did anyone ever give you an answer on this forum? my exact same laptop (xps m1730) has the exact same problem. It was sent to me almost 2 years ago, and is out of warranty as well.
I am getting so disappointed with Dell, and can't seem to ever get a decent laptop from them.
Dude, you wouldn't believe what happened, I'm still coming to grips with it myself. OK so I chose option number three and decided to fix it myself using second-hand components bought on eBay, it could only be one of four components, Memory, CPU, Motherboard, or Video Card. So based on the prices on eBay I went from cheapest to most expensive and replaced things one by one.
To recap, playing StarCraft 2 and The XPS Beast freezes. I turn it off then on again and it lights up but with a blank screen, it's Dead. I press Fn + Power buttons to run diagnostics and the middle LED flashes but the other two are off (0 - * - 0). According to the Dell Diagnostic Indicator Quick Reference my error message didn't mean anything, it wasn't even on their chart! Well it was but for pre2006 PCs & laptops, according to the older messages it was the memory, hence I tried replacing the memory first, it wasn't memory. Thanks for wasting my money Dell, update your chart! So then I decided to go through the motions, after all it could only be 1 of 3 other components. Dell Diagnostic Indicator Quick Reference - http://dsnimg.dell.com/images/external/documents/Network/Dell%20Diagnostic%20Reference%20Chart.pdf
1. First things first I went to you tube and watched the video on how to get into my XPS, there are so many screws and I didn't know where to start. Use little plastic bags for the groups of screws and label them well, the screws are small and many and are easily lost. Dell XPS M1730 - Graphics Card Upgrade to 8800mGTX - Part1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yklqhb7PRXY Dell XPS M1730 - Graphics Card Upgrade to 8800mGTX - Part2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIlwewNnQV8&feature=channel
2. Then I went to the Dell website and printed out (printed version is easier to use when repairing PCs) the Service Manual for the m1730 (so I knew how to put it back together after I pulled it apart).
3. Then I bought on eBay (in this order) second hand components and replaced them one by one Memory, CPU, Motherboard, and Video Card. Note I got cheaper less powerful components just to test what was wrong but then I would just have to live with a less powerful XPS if I ended up using them. I looked up the specifications for the memory in the Owner's manual.
<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>
4. Sure enough it was the most expensive item of them all, the one that cost me half of the entire XPS unit, the video card. When I plugged the second-hand one I got from eBay in it worked straight away. I was relieved but curious, I had my computer back at least.
5. I decided to do more research on the video card and that led me back to YouTube where I found a number of different videos about stripping down video cards that weren't working and putting them in the oven at 200C for 10 minutes, allowing to cool and having them work again! As I had a replacement video card that I new was working I decided to try it myself. Now I'm just an amateur computer guy so I can't and don't recommend you do what I did, but am happy to share my experience for the benefit the collective knowledge base. Each person is individually responsible for any and all decisions they make and actions they take.
6. So I got the old video card (nVidia 8800GTX Dual 512mb SLi), took the fans and heat sinks off, placed the card on four balls of aluminium foil and placed the thing in a pre-heated 200C oven for 10 minutes!!!! At this point I am thinking this is pretty much the most silly thing I have ever done with a computer component!
7. Took it out after exactly 10 minutes and let it cool for 20 minutes. Once cooled I reattached the heat sinks & fans, plugged it back in, hooked the monitor up, put the keyboard back and pressed power. IT ACTUALLY WORKED AGAIN!!!! I couldn't believe my eyes and am still having trouble with accepting the experience, I should have filmed it and put it on YouTube myself but I didn't think it would succeed! I spoke to a chap at work and asked him why it worked and he mentioned something about the soldering joints for the components on the chip where the oven melts and reseals them thus 'fixing' the video card. He also said that it is dangerous putting computer parts in the oven as things may explode and it's really only a temporary solution because I may need to put it back in the oven again. But for the moment it's working very well, StarCraft 2 is fantastic and I'm hoping that this 'temporary' fix lasts about 2 to 3 years.
I reiterate I'm just an amateur computer guy so I can't and don't recommend you do what I did, but am happy to share my experience for the benefit the collective knowledge base. Each person is individually responsible for any and all decisions they make and actions they take.
Hope this helps and good luck. I'm still done buying Dell Computers.
I have had the same problem today. My XPS M1730 was almost totally dead on start up. No screen and no HD activity after 5 seconds. The only LED's on were the num lock, power, and bluetooth. I spent 36 minutes on the phone to a very professional technician at Dell who walked me through a number of diagnostic tests, the conclusion of which was that the VGA card (Nvidia 8700) needed replacing. The cost for this was £457!!!!
