So BOTH of my laptop's 8800M GTX's have gone.... dead.

[Black Panther]

Hey I'm not the only one here who started having BSOD's with Vegas

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php...h-fnw-1112711/

It's exactly the same screenshot as mine with the 116 error and the nvlddmkm.sys

[Frick]

Originally Posted by Black Panther

Hey I'm not the only one here who started having BSOD's with Vegas

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php...h-fnw-1112711/

It's exactly the same screenshot as mine with the 116 error and the nvlddmkm.sys

I get exactly the same thing, but in pretty much all games, except World of Warcraft.

Furmark stable, Haaven stable, I've run Heaven + CPU stress tester, memory tests and HDtach at the same time, and it's super stable. But load up a game and it goes down. Reinstalled windows did not help either. I've tried different drivers as well.

So, driver thing maybe?

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by DaMulta

Run scan disk full at boot up.....(windows repair) fixed my recent issues.

Kinda sounds like a heat issue, but lets not think that way yet....

Well, laptop won't even boot now.

It boots only in safe mode.

Here's how the desktop looked the last time I managed to get it to boot in normal mode:


Trying in normal mode now the nvidia driver just doesn't load up at all and after some minutes black screen I get the usual BSOD.

Here's while installing the nvidia driver in safe mode. Btw the purple lines appeared even while there was no driver installed


I tried Windows Repair.

It shows artifacting even in the bios screen (entered that to make system boot from cd) the bios has got pink spots all over.

Also while doing the 'repair' there were stationary purple wavy lines:


I've now dismantled the heatsinks and fans of both gpu's. The cooling doesn't look crappy - there was tim paste on the gpu's and on the vram's there is that blue sticky tape stuff which looks like blu-tack.



I'm going to leave the laptop open like this for now, so that just in case there's some humidity or something it gets some air.
Actually I'm at a loss what to do now. It's not like I can find some other card to test out with like I'd do had it been a desktop pc...

If anyone's got any idea on what I might try...

[sneekypeet]

try disabling SLI and see if it is one of the pair causing the issue?

Tough spot you are in....also looking in the last image, I assume there is tim on that left core? It appears cracked!

[AthlonX2]

yes i agree the left core of that gpu looks cracked

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by sneekypeet

try disabling SLI and see if it is one of the pair causing the issue?

Tough spot you are in....also looking in the last image, I assume there is tim on that left core? It appears cracked!

Since I can't boot in normal mode I can't enable/disable SLI since there is no nvidia control panel in safe mode.

I assume in safe mode SLI is disabled by default? Haven't got a clue... but I guess if it is then it means that the mother card is causing the issue?

I can always pull out one of the cards to check (they're mxm slots and replaceable) but for heaven's sake I'm clueless on how to do so, and then there's the tiny delicate sli bridge between them - if I try I'd break something for sure.

I checked there is no visible physical damage (no cracked cores lol) though I don't know what's beneath all the silver foil..

On a lighter note, today I discovered why there are those transparent plastic loops on the heatsinks......... duh...

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by sneekypeet

Tough spot you are in....also looking in the last image, I assume there is tim on that left core? It appears cracked!

I was just going to say that!

Artifacts on the boot screen are clear sign of hardware issues. One of the cards is dying I'd almost guarantee it. You can try pulling one out and just run with a single card and see what happens. If it still happens, put the second card back in and remove the first. Test both cards by themselves to see if one is failing.

In safe mode no video drivers are loaded beyond the basic driver, so SLi is automatically disabled as is hardware acceleration.

[sneekypeet]

I imagine the SLI bridge as she mentioned is her stopping point. Im sure its one of those flimsy plastic ribbons with press in connectivity. Im going to see if I can find a youtube tutorial for removal.

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by sneekypeet

I imagine the SLI bridge as she mentioned is her stopping point. Im sure its one of those flimsy plastic ribbons with press in connectivity. Im going to see if I can find a youtube tutorial for removal.

Yeah, those can be a bitch. Usually you remove both cards at the same time with the bridge still in place. Then remove the bridge once they are out of the laptop.

[Black Panther]

I have another (crappy) photo of the left gpu...

Note the SLI bridge is the orange ribbon at the middle far right of photo.
Note also the gpu doesn't appear cracked here...




So since in safe mode SLI is disabled by default I can safely assume that it's the mother card which is causing the trouble?

[cadaveca]

GPUs in the laptop can be replaced, fortunately, so it's not a total loss...

[sneekypeet]

That seems to be a safe assumption, but I dont know enough about mobile setups to know for sure.

[brandonwh64]

Do you know what MXM version it is? if so you might can fit a GTX 260M in there and spank the 8800s

[Black Panther]

I'm pretty sure this is irrelevant, but at this point I'll throw it out there just in case someone who knows about this stuff might pick up some clue...

_____________________________

In order to 'take care' of my battery I always made sure that whenever battery is 100% charged I switch off the power to let the charge drop. While without ac power I pause gaming because the fps go low in games like Fallout and New Vegas, though I can still play games like the Sims 3.

