popey.com

I am SOO outraged with DELL!!! Just 2 years and my XPS laptop with 6800 go ultra is WORTHLESS (warrenty expired days before). Throughout the lifetime of the laptop, it would constantly overheat and crash. I can't believe I paid over $3000 for this piece of crap! Previously I had considered Dell a good brand, but having this experience has completely changed my opinion. I am a professional computer programmer and know a lot about computer hardware. I will NEVER buy DELL again, and will ALWAYS make recomendations for people to stay away from DELL!!!! From browsing the internet and forums, I have discovered SO MANY people with similar experiences, crappy DELL laptops with burnt out video cards. DELL should at least make replacement cards semi-affordable and reasonable to purchase. Who's gonna buy a replacement card for $600 when that's practically the price of a brand new dual core laptop!! It just doesn't make sense! THIS DEFINATLY WARRENTS A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT!!! Any lawyers out there with a doorstop DELL laptop?? (count me in: tdickes@hotmail.com) In the meantime, DELL - burn in hell!!!!! At least from this end, I can do my part and tell everyone to stay away from DELL!!

yes here is another one all the way from the uk i have had my xps2 for arround 3 years and the warenty ran out last week (5 days ago) and yes the same fault ..... i have had 7 gpu cards over the last 3 years and everytime the same fault what realy does my head in is some poor little indian guy in india telling me that its not the card but some form of driver / bios problem !!!!! now i ge on with anyone how the hell can you offer customer support for the UK in bleeding india !!!!DELL SORT IT OUT !!!!
I Think i will try the 'Not Fit For Purpose ' line on dell because in the uk we still have that option as a customer .... failing that ... extend tthe warrenty for 60 days and sell it on when fixed :(

yep you guessed it. have the same problem as well. I bought a quadro fx 2500 to replace my geforce go 7900GS, and after installing it went to power on my machine. Nothing. Won't turn on, won't make a noise. Put my old graphics card back in...nothing. Could Dell's laptops be an crappier? they don't provide enough cooling for the 7900GS, so it overheats and dies within a year. When it does die, if you're not under warranty you have to spend around $500 for them to replace it or get your own on ebay and do it yourself. I was VERY careful and don't see how I could have fried anything in the computer while switching graphics cards. I swear, dell just makes laptops that look decent on the outside, but on the inside they are just crappy designed parts that will fail a few months after your warranty runs out. Their customer support absolutely BLOWS. Name another company out there than won't even talk to you if you arent under warranty unless you PAY EXTRA. I had had good experiences with Dell desktop computers but after my horrible laptop experience I will NEVER be a dell customer again and I'll make sure I tell everyone I know to do the same. Shape up dell, you've got a lot of work to do.

Exactly the same happened to me on a refurb Inspiron 9400 (same as E1705) I bought off Ebay. It had a single-heatpipe 7900GS that kept seriously overheating, and when it did, 3D framerates would plummet - if you really pushed it, the laptop would instantly shut down with a thermal warning.

I opened it up, and it turned out that the heatpipe that is attached to the heatsink had a tiny hole in it. Heatpipes have liquid in them, it evaporates if your pierce them and then they don't conduct heat. So I bought a spare heat assembly off Ebay (despite what Dell say you _can_ replace them, you need a Torx (star-shaped) screwdriver, some thermal paste and thermal pads).

It seemed to work (temperatures dropped), but two weeks later the card failed completely (usual garbage on-screen including BIOS, Nvidia drivers no longer worked, only the basic Windows SVGA ones which are horribly slow). I didn't replace the heat pads, and this might have been a mistake, however I think the card was overheating for so long that it was probably going to fail sooner or later anyway.

I then bought a 7950GTX (dual pipes), that was easy to install as the 9400/1705 chassis is ready for two pipes, you just have to break out a little plastic piece by the left-hand vent. So far so good, but like everyone else here I expect it to fail again at any time.

These laptops have a faulty design, they simply can't (or won't) shift the necessary heat to keep the GPUs alive. The fans come on too late and do too little, and worse, the vents draw air at the bottom! How stupid is that?! - if you have it on your lap, or on something soft like a pillow or duvet, you're constantly worried about blocking the airflow and killing the card again.

