- Jul 18, 2001
- 8,460
- 2
- 81
Hardware Details:
Dell Inspiron 8200
Windows 2000
64MB Mobility Radeon 9000 (roughly four years old)
The screenshot was taken on the 8200 while running. Pretty sure that signals a death sentence for it.
It started doing this tonight. I've reinstalled the drivers, clocked down the core & memory, turned hardware acceleration off and anything else I can think of and it still does it. It does it during boot, which is making me think it's shot. I ran Memtest just to be sure it wasn't my system memory, but that came back ok. The temps of the GPU under load are no higher than they usually are, unfortunately there's no way to read memory temps.
Opnions anyone?
Update:
Well, the video card seems fine. I took apart the system, removed the video card and blew off anything I saw on it. Reinstalled the card and it's working fine. No more distortion. I'm running Enemy Territory right now without a problem. My best guess is something got on one of the IC's and caused it to flake out. Cleaning off the card/contacts fixed it. Let this be a lesson kids, regularly clean your computer.
Update 2:
Sh!t. It's acting up again. I think one of the memory chips or the GPU itself has a cold/broken solder joint. If I put enough pressure on the J key on the keyboard the distortion completely stops no matter how I flex the system or whatever game I run. I've managed to get the video card to be stable by using a little rubber foot under the lower left corner of the laptop. Flexes it just enough to make full contact.
Update 3:
Well the video card was flaking out like crazy and no amount of flexing the system would help. Took the laptop apart again, pulled the card and flexed the PCB by the memory/GPU, cleaned the contacts with alcohol and put it back together. So far everything is ok and I really really hope it stays that way. Oy.
Dell Inspiron 8200
Windows 2000
64MB Mobility Radeon 9000 (roughly four years old)
The screenshot was taken on the 8200 while running. Pretty sure that signals a death sentence for it.
It started doing this tonight. I've reinstalled the drivers, clocked down the core & memory, turned hardware acceleration off and anything else I can think of and it still does it. It does it during boot, which is making me think it's shot. I ran Memtest just to be sure it wasn't my system memory, but that came back ok. The temps of the GPU under load are no higher than they usually are, unfortunately there's no way to read memory temps.
Opnions anyone?
Update:
Well, the video card seems fine. I took apart the system, removed the video card and blew off anything I saw on it. Reinstalled the card and it's working fine. No more distortion. I'm running Enemy Territory right now without a problem. My best guess is something got on one of the IC's and caused it to flake out. Cleaning off the card/contacts fixed it. Let this be a lesson kids, regularly clean your computer.
Update 2:
Sh!t. It's acting up again. I think one of the memory chips or the GPU itself has a cold/broken solder joint. If I put enough pressure on the J key on the keyboard the distortion completely stops no matter how I flex the system or whatever game I run. I've managed to get the video card to be stable by using a little rubber foot under the lower left corner of the laptop. Flexes it just enough to make full contact.
Update 3:
Well the video card was flaking out like crazy and no amount of flexing the system would help. Took the laptop apart again, pulled the card and flexed the PCB by the memory/GPU, cleaned the contacts with alcohol and put it back together. So far everything is ok and I really really hope it stays that way. Oy.
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