IS my HP dead?

I have a HP DV9500t machine.

Core 2 Duo, 4GB memory, 8600 GS

Right after 1 year warranty expire, the computer is dead.

In the last few month, it has memory dumped on me a few times.

Last week, it just stopped working by freezing up. If I let it sit for a while, it can boot to windows vista if I am lucky, but freeze up in about 10 min. First I thought it is a software problem, I restored everything to factory setting using the factory image. It still does the same thing. And now it won't even boot to windows, it will just auto reboot before windows screen shows up.

Also during the boot up, you can see some mezzed graphics (lines) on the screen. My guess is the graphic card is burned. I can only start to safe mode.

Is there any cheap way to fix this or replace the graphic card?

 

The graphics chip is soldered to the motherboard. So there is no way to ONLY replace the graphics card. The only thing you can do is to find someway (eBay, etc.) to get your hands on another motherboard, since it seems that the symptoms you are getting seem to be related to the motherboard. If you are a technically inclined person, you can swap out the motherboard with another working model to try to get it working. It might be relatively expensive to do that, so I would just advise getting another laptop, since it might end up costing more than what the laptop is worth.

My advice:
Buy a new laptop. That just saves all the hassle.

 

I believe the 8600 is one of the defective Nvidia GPUs. I haven't followed the story so I don't know what the current situation is with these chips, but I would call HP and see what they'll do for you.

 

Yes, you could have a defective GPU, all of the 8 Series is possibly affected.

They wont do anything for free, since its out of warranty. You can pay ~$400 though, and they will usually fix it.

 

warranties were extended no? if not on your model then i suggest buying a new pc, fixing something thats broken for 400$ is just not worth it, in the end it will be broken anyway

 

No, its worth paying the $400, because the computer is probably worth ~600 +/-, depending on what C2D it has.

 

to me it wouldnt be worth it, but to you it may, different views here.

 

Just a get a new computer. My HP has a bunch of hardware problems as well, so I replaced it with a ThinkPad, which are known for their reliability. My new ThinkPad should be arriving tomorrow

 

Oh, ok.

I guess it depends on the person.

 

I think HP extended the warranties 2 years for affected computers. As far as I know, if your computer is on their list they'll replace the motherboard, but it'll have the same defective nvidia chip so you may well have the same issue again. This is also the reason I wouldn't pay to fix it -- why pay for another defective motherboard?

 

As others have said warranties were extended for a select many of HP laptops, I think the dv9xxx series was on there, but check it for your specific model. Also, something like that happened to me before, recently. Anyways, I had a Gateway CX210X, I think the mobo blew or the graphics chip, but anyways to get to the point, I paid it with a credit card, and my credit card company refunded me everything because they have some extended warranty policy. I would recommend if things don't work out, maybe check that option out. I found out about it through the buying guide in the other sub forum of this forum regarding buying laptops. G'luck.

 

Instead of sending my dv9207us to HP and pay $400, I reflowed the motherboard using hot air gun. It works!