Given that I had already spent £300 last September to have the motherboard and heat sink replaced (because of an overheating problem), I decided to do some DIY. I found this post (items 5-7) about cooking the card in the oven, and an excellent You Tube film showing you how to take everything apart and put it together again (just search for "Dell XPS M1730 - Graphics Card Upgrade to 8800mGTX - PART 1"). So I cooked the card at 180 degrees C for 8 minutes.......and hey presto! Can't believe it but it works. Everything back up and running......but for how long!? thanks.
Hi Astair, well once I had put my video card in the oven I told a couple of chaps at work and one who know about this stuff (a know it all electronic engineer grad) told me that it was only a temporary solution. He said that while baking the card in the oven did melt the solder and put it back in place the heat of the card would ultimately weaken the solder connection again at which point I would have to put it back in the oven again. He mentioned that as time went on I would have to keep doing this to keep repairing the solder joint over and over. This was not a desireable outcome for me.
Sure enough about 5 weeks ago my little LCD screen started malfunctioning and was working only half the time and then 3 weeks ago my baked video card died again, rendering my whole computer useless (no boot, just as before). At that point I decided that I had had enough of baking computer components so I went on eBay and picked up a cheap refurbished 8700 GT Dual 256Mb from Korea. On eBay I found some refurbished m1730 video cards from Korea and the USA. I didn't want to spend too much money so I had to get a less powerful video card and buying a second hand one from eBay made a whole lot of sense financially. So I installed that with no problem and I have my computer back.
I leaned a huge lesson from this XPS m1730 gaiming laptop purchase: no more gaming laptops! If I want a gaming machine in the future it will be a desktop and I will built it myself from carefully selected high quality, very common (i.e. easy to find second hand and replace later) components. Best of luck with your baked video card, I hope it lasts longer than mine.
Hello all, I am having the same problem with my m1730. Ive had it for 3 years with no problems and yesterday the screen goes black. Ive spent all day with tech support and on forums only to find this post. My question this. Is there anyway to definitively tell if it is the video cards?
i got an m1730, had for about 2 years, all good, all of sudden vga gave up on me.. so spent £200 and bought a 2gb sli... after that, the laptop wont boot, all the lights come up but it wont boot.
If i take out all the screws, and leave it open, just connect everything but leave it all loose, it will boot and work fine.. have spent lots of time trying to figure out what touches where, cannot find it.. So for your's try taking the screws out, lift the plastic and just lean it on.. try it then see if boots.. sounds like you got same
Hello, believe it or not but my xps1730 has done pulled the same stunt.... Before you fixed your computer can you tell me what the outcome was when you did the power+ n test ? Testing the GPU is it suppose to change colors or just display white ? When I do my GPU test my screen just displays a faint white color.... Is this normal ?
My M1730 has the same issue but I can get it to boot if I press the Media Direct button and wait for it to realize there is no Media Direct Partition anymore and it will continue to boot into Win 7 from my RAID 0 array.
It crashes a lot on flash video, especially YouTube and has developed a weird black and white checkerboard flicker every so often. Also it's an 8700GTM SLI card and it won't detect one of the cards anymore :emotion-12: Also the battery is dead, sound is choppy, speakers are rooted and it won't recognize the power brick anymore :emotion-9:
This laptop is a piece of junk and has given me nothing but troubles, but I still love it like a three legged dog :emotion-4: Never again will I buy another Dell gaming laptop after this experience!!!
Thanks TERESDAD and while baking electronic goods in an oven goes against my better judgement, it seems to do the trick for heaps of people with Nvidia cards with dodgy soldering!
Once I get my oven fixed I'll give it a try :emotion-1:
As far as pulling down the laptop there is plenty of good videos from Iftibashir on Youtube so I should be okay.
Juynior
3 Posts
0
November 2nd, 2010 21:00
did anyone ever give you an answer on this forum? my exact same laptop (xps m1730) has the exact same problem. It was sent to me almost 2 years ago, and is out of warranty as well.
I am getting so disappointed with Dell, and can't seem to ever get a decent laptop from them.
Hugo111_edc252
52 Posts
0
November 2nd, 2010 23:00
HI,
That was great...it is more informative post...thanks for the information...
It really help us here....
Keep posting....
