Dell Latitude D630 Video Card Failure
I have seen an extraordinary amount of video card failures in D630 laptops within the past year. It really seems like Dell should have issued a recall. So far all of the laptops have been under warranty but I estimate that over 50% have failed.
One recommendation I found is to update to the A12 BIOS or higher. This supposedly has a fix that will slow down the video processor when it overheats to keep it from burning out. However, is only a preventative measure. Once the video card is burned out you will need to get it replaced.
——————
1. Updated Intel Video BIOS.
2. Updated Nvidia Video BIOS.
3. Enhancement for thermal control.
The success rate of this new BIOS is unknown to me since it usually only gets applied to a laptop that just had the video card replaced.
If you have a D630 you should update your BIOS. The current verion as of today is A16.
Latitude D630 with burned out video card
Update 9/30/2010 – Class Action Suit Filed
Excerpt:
Some of you may have read the recent news regarding the NVIDIA class action settlement in sites like CNET, Electronista and Ubergizmo. This class action lawsuit covers systems purchased in the United States only. More information regarding the settlement can be obtained at www.nvidiasettlement.com. The complete list of affected systems from Dell and other manufacturers can be found here on the NVIDIA settlement site. Other information like Court Documents and Important Dates and Deadlines can be found there as well.
I bought 5 of these laptops about a year and half ago. Had two of the units fail with the exact same problem this week! I am now just waiting to see when the other 3 decide to go. I have noticed the excessive heat that these units generate. Everytime the card fails when I touch teh bottom of the laptop it is too hot to touch. Especially when they are docked! I have no rigged up portable fans next to them when they are docked to help control the temp. These units are under warranty but both of my users in our management group are down until I get a backup system for them.
Come on Dell!?!?!
Hi,
I have the same problem as shown in the SS but my screen is screen is divided into 6 screens. Plus I cant see anything at all on the screen. So not sure how I will update the BIOS. Updating BIOS is a precaution, not a cure. I need a cure.
Calling all hardware experts. Can i change the Video card on my Dell D630?
I currently have nVidia 135M.
We are seeing lots of D630 failures in the corporate environment with all having nVidia 135M GPU’s! It’s pretty sad to be having these issues on reasonbly new and expensive machines and it’s been costly to us regardless of the tech fixes. At this point we will be requesting MB’s with Intel GPU’s. Another troubling issue is the inconsistency of Dell training standards for field technicians. Most will know what they are doing, but for others, it may be their first MB replacement and they’ll miss the reconnect of your WLAN card after the procedure. I agree that Dell should have publicly recalled all of these machines regardless of ownership, location or warranty status because it is likely all units will fail in time costing owners lots of money. BIOS A12 and later increasing fan speed is not a satisfactory resolution to the problem; perhaps suing nVidia and Dell would be!
Had the same problem with the Nvidia 135M which was replaced under warranty by Dell. While replacing the Graphic Card, the new Bios runs the fan much faster (and noisier) – resulting in battery life of around 30 minutes for a machine which is 16 months old. I am now wondering whether to replace the battery (hoping the new one will not fail as reapidly due to excessive heat) or to dump the maching alltogether ?
I bought the item from ebay, got the same hit. Called Dell support, confirmed it is video card failure and the MB need replaced. However Dell refuse to do warranty though it still had 200 days left. Saying I have to do ownership transfer before request the warranty repairing and that transfer is not achivable. So I have to shipback the item to the seller.
What Dell is doing!!! Who can be ignore this and let the defect product (Disease) flow onto ebay?
Save us.
Hi,
I have the same problem – with a split screen. These are corporate PCs given to us by the company to support clients. Now this is my second laptop with the same issue.
Dell .. u need to do something about this.
I got mine at a auction. It has failed 3 times now. Dell refuse to help due to ownership transfer. I have no way to contact the previous owner even if I knew who they were.
Dell are off my list of suppliers now.
The other company I work for has already stopped buying anything Dell.
