My laptop died :(

[Niall]

Not quite sure what's wrong with it but the fan started pulsing the other week and tonight I was watching a guitar vid (Guthrie Govan actually, free from his site, in three parts!) and the sound started stuttering and the screen went black

I've been looking at replacing bits and to my horror I've discovered that according to Nvidia, the only people that stocked the 7800GTX GO card were Evesham who I bought the laptop from 5 years ago, and Nvidia still link to their site which has gone as they went under ages ago. The bad part is that that people selling second hand ones are charging £160-£300 for it!

Hard drives are about £15 more expensive than a normal PC one, are slower and have slower seek times! Great!

All the fans seem to be working, and the display along the front is still showing all the correct info, so I think the motherboard in it is fine. One thing I did notice when trying to reboot is that the HDD light wasn't flickering so I'm praying that the drive has died or I've basically got a £1600 brick

Oh and this is the first time I've ever had any trouble with a laptop, so the learning curve is going to be vertical

[Glenn]

So what is it doing, not booting?

It has a display, correct?

[Niall]

Nope, it's not booting which is why I'm hoping it's the hard drive. The only other thing it could be is the graphics card as I think the fan pulsing was coming from that. If it's the graphics card I'm knackered as I can't see a way of getting either a 7800GTX go or the newer 7900 go, for it

I actually know nothing about mobile graphics cards. For all I know there could be a newer option that would work with it.

[Glenn]

So if you try to boot it, the laptop starts, displays some info from it's pre boot checks, then tries to boot off the hard drive, but you get a black screen?

When trying to boot does it give any errors, it may take 5 minutes or so with the blank display?

If it has a CD drive, put in a bootable disk, like a XP disk, select boot from CD or DVD and see if it boots.

[Niall]

I'll have to dig a disk out tomorrow, but there's no display at all. It just sits there with fans spinning.


Thinking on it, it is more likely to be the graphics card. Although why would the sound stutter and die then get a black screen if it was the graphics card? Hmm, it could cause other issues forcing a crash I suppose. I've never actually had my headphones on when a graphics card has died, so I don't know if it causes an error which causes sound to cut out.

[Lona]

Is it a HP laptop by any chance, Niall.?  My son (your namesake) had an HP laptop that did the same thing and it turned out to be the HD. HP's are famous for overheating.

[Steve]

So HP stands for hot product.

[Glenn]

What make and model is the laptop?

[Rik]

I'm presuming it's an Evesham, but I don't know the model.

[Niall]

I've forgotten the model, but it is Evesham. I'll look later, I'm far too tired to do anything at the mo.

Incidentally, I've had a quick look this morning as I woke up and thought "SOUNDCARD!". I removed the Audigy2ZS soundcard just incase that had died as I've had lots of fun with sound over the years, but it was fine.

The system booted up, with sound, etc but no screen. So that reminded me that a while ago the screen went off when the rear of the case unclipped. I'll have a look later or tomorrow to see if something has unclipped again but I think it's died this time.

I've no idea how much that would cost to replace though.

[Steve]

Glen will know but I would think in some instances its possible to replace a graphics card in a laptop if its fits into PCI-E slot

[Glenn]

Does the laptop display to an external screen?

[Niall]

You've lost me. How is a pci-e slot related to a laptops card? I'm not being sarcastic, I honestly don't know!

I haven't tried an external monitor. As I say, I'll try it later when I recover from the gym! Probably tomorrow though

[D-Dan]

Does it display POST. If not - then it looks like you're stuffed. If you get POST, try a linux live CD (any brand) to rule out software issues.

Steve

[Niall]

If the sound is anything to go by, it loads fine as I heard the windows boot tune

[D-Dan]

Reason enough to dump it

Seriously - if it's booting so you get the "Windows Wave" it sounds like a display (rather than graphics chip) problem.

First port of call should be plug in to an external display.

Steve

[Steve]

You've lost me. How is a pci-e slot related to a laptops card? I'm not being sarcastic, I honestly don't know!

I haven't tried an external monitor. As I say, I'll try it later when I recover from the gym! Probably tomorrow though

If its a non integrated graphics card surely it must be attached to the motherboard by a slot or a ribbon. BTW I've only managed to change wifi cards thats the extent of my laptop repairs

[Glenn]

The vast majority of laptops have intergrated graphics cards, which was one reason I was asking for the laptop model, to see if it is a separate card or not.

[Niall]

It's a seperate card. It's a 7800GTX Go

[Glenn]

Does this http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/09/28/evesham_nvidia_7800/3 look like it?

[Niall]

That's the fella!

[Technical Ben]

What is this monster you have Niall? £removable Graphics card" and a "removable sound card". All the laptops I have seen have these built in or on board the main motherboard. To save room. For swappable hardware in a laptop, it must look like this:

[Glenn]

I can't find a manual for it.

[Steve]

Apparently this company used to repair them when Evesham were alive. http://www.micro-nano-it.com/

[Rik]

They did, Steve, I remember the name as mine required two new mobos in the warranty period.