7 replies to this topic

[Dutchie64]

Hi all,

I upgraded my old and trusty HP Pavilion dv9085 with Windows 8 a while ago, but having a hard time getting it to run properly/stable with NVIDIA drivers installed.
It might run OK for a while, and then it's completely garbled screens, green dotted lines, dpc_watchdog bluescreens and/or video error bluescreens.

After being sure I had every last version of drivers for the laptop, I've tried almost all possible NVIDIA drivers out there, edited or not, but cannot get a stable system.
With the native MS monitor driver it's a stable as a rock, but locked to 1024x768.

Not really an option when the screen can do 1440x900. So I've been looking at a basic driver and monitor.inf for 1440x900, but it doesn't seem to exist.

Reading posts of people happily humming along with W8 on their older laptops, it seems possible to get it all properly working with NVIDIA drivers.
So any tips/help/workarounds will be helpful to get past the last stability hurdle.

thanks all,

rob

[Dutchie64]

OK,

It seems there's something else going on.

Some further investigation points to a very common problems with the HP Pavilion laptops. Dying GPU's......
The only solution seems to be a technoque called 'reflowing', or buying a replacement mobo and trying to open up the damn thing.

Looking back it might explain some of the issues I had with W7 over the last couple of months.
I thought it was the W7 install gone bad, so I upgraded to W8. That worked for a while until I ended up with this mess. Just the Geforce's last gasps of breath it seems.

rob

[King Mustard]

You're most likely correct. Sounds like a dying GPU.

[tim_s]

R.I.P GeForce 7600

[DKAngel]

i would safely say ur gpu is dying also

[Dutchie64]

Yeah... No more HP laptops for me.
My brother recently bought a new HP laptop, and this thing gets terribly hot as well. We're already searching for the maintenance manual ;-)

I took a deep breath and ordered a replacement mobo in Hong Kong.
Hopefully it's all legit and the board will arrive somewhere at the end of the week.

Fingers crossed........

[Denis W]

The laptops that had Geforce 7xxx Go and 8xxxM GPUs were from a bad era. Way too many fried GPUs. On top of that, HP Pavillion laptops from back then were stupidly hot.

Even after a replacement, the thing's a ticking time bomb and will go out soon. My older Dell laptop with a Geforce 7400 Go had a second warranty repair in November 2008 or so, and managed to last four years before dying for good.

[Dutchie64]

Final words on this, I received the new board yesterday. I replaced the faulty board and the laptop is humming along nicely again now.

I also found some tips on the web regarding cooling, and made some adjustments to the bottom casing and the cover inbetween the mobo and keyboard.
Ah... the joy of willingy using a drill and metal cutters on your laptop hardware ;-)

If this new board lasts me for another two years or so I will be very happy for the $70,= investment. Beats buying a new laptop, or replace it for a suitable tablet.
And after those two years it will have lasted me long enough to replace it anyway. But not for now ;-)

rob

p.s. For anyone interested, I bought the board at motherboardtobuy.com.