toasted video in laptop

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scottatwittenberg

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Apr 10, 2002
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ok.. i am working on this laptop right now.. a sony pcg-zivap..
it has a radeon mobility card in it, i think 32 mb.. so not shared, but still soldiered to the board..

basically it is useable.. i am typing on it right now.. but it has artifacts or something.. i am not sure what artifacts are, but i was to guess, this would be it.. just random crap all over.. everything has a blue tint.. and everything is blocky, like a low quality jpeg..

so i apply pressure to the chip in different ways.. and it changes it slightliy.. sometimes it looks completely fine in bios or the bootup screens, but it is never right in windows..

so first i am wondering what is wrong.. is something just loose? i have read about people putting things inside their macbooks in certain places to get the video to work, and that's what i am doing.. i have taken the motherboard out of this thing at least 15 times.. but i think in the case of the macs, the video just doesn't work at all..

so is this something that could be fixed? anyone have any ideas? should i keep doing trial and error? could there possibly be a way to fix it by flashing the video bios or something? or should i give up and part this thing out or unload it somehow?

thanks in advance
 
Sounds like damage from overheating. I take it the laptop is out of warranty? And no, unless it's on a daughterboard there's really nothing you can do to fix it if it's heat damage, and if you could it would probably not be cost-effective (the Geforce Go 6600 in my laptop is on an ASUS-proprietary daughterboard, so it /can/ be replaced, but a replacement GPU daughterboard for my laptop is $350... and a whole new barebones laptop, with motherboard, GPU, and screen is around $750). Sorry to be the barer of bad news. If you think you can 'fix' it by trial and error... by all means, keep trying, but know that putting pressure on the board could actually damage it further, so it could easily go from not working right to not working at all.

You could try underclocking it to make it run cooler -- download ATItool or RivaTuner and set the core and memory clocks lower. Even if this works it will be pretty much useless for anything 3D, but at least you'd be able to use the machine for basic internet access, word processing and the like.
 
i tried ati tool on it.. i can underclock it and it makes a little bit of a difference.. but not much... does ati tool actually change it in the bios? or does it not underclock it until i open the program in windows (or have it autostart) ??

how about disabling some pipes or something? i know people would buy 12 pipe cards and flash them to 16 for example.. what about doing the reverse? i have done the bios update, i think.. but i might try again.. it was a windows based utility, but i am not sure if it actually ran or not...
 
RivaTuner and AtiTool don't set the OC or underclock until they start, though I know RivaTuner at least has an option to apply the settings you want each time at Windows startup.

Unfortunately it is more likely your video RAM is what was damaged and not the GPU itself, so locking pipes (which I believe is impossible anyway) would not be any help.
 
so yeah.. random story..

i plugged the computer into our stereo in the "living room".. set it up so i could RDP into it and play mp3s through the stereo.. it was running for a good week straight.,.. and then some people were over, someone opened it up.. and the video is perfect...

eventually i will get around to shutting it down for a while.. maybe a day, maybe a few hours.. and seeing what happens when it starts up again..
 
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