New 780m GPU installed, now doing funny things

Thanks Mr fox and everyone else who helped.

 

This may be a slight problem tho... I forgot to save the original vbios anyway around that? I hope

 

Sent a message to the eBay guy and his only question was what laptop I'm trying to put it in. I can already see it now. The answer is gonna be "oh sorry that pc doesn't support that card blah blah blah "

 

Heh he can't say that. You've got faulty product on arrival, it doesn't matter which laptop you have. You can tell him that you have AW 17R1.

And for the original bios I always recommend to save current bios somewhere. Try techpowerup bios database or ask @Mr. Fox he probably still have two 780M.

 

There is no program that controls fans. Unless something else was created.. But hwinfo only controls the cpu fan and sets the GPU fan to 0rpm.

 

Im a programmer but I didn't ever created a program that has kernel driver to control the fans. If you really want that I can give it a try but need to know how many poeple thinks that it's needed.

 

Dear hrtbrker991,

I couldn't verify if this MSI GTX 780M GPU is compatible with your Alienware laptop so there might be a chance that is not compatible with your laptop and that's causing the issue. For that reason we stated on our listing to make sure before you buy it that it is compatible with your laptop. Also we offer a 14 days return policy and you are already out of that return period. I'm really sorry but at this point we can't help you.

 

From eBay company. What assholes.

 

Hey,

Sorry to hear that

You have to try other options.

Can you tell us which company it is to avoid it?

 

Powernotebooks.com. I'm hoping someone can help me verify that this card is compatible with my computer... Cuz it obviously is...

 

Normally must work's. Our is compatible.

CEG-hardcorecustom -
your UPGRADE base for Clevo & Alienware notebooks - for NBR & Techinferno users always something special

 

Ahh it's a MSI GTX780M... That's why... Flash the AW or Clevo vBIOS and you should be sorted... I'm not too sure if this might cause a brick but flashing either of those should solve the problems.. I've never heard of MSI cards working properly in AW's unless with AW or Clevo vBIOS...

 

Didn't I already flash to the right vbios?

 

the program is called hardware info 64. allows you to control the fans, just not seperatly, it runs at the rpm you set it to on both fans

 

Not both fans? Unless you turn off the ec sensor.

 

I couldn't figure out how to run just the fan I wanted. It ran both of them

 

So... i think after trying 25 different drivers i finally found one that is stable and plays games well (just played dying light with everything maxed with 60 fps) butttttt then i get these grey screen crashs after a few mins of playing. i checked the dump and im getting a BAD_POOL_HEADER error. any ideas? maybe i should make a fresh post about this.

 

let me clarify this a little bit. it doesnt crash on any game. seems like just the high demand games. assasins creed unity, dying light. i can play CSGO for 24 hours strait without it happening. i just got dragon ball xenoverse and i played it for a few hours with no crash. is it possible that this is heat induced? the card sits at about 85-87c when heavy gaming. iv read that the card max is 95c tho and im nowhere near that....

on kinda a separate question, is there a different heatsink going from a 460m to 780m? or are they the same. because im using my 460m heatsink and im wondering if i would get cooler temps with the 780m heatsink(if there is one)

 

The GTX 460M is a 72W card. The 780M is a 100w card. My guess is your heatsink has two heatpipes?

So yes, you really should change heatsinks. You want a 100w heatsink, with three heatpipes. You can buy them from many sources.

 

Thanks I'll try that next. IV seen some that say "for m17x r1" will that fit my r3?

 

No you need Alienware M17x R3/R4 100W Heatsinks... NVIDIA 580M/680M heatsinks I believe... @MickyD1234 is the person to ask about this I believe...

 

You guys are the best thanks

 

Too funny, I was watching this one!

The best (easiest) is to get the R4 680m from dell. It comes pre-padded/pasted ready to assemble although you will need to check the pad layout on the 780m against the 680m just in case there is a difference (I don't believe so but best to check).

If you get the 580m one I know the pad layout is a little different to the 680m, I believe it has 3 VRM's as opposed to two on the 580m.

This is the pad layout of the 680m and the heatsink as delivered by dell. Some tips here also .

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/thermal-pads-for-m17x-r4s-gpu-gtx-680m.693341/#post-9821203

Good luck.

 

So by giving me this info you guys agree that it's a heat problem that's causing the grey screen problem?

 

Hmm, save me a hunt. Did you monitor the GPU temp? It might well have been overheating so could even be damaged. Either way you'll need the 100w heatsink at a minimum.

The 780m usually runs fairly hot (in the 80'sC) on most machines I have seen, so a 75w heatsink (and no attention to pad size or placement) would quickly overheat it.

