P105-S9339 go7900GS - fried?

Last night while watching a video, my laptop literally made a crack/pop sound that I heard _over_ the video, the display froze briefly, while audio continued to playback flawlessly, and then stopped.

At this point it's booting and displaying much like the picture in this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=200766

I remember reading not too long ago that nVidia had some issue with the packaging of chips, and am wondering if this chip happens to be one of those.. I also realize that this seems to be a somewhat common issue with the go7900GS with many manufactures.

I am prepared to replace the board, but am wondering if someone aside from myself is to blame for this, and what can be done to recoup some of the replacements costs, and to prevent it from happening again.

 

Replaced motherboard, still at it.. so now what? =\

 

Looks like your video card just fried, or is about to give out.

That story about Nvidia's chips referred to the 8/9 series, though they didnt mention anything about the 7 series and below.

I dont think you have to replace the whole board, just find a replacement toshiba card and you should be fine. The gpu is modular but toshiba specific, so only get one from a similar model.

I'm not sure what specifically caused this. I've own my laptop since february 07 when it was released and i haven't had any significant video problems like you've had and that's given that i game alot on my laptop, including overclocking it.

My guess would be just the hot/cold cycles that the card goes through until it cant handle anymore and the die gets damaged.