A friendly warning when swaping the GPU.

My M17x r3 came with the 6870m also the notebook has 560m in it that has the heatsink bracket that looks like this.(image taken from MXM-upgrade)


The problem with the bracket is the extra metal part sticking out. It has a thermal pad under it. Now if you were to take it out make surten that the thermal pad is 1m or thicker then the factory one used.....if you do not do this you might end up with this ....


Stock bracket on a stock GPU and well when removing it i did not see that the metall side bent to much that it shorted one of the resistors on the GPU. I also tested the bracket on the 6870m. Same thing if you are not careful then you might just kill the GPU.

It does not take much pressure to bend it and also the plastick cover under the GPU (on the mobo) is enought to bend it if there are parts sticking out.

So just a warning as this bracket killed my 6870m

 

That's because that backplate is for Nvidia cards Only.. It's for the VRAM chips at the back, radeon cards don't have them.

 

Then why the hell did i get it with my 6870m ? I bought it from a dell shop.

 

Because they are incapable of assembling their laptops?
Most of the 580Ms throttle because of the poor paste and pad jobs done by Dell.

My 6870M (long, long time ago) originally came with an Nvidia backplate too, I'm glad I got it replaced.

 

LOL and to think i would have expected something like this from asus. Man was i wrong. Next time will have to let them take it apart before i buy it :/ realy dissapointed about this find.

 

Did you try replacing the burned component on the card?
I know that probably wont fix the card, but it's worth a try.

 

Will try after work as i got a 5870m for spare parts. Might get the right part of off that.

 

Mine originally came like that as well. Can I use that backplate on 580M I wonder?

 

Yes, because it is the 580M backplate.

 

Thanks for that! Will rep again when I'm allowed

Now only to find some way to recycle my current heatsinks or look for the new one.

What is the core clock you set for normal day use?

 

Usually 725 on the core and 900 (1800) on the memory. I am pushing to 823 core (Desktop 560ti speeds) and 900 memory and it seems stable. I think my power draw may actually have been higher than 240w because I was getting black screen crashes in Skyrim until I lowered my CPU multi to 34 across. Just insane stuff. You should try Skyrim w/ full ENB series and lush grass/lush trees and at 1080p lol. A desktop GTX 580 will have trouble, just imagine the highest quality SSAO on every leaf, pine and branch (unoptimised...).

The reason why I increased the clocks because when FRAPs is recording, the load decreases from 99% to around 84-89% at max. I wouldn't run that high when I am not recording.

On topic, you can imagine why the nvidia backplate has that extra metal bit for the vram. Also the ones that are not covered (the other set of vram chips at the back) have a massive thermal pad piece on them, because they can get pretty damn hot when overclocked.

 

wow over 240w, that's insane...I am getting my 2920XM OEM end of the week but of course can't overclock it yet (that's why the P150EM is coming )

 

Maybe, maybe not. Just not sure why it doesn't crash when I lower to 34x across the board.

It's crazy man, everyone is getting XMs now. I don't feel speshul no more.

 

Awww geo you sre still the pioneer among us XD

 

No love for the beaver?

 

Aye, the beaver is the true legend!

I remember the time (yeears ago) where it seemed like I was the only person with an iPhone - everyone was like zomg sweetness, and now literally every single kid has one. Doesn't feel as good anymore. :/

Different to XMs of course, people should have them if they need them.