Raylo

These notebooks have problematic (and unobtainable) GeForce Go 440 video cards that fail and render otherwise good computers unuseable. The video suffers from major artifacting, pixellation and "meltdowns" often causing the computer to crash. See this thread for the long and gory story:

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread48948.html

What I have found works a bit better is to disable the video card in device manager to get some basic functionality for browsing and such w/o constantly crashing. But I still often get annoying video artifacting that I can sometimes settle by rapping on the computer near the video card. No surprise that I killed a hard drive doing this.

My question is this: Knowing that (1) the video card must be present to get basic video even if the card is disabled in device manager and (2) similar socket (but obtainable) video cards for other Tosh models won't be fully funtional due to BIOS issues, would it be possible to at least get stable basic video with one of these alternative cards installed and disabled in device manager?

TheMatt

Download RivaTuner from my sig and see if you can get a temperature for the card. There are two possibilities. Either the card is overheating, or the memory is going bad. Unfortunately, that card will be very hard to get a replacement for, and if it is integrated, you cannot replace it at all.

Raylo

Not heat. That long thread I linked id'ed the problem as the VRAM solder connections. And I know I can't get the card. They are few and far between and all are bad or will be soon.

My question is can I use one of the other similar Tosh cards that ARE available as a placeholder to run basic video sevices with the main 3D acceleration disabled in device manager. That is how I am running it now with the bad card (disabled in device manager) but still have some instances of video problems.

I don't know what role the video card plays in providing video when it is disabled like this in device manager and I just wonder if I can get one that has a similar form factor (they do exist) and get this basic functionality for browsing and such instead of tossing an otherwise good machine.

Maybe I'll just try to find one and give it a shot.

TheMatt

It looks like this is what you want.
http://www.impactcomputers.com/p000341430.html
It appears that it is removable, so yes, you should be able to use another card. You should probably open up the laptop and have a look at it first.

Raylo

Thanks for staying with me on this, Matt. It's a tough one. But we still haven't got to my actual question.

The graphics card in the link you sent is indeed the correct one for my Tosh. But the problem is that all these cards have bad BGA and these refurb ones may not last all that long. There's no way to know. And $350 is clearly too much to put into an old machine when entire new laptops can be had for not much more, even moreso when the life of the refurb card is questionable.

I am typing on the Tosh right now, running with the video card disabled in Device Manager. I can set the screen resoultion to 1024x768 and while I can't do any 3D gaming or watch DVDs it is perfectly acceptable for surfing and e-mail. Small Flash videos play just fine, too. But I still experience occassional video problems (pixelation and such) that I'd like to try to fix.

So to the question...
What is providing the basic video I now have with the card disabled? Something on the video card?? Something on the MoBo?? If the MoBo why does the video card need ot be plugged in to get the video?

So, assuming that the pinout is the same and the thing will plug in to my MoBo (I think it will) what I want to try is to install a GeForce 2 that came with other similar Tosh models. I KNOW the graphics engine in this card is not compatible with my Tosh but I intend to run it disabled in device manager hoping to get the same basic video I am getting now with the GeForce 4 card disabled.

Link to refurb GeForce 2 card http://www.getpartsonline.com/fmz1g2.html

I will spend $15.00 to try to keep this old machine alive. I will not spend $350.

In any case I will have the question answered soon one way or the other since I ordered one of those Geforce 2 cards and hope to get it by the weekend. Wish me luck!

TheMatt

Without the driver installed, you are not using the memory intensively, and therefore, you are not getting these problems. I hope that card works out.

morse

Hello!

I have the same problem with this video card. Could you tell how did this downgrading work?