I FIXED THE VIDEO PROBLEM!!!!……briefly :/
I was watching a hulu video the other night, and as soon as I clicked full screen, the LCD went out. When I rebooted, I had the dreaded double screen fuzzy image same as pictured above. I tried two methods, but now im even more confused as to whats going on.
1. First I tried connecting an external LCD into the VGA port, and switched the image to external after it booted into Windows. Low and behold, perfect picture. So I switched back to LCD, and double fuzz.
2. Next, I tried grabbing my tools and dismantling everything except the chassis and mobo. I removed the HD, DVD, both memory modules, WLAN card, keyboard, AND unplugged the LCD cluster cable from its slot. OH, I also disconnected the CMOS and waited about 15 minutes. When I put her all back together, I hit the power button and….picture was perfect! It ran a self-test due to CMOS being disconnected, and the VGA portion of the test PASSED. After the self-test, it booted perfectly into the Vista logon screen. As soon as I swiped my print to logon, the screen went black again, and windows crashed. When I rebooted, double fuzz…sigh.
I did notice that after the screen went out the first time, the driver for the video card was gone, so I reinstalled it before trying the external LCD. And after it went out again, the same thing happened….driver missing. Im thinking the video card is damaged and can no longer be recognized by windows…..fantastic.
Does anyone know if the chip can be replaced, or should I just buy a new mobo?
D630 Nvidia Quadro NVS 135M FIX!
The issue is poor cooling design as well as a flaw with the soldiering joints on the Nvidia cpu. Over time and too many heat cycles, the soldiering joints which are lots of little balls of solder that hold the gpu down get brittle and crack, making for a bad connection resulting in the display issues we’re seeing in this thread. Nvidia finally owed up to the issue and paid out $200 million towards warranty repairs back in 2008. Google “nvidia 200 million” (without the quotes) and have a look at the results that come up after the first result.
Google “baking video card” and you will see a ton of articles on people throwing desktop video cards into the oven and baking them at 385 degrees for 8 minutes to ‘reflow’ the brittle solder balls within the gpu to resolve the issue. The other option is to replace the motherboard (sadly the NVS 135m is integrated into the motherboard) and there are tons on Ebay for about $120 with free shipping.
Anyhow, I just successfully reflowed the soldier joints on the Nvidia onboard video on a D630 using the above procedure. I removed the motherboard, suspended it on a baking pan using balls of aluminium foil and baked it at 390 degrees for 10 minutes. I’ve also done the same thing on an HP DV6000 notebook with onboard nvidia graphics exhibiting the same issues.
Disassembly of the entire laptop is obviously not for the faint of heart, but Dell has some instructions on their website which aren’t the greatest, but did the trick.
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/latd630/en/sm_en/index.htm
The video went on my Daughter’s Dell Latitude D630 about 7 months after we purchased it – same symptoms, dual fuzzy screen, sometimes no video, could not read. The unit was under a 3 year warrantly and Dell replaced the mother board – twice. Each time they replaced the internals the video died after about 3 months. After the third time they shipped a whole new laptop. That lasted about 7 months before the video died. We switched to HP. I still have the defective unit if they do issue a recall. Judging from the other posts this seems to be a known problem. When I was dealing with Dell support they were very quick to respond but they kept telling me we were the only ones with this problem.
My Latitude D830 motherboard went out nine months ago and is out again. That’s a month in the shop in one year. I assume it will happen again.This is a known problem with the NVidia chip – its been going on for years now and I can’t believe they can’t do better than pass out another failing motherboard. I bought this laptop for one reason – reliability. I can’t imagine Dell will have me as a customer again.
Just my luck, I thought whoooo good I was out bid on this dell on Ebay… and I was wrong. D630. I had changed my mind… something about it. so I had to buy it. Dang. I am glad I saw this post. I will turn around now and sell it before it goes bad.. sheesh.
Sorry to here all this.
I have the same problem fifth time now….
Its a shame that a company like dell would make such unreliable machines..