My xps gen 2 took a crap right after the Warranty expired... The problem was the video card 6800 gtx nividia geforce go etc.... threw up the striped lines all over the screen. I had to buy a new card so I "upgraded" to a 7800... my 7800 lasted for 9 months... then took a crap. Ordered another 7800 for 800 plus dollars... i hate dell. XPS for sale.

When I was ordering my first 7800 card. The guy I was talking too was in panama I believe was very unprofessional arguing with me over the ablity to upgrade my card. He was actually using profane language toward me. I was unable to get his name because he hung up on me. I found out later that the moron FLAGGED MY COMPUTER AS STOLEN!!! needless to say I was pissed and contemplating a trip down to panama to the dell call center to find the sh-thead.

We have an XPS Gen2 laptop with a 6800 Ultra in it also. It lasted four or five years, then we got the infamous lines down and across the screen. This includes the boot screen and everything. Dell replaced the LCD and the video card, and it happened again that same day. They replaced the motherboard and video card, and it happened again the day after that. Next they replaced the RAM and the video card (third video card!), and it ran fine for a while, but we installed some fan and temperature monitoring software for Dell laptops at this point.

This is where we se the CPU fan to turn on at 111deg and off at 86deg. Works great! We set the GPU fan to come on around 130deg and off at 120deg. This also works, but over a week's time the GPU just seemed to get hotter and hotter! It used to be down around 150 max, now it's around 220 max! Sometimes i even shuts itself off. Time for yet another new video card!

I will never own another Dell product. We used to have a desktop by them and it ran hot also. Gateway has theirs setup so that it pulls air from one side and spits it out the other side, cooling the entire laptop on the way through. This was their 17" laptop the last time I looked. I also found Gen-X PC and they look good as well. Hell, even Acer laptops run cool as heck! Why can't Dell make theirs run cool? Laptopts that only last five or six years are NOT worth $3k.

Bought her in late 2005 - $3800.00 - she is only used for Email, MSN, and basically iTunes which I run over to my Home Speaker system. NEVER has a game been played on her or has she been used for any sort of Multi-media. Surfing the Internet, well maybe a total of 5 hours of that since I purchased this piece of shit from Dell. Video Card is crap after 2.5 years. Dell does not care, and I will NEVER again purchase anything Dell. Dell Refurbished Video Card $592.99 with 90 day warranty, no extended warranty available. dell sucks bigs time!!!

Exact same problem as described above. Happened right before the 3 year mark. Will get a BSOD everytime Windows starts, unless the GeForce Go 6900 Ultra is disabled via Windows Safe Mode. Tried new drivers, flashed BIOS, even ran a repair install of Windows XP. Dell Diagnostics shows a video card memory fault.

Never had an issue with this or any Dell, and have always been happy with their products. Until now.

After 4 phone calls just to get them to be able to access my service code (bought through Dell.com refirbished, and my service code was lost in their system), I was put on hold by 3 different reps in India for a total of 30 minutes, to find out:

***DELL WANTS $395 FOR A REPLACEMENT (REFURBISHED) GEFORCE GO 6800 ULTRA, OR $592 FOR THE UPGRADE TO THE GEFORCE GO 7800 GTX***

I couldn't believe it. Being that these cards are out of production, they can set whatever price they want. Looks like I'll turn to Ebay and hope for the best. Way to back your products, Dell.

If anyone plans on participating in a class action lawsuit, please count me in. gr_mk_1b@hotmail.com

Good luck

--Matt

So my xps gen 2 failed after about 3 years of gaming just as described above. The warrenty was expired. Even the bios screen was corrupted and an external monitor showed the same. So I knew it was the card. I sent it to dell, for 250 CAD they mailed me a box for me to put it in and they replaced the 6800 ultra with a 7800 gts. I got it back and ran it for about 5 minutes when it locked up again with the lines on the screen. It would sometimes run for about 5 minutes on windows before crashing. Any 3d hardware acceleration would cause it to crash with the lines. I formatted, that didn't help. Now I am sending it back to del again and they say they will fix it for no cost.

