Sager 5793 in trouble

So I've had my Sager 5793 for a little over two years now, and it's been a GREAT little laptop. (T9300 2.5GHz, 4GB, 512MB 9800M GTS)

But about the last two months or so, it's been having a funky problem.

When the problem first started, I'd get the occasional BSOD while playing Stalker under full-dynamic lighting. I assumed it was a heat issue/game bug caused by me pushing the card too hard; if I ran the game in Static lighting (DX 8 instead of 9) it wouldn't ever bluescreen and you could play as much as you wanted without crashing.

Unfortunately, over the last two months or so, the problem has gotten even worse; now instead of displaying a BSOD screen (Even under DX 8), it makes the exact same noise (You'd know what I mean if you've ever had one of those; it just loops a fraction of a second's worth of sound while it's doing the memdump and before the restart) but the display shuts off so I can't even be sure it's actually BSOD'ing. It won't auto-restart, either, which is kind of weird. I have to manually power it off and back on, and afterwards the system log doesn't show anything. Every once in a while when it does it the log will state there was an unexpected shutdown (probably from my hard reset) but there's no log about what caused the error.

It's not just Stalker now, either. Half-life 2, Battlefield 2, and almost everything else exhibits this problem now.

I've been using RivaTuner to monitor my GPU temps when I'm playing games and such (As I sit here and type this right now it's steady at 41°C) and the hottest I've ever seen it run before it locked up on me was 69°C. Is it just overheating? I keep my fan vents as clean as I can and try to blow the dust out of the heat sinks every 2-3 weeks.

Anyway, I'll be getting a new computer here in another two weeks or so for the start of school, but my little brother would be inheriting this, and I don't want to turn it over to him with a video card that's about to die. That wouldn't be very cool.

What do you guys suggest? From what I've been told/read, my symptoms point towards a overheating video card.

I looked at getting a new GTX 280M for it, but that's like $600, and way more than I can spend on this project. Is there someplace reliable I can get a replacement 9800M GTS? Should I try getting a replacement thermal pad and see if that helps, first?

 

You could get a FX3700M, it's almost as fast as a GTX 280M. I'm currently waiting for one to be delivered which I got for $150 on ebay.

 

Well, it doesn't sound like the 9800m GTS has totally failed, at least not yet.

You should try reinstalling the drivers, the game, and maybe windows.
....unless of course you just want to upgrade in which case the 3700m are quite nice.

If you're really tight on cash, there is also the MXM 2.1 card link below. It would be a downgrade but its still a good card.

 

Right on, guys.

I took your advice there, Niffcreature, and did a systematic uninstall/reinstall on everything. Took all day, and it's still doing it, which isn't a good thing but at least I can pretty much rule out a software issue.

That said, those 3700M's are looking pretty spiffy, and ~$200 is a whole lot easier to come up with than the $600 for a 280M.

Hope my little brother appreciates it!

Also, Niff, your link to that card in your sig is broken, you might want to check it out.

 

Same here with my np5793!

I guess GTX260 can work in there too!? - Clevo 571tu Upgrade Guide

btw how is Quadro FX3700M, as far as gaming is concerned?

 

nope, 260m does NOT work. That guide is for the m571tu/np5797 which is a pretty different laptop.

3700m is better than gtx 260m anyway. Its about in between the 260m and 280m.

I know the link is broken, whatever. I've realized that card is not very compatible anyway.

 

Bumped back up for new intel.

Read up on that BIOS feature that lets me force all fans to run at 100% output constantly.

LOUD.

But, it dropped my video card temps 10°C (!) at idle.

Ran Stalker CoP under Enhanced FDL (DX9), High settings, 1280x800, for half an hour, and the temps held steady at 68-69°C.

No black-screen lockups or anything. Ran like a champ, 35-45 FPS the whole way through.

Might try bumping it up to the native 1680x1050 next and see how that goes.

I'm still going to invest in a new thermal pad, but so far this looks promising.

Albeit loud.

 

it's great for gaming and overclocks to 280M speeds just fine.

 

I had one that wouldn't go past 560/1400.

If you don't think it will be good enough then for sure get a Lenovo over HP card

 

Do you you have to update the bios for the Clevo M570RU, when installing the FX3700M, or is it just plug and play.

 

Okay, just to be sure, I want to go over what I've done and what I'm experiencing, just to be totally sure I'm not about to plunk down a bunch of cash on the wrong thing.

Symptoms: Random, unexplained lockups of system with totally black display (Display is on, but no picture), stuttering sound and hang just like a BSOD
System will not restart regardless of how long it sits in said state, only way to restart is with a hard reset.
Happens faster at high resolutions (1680x1050, native) across multiple programs using different versions of DirectX. Happens more often using DX 10/11 than 9.

After hard reset, display has black streaks(?) running from left to right across the display, sort of like falling water(?). Hard to explain. Only does this on the windows startup screen, never afterwards.

Things I've tried: Upgrading video drivers to 260.99 (latest version)
Uninstall/reinstall Vista x64 w/ complete format
Installed 260.99 drivers on clean Vista install
Clean uninstall of 260.99 drivers
Installed Sager video drivers
Memtest to make sure I'm not having system ram problems - test came back no errors

None of the above actions fixed my problem so far.

At this point I'm pretty much certain that it's a hardware problem with my video card.

 

Mine runs fine @ 585/1463/950 using nTune 6.

Plug and Play.