Last four times the mother board was replaced..
Lets see what they do this time
Well, I really can’t believe it, but I tried the baking the motherboard trick and it worked. I took me over an hour to disassemble the laptop, but it was worth it, lets see if it lasts. After removing the board I baked it at 395 degrees for 10 minutes and then let it totally cool down for two hours before touching it then reinstalled it this morning and I have a perfect display. I also downloaded and installed BIOS A16 which seems is supposed to help with the overheating problem.
dear all
please i have a same problem with dell latitude d630 graphic card failler
now im trying to change motherboard with another one but i want to know the good motherborad need to add in my laptop
Wow!!! I just got a Refurb D630 with the Nvidia 135M video yesterday. I guess I have to return it now. And I thought my prayers were answered when I bought this. It had everything I wanted. Are there any MB without the Nvidia video card? I was also wondering if the refurb meant they changed the MB and fixed it. I will look at the Device Manager again to make sure. Is there any reason I should keep this????
Fish
I can’t believe it worked! I took apart my whole laptop, baked in the oven as described above and it actually worked!!!!!!! I figured there was a 50-50 chance it was a prank but it actually worked!!! Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!
Now to see how long the fix lasts!!!!!!!!
Thanks again!
Thanks so much for the information about ‘baking’ the motherboard. My wife’s D630 began the symptoms of the corrupted video last week, of course only 2 weeks removed from it’s service contract through her university. I figured there was nothing to lose since the motherboard was going to be replaced anyway.
Sure enough, after 8 minutes at 390f, the video is working like a champ again. It also gave me the opportunity to give everything a nice dusting and the heatsink a fresh, clean application of thermal grease.
Again, thanks for the heads up on this fix.
Also, this was a good guide to removing the motherboard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wiC6eheK9Q
I am have that problem as well, now m fixing it! does it make sense? do i need to buy a new vga card? if i buy a new one, then can it’s possible crash again! really hate Dell Latitude D630 that video card shit!!! thanks for your help!
b4 i had used windows 7, then that problem happened, i reinstall windows 7 again. but doesnt work at all, but after i set another windows xp, it really turn well, unfortunately, i enter the cmos(bios), then it turn bad again, gonna throw it away, how dell do that????????? 🙁
Hi all,
Is this a common problem in all Dell D630 laptops or just of those which have NVIDIA Quadro NVS 135M ?
IS Intel graphic card working properly?
Thanks in advance.
I’m currently a victim of a failed GPU on the Latitude D630. Needless to say, this unit has served me well it up graded to 8GB Ram and 1TB HDD while running W7Ultimate 64bit!!! This unit is a Thunderbird!!! I got so caught up with using it at my office (fully air conditioned) that I decided to use it offsite and… here I am. I believe this is a common flaw being observed with allot of the technology today, but few of us do preventative maintenance for instance when I took mine apart there was a mat of dust blocking the fan…. needless to say the fan is dead which was the main cause of the unit failing. Dell has unlimited resources freely available for us to use to avoid these situations, they give warranties I suggest we use them. I still love my D630 and I will fix it but will keep a spare fan and keep my eyes open for heating and performance issues. This is a great unit!!!