I_Cant_English
4 Posts
0
November 3rd, 2010 17:00
Dude, you wouldn't believe what happened, I'm still coming to grips with it myself. OK so I chose option number three and decided to fix it myself using second-hand components bought on eBay, it could only be one of four components, Memory, CPU, Motherboard, or Video Card. So based on the prices on eBay I went from cheapest to most expensive and replaced things one by one.
To recap, playing StarCraft 2 and The XPS Beast freezes. I turn it off then on again and it lights up but with a blank screen, it's Dead. I press Fn + Power buttons to run diagnostics and the middle LED flashes but the other two are off (0 - * - 0). According to the Dell Diagnostic Indicator Quick Reference my error message didn't mean anything, it wasn't even on their chart! Well it was but for pre2006 PCs & laptops, according to the older messages it was the memory, hence I tried replacing the memory first, it wasn't memory. Thanks for wasting my money Dell, update your chart! So then I decided to go through the motions, after all it could only be 1 of 3 other components. Dell Diagnostic Indicator Quick Reference - http://dsnimg.dell.com/images/external/documents/Network/Dell%20Diagnostic%20Reference%20Chart.pdf
1. First things first I went to you tube and watched the video on how to get into my XPS, there are so many screws and I didn't know where to start. Use little plastic bags for the groups of screws and label them well, the screws are small and many and are easily lost. Dell XPS M1730 - Graphics Card Upgrade to 8800mGTX - Part1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yklqhb7PRXY Dell XPS M1730 - Graphics Card Upgrade to 8800mGTX - Part2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIlwewNnQV8&feature=channel
2. Then I went to the Dell website and printed out (printed version is easier to use when repairing PCs) the Service Manual for the m1730 (so I knew how to put it back together after I pulled it apart).
3. Then I bought on eBay (in this order) second hand components and replaced them one by one Memory, CPU, Motherboard, and Video Card. Note I got cheaper less powerful components just to test what was wrong but then I would just have to live with a less powerful XPS if I ended up using them. I looked up the specifications for the memory in the Owner's manual.
<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>
4. Sure enough it was the most expensive item of them all, the one that cost me half of the entire XPS unit, the video card. When I plugged the second-hand one I got from eBay in it worked straight away. I was relieved but curious, I had my computer back at least.
5. I decided to do more research on the video card and that led me back to YouTube where I found a number of different videos about stripping down video cards that weren't working and putting them in the oven at 200C for 10 minutes, allowing to cool and having them work again! As I had a replacement video card that I new was working I decided to try it myself. Now I'm just an amateur computer guy so I can't and don't recommend you do what I did, but am happy to share my experience for the benefit the collective knowledge base. Each person is individually responsible for any and all decisions they make and actions they take.
6. So I got the old video card (nVidia 8800GTX Dual 512mb SLi), took the fans and heat sinks off, placed the card on four balls of aluminium foil and placed the thing in a pre-heated 200C oven for 10 minutes!!!! At this point I am thinking this is pretty much the most silly thing I have ever done with a computer component!
7. Took it out after exactly 10 minutes and let it cool for 20 minutes. Once cooled I reattached the heat sinks & fans, plugged it back in, hooked the monitor up, put the keyboard back and pressed power. IT ACTUALLY WORKED AGAIN!!!! I couldn't believe my eyes and am still having trouble with accepting the experience, I should have filmed it and put it on YouTube myself but I didn't think it would succeed! I spoke to a chap at work and asked him why it worked and he mentioned something about the soldering joints for the components on the chip where the oven melts and reseals them thus 'fixing' the video card. He also said that it is dangerous putting computer parts in the oven as things may explode and it's really only a temporary solution because I may need to put it back in the oven again. But for the moment it's working very well, StarCraft 2 is fantastic and I'm hoping that this 'temporary' fix lasts about 2 to 3 years.
I reiterate I'm just an amateur computer guy so I can't and don't recommend you do what I did, but am happy to share my experience for the benefit the collective knowledge base. Each person is individually responsible for any and all decisions they make and actions they take.
Hope this helps and good luck. I'm still done buying Dell Computers.
Astair
3 Posts
0
February 9th, 2011 13:00
I have had the same problem today. My XPS M1730 was almost totally dead on start up. No screen and no HD activity after 5 seconds. The only LED's on were the num lock, power, and bluetooth. I spent 36 minutes on the phone to a very professional technician at Dell who walked me through a number of diagnostic tests, the conclusion of which was that the VGA card (Nvidia 8700) needed replacing. The cost for this was £457!!!!
