[ngalbrai]

I have the ill fated Dell M1330 and have just had my second replacement motherboard. There is a recurrent problem with the nvidia GPU overheating and eventually failing due to a cretinous design that has the heat sink not extending to the actual graphics processor. I spoke to Dell support and their answer is basically that everytime they replace the motherboard a new 12 month warranty kicks in, for that particular issue.

Now, aside from the obvious annoyance of an expensive laptop failing on a fairly regular basis and that Dell dont seem willing to do anything sensible by way of a long term fix, my concern is just sneaking over the 12 months before it frys itself again, leaving me with a nice little red 13" doorstop.

So questions are:
1) Anyone had the same experience?
2) Any resolution?
3) What would put the greatest demand on the GPU? Is there software that would make it run at 100% deliberately? Reason i ask is that it might be prudent to fry it after about 10 months just to keep the rolling 12 month warranty going - pretty extreme but I'm not sure what else to do?

[JaLing]

Yup... fried the GPU on my Acer Ferrari

1 - Put it on a surface that will restrict airflow
2 - Load a GPU intensive game which is low on CPU use (I was playing EVE)
3 - After 7 hours the screen went black
4 - Reboot
5 - Corrupt image at boot on display