Laptop Video Card (Fried?) Replacement

J

JTG2003

New Member
So my friend gave me his laptop so I could attempt to fix it.

Upon turning it on, I see that the screen is duplicated 6 times. The best way to describe it is by showing you. This isn't the actual screen, I just made this to show an example

screenex.png


It also appears to be in 16 bit colors.

It starts doing this from the post screen, so it seemed to me it was a hardware problem. I've fixed, replaced, built, and upgraded many DESKTOP computers.. but have very little knowledge when it comes to laptops. I pulled it apart as much as I could without destroying anything. I should have taken pictures.. I will post them later.

This is a picture I found from google image search

removing-laptop-motherboard-24.jpg


The underside looked very similar. The copper pipe there I believe is connected to the cpu, right? There was another one that I thought went to the video card.. but when I pulled the assembly up, it revealed a tiny chip that I thought couldn't possibly be it.

My friend bought the laptop though IBuyPower.com.. and it is VERY difficult to reference anything online.

Case ( Battalion 101 CZ-7 15.4" WXGA 1280x800 Widescreen TFT Notebook w/Li-ion battery, Universal AC Power Adapter )

Video Card ( Mobility 256MB (up to 1GB Turbo-Cache Memory) NVIDIA® Geforce® Go 8400M-G PCI-Express 3D Video )

Tomorrow I will test the laptop using an external display to make sure it isn't the connection to the screen. I will also pull it apart again and post some pictures. I'm really at a loss here.. and I'm kind of afraid to pull it apart. Firstly because of my lack of laptop knowledge, secondly because it's not even mine.

Thanks, Jeremy
 
that picture there is of the CPU, the GPU would look similar i'd imagine but it may be soldered onto the board.. the cpu is in a socket.
 
I took several pictures.

I removed the back panel to reveal the cooling... assembly.
IMG_0214.jpg

The copper pipe leading to the bottom I believe is for the CPU. The one to the right, the video card?

I removed the fan/copper to show the components.
IMG_0215.jpg

A close-up of the CPU?
IMG_0218.jpg

A close-up of the video card?
IMG_0217.jpg


If this is the video card.. then it is built into the board right? It looks like it's in a socket like the CPU. This doesn't make sense to me. Is it possible that I'm missing the video card completely
 
diduknowthat said:
It's not worth trying to fix it. If it's under warranty send it back, if it's not...well..get a new laptop?
Click to expand...

Why is that?

I feel like since the laptop boots up, shows a display (even though it is in the wrong colors and there's 6 of them), and everything else works fine, it shouldn't be completely useless...
 
Most videocards today on laptops (even dedicated ones) are not removable or upgradable. Even computers without dedicated video tend to have the spots on the motherboard marked off where the GPU/RAM would go.

I agree with diduknowthat, at this point if you can get a replacement, go for it. Probablems like this are rarely repairable. You could try the heat approach (essentially heating the chip up with a heatgun and "resoldering" it.) This is of course assuming it got too hot and began to warp/pull away from the board. However, in my experience, this will fix components only for a short time.
 
even the bios shows up 6 times like that?

if you know the bios ex. Phoenix you could try flashing the bios again maybe something is messed up.
 
If the display is OK using an external monitor, then the issue is with the LCD monitor of the laptop, not with the GPU.

So, try using an external monitor first.
 
JlCollins005 said:
even the bios shows up 6 times like that?

if you know the bios ex. Phoenix you could try flashing the bios again maybe something is messed up.
Click to expand...

The post screen shows up 6x

razormind said:
If the display is OK using an external monitor, then the issue is with the LCD monitor of the laptop, not with the GPU.

So, try using an external monitor first.
Click to expand...

I tried plugging in an external monitor.. and suddenly now it wont boot into windows. It bluescreens and restarts before I can tell it to use the external monitor as a display :(

Edit: I don't think the bluescreen has anything to do with the monitor, just a coincidence.
 
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