M18X R2 No power

A couple of days ago my laptop just quit, in mid-stream while I was on it and I wasn't playing a game however the M660 video card was selected as the current video card. Ir was plugged to AC power with the stock AC adapter that came with the original purchase. Unplugging and re-plugging in the power adapter the blue LED on the end of the cord into the laptop immediately turns off. I pull the plug out and it stays off. Unplug from wall then re-plug the blue light comes back on. Plug into laptop, blue light off, immediately. Must be a circuit breaker in the power supply.

Ok I thought my MB was dead but in another forum here others had similar problem and said it was the GPU card. Pull the card, plug in the power cable, if light stays lit then we have just found and removed the short circuit - the video card.

I plan on doing that this weekend. I just wanted to start a thread on the subject to see if I am on the right track. It is no small task to disassemble that beast to get to the video card. Ugh! But I've not much to lose at this point.
Is there anything else I should check while I have the thing mostly disassembled? I am decent with a volt and ohm meter and even soldering components such as new PSUs or similar large parts.

My current plan is to just buy another laptop but I want to try and revive this one even if it means replacing the video card. Although they are around $300.

This laptop was purchased March 2013 so I've had some good use from it but I thought it would last a little longer. I've a couple of HP laptops that are going on 13 years now and while one has a bad battery and must run from the plug it still cranks away.

-Steve

 

I suggest you do that first. Take out the GPU, and see if it will run.

 

Sounds like the most prudent thing to do. I'd been researching video card upgrades before and the 770M seemed like a good choice. That will be the plan if it turns out to be the card.

 

I think you have a short in your GPU, I had a broken 880M do exactly the same thing. The short causes too much power draw, trips the PSU off.

best card for M18x R2 is easily gtx 980M, don't waste money on anything else. 980M is by far the best bang for your buck. I have a dell card if you are interested.

 

Yay! I am hoping its something that simple! We'll see for sure tomorrow when I pull this laptop apart.

When I was looking at replacing the GPU board back when the laptop was actually working some forums said the 980M ran hot even with the beefier heatsink plate. Funny, I ordered the heatsink (05G1VJ) in 2016 thinking I was going to upgrade the GPU. Apart from probably having to modify the INF file for the NVidia driver did you see any issues with the 980M? If your system already had an 880M then my guess is you already have the correctly sized heatsink.

I think I just want a safe and easy upgrade/fix at this point because I just upgraded my desktop with an i7 8th gen (8700k) CPU with 1070ti GPU card. Couldn't afford the 1080ti because of the $@#&* crypocurrency miners out there killing the GPU prices. (no offense but I'm talking mainly of the companies buying up 1000+ cards at once, not the single user miners). Anyway I don't need a killer gaming laptop now, I just want a laptop that boots and can run MS Word and Quicken.

The heatsink I bought off ebay is rated for the 675, 680, 770, 780, 880 (Graphic Heatsink 05G1VJ) The 980 isn't listed so that board may run too hot for this heatsink.

-Steve

 

The 680M heatsink is good enough (three heat pipe), that’s what I use. Make sure you use good quality pads and paste (I use phobya extreme grease and arctic thermal pads)

I have an undervolted vBIOS but the stock one you can expect temps to run in the mid 70s under load.

 

It is the GPU card! Clearly! After getting to the GPU board and removing it I plugged in the power adapter and the blue LED stayed on. As a quick "lightswitch" test I put the GPU back and plugged in the adapter and blue light goes off, tripping the adapters breaker.

Did anyone else find the palm rest difficult to remove with those tabs in the back? I thought I was going to break it pulling it off and it felt like I left a "P" screw. I got it off. I did damage the wifi card though. I pulled off one of the channel surface mount pins when trying to get the wire off. Looks like I'm going to ebay for that too. However I tried soldering the pad back on so we'll see. Luckily that part is super easy access so if I need to replace it then its not too bad. I wonder if we need channel 2?

I also noticed the heat sink I purchased way back is the exact same part as the one in the laptop! Can't send it back because I got on ebay. Could sell it I guess. The heat sink was supposed to be higher rated. If I could find a part number for the OEM heatsink that would have solved it but I believed what I read in Dell forums and ebay item descriptions.

Now to find a replacement GPU card.

