XPS M1710 Graphics Failure

There's no service campaign on this model.  You'll have to replace the video card yourself - it's a proprietary card - the lower end 7900GS will run in the $400 range, while the 7950GTX will run $550-600+.

Thanks for the feedback. Does anyone know if this would be a recurring problem with the current standard issue motherboard I have or would I have to replace that too to avoid future cards being fried?

Thanks again for any input

It has nothing to do with the mainboard - just nVidia's poor choices in manufacturing practice with many of the chips it has produced in the last few years.  I wouldn't count on any of these nVidia cards being particualrly reliable or long-lived;  unfortunately, these are long gone from production so no new ones will be made.

Okay, thanks a lot for the help. I guess it would be a better idea to salvage what I can from this thing and sell them on to help fund a new one. Thanks again ejn you've been a great help.

Stickists, did you ever repair your machine?

Stickists, did you ever repair your machine?

Yeah thanks, I fit it with a Quadro FX 3500M which is apparently the same card as the 7950GTX just with a different bios and is a lot less prone to exploding. I've heard it's possible to "flash" 7950GTX's to FX3500M's but I didn't look into that too much.

Good for you Stickists. How long has the new card been holding up now?

My XPS M1710, having never even played a single game, has also cooked another 7950 GTX and likely another motherboard ... of course no warranty or love from Dell over this reoccuring failure. I also get the "Incompatible Video Controller - VESA Function 0x4f02 returned AX=qtf" error now along with "Error code 5300 0119 - Detected failure writing and reading video memory" while running the Video Memory Test on the Diagnostics CD. Do you remember getting this video memory error also?

I am now able to use my M1710 in VGA mode like yourself but only while connected to an external monitor after also disabling the 7950 GTX in Safe Mode. It now boots up fine with my old CRT connected but I cannot see anything through the LCD at all. All I get is a greyish-white blank screen that turns black when I switch to the CRT using the FN+F8 keys . I don't know for certain yet if my motherboard has also been trashed again by the video card failure or not this time. Everything seems to work fine through the external monitor but why does the LCD not function? Who knows? I guess your situation was a little different than mine as your LCD still functioned in VGA mode whereas mine does not. hmmm

I found a guy that says he has a permanent fix for the defective 7950 GTX cards that Dell and Nvidia have stuck us with ... and at a reasonable price. I've talked to quite a few people who have used his repair service and the feedback is all good so we'll see. I'm hearing his repaired card is actually running much cooler also, whatever he's done. We all know the excessive heat and poor dissapation (whatever the reason) is a big part of the problem.

The more one educates themselves about this fiasco the more you realise how poorly the XPS M1710 was designed with respect to the extremely high heat dissapation requirements of the 7950 GTX. When you first look at this machine it is truly impressive but far too often all we have in the end is a very expensive, unreliable, overheating disappointment constantly begging for new motherboards and/or graphic cards ... and an anxious knot in your stomach, finally realising you've been ripped off by what you thought was a stand up company .  So the old saying goes in Texas >> "Fool me once ...  uh ... shame on .......... shame on you ........uh ........ ya fool me I can't get fooled again". lol 

My laptop LCD wouldn't work while I was using my fried card, but my external LCD monitors worked fine. If yours doesn't work with external LCDs but does with CRTs, well it confuses me but my only guess would be the motherboards taken some damage. I don't know how good them card repairs are but it could be worth a try. If it isn't too costly I would say give the repair a try, but otherwise try go for a different compatible card. I did have a list of compatible cards but I think I've deleted it, here's what I remember from it:

Nvidia Quadro FX 2500M

Nvidia Quadro FX 3500M

Radeon x1400 (taken from some dell laptop, not the toshiba version)

The only advice I can give is don't get another 7950GTX and that my Quadro FX 3500M has been working fine and quite cool compared to the 7950GTX with similar performance. Even when I've been careless and left it running graphically intensive programs for hours with almost no air flow and in a very hot room it's survived being at around 90 degrees C. Can't say I remember when I bought the new card but it's been a fair few months now, maybe almost a year. Also a good way of keeping your cards cool is using a laptop stand, which lets some cool air to the underside of the case.

I posted this comment twice now but Dell (TOS23) keeps deleting it completely because I guess I used inappropriate language? The only thing I can see is a completely non-offensive, non-vulgar phrase I used that would never offend anyone I know (or would want to know). Just in case, I replaced the word with a symbol so it was not distinguishable but TOS23 saw fit to delete the ENTIRE comment again anyway so I don't know what's going on here aside from some apparent childish power-tripping ... Oh hail ye forum guardian. lol ... I digress and try again.  

