Laptop graphics issues, RMA didn't help

[PhilHibbs]

Just days short of the third anniversary, my machine (Defiance IX RTX 3060) started glitching. Playing a heavy Minecraft mod pack, after a couple of hours in game the graphics freeze but the game continues to run and can be quit by flying blind through the menu. On exiting, the desktop glitches and flickers.

I sent it back to PCS, had to pay a fixed fee to cover shipping. A week later, they sent it back saying it was fixed by a clean out and re-paste.

It's not fixed. The problem happened again today.

Ho hum. Looks like I might need to retire this machine early (my previous PCS laptop lasted 7 years). It's manageable at the moment, I just don't let the game run for too long before giving it a cool-off, or just reboot when it happens. But I'm going to make sure my backups are thorough just in case.

 

[Ekans2011]

I sent it back to PCS, had to pay a fixed fee to cover shipping. A week later, they sent it back saying it was fixed by a clean out and re-paste.

Cleaning and repasting are part of the regular maintenance of every performance/custom laptop; cleaning is extremely important and should be done very frequently (I personally do it every 2-3 months at most), while repasting should be done once a year or so unless you replace the thermal compound with a graphene pad (Kryosheet), which virtually lasts forever.

Assuming you haven't done any maintenance in nearly three years, you will most likely have sustained overheating for an extended period of time, reducing the lifespan of the laptop.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Just days short of the third anniversary, my machine (Defiance IX RTX 3060) started glitching. Playing a heavy Minecraft mod pack, after a couple of hours in game the graphics freeze but the game continues to run and can be quit by flying blind through the menu. On exiting, the desktop glitches and flickers.

I sent it back to PCS, had to pay a fixed fee to cover shipping. A week later, they sent it back saying it was fixed by a clean out and re-paste.

It's not fixed. The problem happened again today.

Ho hum. Looks like I might need to retire this machine early (my previous PCS laptop lasted 7 years). It's manageable at the moment, I just don't let the game run for too long before giving it a cool-off, or just reboot when it happens. But I'm going to make sure my backups are thorough just in case.

Don't just retire it needlessly, it's still in warranty, get it fixed.

Had you serviced it since you'd owned it? If not, then high temps could have resulted in GPU failure, would be a realistic result to long term overheating.

The same would happen with any performance laptop, so if you hadn't serviced it, be aware you'll need to start doing that about once a year or you're just going to have the same issues.

 

[PhilHibbs]

I have regularly opened it up and cleaned it as best I can, but I can't remove the fans to get the fluff out without detaching the heat pipes. Maybe I should be more bold.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I have regularly opened it up and cleaned it as best I can, but I can't remove the fans to get the fluff out without detaching the heat pipes. Maybe I should be more bold.

That’s what a service is, you remove the heat sinks and clean and reapply thermal paste, that’s the most important part, without doing that it will have been overheating for a long time and as soon as that happens, the temps reach such a high that they can affect solder balls or even even PCB trace paths so that you get cracks.

The symptoms then is that it will sometimes work fine until it hits a temperature that causes those cracks to widen and hence the electricity can’t flow as it needs to, in really bad examples it can lead to shorts or burnouts.

The eventual result is all out failure.

Raise another RMA, even if the 3 years is over because the last RMA didn’t resolve it, but you need to be specific in how to trigger the problem, what kind of time frame under which specific load.

PCS can only find the issue if they know where to look.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Yeah, I put a detailed "how to deplicate" document on the desktop with a game link next to it.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Ever since the laptop came back, I've been getting 144fps most of the time in Elite Dangerous, dipping to the 120s but never below 100.

Ever since it was brand new, prior to the RMA, I never got more than 50fps.

 

[TonyCarter]

Did they provide a report of what they did for the RMA to fix it? Was it just a repaste, or was anything replaced?

 

[PhilHibbs]

Just a fan clean and re-paste.