-Steve

 

@Raidriar - Do you have suggestions on the mfg of the video card? Looking at the 780M and 880M and yes I'll look at the 980M. You said you had one?

-Steve

 

Don’t bother with the 780M or 880M, pick up a 980M. Only stipulations with the 980M is you have to run your computer in full UEFI mode and run Windows 8.1 or Windows 10. If that’s not a problem, grab a non gsync 980M (a dell branded card is guaranteed to be non-gsync, clevo cards and MSI cards are a gamble)

If you’d rather avoid it altogether and get something cheaper the 780M will give you half the performance of the 980M but none of the headaches.

 

Appreciate the input. I have a working HDD with Win7 x64 and have no plans to replace it so I will go with the lower end card because I already have a desktop (what Im typing on now) that is the gaming rig, much more power than any laptop can deliver right now.
Funny though, the 880M has lower passmark scores than the 780M. Unusual for NVidia cards.

-Steve

 

Because they get hot and throttle like hell

 

Appreciate your input, but I could use your help one more time. I have a 780M on order from parts-people.com since they have a decent return policy and felt better than ebay in this case. They said they had not tested the 780M for the M18x R2 and also said they thought I would have to flash the GPU board bios into fooling it to work with this laptop. I already knew about having to mod the NVidia INF driver file putting in my laptop device ID and 780M device IDs in certain locations but was not aware I needed to flash the bios.

Do you have the R2 and if so did you have to flash the bios for your 980M to get it to work? What about modding your NVidia INF file?

Ultimately I will go ahead and try the card being sent and if I cannot get it to work I'll send it back. But if it still fails to work after modding the INF it would be good to know if it was because of the bios.
-Steve

 

No need to flash the 780M vBIOS at all, whether it be clevo or dell it doesn't matter, it will work fine in the M18x r2. You will need to mod INF as you already stated. I think you overpaid quite a bit by buying from parts people, but to each their own.

 

Good news about not having to flash. I found boards on ebay for around $260 and they were generic (blue PBC circuit boards). This one is the 780M FJHX2 which even on ebay is around the price I paid in the mid $300s. Well its peace of mind for me that they said it was tested in a compatible laptop (M18 R1) and it worked. Its a crap shoot on ebay even if they say its been tested. I almost chose EuroCom tech who also had the board in a kit but the cost was in the $800s for the 780M and they wouldn't just sell me the board alone since I already have the heatsink and X bracket and pads.

 

The chinese cards are often times factory leftovers. Blue PCB 780Ms are clevo cards, Green PCB 780Ms are Dell or MSI cards. Avoid eurocom, they warranty for a measly 90 days and they upcharge like hell. Parts-people are a great reseller when their prices are right.

 

I bought their last 780M and it is a green PCB so that makes me feel better that it isn't a clevo. I read somewhere to stay away from the blue clevo boards. My current 660M that's toast is a blue board. Maybe that's why it failed so early. Well I did look for green board types when shopping and they were all higher priced. Eurocom did provide a really good disassembly video. Could have figured it out on my own but the video made it more obvious.

The new board should be here by thursday or friday so this weekend I should be up and running again. (assuming I do the INF thing right)

 

the board color has nothing to do with the quality of the card...at all. the ASIC quality is really what determines how nice your card is.

 

I know that. Different mfgs use different color boards sometimes and in my research differen blue PCBs were lower quality clevo and green were presumably higher quality Dell/MSI, etc For example the Dell 3YMNY is green. That's all I meant by referencing the board color. Many ebay items did not include the part number so you couldn't tell exactly what you got but you could get a rough order of magnitude guess when looking at the board color.

 

Don't assume Clevo is of lower quality...it's actually usually the opposite. The graphics records set by @Mr. Fox were done on Alienware systems using Clevo cards, not Dell cards.

 

[Solved] To add some closure to this thread the 780M (FJHX2) video card is installed and the power is fine now, no shorting. The OEM 660M board went bad.

-Steve

 

As I expected, glad you got it working again

 

I appreciate your help!

 

@Raidriar - A11 Unlocked BIOS supports Windows 7 + 980M in legacy mode, no need for UEFI with windows 8 or 10 anymore.

 

Erm...I made that BIOS...it doesn’t work on the M18x R1