Dv9500t Video Failure

I have a DV9500t with a nvidia 8600gs card in it. Last Friday my wife brought it to work and when she was leaving she just shut the laptop and stuck it in our notebook bag. When she got home we went out to eat and when we got back we took the laptop out and it was very very hot and smelled a little funny, apparently the damn thing didn't go to sleep when my wife closed the lid. Great HP workmanship there.... Well I let it cool off and turned it on... It started showing little red dots all over and when it tried to boot into windows there was multi colored lines up and down the screen. I could boot into safe mood and see everything, but the display was still a bit screwy show little red dots and artifacts everywhere...

So I've concluded that the video card overheated and I'm lucky it didn't start on fire, but at the same time the laptop is unusable. Is there anything inexpensive that I can do about this? The warranty expired a year and a half ago and I certainly can't afford a new laptop at this point. This is very frustrating since I thought the laptop would last at least another year....
Does anyone know if the video card can be replaced?

Edit: So I've been looking around and a lot of people have mentioned problems with the video card and I actually noticed a lot of problems like that as well. Is there a chance that this could be fixed under warranty?

 

Yes. Give HP a call and they should replace it at no cost. The video chip is soldered onto the motherboard btw.

 

Yeah I thought the chip was soldered as I've open the laptop to clean dust out of it and noticed that the card seemed, rather, permanent.
I'll try giving them a call and cross my fingers....

Edit: Now that I think about it I have had video and heat problems for awhile but just never thought anything of it. Every so often I would start the computer and it would artifact, but then load fine, other times I had to turn the computer off, unplug it and take the battery out, then put it back in and start up then it would be fine. It has also been getting hotter and hotter to the point that I didn't use it for much other than web stuff. But since my warranty ran out last year I didn't bother with it.

 

Since you say you took it apart (and were able to put it together ) there is a ghetto fix to this problem. Take a look:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=440765

If it works for you too, avoid thermal shocks in the future. Do not power up the laptop in a cold place, leave it on if it gets cold, and do not use standby mode. Heat is no problem for them, the problem appears at sudden transitions from cold to hot.

 

Welcome to the club. My DV2500t experienced exactly the same symptoms before it died. If you are lucky, you'll be able to find somebody to reball/resolder nVidia card for you. I wasn't. So I had to replace the motherboard.
Look here.
http://www.nerdmodo.com/2009/04/repairing-the-display-problem-in-hp-dv2000dv6000-series/
and here
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Hardware/HP-dv2000-6000-8000-9000-tx1000-Video-Problems/m-p/112/page/69

 

Hmm, well they have the mobo from a ebayer for about $200, with a 30 day return policy, and those have the video card on it and everything right? Would I be able to reduce temps by applying arctic silver for the CPU/GPU?

I really don't feel like fighting with HP and they charge almost $400 to fix it and they seem to cause problems while doing so... So my question is, should I try to go the Mobo replacement route? (FYI: I'm a systems admin, so I'm not too worried about not being able to figure it out, I'm more wondering if you guys think that replacing the mobo would actually fix the problem).

 

It didn't work for me. So I can't advise you to do it. Who knows maybe you'll be luckier.

Keep it mind though, based on my reading of hp's forum and this one, there are two issues we are dealing with. First, nVidia chip is not properly set into the MB. It needs to be reballed. I would try some method other than putting the mb in the oven for reflowing (that's ridiculous) . Supposedly, the entire batch of 8400 and 8600 is defective. There is also a design flaw with the heatsink that doesn't cool down the nVidia chip properly. I read here that copper mod with Arctic 5 helps.

Good luck. And stay away from HP computers. They have problems.

 

There is nothing wrong with putting it into the oven - that's how they are built at the factory. If you ask me, i'd rather do that, instead of spending big $ on a new mobo and having it die the same death in a short time.

 

I read that the reflowing the nVidia chip that way only solves the problem temporarily. It needs to be resoldered for a permanent fix. Good luck doing that yourself.

What is this world coming to? One guy puts his laptop into the freezer when it overheats another into the oven to get it to work. I'll have to order my next laptop from a company imploying chefs instead of engineers.

P.S. And at some point I actually considered replacing my desktop PC with the mobile one, my landline with the cellphone. Mobile devices have proven to be not as sturdy and longlasting as their non-mobile counterparts.

 

Yeah Nvidia really screwed up with these didn't they? If HP wasn't such a pain in the I would almost feel sorry for them for all the problems the defective chipset caused.

 

Reflowing alone will break again. Reflowing and replacing that garbage thermal pad with a copper shim is much more reliable. You have to keep the maximum GPU temperature down.

I favor the heat gun method LordWalrus described over using an oven but they both work.