Given that I had already spent £300 last September to have the motherboard and heat sink replaced (because of an overheating problem), I decided to do some DIY. I found this post (items 5-7) about cooking the card in the oven, and an excellent You Tube film showing you how to take everything apart and put it together again (just search for "Dell XPS M1730 - Graphics Card Upgrade to 8800mGTX - PART 1"). So I cooked the card at 180 degrees C for 8 minutes.......and hey presto! Can't believe it but it works. Everything back up and running......but for how long!? thanks.
I_Cant_English
4 Posts
0
February 16th, 2011 15:00
Hi Astair, well once I had put my video card in the oven I told a couple of chaps at work and one who know about this stuff (a know it all electronic engineer grad) told me that it was only a temporary solution. He said that while baking the card in the oven did melt the solder and put it back in place the heat of the card would ultimately weaken the solder connection again at which point I would have to put it back in the oven again. He mentioned that as time went on I would have to keep doing this to keep repairing the solder joint over and over. This was not a desireable outcome for me.
Sure enough about 5 weeks ago my little LCD screen started malfunctioning and was working only half the time and then 3 weeks ago my baked video card died again, rendering my whole computer useless (no boot, just as before). At that point I decided that I had had enough of baking computer components so I went on eBay and picked up a cheap refurbished 8700 GT Dual 256Mb from Korea. On eBay I found some refurbished m1730 video cards from Korea and the USA. I didn't want to spend too much money so I had to get a less powerful video card and buying a second hand one from eBay made a whole lot of sense financially. So I installed that with no problem and I have my computer back.
I leaned a huge lesson from this XPS m1730 gaiming laptop purchase: no more gaming laptops! If I want a gaming machine in the future it will be a desktop and I will built it myself from carefully selected high quality, very common (i.e. easy to find second hand and replace later) components. Best of luck with your baked video card, I hope it lasts longer than mine.
DG260
2 Posts
0
August 16th, 2011 17:00
Hello all, I am having the same problem with my m1730. Ive had it for 3 years with no problems and yesterday the screen goes black. Ive spent all day with tech support and on forums only to find this post. My question this. Is there anyway to definitively tell if it is the video cards?
lozzy2010
1 Message
0
February 17th, 2013 09:00
Hi,
i got an m1730, had for about 2 years, all good, all of sudden vga gave up on me.. so spent £200 and bought a 2gb sli... after that, the laptop wont boot, all the lights come up but it wont boot.
If i take out all the screws, and leave it open, just connect everything but leave it all loose, it will boot and work fine.. have spent lots of time trying to figure out what touches where, cannot find it.. So for your's try taking the screws out, lift the plastic and just lean it on.. try it then see if boots.. sounds like you got same
Good luck
ted044
1 Rookie
•
16 Posts
0
June 27th, 2013 07:00
Fridgemusa
2 Posts
0
October 2nd, 2013 02:00
My M1730 has the same issue but I can get it to boot if I press the Media Direct button and wait for it to realize there is no Media Direct Partition anymore and it will continue to boot into Win 7 from my RAID 0 array.
It crashes a lot on flash video, especially YouTube and has developed a weird black and white checkerboard flicker every so often. Also it's an 8700GTM SLI card and it won't detect one of the cards anymore :emotion-12: Also the battery is dead, sound is choppy, speakers are rooted and it won't recognize the power brick anymore :emotion-9:
This laptop is a piece of junk and has given me nothing but troubles, but I still love it like a three legged dog :emotion-4: Never again will I buy another Dell gaming laptop after this experience!!!
teresdad
2 Posts
0
December 28th, 2014 19:00
This works! (baking the video card).
My Dell M1730 went down as described
(You power-on, screen remains blank, can't access BIOS setup, etc.).
I pulled the video card (Nvidia 8700 M GT SLIs),
removed the fans,
removed the heat sinks and then
baked the video card at 350 F for 10 minutes, then turned the oven off, opened the door a crack and let it cool to room temperature.
Reassembled everything (you will need thermal paste) and the system booted right up!
Look for links in this thread for youtube vids on how to open the system and prep the cards for baking.
Really great post. Thanks.
Fridgemusa
2 Posts
0
January 18th, 2015 22:00
Thanks TERESDAD and while baking electronic goods in an oven goes against my better judgement, it seems to do the trick for heaps of people with Nvidia cards with dodgy soldering!
Once I get my oven fixed I'll give it a try :emotion-1:
As far as pulling down the laptop there is plenty of good videos from Iftibashir on Youtube so I should be okay.
Thanks again for the reply :emotion-15: