Dell D620 Nvidia Chipset Failure

[NYMedic93]

Hello all,

I've had a Dell D620 for the past 4 years, one of the cursed nVidia machines. About a year and a half ago, the computer had its first graphics chipset failure that it's had as long as I've owned it. I sent the machine out to have it repaired, and it had been working well until about a week ago when the problem reappeared and started showing "Code 10: Device cannot start" in the hardware manager. The screen still works, just with the loss of some graphics functions, and at a lower resolution than I had it at before.

My first question is, is it worth getting it repaired again, or should I find a stripped D620 with the Intel chipset and change out the good components like the hard drive and CD/DVD-ROM.

My second question, is there any way to salvage the T7600 processor from this machine and install it in one that I buy? 2.33GHz is a great thing to have on this machine.

 

[GhostGT]

How much are you charged for each repair of the D620? It may make more sense to just purchase another D620 online and swap in your HD. I'm assuming this is the notebook we're talking about.

Here's an eBay auction for a clean one @ $160:

Dell D620 14 1" Intel Core 2 Duo 2 33GHz 2GB RAM 80GB HDD | eBay

I'm not exactly sure if the processor is removable, but you wouldn't need to worry about that if you purchased one of these working models off eBay.

 

[NYMedic93]

The guy that I sent it to was a place in Santa Clara that charges $175 for the repair job, so this laptop is looking pretty darn good.

 

[GhostGT]

I'd look into that specific one (and others on eBay...since I'm sure there are more like it). Sure beats having to pay $175 for a repair again.

 

[BK_123]

I'm not exactly sure if the processor is removable, but you wouldn't need to worry about that if you purchased one of these working models off eBay.

CPUS in most laptops are soldered into the motherboard so you may not be able to remove it.