Thanks Stickists, I guess I wasn't very clear when I mentioned using the old CRT monitor. It is actually the only external monitor I own so it's all I ever tried to hook up to the notebook. When I mentioned the LCD would not work, I was referring to the M1710's LCD itself. Seems odd that an external monitor works but the native LCD will not. I guess they are on different "channels" when the video card is disabled? idk. Now that you mention your notebook's LCD stopped working also, it gives me some hope that it is only the GPU that has failed again this time. I have also read that the Quadro FX 3500M is compatible with the M1710 and very close to the same performance. I was able to find one of these cards on EBay (new apparently) but it would have cost me over $700 by the time I paid the tax, shipping, border rip-off fees, etc. No way will I spend that much more on this thing without a warranty ... for all I know it will also fry this new card in a few short months ... and then I still don't know for certain if the MB is damaged in some way yet. I've been able to talk to a few people that claim they are able to repair the 7950 GTX and you are correct, this route can be a toss up depending on the repair procedure, the equipment used and the skills possessed. After a ton of emails back & forth I have decided to go with CADis Ltd for the repair. They were nearby and by far the most confident that they could actually repair the card properly and permanently ... of those I talked to anyhow. I found them on EBay through a search of "Dell Nvidia 7950 repair" I believe it was. After the repair they test and stress the card for a full day to ensure it will stand up to far more punishment than I will ever put it through. Honestly, the engineer at CADis that I talked to seemed much more confident in their repair process than the others. They seemed to have a greater knowledge as to the precise reasons these cards are failing to begin with and their testing procedure more thorough and demanding. Apparently some of the cards they receive have failed partly due to a defective heat sink so it is important to be able to properly test this also. He laughed at me when I mentioned baking the card in the oven (heat sink removed of course) to "reflow" the solder. Apparently they have received cards that have gone through this "oven baking procedure" after they ultimately fail again and are then rendered unrepairable. The cost to repair the card properly is actually very reasonable so I have no idea why anyone would risk baking their very expensive card in the oven. To each their own ... no offence intended. Anyhow, the repair is the only feasible solution I am willing to try at this point. I will post an update as to the outcome to try help others who find themselves in a similar predicament ... I know there are many. Either way I could repair my card 4 times for the same price of the new one I found on EBay ... and buying a used or refurbished card from someone I don't know may fetch me one of those popular oven-baked specials that are doomed to fail permanently all too soon. I do hope at least that the engineers at CADis do a better "repair job" than whoever has the contract refurbishing these cards for Dell as we all know the failure rate there. What to do ... what to do:) thanks again for your help Stickists

I just did the "baking" method on my M1710's 7900GS - and it's a smashing success!  I can't believe it actually worked.  It took about an hour, and all I needed was a smallish Phillips screwdriver (magnetized to hold the screws) and a T8 Torx screwdriver.  I picked up some Arctic Silver to reattach the heat sink at Radio Shack ($9.27).  

I cleaned the fins on the heat pipes and installed a fan control application that keeps them cranked up whenever I am on AC power (which is almost always).  

I would recommend this fix to anyone.

Will do.  Normally, I would not think that the fix would last but, unlike those poor Inspiron users, this does have the dual heat sink pipes and did go a very long time before this happened - I think this machine's about 5 years old.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Post back in a couple of months - it'll break a record if it's still working.  This technique works for a short period of time -- the card WILL fail again.

Wow, I didn't even know they offered the M1710 five years ago. That's amazing it lasted that long even though yours only has a 7900 GS. I've never heard of any card lasting that long in any M1710 but I guess all you really hear about is the failures ... and many, many, many of those. Honestly, I wouldn't be so utterly disgusted with Dell and probably wouldn't even have spent so much time looking so hard for a "fix" if mine had lasted five years in the first place. At least then I'd have felt like I got something for the $3000 I paid Dell for this thing. My XPS is still less than 3 years old and it's been nothing but problems nearly from the get go. The first card and motherboard didn't even last one year, then the next card lasted only a little more than one year and been downhill from there. Once the card fails the first time it is surely doomed to repeated failure no matter what method you use to "reflow" the garbage solder that Nvidia used. And overheating is NOT the issue either as my relowed cards never saw temps above 70*C and neither card ever saw temps above 80*C in their entire lifetime ... never.

Anyhow, as I mentioned earlier, I had CADis reflow my failed 7950 GTX initially in a proper, high-end infra-red reflow machine but it still failed after about a month. We tried to reflow it again with a new machine and tweaked settings but again it failed after about a month. Graciously, still under their warranty they took the card back and actually reballed the chip with some fresh high quality solder, all at their expense, and she's been running trouble free ever since. Absolutely unbelievable service! Anyone that's done any research on the topic understands that the original solder is garbage and is the main problem causing the failure and once it fails it will continue to fail repeatedly and at quicker intervals. Good thing is, it seems there is no limit to the number of times you can "reflow" the solder to get your machine back up and running if you so choose. Time will tell but I'm hoping the reball will solve my problems permanently ... for a while at least. I don't expect to get five more years out of this card now ... it has more problems than just the poor solder alone and it's been "around the block" so to say ... but another year or two and I'd be happy. One thing for certain, CADis has gone way above and beyond to try help me get some more use out of my machine ... Dell could learn some lessons from them.

I'll try to post back with an update in the future, hopefully with good news. I hope others do the same and be honest whether successful or not. I've seen posts where some have said their oven baked card had lasted up to 6 months but when you find another post by them on another thread you can see it only lasted a few weeks at the most. That doesn't help anyone.

Good luck to all.

9 days later and still working fine.......

As an aside, I looked up the warranty info on this laptop (I inherited it from someone who quit.  We don't ordinarily order XPS's for business users, we get Latitudes, so it's a bit of an odd duck around here).  It was built in Nov 2006, so it's 3 1/2 years old not 5.

5 weeks and still no issues.....