Intel 950 Graphics Chip Issue???

[Tomteriffic]

My wife just bought a refurb laptop (Acer)and it was a big ol' DAWG! We had to format and reload the thing twice in the week she's had it. It seems that the central issue has to do with power management. This was an Intel Core Duo with the 950 graphics chip. The thing wouldn't come out of Standby or Hibernate (or just about any other reduced-power state), which would force her to do a hard shutdown a cold boot. The machine was never overheated or subjected to harsh conditions.

Evidently, this thing had hard drive issues as well, since it would sometimes take 2 or 3 tries to get it to boot all the way into Winderz. So, it's going back. Here's my question....

The Intel 950 graphics chip is pretty ubiquitous and my wife is looking at an HP as a replacement. It has the 950 video as well. Is this an OK chip or is there something endemic to the chip that might be causing the troubles we were having with the Acer? I'd be kind of surprised if it did, but if there's some sort of fundamental flaw in the 950 chip, then my wife would just be buying more trouble if she got another machine with it.

My suspicion is that she just got a POS, though.....

Anybody?

Oh, and what's with the ad in the bottom of the body of the post? I guess I've been gone too long....

[Whir]

The 950 is a pretty solid graphics chip for normal use. It's even capable of low impact 3D rendering. I used to play WoW all the time on my 900.

Unless there was something physically wrong with the chip, I doubt it was the cause of any of the laptop's problems.

[Tomteriffic]

That's encouraging, then. I'm trying to steer her toward something with a bit better reputation for reliability and service in the same price range. She's looking at Toshiba and HP now. I feel better about that since 'guess who' gets to keep after the thing when it goes toes-up....