I have had this same problem on my 9400/e1705, 2 years old. (geforce go 7800). Thankfully it is still under onsite warranty, but this hasn't really helped me as I have now been through 4 service calls, each time replacing at least the video card, but also the motherboard, ram, lcd, and fans at times. The first repair lasted several months. The second repair worked flawlessly for 10 minutes - long enough for the tech to be long gone. The 3rd repair lasted about 4~6 months, and the most recent repair (last week) lasted all of 5 minutes!

IT troubleshooting IS tough, but I'm a computer engineer and it does seem like this is & only can be a 100% hardware malfunction... but given how many replacement parts I have had this is getting hard to believe. At times i would just be better off with NO laptop, at least I wouldn't wish I could use it in that case!

Has anyone really solved this???

I share everyone pain about this overrated type writer they call the perfect gaming laptop as I have had my motherboard replace due to the BGA that burnt out on it which now dell consider a known issue. As well as none of the chipset had any thermal paste on them and when I ask dell they told me that it probably dry out which I reply to them that buddy I work for a technology place we build this #@$% cards and I know what dry thermal paste looks like. He said well we only use the cheap stuff anyways what do you expect. The conclusion is that I still can't play World of warcraft without the system rebooting itself or the video card shut off but at least I must look at the bright side when the video gives out I still have the pleasure of listening to my character getting destroy as the sound card work perfectly. As far as I am concern Dell built what might of been the ultimate gaming laptop but lack the proper cooling system for such a condense area. They should replace all defective unit with a laptop or desktop that is capable of fulfilling their empty promise.

My DELL XPS M170 is now useless. All of a sudden it goes from brilliant laptop to a blury screen that moves black blocks around the scren and switches on and off.

The black scren, distorted picture, and ability to turn on and off at will happen intermitently from perfect piture to illegible.

Its not Win XP Pro or Ubuntu either moving away from a graphics problem as the screen messes up on boot, in BIOS, and even the DELL diagnostic utility which has told me that my hard drive has a problem. Even though Windows boots and works fine.

It always did overheat and I guess after about 4 years it had had enough. I took it to pieces, cleaned it, and put it backl together to no avail.

Gonna have to go looking for a new laptop I guess. Would rather have had a choice in the matter as it was getting a wee bit old for my liking but worked a treat.

Its dificult to find a replacement graphics card and I dont want to waste money on a new hard drive or compatible graphics card if its not going to work. This money could go nicely towards a new one.

Aww well, end of rant.

The Dell Tech Supervisor was suppossed to call me over an hour ago so I thought I would add my experience with this. Just spent the last 6-7 hours researching this problem and communicating back and forth on Dell Tech Chat Support which has been less than helpful...seemed at times I knew more than they did perhaps from Popey's post.

How it all started:

Using my Dell Inspiron E1705 to view a photo slideshow. Screen flashed for a second and then went black but was still illuminated if you looked closely at it.

Tried the usual reboot a few times and nothing. The system start up appeared to go ok but you could see green/yellowish lines running down the screen. After the system was rebooted with drivers the screen went black as described above. Don't waste your time doing a system restore because this will not work to resolve this issue.

Got on to another laptop and researched this problem.
Utilzed Dell Chat Tech support for several hours back and forth and what was most frustrating was that the chat sessions would end abruptly with out my case being resolved.

Dell will tell you that if you update your BIOS and complete a unistall/reinstall of the NVIDIA GE FORCE GO 7900GT that this will solve the problem. Based on hours of researching this online in numerous forums this NEVER resolves the issue.

The only way I could go online with the laptop was to turn off computer and to start it in SAFE MODE by pressing F8 repeatedly as you powered on the laptop. In SAFE MODE I was able to disable the video card which allowed me to go online with the laptop and I had all functions with the exception of the horrible screen resolution caused by disabling the video card.

I did an uninstall/reinstall of the 7900GT and as soon as the reinstall completed and the video card driver was installed the screen went black yet again. Dell Tech Support kept wanting to "flash" and update my BIOS which I kept teling them that I had the latest update on the BIOS which was A09 (06/27/07)

After MANY hours of Dell Tech Support via chat and all of the sudden abrupt chat disconnects where I had to start all over again explaining this, NOTHING WAS RESOLVED STIL.

