Graphics Card Broken

abelard

The graphics card in my laptop is borked - not to the point where my laptop is unusable, but it's pretty damn annoying.

I was just wondering if it is particularly expensive to get a repair job done or even a replacement. People have told me before that laptop repairs are notoriously difficult and thus expensive but I'm not sure.

My laptop is out of warranty by the way, and the card is a nVidia GeForce go 7600.

Tom Dunne

abelard wrote:

The graphics card in my laptop is borked - not to the point where my laptop is unusable, but it's pretty damn annoying.

I was just wondering if it is particularly expensive to get a repair job done or even a replacement. People have told me before that laptop repairs are notoriously difficult and thus expensive but I'm not sure.

Define borked. It is generally not possible to replace laptop graphics cards. It is also unlikely that it is damaged, it is more likely the screen or the inverter.

abelard

Right, well I thought and hoped for quite some time it was the screen, as the problem initially presented itself by the screen randomly blacking out. At first it would come back after a few seconds, but then it got worse, and the screen would black out and then the computer would freeze up. Sometimes the laptop would first freeze, then black out. The only thing that could be done was to do a "hard" power off by holding down the power button. If the laptop is turned back on after it froze, there will be broken blue lines running down the screen suring startup. Then the laptop will start doing "disk checking" due to whatever error occured, and then the screen will just display random "crap", ie blue and white rectnagles, some of which are filled with what looks like "noise" on a tv, and the laptop goes no further, either restarting itself and goin into an infinite loop of restarting, or i have to hard power off again.

I just have to keep trying it over and over again until it eventually works ok. I will know immediately upon power up if it will work, as the presence of the blue lines across the screen is a sure sign of impending disaster.

The occurence is somewhat random. The laptop may run fine for 3-4 days, and then will break down a few times in one hour.

Also, if it is running fine, actually moving the laptop seems to set it off (though it does not need to be moved to crash). This is what initally made me think it was a loose connexion in the screen or something, but I have had the screen looked at by 2 different repair guys and no problem or loose connexion could be found.

Nehpets

Hook it up to a different screen to make sure that's not the problem then.

TerrorFirmer

If its not that long out of warranty you could try bringing it back to the retailer or raising the issue with the manufacturer. Under EU law technically goods like this are supposed to last for several years. Otherwise, what laptop is it? A tiny few laptops have mxm cards which are interchangable, but they're mainly in gaming and the better branded laptops. If its a HP or the like it probably isn't possible. The worst thing is that a bust video card means the rest of the laptop is virtually useless as well to sell on apart from selling ram/hard drive etc seperately.

It definitely sounds like the card and not the screen if it's displaying those artifacts. But...it could be overheating too. Try using atitool/riva tuner to underclock it and get some compressed air to use in the vents, make sure dust hasn't built up.

abelard

Ok well I went and connected it to an external monitor and it made no difference, so I guess definitely graphics card problem.

I also discovered something new, and more worrying. If I apply downard pressure to the area to the left of the touchpad (I guess this is where the card is located?), the laptop instantly powers off. In fact, if the charger is plugged in then it won't even recognise it (ie the charging light goes off), so it's like there's a circuit breaking or something. I just have to press in on it again a few times to get it back working again.

Oh, and it's an Acer, I'll probably pop an email their way tomorrow.

vir7ual

It's been a while since i opened an acer so cant say for certain but is the graphics card not under the motherboard, under the area where the letters nji reside. Maybe i'm wrong but thought the cd drive was to the side but to the front of the case.