Now last month I noticed that when I switch off the wall socket the top part of the monitor, like the top one-fifth of it, starts blinking slowly. It used to do so only if I'm in a paused game. Otherwise if I'm not gaming this flashing/blinking didn't occur.

When this happened, I took the laptop apart and cleaned it with compressed air. I never dismantled the heat-sinks though.

After this cleaning, this problem went away for a week or two... but then reappeared.

Last week I decided to totally remove the battery of the laptop and run it on ac power, because I got a feeling that something wasn't that right with having a paused game flashing on battery power.

That's when the problems really started.

After I removed the battery, when I first powered up the laptop it took a VERY long time to boot. It started taking up to 2 whole minutes with the vista loading bar:


I was confused about why removing the battery had this effect because it made no sense. But otherwise the performance of the laptop was still great.

A couple of days later I put the battery back in, and obviously this didn't make the booting time any better.

Just before this artifact problem started, I was playing New Vegas, I saw that the battery was 100% charged, I switched off the wall socket, I saw that the fps were still quite playable at around 35-45 and I continued playing Vegas on battery power for like 20 minutes. This time the top part of the monitor didn't flash or blink at all. I continued gaming for another hour or so (on ac power obviously) exited the game to have dinner.... After dinner I started New Vegas again, loaded up my save and the screen went all pink and purple.

I switched off the laptop, rebooted and it worked fine.
Until I loaded up Vegas again.

Switched it off again, loaded Fallout 3, was able to game fine with no problems.

And then it got all worse from there...

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by brandonwh64

Do you know what MXM version it is? if so you might can fit a GTX 260M in there and spank the 8800s

It's MXM 2.1 TYPE III I'm not 100% sure if there was only that one version though, I have to recheck.

On ebay they're fetching over $600 (the 8800M GTX not the GTX 260M)

duh.. meh

[brandonwh64]

This!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Alienware-GTX-26...item20b4c774bc

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by brandonwh64

This!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Alienware-GTX-26...item20b4c774bc

But the interface looks different?


See how it has a slot in the middle of the gold pins, mine (I think) would look like this.


I can't just throw out that money not being sure if it is compatible or not...

___________________________

At any rate I think the next step to do would be to remove the mother card, put the daughter card in the mother slot and see how the laptop performs in this case..

[brandonwh64]

My bad! this is it! http://cgi.ebay.com/NVIDIA-GTX-280M-...item19b9a804a0

[Black Panther]

I'm going to test to see how it works with just one card first.

How do I know which one of the two is the 'mother' card?

Also, has anyone ever removed a card from an mxm slot before? I've got no clue

[Yukikaze]

Originally Posted by Black Panther

I'm going to test to see how it works with just one card first.

How do I know which one of the two is the 'mother' card?

Also, has anyone ever removed a card from an mxm slot before? I've got no clue

Are there any markings by the slots, for example numbering of the slots? PCIe usually enumerates along the same slot numbering as printed on the PCB, and the "master" card would be the one in the lowest numbered slot.

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by Yukikaze

Are there any markings by the slots, for example numbering of the slots? PCIe usually enumerates along the same slot numbering as printed on the PCB, and the "master" card would be the one in the lowest numbered slot.

Couldn't see anything.

But I just found a good guide on removal/installation - and it also shows that the daughter card is the one in the middle

Probably I will put the daughter card in the mother slot and see what happens (when I'm in the mood, which I'm not now). If it works, no SLI sure but I'm not very eager to spend €350 - €500 right now..

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Black Panther

Also, has anyone ever removed a card from an mxm slot before? I've got no clue

It is actually pretty easy. Just remove the two screws holding the card down, you can see the screws in the picture you posted, and the card should kind of pop up on its own sticking out at an angle(like a SO-DIMM does when you release the latches), then you just grab it and pull it out.

If you are worried about the SLi bridge(and I understand if you are), then undo the screws on one card first, but hold it down with your finger so it doesn't pop up and pull the SLi bridge away from the second card. Then while holding the first card down with your finger, unscrew the second card one handed, but make sure to also hold that one down using a slight downward pressure on the screwdriver as you remove the last screw. Then gently let both cards up at the same time. It is a little tricky, but really sounds harder than it really is.

[Black Panther]

Well, I 'fixed' the laptop.

I removed the both graphic cards, put the mother card on a shelf... then inserted the daughter card into slot 1.

Now it works fine, no silly artifacting... but it's no longer SLI


Perhaps before next summer before we move to the summer house I'll buy it a 280M GTX

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by Black Panther

Well, I 'fixed' the laptop.

I removed the both graphic cards, put the mother card on a shelf... then inserted the daughter card into slot 1.

Now it works fine, no silly artifacting... but it's no longer SLI


Perhaps before next summer before we move to the summer house I'll buy it a 280M GTX

or warranty it, but at least for now you have a working laptop!

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by Mussels

or warranty it,

The laptop had 2 years warranty which expired July.

Could the graphic cards have a separate warranty by Nvidia perhaps?