So the Dell Tech Rep told me to run a special hardware/harddrive diagnostic test. To run this you hold down the Fn key while you power up your piece of crap Dell Laptop. I was told that this would take 15-20 mins and that the Dell tech Rep's supervisor would call me on my phone to discuss this problem further...STILL waiting for the call. After the roughly 15-20 mins of running this test the test stated that everything seemed ok and that I had the option of running a more extensive test which would require another 20-30 mins to run. Since the Dell tech Supervisor had not followed through on what was promised I elected to run this more extensive test..still nothing wrong according to the test.

I told Dell from the start to send an engineer to my house to fix it and to bring a new video card and motherboard since it is integrated. So here I am still waiting for the phone call when I need my laptop urgently for work. They promised a call in 15-20 mins by the supervisor and they failed to deliver.

I am so glad that I found this post because the way popey described it in detail made me realize that this was a much bigger issue than a simple BOIS update or uninstall/reinstall of the video driver.

Based on all of these comments to this post it is VERY CLEAR that DELL has serious issues with this happening to not only XPS systems but also to INSPIRON laptop as well.

Can you say class action lawsuit against Dell?

Here I am still waiting for Dell to call as promised!!

Thank you again for such a detailed post.

Ok my hard drive died first. I replaced it and a couple of days later noticed these strange lines and figures on the screen. Can't change resolution or anything. Dell diagnostics say something is wrong with the video card and to contact Dell support. As it's out of warranty i won't be going there.

If anyone at all has found another reason why this has happened with a possible fix (apart from total gpu failure and replacement) please tell us here.

Also i've found a link to a XPS M170 compatible graphics cards but I'm not sure if they really work. See here: http://www.portableparts.co.uk/products/product.asp?pid=10824&l=M170

Again if anyone has tried fixing the problem with a cheaper gpu and it's worked let us know, i don't fancy waiting to find a 6800 go ultra on ebay for a fortune.

Thanks.

Everybody here probably agree that we doomed with our dying but shiny and good-looking inspiron gen 2 XPS...
I believe the lines-on the screen stuff is more screen that video-card problems per se. I even thought about buying another similar computer on E-bay and used the parts to get a working machine...
If we have to buy another computer, can the hard drive at least fit another known machine: I am tired of redownloading everything everytime...?
Cheers

I too have a Gen 2 with screen displaying garbage (out of warranty). Does this too on an external monitor hence pointing to graphics issue. Previous posts have mentioned disabling the graphic card then it works fine (backup video on the motherboard?) How is this done as I cannot find a BIOS setting to turn it off.

Cheers, Mark

Haha, I don't have your problem, and I have a 3-4 year old XPS
Gen 2 Laptop. rofl, did u guys update your drivers to cause this problem? If so, what driver did u start with and update to. Its still funny though. Not for you I guess.

I can unfortunately also join the list of all folks having a problem with their Dell XPS Gen2 videocard, GF Go6800 Ultra.

My screen has plenty of lines disturbing the view, not only in Windows and in startup, but also in Bios. I tried Dell Diagnostics CD, which reported some issues with accessing the videocards memory, and this must be where the problem is at. I also tried connecting a crt- monitor, and the stripes appeared also there.
One fact though, is that during the test, the lines disappeared completely when the Diagnostics program only trigged specific areas of the graphic card.

It is very sad that Dell delivers such crap out to the market. The XPS machines, if no problems occurs, are very nice laptops for gaming- purposes, but because of the poor quality, and because so many have problems with Dell computers, this is a brand I never will touch again. And as for others in here, also I will spread the word about the lack of quality in Dells machinery.
I`ve used my last minute on this case. Now I will use some minutes to sell parts from this tincan of a laptop...

I got you all beat. I got my computer (lines going through screen) back two weeks ago. Board, video got replaced. Guess what 2 days I turned it on yay same problem...

My xps gen2 has died with the exact same problem for the second time in 4 months. Engineer due Wed 2nd Jan with new graphics card, screen and motherboard. Took 3 days to get here mind - bit disapointing considering I have the next business day warranty. Will update with results after engineer has fixed.

