m9750 Rehabilitation Project

Good afternoon!

This past weekend, I acquired my friend's old m9750; he had recently replaced this machine with a newer laptop after this one was having heating issues. I quickly learned that this is/was a common thing for this particular machine.

I plan on rehabbing this machine to its former glory (or better) and have gathered a plethora of information through this site and a few others; THANK YOU! That said, there are a couple of areas in which I need some clarification. My apologies to anything that has been asked in past posts, but I have gone back six pages to look for concrete answers before posting.

To begin, the stats are as follows:

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7400 (4M Cache, 2.16 GHz, 667 MHz FSB)
Netlist 4gb DDR2 PC-5300 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce Go 8700GT 512mb x2 (1gb total) SLI
Seagate 160gb 7200rpm hard drive
Samsung Lightscribe 8x DVD+/-RW drive

The first are of question centers around the application of Arctic Silver 5. While taking the heat sync/fan assemblies out of the machine, I noticed a brownish, plastic film over both GPUs, the chipset, and the chip next to the CPU (see attached pictures (please ignore the fact that the previous compound has not yet been removed, it's so caked and dried that I need solvent to remove it and, of course, I discovered I was out of it upon dis-assembly (note that the chip to the right of the CPU did NOT have thermal compound, but rather had a gummy coating, I will be applying AS5 to this chip as well))).

Upon initial inspection, they look like they simply attempt to keep the chips clean, leaving only the fyes exposed. But I am concerned that these layers of film are contributors to excess heat build-up as they don't allow the chips to breathe naturally. So...:

1) What are they for?
2) Can they/should they be removed?

Once I have the machine reassembled, the plan is to wipe the hard drive and start anew. I have learned that the chipset is limiting the RAM allocation, so I know that my 4gbs of RAM will never be fully 'used' (I also want to note that the stock Vista 32 that was installed does recognize all 4gbs under computer properties). If what I have read is correct, the fact that all 4gbs is recognized under properties tells me that the most current BIOS update is installed:

3) Is that correct? Since all 4gbs is listed, can we assume the most recent BIOS update is present?

Now, since the chipset is bound to x86 processing, I have come to the preliminary conclusion that running the x86 version of Win7 would be the better alternative. While I don't necessarily have any justification behind this decision, logic seems to dictate that I would run into fewer areas of concern by avoiding x64 Win7. However, since I haven't really been able to find concrete information regarding the pro/cons of Win7 32bit vs Win7 64bit:

4) Is there a justifiable purpose to run Win7 x64 on the m9750 over the Win7 x86 or Vista x86 counterparts?

I have already bookmarked the driver thread in hopes that what I need during this rehab will be easily obtained to make this as smooth as possible. In addition, I HAVE THE ORIGINAL CDs INCLUDING THE VISTA SUPPORT CD (v1.1) AND VISTA SYSTEM RECOVERY DVD (v2) in the event I need to gather drivers the long way.

5) Is the driver thread still current, and which Win7 OS is supported in the thread (as, again, I'm still unsure as to which version to install)?

Thank you for sticking through this long post. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to rebuilds and I don't like leaving things in the gray. If there is anything in addition to what I have asked, something that I've missed, overlooked, etc., please let me know. I will be continuing my research, but hope that the community might be able to finalize some of these questions for me so that this rebuild will be successful.

Thanks!

 

1) Probably to protect the chip as you specified. Also probably to prevent any metal contacts on the chip from touching the heatsink.

2) I don't think they prevent removal of heat. From what I understand, pretty much all heat should be going through the die of the chips.

3) What chipset does it use? If it's 945PM/GM you can't use all of 4GB RAM. 965PM should be up to 8GB RAM.

4) Personally, I'd just install a 64-bit version of Windows unless you will have issues finding drivers. For general use, both are probably just the same.

 

I am also in the process of rehabing a m9750, 32 bit drivers seem to be the way to go as they seem more stable and easier to find.
I have an issue that im looking high and low for an answer to though.
not trying to threadjack tho.
After reading here I picked uo an Ati 3870 off ebay as it is better than 2 cards in Sli. I had the original hd with win xp and was trying to salvage the respawn partition and booterd up on ot with the new card. Windows xp drivers are not available for the card.
So I swapped in a win7 64bit harddrive and messed around with the win7 64 drivers and was getting crashes evertime I installed the video drivers.
Thinking the card was bad as a last ditch effort I reinstalled windows 7 32bit with the new card installed (original install was done with the failing 7950)
Low and behold the card is a 3870 x2 (2 graphic processors on the same board) I have it stable until I enter a game then the temps spike and games crash.
Thats where i'm currently at i'm thinking there is a way to undervolt the card or disable 1 core but cant find any info.

 

Thanks, Nam for the reply.

I was on the verge of taking those plastic films off, but your comment made me look a little closer; the contacts would be dangerously close to the heatsync if I did take them off. Mighta saved me a nightmare!

Still not sure which chipset the board uses. Sadly, I'm still waiting for my Arctic Silver compund solution to arrive and I can't make any of the markings on the chip itself without magnification. I'm hoping I get lucky with it being the later board. I know the 8700GTs were included on the last line of 9750s after the 7950GTXs phased out. Here's to hoping.

The last question still remains. I still need some clarification on which version of 7 to install. Can anyone verify the 'currentness' of the driver thread? I don't want to run into driver issues, but know that the 64bit OS will yield minor advantages over the 32. Just want to maximize my options. I see people posting in sigs that they have 64 running on the 9750, just need some assistance in regards to proper driver support so that everything runs correctly.

Thanks!

 

I'm sorry to disappoint you but your card isn't a "x2". The fact that it shows up like that means only that it came from a laptop with two of them in crossfire. The x2 is just coded in the vbios. That being said, it still is a very decent card.

As for the crashes, it might be a good idea to check the temperatures first (ie: if the heatsink doesn't sit correctly on the die, heat transfer won't be optimal) - on my m15x with a 3870 ("x2"), they are around 80°C under load.

 

Rusted - you need to use thick paste such as ICD 7 to control the temps of the 3870 in the m9750.

The chipset in the M9750 is a 945 and henceforth is limited to 4GB - absolutely 0 point in installing 64-bit on it. Also there are XP drivers for the 3870 - I ran my M9750 with xp & the 3870's with no issue for a long time - quite why you'd want to use such an outdated operating system now though....