im thinking of a 15.x inch laptop now... something along the lines of $500-$600USD.
not sure what to get... hp, dell, or... ???
i'm really sad right now. my $2400 laptop, on which i spent close to $400 repairing it is dead.

 

hey guys, this may be a shot in the dark....
BUT, i successfully booting into safemode, and disabled/unstalled the driver for the nvidia gfx chip. then i was successfully able to boot into normal mode and now basically i'm able to work on my laptop for some time again. however, EVERYTHING is very slow, etc.

 

ok its official now.
my laptop GPU completely failed and now the laptop powers on and it seems to boot into Windows but the screen is completely blank.

 

My dv9650us died with screen graphics failure, overheating, and other symptoms consistent of the Nvidia gpu problem. I bought it Feb 2009 with 1 year warranty. At first HP said they checked and my warranty was still in effect. Then they sent another email to inform me that:

"I have gone through the description in your email carefully and have understood the issue completely. I apologize to inform you that due to some tool mistake, the notebook was shown in warranty and actually your notebook is out of warranty and the service would be chargeable to repair your notebook...I would help you to repair your notebook HP service center. The service charge will be $ 398 + service tax."

Fortunately, I checked with my credit card company and they will cover the repair under an extended warranty. I decided to NOT let HP get any of the money and sent it off to BlueRaven who will charge me $299 (and my credit card company will reimburse me). Also, HP offered a 90 day warranty; BlueRaven gives 6 months.

Furthermore, BlueRaven is in Massachusetts, not South Asia!

 

good for u!! u got lucky.

 

I love HP for only using ATI GPUs in all their new laptops...

I HATE Nvidia. Had TWO of their GPUs die on me and I will never buy from the fotherfluffers again.

This HP machine has an ATI GPU, at least 6 years old, and still going strong.
Ya ya another person out there may have had the reverse situation, I don't care about him though. I care about me. And besides, haven't heard ATI have such huge bloody problems with entire GPU lines being bloody defective. Their entire 8-series line for all intents and purposes is defective. I hate Nvidia. Die.