My xps gen2 started with the same problems (blocks on screen, system freezes) in Aug07. Bought the system in June05 and it had worked perfectly up until then. Dell fixed it with a new graphics card and then a new motherboard too. Lasted 4 months then died again on Xmas day - lovely timing.
Trying to get Dell out to fix it again is proving difficult - ok its a bad time of year but a next working day on site warranty should be just that. They are due on Wed 2nd, I reported the problem on Thurs 27th - thats not good enough in my eyes. Wasted all Fri 28th waiting for the engineer - Dell didnt contact me to tell me he wasnt comming - very professional.
I await to see what the new set of parts will do. Starting to get the feeling that Dell dont really care about their users with the level of after sales care service they are providing. Think they know the system is generally crap and just wait for the 3 year warranty to expire as most people wont want to spend good money after bad. I'm trying to extend my warranty at the moment but not surprisingly havent had a call back from the dell warranty dept!

Will update after the engineer has called. Good luck to everyone who are suffering with this problem too.

WTF i have a 15 month old m1710 with the same problem. Dell's supposed to be replacing the vid card in a few days...

having read all these comments I think I'll save my money on repair and get a new laptop from another company.
I have an xps m1710 laptop bought summer06 and last week while surfing the net my display went black ,not as if it was switched off because the backlight was still on.
after a few attempts rebooting without success I decided to get my DVI cable and connect to my tv.

Hurrah I got the diognistics screen but it wouldnt load windows tp i tried again and ran in Safe mode ,
I disabled my geforce go 7900 gs card and now I don't have to boot up in safe mode , shame I still can't get any output from my laptop screen and obviously no gfx either.

I'm not gonna buy a new card or get a repair as I'm not sure the motherboard or screen isn't also damaged , I'll just buy a cheap laptop in the future as I don't play games on it

Yeah im writing with a bunch of lines or(flakes) on my xps inspiron2 is broken, but my warranty is over a year ago not after sending this piece of s%*%& twice to fix, do what i did dell has lost at least 18-20 people that i have convince not to buy from them, and the word keeps spreading.

I also have this same issue. I was playing BF2 and the game froze up. I had to do a hard shutdown. On rebooting the laptop I now have a line that runs top to bottom on the right side of my screen. I, like so many of you have no warranty left on the system.

I have yet to call the Dell Customer we don't Care line yet. Too bad this was a great laptop.

I've posted here before (below), my 3rd card failed this week.
Thankfully, I bought the 3 year warranty and the card was replaced today under warranty.
As the engineer left, I said see you soon - he knew what I meant.

What is interesting with my problem is that I'd just bought the 24" LCD from Dell and started using that for my XPS Gen 2, and using the laptop monitor as a 2nd screen (connecting the 24" by DVI), previously failures were also when I started using external screens.

So it's either when the graphics card is working hard it causes failures, or heating issues as previously it's failed on me during a game when pushing the machine to it's limits.

I'm in no doubt, by fitting a refurbished 6800 Go Ultra as Dell always do, will mean I'm posting here within another 12 months and before my warranty expires.

On my 4th failure, my sense of humour will also fail ... I'll be demanding a laptop replacement with a newer model.

I am writing just to inform all of us irate XPS and, apparently, Inspiron owners what the supposed problem is according to Dell. My Computer just went again recently (See 'All I Can Say is Jesus' comment below) and after numerous talks with Dell people I was informed that only on october 15th was a report published about this perpetual problem we encounter. According to Dell it is NOT the graphics card but the monitor that is the problem. I was told that if you replace both the graphics card and the monitor you get the same problem eventually but if you replace just the monitor problem fixed. The needed replacement monitor is specific to each computer
so I can not post the model type. Just call Dell and see what they say. It also occurred to me that this may be a ploy by Dell so they save money on graphics cards by just telling us consumers that only the monitor is the problem. I also can not verify that this will really solve anything as it is quite recent I was told about this and I have yet to receive a replacement monitor. My suggestion is to call Dell, be relatively forceful and kindly unmoving, tell them what the problem is, if need be tell them about this website and that many other people have had this problem (I did and it helped expediate the process) and you should be fine. If you are particularly adept at talking to service people on the phone or maybe
good at applied psychology you should be able to get a replacement
regardless of whether you are under warranty. Good Luck to everyone!

