DV9500 w/ 8600m GS... Just Returned from HP

I have a HP dv9543cl that was purchased at Costco sometime in late 2007. My nVidia 8600m GS in the laptop started to break down in the summer of last year by presenting symptoms such as system lock-ups, freezing, unable to boot the computer due to video problems, etc. Eventually, the video card finally died in March of this year.

So I recently sent it in to HP (apparantly I had a 2 year warranty on the laptop... something I didn't know. Heh.) I told them of the nVidia issues and etc. so they agreed to replace my motherboard.

I got my laptop sent back to me by HP today with a replaced motherboard and keyboard as a bonus I guess. Anyway... looking in GPU-Z, I notice something strange from the original specs of the nVidia 8600m GS. The GPU clock speed and the memory speed is lower than specified on the nVidia website.

Also, I'm wondering, with this replacement... will this video card die eventually also? Or has nVidia given HP a new 'batch' of chipsets to replace the broken ones?

Here's a pic of my GPU-Z:



Also, my nVidia card is running (idle) at 69C. Is this normal/not unusual operating temperature?

 

69c idle is way too HOT. You should return it. Once you start playing games your GPU will hit 100c and overheat again. You should have an idle temp of around 55c.

Yes your replacement machine is bound to fail again one day. Theres no new batch, they have stopped manufacturing those models a long time ago. They are just running down the existing stock.

Those clocks are correct for a HP mobile DDR2 card.

 

Return it to where?

Actually... I installed the latest nvidia drivers and I got an idle of around 63-65C... but this is with the card underclocking itself @ 133mhz (GPU.)

On my other HP laptop (which runs the nvidia 9600m GT... hopefully there are no problems with that GPU chipset, heh) I run idle at around 58-60C but this is with the card clocked between 133mhz-500mhz. So yeah...

When trying to play BF1942 on the 8600m GS laptop I checked the temps... they got as high as 93C.

 

Running 3dmark06 I easily got to 104C on the GPU... lol.

 

Call up HP again, speak to a case manager and ask for another replacement. Tell them it is shutting down when playing games and such.

If you are lucky they will replace it with a dv7t..

 

They give out replacement laptops these days? I didn't know HP was that generous... heh. I'll definatly check it out though.

I just played TF2 for a couple hours and my GPU temps were roughly between 85C-104C (with it mainly being on the higher end) the whole time. Note that there is no crashing while playing... just really high temps (and feeling the laptop case/speaker area in which the videocard is situated on the motherboard... it is quite dang hot just by touch.)

 

Its usually 3 strikes before they agree to replace the whole machine, but seeing as the dv9000 is outdated, they might not have it in stock so they will replace it with a similar machine with the same or better specs. Its happened several times in the past, you just have to be lucky and persistent.

At 104c, expect this GPU to last a few months before another meltdown.

 

Just reached a max of 105C playing Insurgency for less than 15minutes... lol.

Yeah, a message to all those who want to have HP repair their DV9xxx series laptop (with the old defective nvidia chipsets)... they replace it with a just as bad GPU so if they ask you to pay I'd suggest against paying for a repair for something faulty.