Quadro NVS 135 issue on Dell Latitude D830

[AJSG59]

I purchased a 'refurbished' Dell Latitude D830 from 2009Notebooks on ebay in June, 2011. After issues that i returned the laptop to them for repair were fixed, i had no problems for about a year (i'd removed XP Home to install W7Pro). In June, 2012, my Nvidia Quadro NVS 135 seemed to fail; there were colorful lines presented in various ways when i tried to boot into Windows 7 - same thing when connecting an external monitor. Dell said the laptop is out of warranty & directed me to 'take it somewhere for repair/mobo replacement'. i contacted 'Square Trade Warranty' for direction. i called Staples (Jax, FL) who said they would do a complete refurbish for $369.99; i went for it. When i picked it up July 3, 2012, they said the mobo & hard drive were replaced - everything else was tweaked and i should have no problems - they didn't tell me about their 90-day warranty. End of September, the laptop did the same thing as before - colorful lines on the screen when trying to boot into W7Pro. i updated the driver and had no problems for about two weeks. When it happened again, i did research and found that the Nvidia Quadro 135 on Dell D830s, D820s, and D630s were faulty & that there was legislation about it! i took the laptop back to Staples demanding that they put a Good mobo in it! They said 'it's past the 90 days, we can't do it.' Dell said, they 'stopped replacing mobos last year after a year extension, and that there SHOULDN'T be any more of the bad mobos out there.' The Staples tech consoled me by saying he would install a different mobo (free labor) if i purchased one or had one sent to me.

i removed Windows 7 Pro and did a clean install of Windows XP Pro. After i installed the Nvidia driver, it worked for a few weeks, then the same thing began to happen again. Here i sit with this Dell Laptop that i may eventually HAVE to purchase an Intel graphics mobo for... that is what they suggest in the Dell Community, WindowsBBS, and other places i've researchd. but my issue is... there's GOT to be some way around this chip going out intermittently! if this is a new/refurbished mobo, i shouldn't have any problems, but i do. I've installed the Dell Nvidia drivers for it from the beta to the most recent. They all work for awhile, but at some point, when booting into XP, the lines appear again. The most recent driver i installed came from the Nvidia site... i did not use Dell's drivers. i've not had any problems so far, but i haven't shut the laptop down either! it restarted yesterday to do Adobe package updates, but had no problem on the reboot. i'm afraid if i shut down completely, i'll have to start over with the driver re-installs.

What is the issue? What is happening to cause the video display to present colorful lines instead of a clear display during the boot (obviously a driver/OS or other file conflict issue)? Techie Apprentices or other interested persons, how can we solve this issue without just replacing the mobo? That's the easy way out. What is the issue? Why do the drivers fail? it's obviously Not the chip itself - at least i don't see it that way. Dell says there is no fix, just get a different mobo. i just PAID $369.99 for one and it's doing the same thing! i don't have ANY warranty room - anywhere! Ok, it's the Nvidia chip, but how can we solve the driver issues? There HAS to be SOME WAY! Can ANYbody help me?

 

[Rich1938]

I purchased a 'refurbished' Dell Latitude D830 from 2009Notebooks on ebay in June, 2011. After issues that i returned the laptop to them for repair were fixed, i had no problems for about a year (i'd removed XP Home to install W7Pro). In June, 2012, my Nvidia Quadro NVS 135 seemed to fail; there were colorful lines presented in various ways when i tried to boot into Windows 7 - same thing when connecting an external monitor. Dell said the laptop is out of warranty & directed me to 'take it somewhere for repair/mobo replacement'. i contacted 'Square Trade Warranty' for direction. i called Staples (Jax, FL) who said they would do a complete refurbish for $369.99; i went for it. When i picked it up July 3, 2012, they said the mobo & hard drive were replaced - everything else was tweaked and i should have no problems - they didn't tell me about their 90-day warranty. End of September, the laptop did the same thing as before - colorful lines on the screen when trying to boot into W7Pro. i updated the driver and had no problems for about two weeks. When it happened again, i did research and found that the Nvidia Quadro 135 on Dell D830s, D820s, and D630s were faulty & that there was legislation about it! i took the laptop back to Staples demanding that they put a Good mobo in it! They said 'it's past the 90 days, we can't do it.' Dell said, they 'stopped replacing mobos last year after a year extension, and that there SHOULDN'T be any more of the bad mobos out there.' The Staples tech consoled me by saying he would install a different mobo (free labor) if i purchased one or had one sent to me.

i removed Windows 7 Pro and did a clean install of Windows XP Pro. After i installed the Nvidia driver, it worked for a few weeks, then the same thing began to happen again. Here i sit with this Dell Laptop that i may eventually HAVE to purchase an Intel graphics mobo for... that is what they suggest in the Dell Community, WindowsBBS, and other places i've researchd. but my issue is... there's GOT to be some way around this chip going out intermittently! if this is a new/refurbished mobo, i shouldn't have any problems, but i do. I've installed the Dell Nvidia drivers for it from the beta to the most recent. They all work for awhile, but at some point, when booting into XP, the lines appear again. The most recent driver i installed came from the Nvidia site... i did not use Dell's drivers. i've not had any problems so far, but i haven't shut the laptop down either! it restarted yesterday to do Adobe package updates, but had no problem on the reboot. i'm afraid if i shut down completely, i'll have to start over with the driver re-installs.

What is the issue? What is happening to cause the video display to present colorful lines instead of a clear display during the boot (obviously a driver/OS or other file conflict issue)? Techie Apprentices or other interested persons, how can we solve this issue without just replacing the mobo? That's the easy way out. What is the issue? Why do the drivers fail? it's obviously Not the chip itself - at least i don't see it that way. Dell says there is no fix, just get a different mobo. i just PAID $369.99 for one and it's doing the same thing! i don't have ANY warranty room - anywhere! Ok, it's the Nvidia chip, but how can we solve the driver issues? There HAS to be SOME WAY! Can ANYbody help me?

I had a similar problem and from research found out about the Nvidia problem. My laptop is a D630 with the Nvidia chip. I was going to replace the MBO with a intel video chip when I read of a process called "reflowing". There are lots of videos on YouTube. The claim is that the soldered connections on the chip are faulty. Reflow heats the chip up to 390 Deg F and can fix the problem by reflowing the solder on each connection. I used a heat gun to get it the NVidia chip to temperature and a Infrared thermometer I purchased from harbor freight to measure and control the temperature. It worked great for a couple of days and went on the fritz. I had only reflowed one chip. More video research suggested you have to do all the chips so I used a second reflow technique... baking the entire MBO in my kitchen oven. It was very easy to do leaving it bake for 10 minutes. The result has been rock solid for 3 weeks now. If you aren't sure how to remove the MBO you can see a How TO video for the D630 (which is similar to the D830) at

http://blog.parts-people.com/category/dell-latitude-repair-manuals/latitude-d630/motherboard-latitude-d630/

If you try it, prior to baking, remove all the thin/flexible black plastic shields that insulate electronics as they tend to shrivel under the high temp. I had never attempted something like this but I read somewhere that this is a go/nogo process. If it works you saved the money of another MBO and if it fails... what the hell, you were going to have to replace the board anyway.