Dell XPS Gen 2 - 7800gtx is dying

[mito]

Greetings,

So my brave Dell XPS Gen 2's video card is dying.

Lot of artifacts, I ran Dell's built-in diagnostics tool and confirmed that the card is not good.

So I'm looking for a replacement card, however, they're very expensive!

Dell 9300 XPS Nvidia Geforce 6800 Go Video Card W5373 for $200!!! :|

Anyone know if I could adapt a very cheap Go videocard to my Dell XPS Gen2?

Any idea is very welcomed.

Thanks.

 

[swaaye]

You should be able to run the 7800 Go GTX, 7800 Go, 6800 Go Ultra, 6800 Go, and a Radeon X300. I have a Inspiron 9300 with a modded XPS Gen 2 BIOS installed (the hardware is identical AFAIK) so I can run the 7800 Go GTX. Had a 6800 Go originally.

I believe that the 6800 Go Ultra is actually faster than the 7800 Go. Not that it matters much anymore.....

 

[mito]

You should be able to run the 7800 Go GTX, 7800 Go, 6800 Go Ultra, 6800 Go, and a Radeon X300. I have a Inspiron 9300 with a modded XPS Gen 2 BIOS installed (the hardware is identical AFAIK) so I can run the 7800 Go GTX. Had a 6800 Go originally.

I believe that the 6800 Go Ultra is actually faster than the 7800 Go. Not that it matters much anymore.....

Thanks. I think the x300 will be the cheapest of all. I won't be playing games on it, just internet.

 

[Davros]

If its true you dont want to play games and are more concerned with saving money
then how about a usb gfx card (it sucks but its cheaper than $200)
http://www.usbgear.com/USBG-DVI2.html

or here $60
http://www.cooldrives.com/usb20svadfor.html

edit: just realised you want to use the laptops screen

 

[swaaye]

mito,

It occurred to me last night that you could just reprogram your card's BIOS. It's pretty easy to do.

-Get Nibitor and NVFlash for Windows.
-Dump the BIOS to a file with either program and back it up somewhere.
-Edit a copy of your original BIOS. Downclock it. Drop the RAM 50-100 MHz and see if it fixes your problem. Try downclocking the core if that doesn't do the trick.
-Drag and drop new BIOS onto the NVFlash for Windows executable.

Worst thing that can happen is you brick your half-dead video board. I've edited my 7800 Go GTX's BIOS a bunch of times though so you shouldn't have any troubles.

 

[mito]

Thanks Guys.

After almost a full year I've decided to give this a try.

The poor old XPS Gen 2 is still alive and kicking, it's only the video artifacting that is the issue.

 

[mito]

woot.

The vidcard stopped artifacting all by itself. I swear I didn't do anything.

Well, I booted with hiren's boot 10.1, but that's it.

What's happening? :|

 

[mito]

Do I really need to reflash the 7800gtx bios in order to underclock it?

Nvidia's control panel has these options by default:

Drivers: Forceware 92.91