Seeking Advice. One of my 8800m GTXs died on my 2 year old 9262

Hello.

Note: I am currently in a country where it's inconvenient to send the laptop back to the reseller (it's still under labor warranty, but not parts). It's still an option, just an ugly option since I am fairly certain there is a high likelihood that customs will try to ransom and/or "lose" the computer.

I've convinced myself that one (hopefully not both) of the 8800s is suffering from a voltage problem, or the memory on the card is bad. I can boot the machine, and it will get to the OS. I can even log on and use hotkeys to shut down, which I can navigate with sound cues. But I can't see the display (won't even post, and the screen won't turn on).

I am convinced this is a graphics card issue because the rare times I do get a display to the screen, it has horrible "wavy line" graphics issues that will result in a lockup unless I'm in safe-mode. In safe mode, it will recover from a graphics error instead of locking up.

Exact same behavior if I use an external monitor.

Thus, I have ruled out a problem with the display itself.

My plan is simple. Yank the card in the primary slot. Take the (hopefully) good 8800 in the secondary slot and stick it in the primary slot. Use the BIOS and tell it not to run in SLI? (unsure about this step - whether this can be done through the nvidia control panel without touching the BIOS). I checked that this will not void the warranty, however with these things there is always the risk of damaging the motherboard or some other component. If the operation is easy, buy a 2nd 8800 off ebay and put it in the secondary slot (since I'm paying for parts anyway with the warranty), or wait until I travel to the US for an extended period (late summer) and get the 2nd card added from the reseller.

"Waiting until late summer when I will be in North America for an extended period and ship to the reseller then" is a general last resort, but I hate being without a computer for that long!

I'm an old school DIY guy (used to build desktops), however honestly I have no experience in swapping out PCI-E cards from a laptop and therefore am afraid I'll miss hidden screws or non-obvious plastic catches, or completely miss-gauge how tight the fit is into the socket. I've replaced the keyboard on this machine successfully, and removed the case to clean all the fans but I am not particularly confident in my ability to remove/replace its video card without some sort of diagram.

I have been unable to locate any English guides to replacing video cards on the 9262 (I found one in French, which isn't helpful).

Thought I would post here before I attempted any DIY operation.

 

Found the user's manual for the D901c. Still doesn't mean it's a good idea.

 

It issimple to swap the cards. I put in in an out my self, but a manual would help. No setting needed in BIOS.

 

Find the service manual in therik0's signature.

As for disabling SLi, simply booting with one GPU will cause SLi to be off. Just make sure that you have removed the 2nd GPU, and the SLi bridge (it's like a little ribbon) from the underside of both graphics cards is no longer present.

 

You could also try baking or heatgunning the bad card to get a bit more life out of it until you are in a better location.

 

mine did the exact same thing. i have warranty so it covered the repair.

your main gpu has gone bad. take it out and put the 2nd gpu in it's slot. the main gpu is the one located on the farthest end of the laptop. do not put the dead gpu back in the system. make sure you lift up both gpu's at the same time because the sli ribbon cable is connected to both of them on the underside of the cards so you will not be able to it them. remove both cards at the same time and make sure you mark the bad one so not to get them mixed up.

you can now simply ship out the dead gpu instead of the whole laptop. make sure you include the sli so they can replace that as well because the glue-tape used to secure it to the cards gets ruined when it;s disconnected from them. repairing it will cost $900 dollars

 

Yep, this issue has been coming out since mid 2009. 8800s are dying on the NP9262 after about 1-2 years. System won't start, etc. etc.
If under warranty, just send it in. Or do like I did, since I did not know it was the gpu, and send the whole system in.
Sending the whole system helps in that you'll get any new drivers (OEM) directly from Sager.

 

Thanks guys!

I had originally intended to get a second 8800m to be SLI again, but if the cards are going bad in a year it might not be worth it.

Does anyone happen to know what the "max upgrade" option is for the 9262 (9800s, etc) if I want to go that route. I suspect anything greater than a 9800 might cause power issues that were only solved in later revisions, but thought I would check.

Thanks again for the help.

 

I ended up having problems with both my original 8800s. Unfortunately I was a PCMW customer so my warranty was usless and I had to pay for replacements myself.

If you are under warranty why not send the bad card back and had the reseller replace the card? Often they will ship you a new one with a hold on your card that will be removed when you send the defective part back to them.

While you are swapping your cards it is a good time to update your thermal paste on the GPU.

 

your 8800 is the max upgrade, basically. the 9800m gt is just a re-name of the 8800 gtx. the 9800m gtx is the same but with 1 gig vram, which you probably won't need unless maybe you play in surround gaming with tripple monitors.

 

In case you haven't found it, service manual in my sig

 

The 'max' upgrade for a GPU in an NP9262 is an Nvidia GTX 280m MXM 2.1 Type III. Note that it must be the MXM 2.1 Type III variant. SLi will be impossible with that GPU, however.