The usual thing that happens is a full shutdown so I can't be sure you don't have a bad card (now) .

 

Well that's kinda depressing. Hopfully that isn't the case since it still runs other games like cs go and the such. The hottest iv ever seen it get was 89c when heavy gaming and monitoring. I'll try a new heatsink and cross my fingers

 

That temp is way too high. I have seen one guy with a 780m with amazingly low temps (I've seen the data = under 70C!) but he seems to be the exception. 75c to 80c is the most common temp I have seen on the 780m

Did you get new pads or just put them on the same as your original card? Hopefully getting it cooler will stop whatever was failing and you'll be good to go.

 

Brand new pads and I repasted it a few times. It must be the heatsink causing the high Temps.

 

Cool, that will be it then. I was told that the heatsink in the AW17R1 for the 780m fits the R4 but I couldn't confirm it. With the case redesign the heatsink could well be different but just for ease of manufacturing it could be the same? A 50/50 dice roll IMO.

 

Mines a r3 but I'm sure the same dilemma

 

yeah, R3/R4 are the same chassis.

 

Well now im kinda confused because my heatsink has 3 pipes. does that mean i already have the right heatsink?

 

heres a pic of what im workin with

 

That does indeed look like a 3-pipe 100w heatsink. Interesting.

Maybe others more familiar with older AW models can help you out. This is beyond my knowledge.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-Dell-Al...991?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53f8649187

this is basiclly all i can find for the r4. it is a little bit different but doesnt look like different enough to help.... i hope someone can weigh in... im getting desperate.

 

Sorry man, I can't be sure. I always went with two pipe on 75w cards and 3 pipe on 100 w cards. I do know dell sometimes supply the 'better' part when supplies dictate. The 75w cards should get a 180w PSU and the 100w 240w PSU, but I've seen quite a few R3/R4's supplied with the 240wPSU on a 75w card.

When you open it up are the pads dented from compression? Was there a tape surrounding the core area? If so this must be removed, it's a different size and will mess with the contact. It serves no purpose except to mark out the core area.

Good luck.

 

When removed, most of the pads stick to the heatsink so i know theres at least some contact. read somwhere else the tape was soposed to be left so I left it. I can remove that and try

 

Think you have found it! The core is larger so the tape gets in between the heatsink and the core reducing the contact pressure. I have a good feeling about this .

 

Will try when I get home today. Crossing my fingers!

 

If you've got 89C when gaming then it's heat issue. You've said earlier that you have 78C when gaming and that's OK. I've had to tear the black tape off from my AMD heatsinks too to let copper cover the GeForce core which is larger than Radeon HD6990M one.

 

If you wonder why they put it on it's just for quality control AFAIK. They all go past a visual or electronic inspection and it marks out the only bit that needs to have been machined correctly with no dents.

 

well after removing the tape, my temperatures are way down. maxing out at about 78c and im using artic5 so theres still the break in period to lower it more..........unfortunately it didn't help.... i still get a grey screen after a few mins of heavy gaming.......... i dont get it this is really starting to get depressing.... that will be a really expensive $500 brick..... any other ideas....... seriously anything i will try at this point. i kinda wanna try putting the stock bios back on and seeing if maybe the bios i installed is buggy somehow..... can anyone upload a stock 780m bios

 

Do you know what the vbios you installed does? If it adds voltage then you might find an original helps but the card is certainly borderline ATM.

Overvolt and overheat may well have done for it .

 

Don't tell me that.

 

Sorry man, you might still recover use with an original vbios, fingers crossed.

 

Hopfully someone can upload an original bios for me

 

a 780m vbios? i think i have a copy of my original 780m vbios before i flashed the modded vbios....though the vbios is of the dell/alienware 780m so see if it works.

 

Thank you very much. I'll try it

 

well after installing the stock bios, this card runs amazingly cool. max 68c. pretty good. too bad it still crashs. i even tried a fresh windows install. nothing. so i have gone back to ebay to see if i can at the very least get my money back for the faulty card. i will escalate it to a ebay decision. i think i have a pretty good argument. anyone have and advice about how i go about it? this was my second message after they told me my pc isnt compatible with the card so they wont replace.

I have researched and found that my pc is compatible with this card and it has been done many times and it is well documented that it is in fact compatible. having said that, there is a defect in this card, meaning that no matter what, this card would not work on anyones PC. having found this, it is therefore reasonable to exchange the defective card for one that is not defective. I do not want to have to escalate this to ebay to resolve but if you are refusing to fix the issue between us then i will have no choice. I hope we can resolve this without that. Regards, Ryan Apfel

 

And remember. Arctic silver 5 is bad paste now. There are MUCH better ones like Gelid Extreme.