Im afraid the problem is not limited to xps systems. I have a Inspiron 9400 with a geforce 7800 graphics card which is now showing the same symptoms Alan has described.

Thank you for making this article Alan as it has shed some light on my prediciment. My laptop is showing the same screens as you have shown in your screenshots. Unfortunately, my warranty has expired and am now awaiting a phone call from Dell. I will find out soon how much the service call will be and im not looking forward to it.

This is in fact the second time the graphics card has failed on me. Im really regrettng the fact that i didnt extend my warranty. But i feel that Dell are well aware of this widespread problem and they wont do anything about it on purpose so that their customers fork out more money on their warranties. I wont be buying a Dell again.

My 2 year old XP laptop got 2 lines down the middle of the screen.. if you run it a while longer the screen will go to all blocks of unreadable garbage.
I have been running it off another display, but would love to find otu how much it will cost to get the display replaced, or find a way to verify that it is a screen problem. Since it is fine on an external display I am sure it's the screen on the laptop. It waited until it was out of warranty to go on me of course... :(

All I have to say it Jesus H. Christ. I never knew everyone was having the same problem I have had twice in 5 months. Freaking epidemic. I am somewhat glad to know now that I am not alone with this horrendous problem. The XPS Next Gen 2 Laptop truly is a beast as I have been telling everyone; eats graphic cards for a lite snack. I thank you Alan for bringing this peculiar and recurring problem to the broader scope. Right now safe mode is my haven and hell and I am curious if there is any short term fix or way to get it to work a tad better than safe mode. I somehow predict Dell is going to give me an incredibly hard time when I ask them to come visit me in Japan while I am away. Lazy assholes. Anyway thanks to all of you people for making me feel not alone. Anyone know how to force Dell into a recall? Class action lawsuit? something?

*****read the end of this long article could save you money + extra warranty for free**********

this is to help anyone having this problem and getting repaired by dell

First my story

I got this computer late August 05 after I got it about 4 days later the keyboard broke they said it was my fault blah blah it was there fault. I got them to ship me a whole new computer and I shipped back the old one early September. Next year August 06 the video card broke I called dell and my computer was out of warranty so I talked to dell out of warranty repair they said about $460 for new video card I said no thanks and get my neighbor who know everything about computers possible to fix it for $200 all is good. Until late August 07 same problem so I call deal and find out it only cost $200 to repair it so I send the computer away. Then I get a call we also need to replace your mother board I am like oh sh*t. So I call the guy says it will cost $400 but since I a some kind of special customer (this is the only dell computer I bought on this account) I get it for $329 so I say oh that way to much I probably just get a new computer from some other company. Then he quickly drops the price to $229. (I have the guy’s name and extension number I can probably get the same price for you) so I say let me think about it. I call back the next day and ask can you extend the 90 day warranty to a year he says no but he did give me a 6 month warranty for free (they can extend the warranty to this) so I say ok he add the $229 to my bill (also some tax which I don’t understand no tax the first time ($199) but the ($229) there was tax but what ever) so they fix it. Now fast forward to last Friday September 7 2007 I get the computer back I am all happy BUT I start up the computer all is good so far. Then I decide to play a video game to test the graphics card I load the game and I get a weird message unsupported video card (that is odd I have played this game before) so I like what ever I load up game all is good for 5 min then all video picture all messed up game freezes. I try this again restart computer with different games same thing happens. I tried to update drivers but it won’t updated them it will only take the 2 year old dell drivers. (At this point I realize my computer is still broken) so I shut it down call dell at Friday at like 8 pm and I get transferred to out of warranty department. They are closed. So I wait with a broken computer. Play around with it a bit more testing my graphics card and now my computer freezes up randomly on normal websites. So I turn it off. Come back Saturday when I turn it on I have the same problem I sent the computer in with. It will load with lines on screen the same thing in the article above. So I restart again 5 more times. Then it loads up fine randomly. Still have the video card problems. So when I restart it sometimes it works sometimes it does not.

