Delima: Graphics Card Burned out, What to Do....

DyersEve0666

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Jul 16, 2007
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Long story short, my video card on my Dell Inspiron 9300 died today. It was a Geforce 6800 Go 256mb. Do you think its possible to replace it or would it be to much of a hassle to do so.

If its not worth the effort, Ill hafta get a new one then. Ive had a lot of troubles with this laptop and I really want nothing to do with dell again.. Does anyone know of any other good laptops out there that are going for under 2000.. Primary purpose is for gaming, surfing the web, and doing schoolwork..

 
By the time you find out if you can replace it, find the replacement and pay for it (it will cost a lot since it's not in production anymore) you could just by a new laptop.

1) Price Limit: you said around 2K
2) Screen size?
3) Companies you want to avoid? ( you mentioned Dell, any others?)
 

DyersEve0666

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Yes, I would like to spend around two thousand or a little less then that if possible. I would like to aim for a 15 or 17 incher (or perhaps do you mean resolution size?; if thats the case I had been playing on a 1920-1200 res size I believe, but Im willing to change if it looks good and is smooth)..

Other then Dell, I am pretty open in terms of where to look and buy from. Though I have heard some bad things about alienware, but there quite pricy to begain with..

Primary purpose of this beast would be for gaming. Dont play anything really but mmorpgs however every once in a while Ill go back to my fps days of counter strike.
 
Yes, Alienware is mad expensive and they charge you an arm and a leg for every upgrade. With your price though, you are going to be staying away from the boutique vendors.

One of the best deals for a 15.4'' (1680x1050) laptop out their is the Asus G1S-A1:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220182. Good balance of size and performance.

The HP DV9500 (17'') looks really nice but the graphics are a little weak (8600GS).

Also check out the Sager NP5790 (17''). The configs start around 1800, but you get really good hardware for the money. Look at that one through companies like Xotixpc.com or discountlaptops.com and whatever you do avoid sagernotebook.com like the plague. In all honesty, I want to point you to killernotebooks.com, but their systems are a little out of your price range.
 

DyersEve0666

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Thanks, it seems that most of the newer laptops have windows vista...Is that good, from what I ve heard its quite buggy.,

Ill check out those ones in the mean time
 

TheGreatGrapeApe

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Well unfortunately it's hard to find replacement parts, and while you could find a replacement unit for the Gf6800 it might not be worth the hassle, but it is doable, so don't write it off completely.

Best way is to contact DELL and order a replacement part. If you want to upgrade there's a few vendors, they're just trickier to find. Dell often has a proprietary connector though so make sure if you buy from someone else it's a) compatible, and b) you can return it if it doesn't fit.

There's a guy at notebookreviews.com who had a list, but I don't remember his username, he had an extensive list from both the green and red teams. One place I had bookmarked used to sell more, but looks like they're slowly going out of business with only the MRX1300 and MRX1900 for sales (they had issues with their GFGO7900s);
http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/store.html

It's not an easy procedure but it's doable;

http://www.laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=31&page=3

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/349/1/

Overall for your needs and budget, I'd recommend looking at the ASUS G2S.

There are other models out there from other companies, and if you don't care about DX10, then maybe look for a Napa based laptop with a T7200-7600 and a GFGO7900/7950-GTX.

EDIT: Vista is having growing pains, and unfortunately has things like DRM bloat to it so many people, myself included, just don't want the hassle until either SP1 or some compelling reason like Crysis comes out that makes us want to switch.

Some companies are allowing your to have old XP on it, so check before you buy. Personally I'm going to get the cheap Ultimate version when I buy, because I already have XP, and then just make sure it has support for XP before I buy, and then blow out vista at first, load old XP Pro, and then when I want to use Vista, then just use the disk that ships with it, and then recover the install and then go from there. Best of both worlds at the cheapest price. If you never plan on going to Vista, and you already have XP, then try to get them to put Linux on it instead, but make sure they'll give you support, because that's one of the things you pay for in the OEM package with the laptop vendors. Sometimes it's just less hassle to have all the drivers/etc pre-configured by the mfr and then no hassles. Just depends on your comfort level.