R700 colourful mosaic display

Hi All, newbie here, have read a very long thread on this laptop which I found very interesting and informative, thanks guys. We've had our R700 for around 2yrs now with no probs whatsoever until now..... All of a sudden the screen went black for a few secs then came back on with a colourful snowy scene as if the signal was lost on a TV. There was no way around it but to turn off and wait a few mins, switched back on and lasted around 5 mins and did it again. Next day we managed to get 1 hr out of it just enough time to get some important files downloaded to ext HD. After this, snowy screen wouldn't go away.
I then decided to strip the unit down and look inside for any areas of electronics that might be burn't, couldn't see anything. Stripped it down so could get to fan which was blocked up, removed it off board, cleaned out, spins freely enough, checked continuity with meter on black & red wires, got no reading, checked against orange but think this is a feedback of some kind but still no reading. Took it to work and put 5v dc on it and still didn't work.
After reading the other thread/posts I believe the video card is shot as over heated. (our R700 fan has always been on the noisy side but not worrysome, except that it runs an awful lot of time, as JR says this is Vista)
I now live in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada so hoping to find a local retailer to source a fan.
Would appreciate if anyone has any further info that would help us in our quest to get back online

Kind Regards
EnglishDave

 

I would wonder if the latent defect with the nVidia GPU has finally made an appearance. Samsung's usually good cooling systems postpone the problem's arrival compared with many other notebooks, but eventually the repeated heating and cooling will cause the GPU to malfunction.

There is a temporary fix for the problem, as described here.

John

 

Hi John, many thanks for the reply, appreciated.

Your link to the posts re baking the boards, if heat was the problem in the first place why do you have to heat it up again to get a temp fix??

Then if this works for a while then fails again whats the next step??

If I don't want to do this but hopefully have it repaired will it be worth it??

Should I have the GPU (if this is the prob) replaced with another make??

I spoke with one guy, when I explained the fault he immediately said it was the screen!!! Another told me that by putting voltage on red and black wires and fan don't work, doesn't mean its shot, the orange is a tach feedback so prob won't work anyway unless in laptop!!!

I have reassembled it now as no one will supply me with a fan, only want to investigate themselves. Have switched it on and don't even get it to boot up now, hope I haven't bust anything.

Kind Regards
ED

 

It should try to boot if you have put everything back together, although if the GPU is faulty then you will get a messed up display. Is there any hint of life when you push the power button down? If there is any power getting through then some lights might flash. Even if the fan is faulty then I would expect there to be a brief sign of life while the BIOS checks the fan. Poorly seated RAM can be another cause of not starting.

Regarding the GPU and heat, the oven treatment is a somewhat higher temperature and helps to get the GPU back together again.

John

 

Hi John, thanks again. Yes there are 2 lights on and then just one, the screen is just black, i can hear the hard drive starting but then stops, no fan working, cannot get in via any of the F buttons.

Regards
ED

 

Thanks. So there is a hint of life but evidently something isn't right.

I would take it apart again, looking for any possible problems, then reassemble.

John