yo compre una de esas porquerias para sacarle la pantalla y ponersela a una inspiron
no daba video pero iluminaba asi que pense que seria cosa del chip, pues todos sabemos que lo que tenga chip de video nvidia fallara (xbox 360laptops algunas otras consolas y computadoras de escritorio) inicie el proceso de deshuese, me sorprendio que fuera core 2 duo a 2.0 ghz que tuviera 4 gb de ram el disco era normalito 120 gb asi que hice un intento por revivirla, calor con la pistola ponerle monedas de cobre encima de los chips, de video y cpu y ponerle pasta termica , funciono y corria astante bien traia el windows vista(supongo que por el peso del vista se calentaba de mas y acelero su muerte) me dispuse a porbarla con infinidad de sistemas operativos win xp win 7 ubuntu y back track
con backtrack se apagaba, con ubuntu funcionaba algo lenta con win 7 y xp corria muy bien hasta que le instalaba el driver de video, pues despues de instalarlo el software acelerador del chip lo calentaba a millon haciendo que se trabara la pantalla y se frezeara la compu, sin driver de video con win7 de 32 bits la use 3 dias sin apagarla poniendo peliculas (se veian pixeladas por no tener el controlador)
con el controlador de video maximo 50 minutos hasta que se frezeaba
entonces le instale el aida note algunas cosas
el ventilador original no se da abasto para enfriar un core 2 duo y un chip de nvidia aparte el chipset de intel esta abajo del modem lo que impide que llegue la ventilacion necesaria
las lecturas del aida64 fueron
temperatura cpu 1 y cpu 2 alrededor de 60 grados
temperatura gpu sin controladores hasta 95 grados pero no se apagaba, con controladores hasta 77 grados pero a 40 minutos de encendida se apagaba o trababa
y el chipset siempre se mantenia por encima de los 85 grados
esta placa trae 2 juegos de chipset? esta el nvidia que controla el gpu en la parte inferior del chip de video, tomando como referencia superior la pantalla
y el chipset intel que esta montado debajo del modem
trae una ranura de memoria por esa misma area y con esa cercania supongo aumenta la temperatura, dell debio mejorar su sistema de ventilacion y distribiur mejor sus componentes, 3 meses despues no se si seguir experimentando con espa laptop o darme por vencido e iniciar el deshuese planeado
I have dell latitude d630 with intel GM965/Gl960 Express video chipset on board, bought it from ebay for 225, my wife have the same laptop for 3 years now, this is a reason for me to buy, never fail, never broke, 50% time my wife laptop stays in cradle, still in perfect condition. My BIOS A17, update it as soon as I get my laptop, no gaming, but I do watch a lot of movies and TV.
I didn’t think there was any chance in hell this would work, but figured I had nothing to lose. My wife cried when I pulled her laptop apart, and thought I was insane when I baked the mobo in the oven.
It totally worked! Kevin – you are the bomb!
Thanks a million.
What idiot did the mechanical design of the D630? A fan is a high failure item so you would guess it would be easy to replace? No, you virually have to take it all apart to get the fan out.
Baking the MB to fix a failing nVidia chip does work. It fixed my lcd failure issue.
I just stripped my d630 and im confused as if i can just bake the motherboard alone by itself or if im required to remove the video card and just bake it? and when i bake it i just suspend it on a baking tray with aluminum balls at the mounting holes? thanks for the help!
I can’t believe it!!!…it worked by baking it!!!1…hahaha…
THANKS A LOT! Never thought I would bake a MB!!
I have a D630 where the screen appears grey, then goes completely to black after it boots. If I hold the screen at an angle, I can see odd smudge marks in the LCD, and a rectangular halo in the middle of the screen. Also, the screen brightness will go up and down with the Fn up, down arrow keys. However, I can see my desktop just fine when I hook it up to an external monitor. Has this happened to anyone else. I’m not sure if I need a new inverter, LCD, or if I should try the bake the mobo trick.
Has anyone that baked their mobo see their desktop when hooked to an external monitor? Was your screen grey, then fade to black as windows booted?
Thanks!
hello,
Had the same video problem on my D630 two years ago when the laptop was two years old. The casing did get very hot and after a some time the pc stopped completely. Luckily we had a three year warranty and dell fixed it free of charge. The main board was replaced + boot upgraded to A13. Since then no more trouble. The problem is indeed the cooling. The heat from the main ICs on the board are pressed down by copper fingers which conduct the heat away to the fan in the left side corner. Between the copper fingers and the IC they use a ‘rubber contact patch’ to get optimum heat transfer. These patches seem to shrink a bit overtime, bad contact and the ICs start overheating. The video processor typically gets toasted first. My solution was to put a drop of the traditional white heat conduct compound (sold in tubes at the electronic shop) between each copper finger and IC + bent each finger a bit down for better contact. My D630 works fine ever since. I like it cause it’s the last laptop with a serial port which we use a lot for connecting into some old systems we service.
