RMA's from Sagernotebooks.com

I have a Sager (last falls model) 2090... And I'm not sure If I should call sager and ask for a RMA because of Faulty Video Card. I still have until October of this year to do so. As You all know Sager is no longer selling the geforce8 series of cards and have updated the model to the 2096 After the Nvidia 86x/84x ASIC problems were leaked.

Should I call Sager and try and get an RMA or do you think it is a waste of time for me. Do you think they would honor even the RMA for the Defective Video Card? I haven't had any serious problems yet ... except for my CPU maxing out a lot recently and I had the original ac/adapter die, (which could be related.)

(I tried the Search but there was nothing Sager Specific, just someone stating the same idea for Dell.)

 

If its still under warrenty, then they should change it for you. As for video card stock, they probably have a few left just for cases like yours. Or, if your lucky they'll upgrade it for free.

 

Thanks I'll give them a call tomorrow seeing as their tech support is mon-fri.

 

Once when I still had my 8887 (a very old Sager laptop from 2003), the harddrive failed. Well, they got me another one via some place else, and it worked fine. It actually was quieter.. I looked up the model number for it, and it was based on some quiet line.

 

how can you tell if its faulty? If its not overheating and your just going on the assumption of the nvidia press release then more likley than not they wont replace it.

 

Sager keeps a good stockpile of parts for older machines. Definitely call and arrange for an RMA. If you ordered through a reseller, call their tech support line and arrange for the RMA to be done through them.

 

@ UnwiredKing ... could you post back with your results ... you know after you get your 2090's card fixed up or replaced ... Just curious if the new replacement does in fact fix nVIDIA's heating problem.

@ Chaz ... love your new "Green Light" Avatar ... so COOL.

G!

 

He might have graphics image corruption, overheating or BSODs, or worse, black screens.
All can be symptoms of a faulty card.

 

The op said that the only problem he had was his CPU getting maxed out. That is what i was referring to. If it doesn't seem like there is an issue other than the fact that Nvidia said some of their 8series cards were defective, Sager wont replace it.

 

Right there is nothing as far as I can pin down to the videocard wrong with it... right now. But all of the GeForce 8 cards are defective. Sager has actually stopped carrying the cards.

My issue is there will EVENTUALLY be a problem with the card; and my warranty is only good until October of this year. The cards are known to be defective. Whether or not the card is acting up now; the problem affects ALL nVidia cards causing a shorter life for the laptop.

You don't think Sager will honor an RMA because because even though the Card isn't messed up yet. It will eventually die... and cost more to fix when it does die.
If they won't honor the RMA I'm going to see if they'll extend the warranty anyways.

The warranty is VERY vaguely phrased. "If you discover a defect" ... it doesn't say much more than that.

 

Using the nVidia Monitor; Right now my GPU is at 71 degrees Celsius. 160 Fahrenheit. And I haven't been doing anything computer intensive just web browsing no flash or anything ... that'd be bad right?

 

Who told you that? Not all the 8 series cards are defective. The cards that may have been manufactured with less heat durable materials appear to be isolated to the 8400m and 8600m series. (I don't know for sure, but that's what it looks like.) If you have a 8800m, the card shouldn't be affected by this issue.

Edit: 71 degrees Celsius is pretty hot, but it's still within operating temps. You might want to check your notebook for dust, elevate the back of the notebook, and make sure you're gaming on a hard surface with nothing blocking the vents. You might also want to invest in a laptop cooler if you're particularly worried.

 

I have the 8600m and I meant every card in GeForce 8 series that are affected, have the [eventual] problem. I don't have the 8800m because I have last years model with 65nm tech.

My main question I had was would Sager honor the RMA in the case of Preventative Maintenance before my nVidia card flopped out; which is looking like a no. I'm still going to call them to see if I can extend my warranty...

And for 71 Celsius I wasn't gaming. I was web browsing; the laptop was on a cardboard box. Right now on my lap its registering at 77 Cel. and the cpu is at 2%. So I may be RMAing sooner than I thought.

 

"Defective" in this instance is going to be a very difficult word to pin down with the 8-series GPU problems, particularly on a card-by-card basis. Basically, as I understand it, a significant number (i.e., many more than would have been expected based on prior cards and the engineering specs for these cards) have been failing early due to weaknesses in the manufacturing process that propagate under the cyclical heat loading these cards undergo.

Since all cards will eventually fail due to cyclic heat loading, this is, unfortunately, more a question of degree rather than kind. Second, until you've managed to discount all other possible sources of additional heat, and so long as the GPU is still performing, you cannot say with certainty that the card is either defective, or that it suffers, or will suffer, from the particular heat defect.

Now, that being said, I think that it would be worth your while to approach Sager to discuss the matter with them and to see to what extent they are amenable to replacing your card; so long as you take a reasonable position, they should respond in kind and, who knows, if they believe that the risks are such that there's a high enough probability that your card will eventually fail while under warranty, they may be willing to work something out. Just remember though - there are no guarantees in life (at least not for freebie advice ).

 

Hi UnwiredKing,

As Shyster1 mentioned ... 8600 breakdowns are due to "Cyclical Heat Loading" ... If you are out of Warranty ... my advice would be get a Cooler and run it all the time when your laptop is on ... so you are preventing the GPU from going from Hot to Cold back to Hot ... basically Stablizing your Temps at certain point and also Keeping them LOWER.

I myself too cheap to buy a fancy cooler ... so I just use a 6 inch Personal Fan that i bought cheap and raise my laptop off the table by 1/2 inch using wood strips. BTW, I know of other guy who uses a 4 inch Fan and he reports good results also.

G!

 

Also, if you're stuck with having to do agressive preventative usage, you should probably also let the GPU warm up slowly and cool down slowly, so that it isn't getting too much delta-T; basically, my thought on it is: when you do a cold boot, let the thing idle a bit, and give it some light graphics work (you know, exercise it a bit by grabbing a window above the desktop and waving it around a bit) before you launch right into something GPU-intensive like gaming. Then, when you've finished doing something GPU-intensive, don't just close out and shut down, let it sit and idle for a little while, again just doing a little simple work like redrawing the desktop to account for a moving window. You might use a GPU temp measuring app to see if you can watch how the GPU temp rises and falls, and see if you can give it a slow, gentle rise and a slow, gentle fall.