Now Sunday I write this articles because
1 because I bored waiting for dell service department to open
2 to help everyone else get good prices on repairs (see below)
3 I hate dell at this point
4 also to help out any one having these problems feel free to email me at kcarr91@gmail.com I will help you out.
5 may i suggest cyber pc (www.cyberpowerpc.com) my friend got a computer from there they are great computer + cheap (compared to dell) + all have 3 year warranty standard

I will update on my computer when i get a hold of dell

********important prices and warranty*********
Video card $199 (normal price)
Mother board $229 (they said originally cost $400 to $329)
Also ask for 6 month warranty they can do it (cost free) (or at least when you replace the motherboard also)

Had to post a comment - had the nvidea card problem. Managed to get a knowledgeable and relatively local person at Dell to assist and organise getting the machine back to Dell. I sent it Tuesday 4th Sept from Calgary and received it back today the 6th. For around $280 CAD it included getting a special box sent to me and all Puralator costs. I'm impressed! Was not ready to use this machine as a door stop even though some local repairers suggested that. Remember if you have this problem remember that it will boot using the standard video card - just need to tell the machine not to look for the nvidea card.
Sorry to be so positive but its important to tell good stories too.
email me if you need more data barrypendergast@shaw.ca

Hi. I too have the problem with my XPS Gen 2 notebook with nVidia 6800 Ultra card. The first time it happened (Jan. '07) my 1 yr warranty already expired so I had to pay $199 to service it (includes the replacement video card). The second time it happened on April. Damn the 90-day warranty on the first replacement already lapsed. Since I really love this machine, I have paid to service it again. This time they gave me a $150 discount off the $199 minimum service fee but I had to pay an additional $300+ because they had to replace the motherboard also. Which in my opinion shouldn't be because I believe it was caused by the video card! But what can I do? Nothing. Pay or leave it broken. The third time happened just recently (July). Lucky me it happened within the 90-day warranty period of the second replacement so I didnt have to pay any. But I wasnt happy anymore and asked for a replacement machine. Of course they refused. They said they'll just service it free of charge. But the rep added that if after the same thing happened again then they'll (try to) give me a replacement.

So now I'm set to test this latest replacement and make sure to exhaust the video card asap so I can find out early if it will break (as expected) again and hopefully my case will deserve a replacement machine of a newer XPS model!

I was a fool to pay all the money to service this notebook before but I wont make that mistake again. Next time this happens, all money back or new notebook! And I wont recommend Dell anymore to whoever is interested in buying a notebook.

Finally this blog gives me hope that Im not the only person who faced the same problem.

Today i had the same problem and after going through with Dell Support I was a bit confused as to what to do. Finally after reading your blog Alan, I came to realize that I too am a victim of a graphics card failure.

Now im convinced that my laptop needs a new card. Unfortunately, my laptop warranty expired long time back so I need to buy a new one or probably a refurbished one.

I think getting one from Dell would be alot expensive as compared to getting it from ebay. Plus from the layout of the laptop when i opened it today and stripped out everything, I came to know that it would be possible to install the card yourself.

I would like anyone who has installed the card themselves to please comment on the procedure.

Thanks and by the way, once i get it sorted, I would surely sell it.

because that means that what I feared was true. That this XPS lapbeast eats graphics cards and will probably continue to do so. Much like yourselves, it's time for me now to test their warranty as well. Thanks for all the info guys. I wonder how many people you need for a class action suit? Hmmm....

I have the gen 2 no one seems to know much about fixing it at dell. Thanks dell for being so good at one time but not anymore I guess .

Wow, thanks for this page & everyones comments.
My XPS Gen 2 has also had the same issue although it was intermittant to start with, but one more session in Battlefield2 caused the whole machine to freeze and then I have the same symtoms, can't reboot into Windows unless it's in safe mode.

My machine is 15 months old, I bought a 3 year warranty as it's for business use.

Dell are due out to my house in 2 days time, I'm hoping too they'll replace it with a 7000 series card and an upgrade since 6800's are no longer in production.
I didn't have to argue with them as I said I know it's hardware failure just from seeing the issue on the BIOS screen, seeing this page confirms all of this of course and in a sadastic way I'm kind of glad I'm not alone with this problem.