7950 gtx dead, any ideas?

well I got a D901C with a 7950 gtx go that has recently gone bad, or at least that's what it seems happened, I was playing HoN on it and the image froze then kinda messed up and the pc rebooted on it's own, afterwards I get blue artifacts or doted lines all accros the screen even on bios and boot, then on windows it won't let me change it to 32 bits color or use any graphic tool or game.

So I called sager and r&j tech, they tell the card it's 900 u$s (dang). So my question is: Is there any other way to get a decent vga instead?

Sorry about the lame english, any suggestion would be great.

It's a shame such a good laptop has to go sitting on my closet just cuz the card's gone bad.

 

Hi, I have a 9260 with two 7950 gtxs. It's almost 3 years old, so I'm guessing you have either a 9260 or 9261 (if it is a 17")?

There is no way a 7950 GTX should cost $900 today. This series of graphic cards has been superseded by several newer generations of cards (both Nvidia and ATI) and is no longer in production. Are you sure they were talking about a 7950 GTX? Most places don't even sell them any more. Sometimes you can find them on Ebay from people who are upgrading their machine and are selling their old one whole or as spare parts.

It does sound like your gfx card is going/gone. I had a similar thing on an old Samsung machine which corrupted patches on the screen that got progressively worse over time (didn't get a blue screen though).

However I would check:

(1) Your video cable (connects your LCD to the motherbroad) may be loose or needs replacing. You can do two quick tests. The first is boot up and move the lid up and down, and tap the lower left hand-side of the screen where the cable is closest. If the screen quality alters with the movement it is likely to be a loose cable (if you get a foggy haze across the screen, then it is a bad cable). Second, plug your laptop into your TV (VGA cable or S-video video cable) and see if this problem still appears. If it does, it is very likely your gfx card is bad. If not, then it may be your actual LCD screen (below) or the cable that connects to it.

(2) The LCD screen could be going. Apparently there are data tabs (I think they are called this) that line the horizontal and vertical edges of the LCD screen. These can eventually go, mostly due to excessive heat over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms are you will get very thin vertical or horizontal thin lines that appear across the whole screen (blue/green/ or yellow). As in point (1) this should disappear when you output to a TV or other monitor.

(3) Overheating of gfx card. It is unlikely to be this though if the problem occurs straight from a cold boot, i.e. appears after machine has been on for a while. Symptoms are usually black screen, blue screen, screen freeze, or machine does an emergency shut down. Usually solved by cleaning the fans and vents in your machine or/and reapply the thermal paste between gfx/cpu and their heat sinks.

I doubt this is a gfx card driver issue if the problem is present during BIOS boot. I've only experienced artefacts in-game when using an outdated driver.

If it is your gfx card you could check EBay for 7950 GTXs or find out whether your machine can handle any of the later Nvidia cards, or see if you can use a ATI card (usually cheaper). Failing all of that, sell your machine as second hand on EBay or strip it down and sell the components individually (Keyboard, cpu, RAM, chassis, lcd screen, hard drive, motherbroad etc.), and use the cash towards a another laptop (the Asus G73j is looking very good for the price at the moment).

Note: if you buy a 7950 GTX get the mobile version for laptops (NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX). Can't remember if there is also a desktop version of this, but as long as "Geforce Go" is in the title it should be fine with your laptop.

I'm not a computer nerd, I've just had numerous problems with this machine since I've had it, and picked up some of this these things along the way Personally when I upgrade my laptop in the future it will not be to another Clevo/sager machine.

I hope this helps some. Sorry for long post.

 

This is what happens when there is no market liberalisation and standardisation in the notebook sector.

 

Unfortunately that is the price. If you need to change the card maybe you more lucky with a used one. If you are lucky maybe you can replace it with a different type which is cheaper ( and maybe better).

P

 

Wow thanks for the info, specially techno, that's a lot of info, i do think it'a the vga since i was using it whit an external monitor and the small blue dotted lines appear on both, first thing is to bake it, it can't really make it worse, then if that's fails, can i get any other Mobile card? Are they all compatible I got the wuxga 17" like you, with a E6600, so I might go with a cheap Ati so at least I can use it? And you are right about not getting other clevo, the machine was awesome, but i'll stick to desktop gaming from now on.

Anyway thanks a bunch guys you always help me a lot. Great info.

 

Check the sticker on your RAM slots and it will tell you what version of the motherboard you have. This may open up some choices as far as Video cards goes!

Thanks

 

Can you not get an 8800 gtx?
Is it something wrong with BIOS support?

otherwise, you could possibly get old HP quadro fx 2500m or 3500m for the 7900 gtx and 7950 gtx if you can manage to flash the BIOS

 

No problem KireruX. Do you know what model your D901c is? If it was from Sager and you have a 7950 gtx it's probably a 9260 like mine or a 9261 (likely not the 9262 as all of those shipped with a 8800 series card).

The 9260 usually shipped with 7950 GTX or 8700 towards the end of it's life, then I think there was a motherboard upgrade (9261) which allowed the use of Quad processors, and then the 9262 motherboard upgrade to cope with the 8800's. As John mentioned above the actually motherboard version in your laptop should be on the RAM that came with it. This will help determine what cards you can use in your machine.

I have no idea what ATI cards we can use in our specific machines. I floated the idea in another thread but didn't get any definitive answers:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...-ati-gpus-interchangeable-clevo-machines.html

I'm pretty sure we can use the 8700 cards (DX10 card), but I remember way back that there was some doubt as to whether if it was as good as the 7950 GTXs. Though I'm pretty sure they didn't get as hot

 

I'll Check on the model, thanks for the small tutorial to both, I'll post it as soon as i get home, I'm out for the week. I really aprecciate the support

Thanks again

 

That's why I finally broke down and got the 9280....dead 7900 GTX...was close to $800 to replace..ouch!