NP9262 8800GTX card died, replacement worth it?

Sad tidings, it appears one of the two 8800GTX cards in my NP9262 died last night.

Everything has been running fine for 2.5 years now, and then all of sudden I got a weird crash trying to resume from Hibernate. Once I booted back into windows, I saw my video drivers were oddly corrupted. I re-installed, and noticed only 1 card is usable, the other is listed in Device Manager as a Code 10 "device cannot start". I've never, ever had this type of error with a video card before. Long story short, tried all the usual suspects, re-installed drivers, OS, BIOS, video BIOS, pulled out and re-seated both cards plus SLI cable, no dice. The Sager BIOS shows both cards, but under "RAM mapped by devices" it shows only 1 Meg allocated, whereas for the past 2.5 years it always showed 2 Megs (1 Meg for each video card). My guess is, if even the BIOS is not mapping the card, then it's toast.

Anyway, I contacted Sager support for a quote on a new card, they mentioned it would be $890.00 + shipping, and would take 4 weeks to ship straight from Taiwan.

Seems like a lot of money. If I price a near top of the line, SLI X7200, it comes to about $4k, so this 8800GTX replacement is nearly 25% of the cost of a new X7200.

Is it worth it to fix? This price seems pretty ridiculous to me, but there doesn't seem to be any other way to score a 8800GTX card which will work in the 9262 :-/

 

your the second knackered card today.
do you get any lines on your screen. as if there is life still in it it might be worth baking it in the oven.
the 8800 is a great card and was re badged as the 9800GT but they are also very expensive.
the baking link is on this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/540995-m860tu-sager-np8660-dead-video-card.html

 

Well, since I've got 2 cards in the system, the other one took over, so I don't see any lines or artifacts on the screen.

I can still use my computer just fine and even play games, although I take a 30% performance hit since I'm no longer able to run in SLI.

Not really sure exactly what's wrong with the card, Windows gives me a Code 10 cannot start error, and the BIOS says the card is not addressing properly.

I checked out that baking link. I hate to say it, but I'm pretty sceptical that such a thing could work. However, as I've got nothing to lose, I might just try it out and see...

 

Lots of people were sceptical - until they got their cards working...

There is plenty of science/logic behind the method, so it's not just a random chance.

 

Yea, its not worth it at all.

The HP or Lenovo Quadro FX 3700m 1gb is more powerful, about 200$, and fully compatible.

You can't SLI. If you really want SLI you can get a 9800m GT and flash one to the other. A few of them went for only 170$ on ebay recently.
I think I will have one soon too.

 

$890 = =|||........now GTX480M is around $600
get two GTX280M-the top of NV MXM2.1 for SLI will be great

 

Interesting. I'd be curious to explore this path, however, I'm a bit worried about the card I purchase not fitting into my 9262. I've never actually seen hard, factual info about the MXM slot in the NP9262. Is it a 2.1 slot? Is the MXM Type III, II, IV, or HE?

Back in the day, I always heard MXM was total BS--yes they _claimed_ you could upgrade your video card(s) but no manufacturer ever told you which MXM version they were using and it was nearly impossible to get the cards. I'd be very curious to know if this situation has changed and what options are available for the 9262. I wouldn't mind buying a 9800m GT, but if it's possible to upgrade to the 280M, for both cards, then I'd be keen to explore that as well.

For example, I found this 9800m GT card for sale on eBay, it's labelled as MXM 2.1 Type III. Will it fit my laptop?

NVIDIA 9800M GT MXM 2.1 TYPE III on eBay (end time 30-Dec-10 21:13:31 GMT)

 

Yes, that is the right type but DO NOT pay that much, please! it will make me sad.
Just look here, if this can happen then there is no way that is worth 600! Nvidia 9800m GT 512mb - eBay (item 230560215721 end time Dec-08-10 22:43:43 PST)

The situation hasn't changed, it has more grown and whoever told you that at the time was making some big fearful generalizations.
Here is some definitive info on MXM:
-Everything older than the 9800m GT is MXM 2.1 (except for the HP firebird )
-Everything that is type HE is also type III, HE is just an extra tab.
-The 260m, 280m, 160m and possibly a few others have versions in 2.1, but they are more expensive, rare and DO NOT have SLI capabilities.
-Type II and I are just smaller sizes, and type IV is bigger, but I and IV hardly exist, they were depreciated. You can put smaller cards in a bigger space because the pinout is the same.
-Pretty much everything newer than a ATI 4850 and nvidia GTS 360m is definitely going to be the totally newer 3.0 version.

More significant to incompatibility than all the confusing versions and types is BIOS issues. Many laptops (non-boutique brands you don't have to worry about) have the MXM VBIOS built into the system bios which gets rid of any chance of upgradeability.

So with the HP cards I mentioned you wouldn't want to jump for that if no one had experience with it, because some branded cards have no BIOS on them at all like the HP 1600m and NVS 320m, also the 3600m and some lenovo cards work 100% but not on internal display but can be flashed to another BIOS which fixes them.

like I said you won't need to worry about all that because the 9800m is the only thing you can SLI without downgrading thats probably what you'll want to get. Just don't pay that ridiculously huge amount of money its not worth it, youll find one atleast half as cheap if you wait.

 

Awesome, cheers mate! I also found this site which does a pretty good overview of MXM and its current state: MXM Upgrade Home Page

I guess I'll wait for a cheaper 9800m to come around, and in the meantime can try baking my 8800.

Just one thing, you mentioned that the 280M does NOT do SLI; however, I seem to recall quite clearly that Sager was selling the D901C for a while with the option of 280M SLI. According to Notebookcheck, there were several production laptops which had 280M SLI ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M SLI - Notebookcheck.net Tech)

I ask only because mxm-upgrade is selling the 280M for 500Euro each, which is steep, but is an option.

 

Whats funny about MXM-upgrade is that they totally skip HP and Lenovo 17" laptops. I don't understand that, there are like 6 HP laptops with MXM. The writer of that site is a member here, I haven't really felt like telling him to add any info I have discovered.

Yes, I didn't say the the 280m doesn't do SLI, well maybe I did... but YOU can't do SLI. Only the MXM 3.0 280m and 260m have an SLI connector.
I think there are reball companies that could build an SLI capable MXM 2.1 280m quite easily but I don't know if it would be worth it.

Yea, you're probably thinking of the d900f being offered with 280m SLI, which has MXM 3.0.
So you're only option is another 8800m/9800m.
I think there is 9800m GTX for SLI too, but that is really probably not wort it, just 16 more shaders and 1gb of RAM.

 

the baking method worked. check thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...ger-np8660-dead-video-card-2.html#post6978912

 

once again, you could always get some solder balls and infrared lasers for this type of thing.
Youd have yourself a brand new card pretty much. And on that note you could buy some g92 BGAs to try as well

 

I can happily report that the baking worked! Baked the card for 9.5 minutes @ 385*F, using a convection oven no less (there were concerns in the other posts that using a convection oven would not work since the fan would shift the melted solder).

Thanks to everyone for your help, I really appreciate it!

Am very curious to see how long the bake lasts in keeping the card working.

 

glad it worked for you.