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Ok, so I own a Dell XPS Studio 1647 laptop. Admittedly, I haven’t taken very good care of this thing: running all night, sometimes with SC2 still up, watching videos, dusty environment, dropped. The fan was going high and the temps were reaching 75 to 80 degrees Celsius.
Well, in the middle of a D3 session, everything goes hazy, pixilated, chopped, and discolored leading to a blue screen of death that is also chopped, discolored, hazy, and pixilated. I can barely read the words. After a system restore, a good cleaning of the heatsink and fan, reapplication of thermal compound, it seemed to be working fine until 2 nights ago when it freaked out in D3 again.
This time the blue screen of death was up but clear and I was able to reload the game and play for a couple more hours. The next night, I had my laptop going for awhile just watching VODs of SC2. It was getting a bit warmer, but I still played D3 and it’s bad again. Freezing, barely running, blurry and scratchy and artifact-y even in safe mode. BIOS has screwy vision, too.
Unfortunately, I don’t have another monitor. Is my laptop done for?
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On May 23 2012 04:39 suspiria wrote:
Unfortunately, I don’t have another monitor. Is my laptop done for?
It sounds highly probable that your GPU has been damaged by excessive heat.
Did you get the error code or reference file from the BSOD?
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I didn't get the error code unfortunately. Ergh.
The flipside to that question is whether or not I should do a replacement or just buy a whole new laptop. I'll give Dell a call tonight to see what the cost might be...
Thanks for your response, Toast.
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If you bought it within a year, it should still be under warrenty. If not, it will probably be a few hundred bucks at least not to mention probably 2-4 weeks worth of shipping alone.
I actually had a similar issue with my old laptop. It was falling apart and really out of date so I had stopped being careful about keeping it on flat hard surfaces; eventually the heat got to the GPU and it just BSOD'd one day and the GPU never worked properly after that.
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This: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html
Will let you view the dump files Windows generates for BSODs, which should contain the error codes and memory addresses responsible for the crashes.
Although, from your description, it really does sound like the video card is just dying.
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a few hundred bucks to replace the GPU, which is already out-of-date (at least as far as it being a mid-range).
I'm thinking since I have a line of credit at Dell that I might just get an Alienware computer and make sure I take care of this thing much more. Toast, if you're down to give some feedback, what would you say to this computer?
http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-m17x-r4/fs
Thinking of the $1499 one and upgrading the GPU. Reviews say the cooling system is good. And I would get a desktop, but I have limited apartment space.
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On May 23 2012 05:21 Amazements wrote:This: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.htmlWill let you view the dump files Windows generates for BSODs, which should contain the error codes and memory addresses responsible for the crashes. Although, from your description, it really does sound like the video card is just dying.
Yeah, I'm starting to get that feeling.
EDIT: I treated her so poorly...so, so poorly.
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On May 23 2012 05:28 suspiria wrote:a few hundred bucks to replace the GPU, which is already out-of-date (at least as far as it being a mid-range). I'm thinking since I have a line of credit at Dell that I might just get an Alienware computer and make sure I take care of this thing much more. Toast, if you're down to give some feedback, what would you say to this computer? http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-m17x-r4/fsThinking of the $1499 one and upgrading the GPU. Reviews say the cooling system is good. And I would get a desktop, but I have limited apartment space.
When I bought my current laptop I spent a lot of time considering buying an alienware. Up until about 7 months ago I was still in school and moving around regularly; a desktop wasn't really going to work for me either so I understand the position you are in.
However, after really looking at it and doing a good bit of research I decided against going for an Alienware. While in terms of build quality and cooling their laptops are probably the best out there; given what a laptop is it just doesn't make sense. $1400 would build a really nice desktop, but what you get for it in terms of a laptop just isn't worth it. Consider that you can't really upgrade the system in anyway when the hardware get old; and even cannibalizing the hardware is a waste of time, I've still got a socket M Core 2 Duo in my closet from my old laptop that I've yet to find a use for. Given also that laptops tend to take abuse (even if you're careful there is going to be general ware and tear, unless you never ever move it) the most you are going to get out of any laptop realistically is 3 to 4 years.
Take it from someone who's gamed on a laptop for over 5 years; I highly suggest you go for something lower end and stash that extra cash away for some point down the road when you can invest it in building a really awesome desktop. HP and Dell both have some nice home models that you can order custom with some nice hardware for under $1000 and have decent build quality. MSI and Asus have some nice models too, I've heard some people who are pretty happy with them. Though my HP gets pretty hot--virtually all laptops do--I've been more than happy with it; glad I didn't spend $2000 on an Alienware. All in all, gaming on a laptop sucks (Medrea, I swear to god not a word from you) so I suggest avoiding investing too much money in it.
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Alright, good stuff to mull over. I may just have to look into getting a desktop. Thanks Toast.
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EPT
