W520- Discrete graphics stopped working- diagnosis?

[helicopter]

I haven't gotten any replies, so I'm going to simplify my post.

I have a W520: 4270-CTO, 2.2 GHz, BIOS 1.46, running Windows 7 64-bit.

Suddenly the discrete graphics (nvidia Quadro 1000M) stopped working. When it's turned on in BIOS, the screen looks like this.https://share.icloud.com/photos/0-l9ON0 ... XxnEqdGXIQ

There are four bands on the screen. The first three are desktops that about 640 x 480. It's very hard to see anything or navigate.

I tried reinstalling the driver, but it had no impact. Device manager says the device (the nvidia card) is not working.

The display works fine in integrated graphics. However, I need the nvidia card to run an external monitor.

Is the nvidia GPU bad?

Thanks.

[ajkula66]

Is the nvidia GPU bad?

That would be my best guess.

Thankfully, these machines have come down a lot in prices so even getting a complete system and just swapping in your HDD/SSD shouldn't be cost prohibitive.

Good luck.

[helicopter]

Thanks for taking a look. I always appreciate your insight (and know you have a ton of experience with these machines.)

I might try one last wipe of the drive with the OS and reinstall from the original factory DVDs, just in case there's some weird corruption. I'll report back once I get around to that.

[helicopter]

To rule out any driver or OS problems, I decided to reinstall Win 7 from the original recovery disks. The files copied, but there was an error and a blue screen crash during the auto-exec sequence. The installation cannot complete. When I try to load an imaging program (Macrium) from a WinPE DVD, it loads and runs, but then crashes with a blue screen error (usually invalid process detach attempt, from win32.sys). This happens even when the SSD is removed. I suspect the motherboard is bad. Can anyone else give me any advice before I invest in a new one? I did test the RAM (directly before this happened), which was OK.

[ajkula66]

You've done everything that I would have myself in a similar scenario.

While I can't say that I know everything, it would be hard to pinpoint a different culprit for this type of behaviour other than GPU/planar.

Good luck.

[fissionpowered]

If it occurs in the BIOS, that should automatically rule out driver issues.

The bars in the photo look like textbook GPU (or video ram) failure.

Sorry to say, but the motherboard almost certainly needs replacing.

[helicopter]

Thanks, Ajkula66 and fissionpowered.

I got a new (used) motherboard and was looking at the hardware manual. Pg. 95 refers to thermal rubbers, which I think people on this forum call thermal pads. (viewtopic.php?f=48&t=129811&p=858295&hi ... ds#p858295)

I haven't taken the new board out of the bag yet to inspect it, nor compared it to the old one (because I haven't taken apart the old machine yet).

Should I buy new thermal pads (and not use old ones)? If so, what thickness? And what holds them to the board?

One other thing, after I unplug the backup battery, is the battery glued or otherwise secured to the board?

Thanks.

[helicopter]

P.S. The Lenovo misc. planar kit 04W1582, which has those pads, is out of stock.