Dell Laptop Repair In Cm/thailand

[Veazer]

I recently had a video card go bad (nVidia 7800 Go) in my Dell E1705 laptop. I ordered a new card (7900GTX) from the US but this replacement had a busted connector and needed to be returned. I have spent loads of money shipping parts to and fro and I'm getting a bit tired, and poorer, from the whole process... Please resist the urge to suggest that I should have bought the Dell care package, i've already beat myself up enough about this.

I'm trying to get an idea of what my options are at this point. I was looking forward to a vid card upgrade but at this point i don't care what it is, I just want my laptop to be usable. A local shop had the dead card working to the point that everything seemed to be ok, they were playing a few 3d games and all was looking good. He wanted to keep the laptop 1 more day for some burn-in and I agreed it was a good idea. The following day it was dying again, now the display has a severe green cast over everything and it refuses to run at 1920x1200 anymore (according to them, i didn't test that).

Are there Dell parts available someplace closer? I might try ordering again if it's from someplace in the region. It's getting harder to justify Fed-Exing more parts here and paying absurd customs fees, etc. Especially after the last outcome.

I have had more than one person tell me that sending the laptop to Dell in Malaysia for repair would be ridiculously expensive because it is out of warranty. Buying directly from Dell is typically overpriced as well...

Also, is there any shops better qualified at something more specialized like video card repair? It seemed to be fine for a bit, i'd hate to give up too soon on the current card.

[/rambling]

[gharknes]

Are you sure it's the graphics card, if they had it running it sounds unusual to have a fault that goes away then comes back, I have had dells for about 15 years now, my current machine I have stripped and rebuilt many times and upgraded the graphics, sound like a very nice machine, the problem you have is the only way you can test the card is to replace it, I don't think you will find anywhere in thailand readily that will have a 7800 for a laptop, may I suggest you take it back home, get it to a workable state then do not close the lid or shut it down for a few days and see it it continues to run in a static state, you can also lift the keyboard off and watch and check that fans etc are working, pretty sure if i had your machine for a short time I could figure it out

sorry can't help further

Edited October 16, 2007 by gharknes

[nikster]

Out of warranty and fried video card as well as possible other problems (display? mainboard?) - I would consider buying a new machine at that point.

You could fix it in the U.S. but that will be very expensive in labor costs and what's worse you don't know it will fix the problem. The question is why did the card break in the first place? It's not a usual thing to happen so maybe the machine got too hot in which case other things might be broken as well or it just gets too hot and it might break again. Unless this is a known problem with this card model (check on internet).

If you go the fixing route, you could get yet another card shipped from the U.S. Depending on how much time and effort you want to spend on this... I mean, if this was a machine I used for work, it would be out the window in a hurry... if you have no particular time constraints it might be worth fixing.

Another idea: Maybe somebody in pantip or fortune can get a laptop card - maybe not a Dell branded one but another one. I know that Asus likes to ship bare bones laptops that can then be configured. And I doubt Dell used some proprietary adapter, there must be some standard(s) for laptop graphics cards. This is the first thing I would try if I wanted to get it fixed.

[gharknes]

I might buy it off you for parts if you go the route above

[pitrevie]

I recently had a video card go bad (nVidia 7800 Go) in my Dell E1705 laptop. I ordered a new card (7900GTX) from the US but this replacement had a busted connector and needed to be returned. I have spent loads of money shipping parts to and fro and I'm getting a bit tired, and poorer, from the whole process... Please resist the urge to suggest that I should have bought the Dell care package, i've already beat myself up enough about this.

I'm trying to get an idea of what my options are at this point. I was looking forward to a vid card upgrade but at this point i don't care what it is, I just want my laptop to be usable. A local shop had the dead card working to the point that everything seemed to be ok, they were playing a few 3d games and all was looking good. He wanted to keep the laptop 1 more day for some burn-in and I agreed it was a good idea. The following day it was dying again, now the display has a severe green cast over everything and it refuses to run at 1920x1200 anymore (according to them, i didn't test that).

Are there Dell parts available someplace closer? I might try ordering again if it's from someplace in the region. It's getting harder to justify Fed-Exing more parts here and paying absurd customs fees, etc. Especially after the last outcome.

I have had more than one person tell me that sending the laptop to Dell in Malaysia for repair would be ridiculously expensive because it is out of warranty. Buying directly from Dell is typically overpriced as well...

Also, is there any shops better qualified at something more specialized like video card repair? It seemed to be fine for a bit, i'd hate to give up too soon on the current card.

[/rambling]

I hope you have better luck than me. I contacted Dell Thailand for a media card reader to fit into my Dell desktop. These are fitted as standard on most new computers. After being given the run around I was finally informed they no longer manufacture the item even though these units fit into a standard computer bay. My desktop is less than 2 year old and I pointed out that these units appear on all new computers they sell but thus far I have had no response. All Dell units came from the Malaysia depot until recently when they seem to have opened an office in Thailand. My advice would be to contact the Malaysian service centre as you will not get much help from the local office.

