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    HP DV9500 freezing in Normal Mode.

    Discussion in 'HP' started by tmax76, Dec 14, 2009.

  1. tmax76

    tmax76 Newbie

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    Hi,

    I have a HP DV9500 laptop with Vista. For the last 2 days I am encountering an issue where the Laptop would freeze 5 minutes after logging in. Then there is no HDD activity and the computer can only be shutdown by holding down the power button. I tried working with the " Safe Mode with Networking" option and this issues never comes up. I kept the system running for almost 5 hours in Safe mode still there was never an issue.

    The Freezing only happens in the normal mode. If this was an Overheating/Hardware isssue then irrespective of the Mode the error should have occured is my thought. Overall the system was very fast even in the normal mode before this issue occured. I am also running coretemp software and the temperature is always around 35 Centigrade. Some times it goes up to 45s. But overall it never crossed 50. So i am not fully convinced it it is overheating issue.


    The latptop is around 2 years old. Last year during the warranty period there was an motherboard issue and HP replaced my motherboard for free.

    Anyone who had similar problems problems with this laptop ? Would a system restore do any good if this is typically a hardware issue. I am unable to decide weather it is an hardware issue or a software issue.
     
    tmax76, Dec 14, 2009
    #1
  2. brianstretch

    brianstretch Notebook Virtuoso

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    I'm going to guess that you have a NVIDIA chipset and the new motherboard is starting to fail just like the old one did. Safe mode uses a much smaller subset of the NVIDIA GPU than normal mode so that's why that works. Ideally you'd get HP to fix it again under warranty but they probably won't. If not, you can fix it and likely keep the problem from recurring by reflowing the NVIDIA chip (heat gun trick) and replacing the thermal pad with a copper shim. See:
    http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4792475&postcount=15
    Read the thread from that point forward.
     
    brianstretch, Dec 14, 2009
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  3. tmax76

    tmax76 Newbie

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    Thanks brainstretch. You are right on the point. I am indeed using the Nvidia GPU. It has been the cause of trouble always from day 1. In fact the last time my motherboard failed HP mentioned that it has something to do with the display because the system was booting up but there was no display.

    I do take your point on reflowing the NVidia chip. But I neither have the tools nor am I so much expert in performing the operation shown the You Tube video. I looked into my Bios to disable the NVidia Chipset but the PhoenixBios does not have that option. I did disable the NVidia Driver from the Device Manager to see if there are any effects. The only thing I noticed was that the time frame of system freezing moved from 5 minutes to 15 minutes.

    I am kind of wondering if there is a way to add an external video card and override the Nvidia internal chipset completely. If something of that sort is possible I think I can salvage the system upto some extent.
     
    tmax76, Dec 14, 2009
    #3
  4. brianstretch

    brianstretch Notebook Virtuoso

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    No, you're stuck with the on-board video.

    Worst case, there's a pretty decent market for broken notebooks on eBay. I'm tempted to set up shop repairing these notebooks professionally, but it's awfully time consuming and it's easy to break something. Not much else going on at the moment though.
     
    brianstretch, Dec 14, 2009
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  5. nfsnyc

    nfsnyc Notebook Consultant

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    Man this NVIDIA screw up is ridiculous...
     
    nfsnyc, Dec 15, 2009
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  6. tmax76

    tmax76 Newbie

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    Thanks brainstretch. I got to that realization after looking through various options. I am afraid to even perform a system restore because it might fail in between due to this.

    BTW I found this website in the internet who repairs laptops. Anyone having experiences with them. They say a flat rate of $95 for system board replacement. Does it sound genuine ?

    http://www.sparepartswarehouse.com/

    Anybody having any good or bad experiences with them ?
     
    tmax76, Dec 16, 2009
    #6
  7. flipfire

    flipfire Moderately Boss

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    flipfire, Dec 17, 2009
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  8. walterdt3

    walterdt3 Notebook Consultant

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    tmax76,
    They list the motherboard at around $478.00 for a rebuilt board, the $95 for replacement (the labor cost) may be OK. Its a 2 to 3 hour job. There motherboard price is way high. $200 -$300 for new would be about right.
     
    walterdt3, Dec 17, 2009
    #8