With the pc open make sure to remove all collected dust from the fan and anywhere else.
Good tip about the backing! Will try when needed.
Happy newyear from Flanders, Belgium.
Had the typical NVidia equipped D630, and sure enough it failed out of warranty. Whipped out the main board, removed all the plastic stickers and baked it in a pre heated fan assisted oven at 200 degrees celcius (390 f) for 8 minutes. Let it cool naturally and put the whole lot back together. Lo and behold it worked!! It remains to be seen how long the fix lasts, but it’s not may main machine, so if I get a few months out of it that’ll do.
I found this thread and since I had nothing to lose baked my motherboard. It actually brought back my video crisp and clear.
My Dell D630 has a nVidia’s 135M video card and got a blank screen with backlight on dring boot. I managed to boot-up and uninstalled the nVidia’s driver and force the computer to use Microsoft generic VGA driver. Now I can boot my Dell D630 and adjust the screen resolution. It works most of the time, but occasionally, I still got the blank screen with background light. If your video card is not burned out, you may try this.
I was very excited. Much I paid to be prime shipped i do believe overnight. Used to a lot of research on top of it. If you happen to visit Newegg.com this laptop includes a very bad rating. 1 star faraway from 5.
more permanent fix bake it let it cool bake it again then apply artic silver, mine was going out every week or so after baking i did this and its been months
The baking theory works perfectly!! Just make sure you are baking the mother board only. In my case I didn’t completely remove the MB so the casing melted a little 🙂
i live in east and i have same problem i clean the main board and remove the ram it work good and i sold it to an other one
Another good thing about this D630 notebook is its COM port.
P.S
Eger sizin bu model notebookda goruntu ile bagli probleminiz varsa onda ilk once BIOS version yenileyin, duzelmese motherboard tam korpusdan ayirib yuksek tempeturla isidin.Chox hallarda NVidia video chip ile bagli olan problem bucur hellini tapir.
Sadece sokdukde ve yigdiqda deqiq ve ehtiyatla ish gorun. “Ustaliq edib” ishin sonunda bu parcha artiqdir demeyin ;)))
Does it really work. Am gonna back mine now if it gets really cooked I will throw it away. Never buy a dell ever
I just baked mine. and it worked! amazing.
Did a lot of research, watched several youtube videos and had 3 different on deck to watch while I pulled mine apart. 390deg for 10 minutes. Viola!
I turned my d630 on, booted into windows. Then a blue screen flashed, said hardware failure contact hardware manufacturer. I called Dell my warranty expired but nvidia has an extended warranty with Dell because this is a known issue it the quadro 135m chipset. They are sending a tech out to replace the motherboard. Call Dell…
I baked the D630 motherboard D630 (removed cpu, ram, plastic bits etc) as well and also did the Bios upgrade. Unfortunately in less than a week, the graphics died again. 🙁
You can see photos and a write up over on my blog, so click on my name for the url if you are interested in seeing what I did.
I am unsure whether to just sell it on ebay as faulty, else to try again? It is a shame the D630 has this Nvidia graphics issue. 🙁
i have the DISPLAY problem in my dell D630, when i turn on my laptop the screen becomes white and does not show any thing, but when i turn on by using the external monitor is starting by showing image like graph lines and then it becomes to normal, but when i disconnect the external and send back the image to its screen it shows the image, why?? pleeeezzz hel me
what is needed is a class action suit against dell for a problem they obviously were aware of to recall and repair all these units they do it to the auto industry
I had the same issue on a old D630 laptop with a NVDIA 135M video card. I though the sucker was toast… no video… monitor came on. However, I could still get into the machine through teamviewer and I decided to try a BIOS update. The machine was running A18 and I flashed to A19 AND THAT FIXED IT!! HOLY SMOKES!!