[Veazer]

Thanks for all replies. I appreciate your opinions and recommendations.

Are you sure it's the graphics card, if they had it running it sounds unusual to have a fault that goes away then comes back, I have had dells for about 15 years now, my current machine I have stripped and rebuilt many times and upgraded the graphics, sound like a very nice machine, the problem you have is the only way you can test the card is to replace it, I don't think you will find anywhere in thailand readily that will have a 7800 for a laptop, may I suggest you take it back home, get it to a workable state then do not close the lid or shut it down for a few days and see it it continues to run in a static state, you can also lift the keyboard off and watch and check that fans etc are working, pretty sure if i had your machine for a short time I could figure it out

sorry can't help further

The vid card diagnoses was a best guess on my part, the local shop and this forum. The forum requires an account to view images so I've added them here as attachments. The shop seems certain that it's the card. He was trying to explain but I didn't understand what he meant. It sounded like he was referring to an improper/incomplete heat sink connection but the problem happens immediately from a cold boot. The machine was functioning fine other than the severe display corruption (no lockups or other weirdness).

Out of warranty and fried video card as well as possible other problems (display? mainboard?) - I would consider buying a new machine at that point.

You could fix it in the U.S. but that will be very expensive in labor costs and what's worse you don't know it will fix the problem. The question is why did the card break in the first place? It's not a usual thing to happen so maybe the machine got too hot in which case other things might be broken as well or it just gets too hot and it might break again. Unless this is a known problem with this card model (check on internet).

If you go the fixing route, you could get yet another card shipped from the U.S. Depending on how much time and effort you want to spend on this... I mean, if this was a machine I used for work, it would be out the window in a hurry... if you have no particular time constraints it might be worth fixing.

Another idea: Maybe somebody in pantip or fortune can get a laptop card - maybe not a Dell branded one but another one. I know that Asus likes to ship bare bones laptops that can then be configured. And I doubt Dell used some proprietary adapter, there must be some standard(s) for laptop graphics cards. This is the first thing I would try if I wanted to get it fixed.

The machine had a fairly major overheat about 3 full weeks prior to failing. I put the machine in hibernate and threw it in a backpack. I opened the bag an hour later and found that a program had hung the system during hiberation and the laptop was VERY hot. i let it cool for 10 minutes or so and did a test boot and all seemed well. I used it without incident for another 3 weeks then one day it just acted up while coming out of standby. It was sitting on the desk, it wasn't moved prior to the failure. It seemed like an OS glitch so i rebooted but the problem was still there in bios & pre-boot screens. BTW, the 7800 Go is known for running hot, according to the above mentioned forum.

The fans are fine, i test the regularly and monitor chipset temps and gpu temps at all times.

I don't know if the connector is proprietary Dell or not. But at the very least the heat sink and heat pipes & radiators would need to be from Dell because of the heat pipe routing. It might be possible to use the existing heat sink & pipes from the dead card on a working card. I'll look into the Acer idea. I am not certain about this an I will try to find more info.

The machine is used for work, but I've got another older laptop I can do some of my work on. This reduces the time constraints a bit, but there's still some work I cannot do.

I might buy it off you for parts if you go the route above

Yikes. I've got nearly 100K baht into this machine with upgrades and this repair BS. It's only a year and a half old. The screen alone is worth more than my other laptops. I think I'll give the video card another attempt and hope for the best. Thanks though.

I hope you have better luck than me. I contacted Dell Thailand for a media card reader to fit into my Dell desktop. These are fitted as standard on most new computers. After being given the run around I was finally informed they no longer manufacture the item even though these units fit into a standard computer bay. My desktop is less than 2 year old and I pointed out that these units appear on all new computers they sell but thus far I have had no response. All Dell units came from the Malaysia depot until recently when they seem to have opened an office in Thailand. My advice would be to contact the Malaysian service centre as you will not get much help from the local office.

Not too encouraging, bummer. I'll see what the Malaysian shops say.

[nikster]

Looks like the card in the E1705 can indeed be replaced.

And it's not that hard, there's instructions here:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/349/1/

There are also pix of the graphics card and you are right, it looks like these are proprietary Dell because of the heatpipe design. That leaves two choices:

- Order another card from Dell or get it on ebay. Maybe the reviewer above has his old X1400 for sale

- Throw the machine out and get a new one and don't forget to get a 3 year warranty for a 100K baht machine

The above article also has performance comparisons between the X1400 and the 7800 - the 7800 is way faster but also way hotter.

From your description of the overheat it's not a clear case of overheating. It worked afterwards. There is still a possibility that something else might have made the card break though.

BTW you did try connecting an external monitor right? And it shows the same distorted picture as the LCD, right?

[gharknes]

[Yikes. I've got nearly 100K baht into this machine with upgrades and this repair BS. It's only a year and a half old. The screen alone is worth more than my other laptops. I think I'll give the video card another attempt and hope for the best. Thanks though.

you could have bought a new one for about 30k on ebay ??