XPS M1710 Video Failure and Temperature Monitoring

Thanks TheRealFireblade. I have downloaded HWMonitor and it works fine.

GeForce Go 7950 GTX runs up to 88 C max when gaming but sits at 70 - 74 when not.  I guess tis is pretty normal.  At least now I can keep an eye on it.

is 70 to 74C for the GPU temp  , a normal temp in idle ? i guess it should be something like 40 or 50 C

Actually i8kfanGUI can be ran to monitor without fan control. Not sure if this would void the warranty though. My M1710 is out warranty and I run this program only as a monitor. I think your temperatures seem normal to me. Just curious, what were your symptoms before your video card failed? I had a few instances lately where my screen would flash lines across it followed by a blue screen with barely readable words that I believe showed general hardware failure. I did a system restore to an earlier point and havent seen anything for a couple of days. Just curious if this is what happened to your 7950. I have the 7900GTX btw. Thanks.

is 70 to 74C for the GPU temp  , a normal temp in idle ?

Yeah... mine normally sit at around 70°c as well :emotion-5:

i guess it should be something like 40 or 50 C.

They might be that low at idle in a desktop system, but due to room constraints, and the lack of airflow in a laptop, temps for most all the major components will always be quite a bit higher :emotion-5:

[edit]  Ha!  Only just noticed now, that I'm a bit late - replying to a post which was put up about 6 weeks ago!

It was the most recent post which made me think the one I replied to was a new one as well.  Duh!  [/edit]

Yes, unfortunately that sounds  similar to the symptoms I had.   The crashes were intermittent at first but soon would happen every time the video card was worked hard.  Generally this was within a couple of minutes of starting Age of Empires III, for example.  I also had failure when running the video diagnostic from Dell Support Centre - would pass sometimes and fail others.  The usual pattern was equally spaced vertical "dashed" double white lines on a blue screen (tram tracks) followed by a blue screen message advising hardware failure.  Then it progressed to failure on Vista start up but I was able to start in Safe Mode.   While waiting for repair I was able to use the computer by disabling the video driver.

I tried all the software fixes, system restores, updated drivers, bios etc. but none of this made any difference.

Many people have had this type of problem with nVidia cards.  See below a press release from nVidia in July 2008! 

http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1215037160521.html?_tem

This was followed in August by the below.  Check answer 2214 on the nVidia custhelp site:

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php?p_sid=Og9n4Doj

I also found the following which I am sure all readers will find very interesting!

http://www.randomprocess.ca/2008/07/29/dell-acknowledges-nvidia-gpu-defect-with-fix/

And it is not just Dell!

http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/07/28/hp.laptops.with.nvidia/

I also have an XPS M1710 and my nVidia GeForce 7950 GTX video card failed and the Dell Service Center replaced the video card one month ago (March 2009).  My laptop is still under warranty.

Last night while running AutoCAD, the replacement video card failed (after one month of use) and Dell is sending out a service technician to replace it. 

After reading quite a few posts, I'm concerned that simply replacing the video card once again will not stop this problem.  Other customers are reporting continued problems/replacements of the cards.  http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19243313.aspx

Do you have any contact information at Dell from your recent experience that you can share.  While Dell is responding and sending someone out to get the computer up and running again, I do not have confidence another video card replacement will permanantly solve the issue and I don't want to be dealing with this situation after MY warranty expires. 

Unfortunately the saga continues.

My XPS M1710 failed again in April.  This time Dell replaced the motherboard, which did not fix the problem, and then another "refurbished' graphics card.

Now after 4 months the same failure has happened again (so that makes 4 graphics card failures so far).  Technical support has proposed another refurbished 7950 GTX but is telling me I will be not covered after the warranty runs out in 90 days.  So far they haven't been able to come up with a graphics card to install!   I suspect that there will be no fix for this machine as the ability to refurbish these cards must be coming to an end!

I am hoping that Dell will do the right thing and negotiate a fair replacement machine considering the age of my XPS and the considerable inconvenience i have suffered.

Dell has now advised that nVidia has admitted the cards are faulty. The fix for my machine will be a new 9850 GPU configured to fit the XPS m1710.  However I have to wait at least 4 weeks as there is a "global shortage" (not surprisingly).  Hopefully I get a machine which will now perform as it always should have for more than 4 months.

You won't get an M1710 with the 9850 -- the M1730 offers it but the M1710 did not.

Sounds like they'll replace your system with a newer M1730.

What has actually happened is that nVidia has "rebuilt" the graphics card with a new GPU after admitting the originals were faulty - so it is still a 7950 GTX but it has a heart transplant (which I understand is GPU from 9850, anyway that is what Dell told me but I don't really care as long as it works reliably and performs as it should:emotion-1:).  The Dell part number for the card has changed from GU067 to 58C8T.  This is the Dell/nVidia fix and hopefully it works.  So far so good for me.  Dell is covering with 12 month's warranty on the video card after current warranty expiry.  :emotion-1:

Great news for those of you still under warranty Gippsland but if this is an "admitted" design flaw then why are the rest of us sent down the road kicking stones I wonder? Obviously this wouldn't even cost Dell anything as Nvidia has taken the iniative to rework the faulty cards (thereby admitting to their failed experiment) to try and finally recitify the constant failures.

I suppose us suckers out of warranty can't even get are hands on one of these "reworked cards".  Frustrating man.

Why has Dell not added the XPS M1710, their most expensive  flagship, to the list of "affected" Nvidia failures ... I also have to wonder.

Hey alan, welcome to the massive and continually growing group of XPS M1710 owners experiencing premature hardware failure (i.e. Nvidia video card). I would really like to see the statistics concerning the failure rate of these machines with the Nvidia video cards ... wonder where we could obtain such info. There must be a way to force its disclosure. In Canada we have something called the Sale of Goods Act that states "goods will be durable for a reasonable period of time having regard to the use to which they would normally be put and to all the surrounding circumstances of the sale or lease". There's plenty more to it but this is the jist of it. You're right, these notebooks are definitely meeting this criteria. Pressure needs to be applied.

As far as narrowing down your specific problem ... the first thing that got me going in the right direction was hooking my M1710 up to an external monitor. Hook it up (while powered down of course) then bootup. I had to enter through Safe Mode but sounds like you're ok for now. Open Device Manager and Disable your video card so you are running in basic VGA mode. If everything seems normal on the external monitor after doing this then it is likely your video card that has failed. Hopefully it hasn't damaged your motherboard on its way out ... it doesn't sound like this is the case with you. The Dell diagnostics tool on your Drivers and Utilities CD may also help define what has failed. Also, with your machine off, press FN + Power button and it will run Dell's PSA test. Note the error(s) reported on the screen and also how the lock LEDs (Cap Lock, Num Lock, Scroll Lock) are displayed after they settle down. Mine showed ON FLASH FLASH which Dell attributes to :No Memory Modules Detected" but my memory appears to fine so I don't know how reliable some of these "tests" really are.

Report back what you see. If it is your video card email me as I may have a solution for you. Through my extensive research into this/my problem I have found somebody who can repair these specific video cards properly and permanently for a very reasonable price but I won't mention it here as I will likely be accused of alterior motives ... for trying to help someone in the same dire situation as myself ... when Dell refuses to.

good luck

Dan