Looking for a laptop (advice welcome)

[el-ahrairah]

Hey everybody,

Its time i looked for an alternative to my Dell XPS m1710. The silly graphics fault commonly known in these laptops has annoyed me for the last time.

I've used the 'bake technique' several times now to fix the graphics card (this works but isnt a permanent fix).. So now it is time to concede defeat and look for an alternative.

I was looking at an alienware m17x but the alienware series suffers graphics issues as well.

I then drew my attention to the HP Envy 17'' Beats.. But this runs very hot, touchpad is very iffy and battery life is none exsistant.

Alas i then looked towards a good trustworthy Macbook Air Pro but the price is far beyond my budget (500-700GBP)..

Basically i like gaming laptops for the power (although i dont use laptop for gaming).. I like a large screen as i watch lots of tv series on my laptops..

So suggestions are most welcome. Thankyou.

[el-ahrairah]

Nobody?

[TJ]

Hey everybody,

Its time i looked for an alternative to my Dell XPS m1710. The silly graphics fault commonly known in these laptops has annoyed me for the last time.

Have you spoken to dell about this ....if this is the faulty Nvida GPU then it is a known issue and you will get a replacement motherboard or a refund.

Also the HP's, Sony's , Mac's and anyone else around this time all used the faulty Nvidia GPU's

See link below for further info.

http://www.nvidiadefect.com/


I phone Dell up on Wednesday and on Friday an engineer turned up and replaced the motherboard in my "out of warranty" 3 year old Vostro 1510

[el-ahrairah]

Out of warranty they still fixed? Its a known fault with the GPU's on my laptop, And there are thousands of complaints and a petition even on the internet for Dell to repair free of charge instead of trying to charge £300-500 for repairing..

Mac's have issues as well? Very surprised but thankyou for the info.

[TJ]

If it is one of the Laptops affected by the faulty Nvidia Chip then phone up whoever you bought it from.

Quote the sale of goods Act, under this you are covered regardless of warranty as the item was inherently defective.

All the 8400M and 8600M Nvidia cards appear to be faulty.

Link to some mac issue below

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2377

[el-ahrairah]

Thankyou for that link.

As for purchase of my laptop, It was a purchase from somebody a while ago (bought out of warranty) and therefore the phoning them up would be useless..

As for having the nvidia fixed, Even if this was the case, the fix or replacement with an entirely NEW card would still result in a graphics/gpu failure at a future date.. This is because Dell deny that there was an error made when creating this line of nvidia cards..

As i say TJ, I'm simply looking to get rid before i go crazy, And to replace with something with better specs and that is more reliable. Unfortunately though it would appear most gaming style laptops have these similar issues.

[richardmyers]

My Macbook trackpad has been a nightmare, had it replaced twice - only had the damn thing two years! Otherwise though it's reliable as anything.

[el-ahrairah]

It would appear in general that laptops (modern laptops) are 'as a whole' very unreliable..

Older laptops perhaps are more reliable because they are less advanced. It seem's the laptops which are designed to be competitive to desktop machines in line with gaming and performance, Appear to suffer more from reliability issues.

I've just recieved some artic silver 5 and IPA chemical and wipes so i will now bake the graphics card again, Clean and re-attempt a 3-4month temporary fix again..

I'm reluctant to sell this laptop as fully working (even when this fix is done), So will no doubt be selling as spares at a reduced price (such a shame)..

My search for a replacement is still on going, So any further advice would be greatly appreciated.

[TJ]

So will no doubt be selling as spares at a reduced price (such a shame)..

I've got 50 quid burning a hole in my pocket !

However you could use this as part payment on an Alienware, Origin or top end Asus.

 

[el-ahrairah]

Agreed, I expect to get 200GBP at least for the laptop i have (still very cheap).. So would need another 400GBP perhaps for an alienware, But as i say, This is what this topic discussion is about, I'm not sure i trust these brands now based on feedback given on forums etc regarding graphics failures, And to my surprise, even the highly regarded macbook pro's..

[TJ]

I think the failure issue is really with the Graphics cards rather than the laptops.

Basically you have the choice between Nvidia and AMD regardless of whether the laptop is a Mac or PC based.

IMHO.

Nvidia will far outperform AMD in most aspects and also have a of history much more reliable drivers.

However in light of the recent "dodgy" laptop GPU's produced by Nvidia and the alleged cover up of this information from ( note "from" not "by" ) the laptop manufacturers eg, Dell, Apple, HP, Sony etc, it may be time to take another look at AMD's offerings.

A lot of the issue is that there seems to be a madness around the performance of these cards to achieve the maximum figures ( be it core speed, memory speed, fps , or whatever ).
Manufacturers seem to make these cards and then run them overclocked and hence overheated to squeeze every last drop of speed out of them.

A card designed with a core speed of ( for example ) 400MHz may be nice and stable and last forever, however if the manufacturer forces this up to 500Mhz then it will produce negligible performance in actual usage but will sell incredibly better than the competiions 400Mhz card.
The fact that the card will now die a horrible hot death does not seem to matter...in fact it probably helps to sell more cards.

[el-ahrairah]

You raise very valid points.

I will look into the AMD based laptops and see how they are reviewed via a few good internet laptop testing websites..

The search is ongoing. 

[richardmyers]

AMD = Anti-Christ IMO.

All brands are going to have issues, these days laptops aren't built to last because technology moves so fast people are almost expected to be upgrading after a year or two at most.

[el-ahrairah]

Ain't that the damn truth.

[TJ]

You raise very valid points.

I will look into the AMD based laptops and see how they are reviewed via a few good internet laptop testing websites..

The search is ongoing. 

Just to avoid confusion.

When I say AMD I mean AMD graphics ( formerly ATI ) not AMD CPU's