8800gtx m failing

[GhostMjr]

Hi all,

I have a dell xps m1730.

gpu sli 8800gtx m at stock never overclocked
cpu dual core t9300 2.5ghz at stock never overclocked
4gb of ram ddr2. strangely 2gb 333 2gb 400

I have been getting nmi memory parity check errors with blue screens.

Problems have only started in the last two weeks or so.

It has windows vista x32 and all i can describe is the laptop freezes randomly and shows the blue screen or just freezes.

Reason I have pointed to the graphics card is that memtest tested the ram fine.

When the problem occurs after reboot the graphics card's have a yellow  exclaimation mark beside them in device manager and the graphics are  really jerky as though the nvidia drivers have been uninstalled. Just on  desktop!

I have done a clean uninstall/ reinstall of latest drivers still have the same issues.

Any ideas what could be the problem?

Tried a system restore back to january this year no luck .

Think it needs to go in for repair not sure who to send it to though.

Thinking of doing a full wipe of the laptop and installed windows 7 to exclude everything!

Thanks for your help!

[Fazer Erazer]

Hi mate, have you disabled the ECC checking on the RAM in the BIOS?

[BrotherTobious]

Just to check 1gb card and 4gb of RAM and yiur using 32bit?  Just wondering if it having a flid addressing it.  Also wouldnt hurt to stick 7 on if your using Vista imo.  Good luck with it mate

[Gorion]

Do you know the blue screen error code?

[TeaLeaf]

I have a dell xps m1730.

I have been getting nmi memory parity check errors with blue screens.
It has windows vista x32 and all i can describe is the laptop freezes randomly and shows the blue screen or just freezes.
When the problem occurs after reboot the graphics card's have a yellow  exclaimation mark beside them in device manager

I have done a clean uninstall/ reinstall of latest drivers still have the same issues.

Thinking of doing a full wipe of the laptop and installed windows 7 to exclude everything!

Ok, I have an M1730 too, cracking 'little'(!) laptop and I have some experience with these issues too.

Re the drivers.  There are special mobile gfx drivers for this laptop, not the normal ones.  The normal ones result in the yellow device not working logo in device manager.  If you need a link to them I can sort a dropbox link for you, the one I stored and still use is:

195.62_notebook_winvista_win7_32bit_international_whql.exe

....so if that (or that series) of drivers is not what you are using then it will not work.  I also have a full suite of other drivers for the laptop if needed (audio, input, network, storage etc).

The random freeze, with blue screen (often referencing the nvidia display dll) and the parity errors inferring memory imo are sourced from the graphics failure.  It is exactly what I was seeing on my M1730 - replacing the graphics card sorted the problem.

Out of interest, I also had similar problems with my main PC when the 9800GX2 in it failed.  Yellow exclamation mark, freezes, error codes inferring memory errors and memtest checked out fine.  Swapping the gfx card out for a new model sorted the problem immediately.

Summary, sounds like a gfx card failure to me GM.  See if you can get Dell to quote to send you the replacement - if you are confident it is the gfx then it is a job you can do yourself (it is laughably easy to get in and out of these laptops if you remember the order in which you unscrewed things!) and Dell can just send you the replacement gfx card.  If you are not confident then investiagate the cost of getting Dell to come visit you at home, they will charge a minimum fee, but nothing unreasonable in my experience.  Mine was fixed under warranty so I can't help with anything more specific than that at the moment, sorry.  I probably would not use a non-Dell repairer as so much stuff on the Dell is custom for them only.  

You can consider Ebay as a source of some parts for the M1730, but, some of the stuff sold is total rubbish.  I bought a 'brand new' replacement M1730 battery on Ebay (HK-sourced) for £45 which saved me £90 when compared to the price of the Dell replacement battery in the UK.  Unfortunately it turned out I wasted £45 instead as the HK one failed after 5 months and now has zero-charge in it.  Some times you get what you pay for.

Re Win7.  If you have no warranty then by all means think about it - but that will not fix a broken gfx card!  Penfold upgraded his M1730 to W7 and it runs nicely, but make sure you source the correct drivers in advance!

Hope this helps.

[GhostMjr]

I checked in Bios and don't have an ECC setting.

I was planning on moving it to windows 7 but want to keep things the same for a while to solve this issue first.

Thanks TL for your input, I have ensured that the correct drivers are now installed and things look more stable.

I may have installed new drivers a while ago and forgotten to choose the notebook version and left it on my desktop.

It may not have been the notebook version meaning I caused the NMI problems by not having the right version installed.

I will keep an eye on things and if it does blue screen again or the same issues occur again will book it in to be repaired.

The part looks as though its £300 on ebay so with labour I can imagine it would be £400 to fix.

Meaning that it would probably be cheaper to buy a new laptop.

Hopefully it will survive the LAN!

Thanks again for all your input chaps

[Blunt]

Is this what was causing your Black-Ops issues?
Have you tried it (BO) since installing correct drivers?

[Gorion]

If it's NvDisp.dll it's probably a fubared card.  Had the same thing when my 8800 died.

Try these just in-case.  If all else fails, it's definately the card.  Link