D900T QuadroFX 1400 Problem

hi folks

I've had a Pro-Star 9096(call it sager, clevo or whatever) with Quadro FX 1400 GO for a while, never had any problems. It is exactly one year old and the warranty ended last week.

Now there are some minor glitches on the first Windows XP load screen. When Windows boots up, there are many visible dots, in about 6 vertical lines across the screen. Dragging a Window across the screen makes the dots draw on it, like etch-a-sketch, as seen in this link:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v124/cucuman/Untitled-1.jpg

And when scrolling up or down web pages, the lines of dots join up into straight lines. Refreshing or reopening the window gets rid of the pattern, but the dots are still there and it happens again.In browser, both IE and Firefox, or image viewer ACDSee, or photoshop when scrolling by line in either direction, there will be red,yellow,green short dashed line on the screen, if scroll by page accumulating more and more.

I have tried formatting the drive, reinstalling WindowsXP. Dots and lines disappeared for the first time. Later, I installed the VGA drivers that comes with the laptop and the glitches appeared again. I tried to update the drivers no matter. Whenever I install any driver, the problem occurs.

No idea what's wrong, but I'm guessing it's some sort of
hardware trouble? Can anyone tell me what the problem is?

 

If your screen looks fine sometimes, then it's probably not that - I think you are having problems with the video card. I was going to suggest updating the drivers but you said you already did that.

See if this helps anything:
1. Turn off the computer completely
2. Remove the AC plug and the battery.
3. Press the power button a bunch of times, hold it down as well for a couple of seconds
4. Put back in the battery and plug and boot up.

That occasionally works - an electrical charge can build up inside the computer if that is not done every once in a while. Doesn't apply to all computers, but I've seen it work before.

The second thing I would do is open up the computer and reseat the graphics card, since it sounds like that is the source of the problem. The D900T has a modular GPU as you probably know, so I don't think it will be that hard. Take the battery and plug out before you fool around in there. Reseating the memory isn't a bad idea either.

It looks like ProStar offers lifetime technical support:
http://www.pro-star.com/index.cfm?mainpage=guarantee

I'd suggest sending them an email - copy what you've written up there, and see what they say.

Chaz

 

Thanks for your comment. I tried the first thing you mentioned in your post with no success. I'll try the second trick. I have emailed Prostar twice with no reply. Guarantee ends, support ends.. !! Paid 4000$ to this, used only 1 year!