HP Pavillion dv6700t laptop just died

[wenbo]

My sad story - basically as I was watching SPIKE TV's Deadliest Warrior online (the best show ever I might add [/slight sarcasm] ) my entire computer just froze. Sound was stuck on one syllable and nothing responded. Not knowing what else to do, I shut the computer off with my power button.

Upon reboot, it first kinda booted up, then dies, then reattempts to boot up and...
Well, it looks like it's booting. I see lights pop up for my annoying quickplay buttons, my power button. I can't turn caps lock on, but I don't recall if that worked before booting into Vista anyways (I think it did though x.x)

However, the screen remains completely black. The fan hums, but nothing appears on the screen.

After going through long hours of the extremely (un)helpful HP tech support, I turn to the internet instead.

I found this forum while researching build-your-own PCs, and when I come to this section, lo and behold I see the sticky on NVIDIA integrated graphics cards being complete failures ;_;

I'm not sure if that's the problem, but I have a NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS, which fits the description of ... well, all NVIDIA cards in the 84xx series I guess ...

On top of that, my warranty has expired and the 6700 series doesn't fit the bill for extended warranty (it stops at dv64xx )

So well, now I'm a little stumped. First of all, does this sound like it could be a problem caused by my graphics card? And second - if it is, what can I do to fix it that doesn't involve lots of money ;__;

Thanks for any replies.

[glc]

First of all, does this sound like it could be a problem caused by my graphics card? And second - if it is, what can I do to fix it that doesn't involve lots of money ;__;

1. Yes.
2. Probably nothing. It will probably require a new graphics module and possibly a new motherboard.

[wenbo]

I was afraid of that...
This isn't really something that'd be very efficient to fix would it? Replacing things in laptops is a lot harder / time consuming / expensive than doing so on PCs isn't it? >.<
If you were to give an estimate on the cost of fixing / replacing parts, would you say it to be like, $400+? If it is I might just consider replacing it...sigh.
Thanks for the reply

*edit*
one last thing, would it make any sense for it to be a RAM related problem?

[mikeL]

I would be getting in touch with HP, even though your laptop isn't listed, it has a known issue with the GPU. After enough complaining they may just repair it for you. always worth a try.