Laptop Died
Posted: 2009-04-11 00:00:00

It finally happened. A few months ago, the fan threw a bearing in my laptop (and has been making a heck of a grinding noise when on ever since). Today, the graphics card decided it didn't want to live anymore.

I had the laptop for only 2 1/2 years, definately not as long as I originally intended it to last. It was a HP DV8000 CTO 17" computer - ran great for the longest time. It did have a quirk or two, suffering from the infamous DV8000 keyboard issues, but no major problems until the fan when. At the time it died, I was attempting to watch a DVD. The disc spun up, the graphics card starting processing, then... crash. Turning it on now, I get a strange looking white screen on my laptop monitor, and if I hook up an external monitor that gets strange vertical lines through it every inch or so. Once Windows loads, neither monitor works. However - safe mode works on the external monitor, though with the vertical lines.

Luckily, I haven't lost any data, the problem is with the graphics chip inside the laptop. A new motherboard and graphics chip would have the computer up and running again. Not sure what I'll do - fix it or just get a new computer.

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