Laptop Repair

D'Artagnan

Hi,

I have a Dell laptop that has run into some problems. I am seeing video artifacts on the screen which according to this website suggests that V-RAM is failing.

The laptop is 5 years old and well out of warranty but I would like to keep it going rather than replace it as it is good machine despite its age.

I was wondering if anyone knows whether either of these laptop repair services are worth it:
Techpros
LaptopRepair.ie

It looks like to repair the laptop they would need to be able to insert a new graphics card that is compatible. Given that the current one is a geForce Go 7900GS it is many many generations out of date.

But all I am asking is if anyone has experience with these guys or general experience getting a laptop repaired in Ireland?

Thanks!

Torqay

Replacing the GPU and video memory in a laptop is usually not an option as they're soldered onto the board. And replacing the mainboard of a 5 year old laptop is hardly an economically viable solution.

Before you jump to conclusions, have you tried a Linux Live distro and tested the video there?

carbon nanotube

D'Artagnan wrote: »

Hi,

I have a Dell laptop that has run into some problems. I am seeing video artifacts on the screen which according to this website suggests that V-RAM is failing.

The laptop is 5 years old and well out of warranty but I would like to keep it going rather than replace it as it is good machine despite its age.

I was wondering if anyone knows whether either of these laptop repair services are worth it:
Techpros
LaptopRepair.ie

It looks like to repair the laptop they would need to be able to insert a new graphics card that is compatible. Given that the current one is a geForce Go 7900GS it is many many generations out of date.

But all I am asking is if anyone has experience with these guys or general experience getting a laptop repaired in Ireland?

Thanks!

better off buying a new machine tbh

you wont get a card like that easily they are probably obsolete, and any repairs would probably cost you a tidy sum.

Capt'n Midnight

generic advice, may not apply in this case

check how much you could replace the laptop for on adverts.ie or ebay
no point in spending more than that on it on a repair

and replacing the motherboard on a laptop is a serious amount of work
if it's a separate card then it might be doable, but you aren't going to get any graphics card other than what fitted the slot and space on your laptop

remember for €500 you could get something new that would completely wipe that laptop in terms of speed, RAM and hard drive , remember that todays CPU's get a lot more performance from 2GHz than 5 years ago


a lot of newer laptops use shared memory , there is a tiny chance it's a RAM problem , use memtest or similar on the off chance, check in BIOS if you can change the amount of video ram (usually for desktops only)



Oh and it helps a lot if you mention the model number too , they make a lot of different ones some with model specific problems and fixes

Capt'n Midnight

IF the problem only appears when laptop is warm, then vacuum out all the dust

Awful_Bliss

Do NOT bring it to Back From The Future in Dun Laoghaire! They're a bunch of crooks. Other than that I've no idea how to fix your problem.

D'Artagnan

Ok thanks for the feedback.

Regarding what I have done so far I have deleted and reinstalled nVidia drivers with no effect. I have booted it into Ubuntu from a USB drive and see the same corruption which suggests it is not a software issue. And I have received a blue screen warning me that the computer had experience a hardware malfunction.

I plan to replace the laptop anyway but wanted to keep it on as a second computer and put Ubuntu on it. Seems a shame that a machine that is otherwise in good condition has to be scrapped because of a problem with one component.

Torqay

D'Artagnan wrote: »

Seems a shame that a machine that is otherwise in good condition has to be scrapped because of a problem with one component.

These things happen, and TBH, with 5 years usage you have gotten a pretty good ride out of it, for a laptop.

I suppose it's the same with an external monitor then?

D'Artagnan

External monitor didn't make a difference.

As I said I am planning to replace it anyway and acknowledge I got good use out of it but it was relatively high end for its day and still seems snappy today for most tasks.

Capt'n Midnight

..for it's day

you could still put VNC on it and access it that way
stuff like downloading in background or burning CD's or whatever

Torqay

Yeah, turn it onto a kick@ass VPN router with Vyatta, if the WiFi addapter supports AP mode.

Is it an Inspiron 1520, XPS M1330 or M1530? If so it's probably the NVidia GPU itself rather than the video RAM. Very common problem with NVidia GPUs of that era.