M15x 5870 installation.

I just bought a 5870 to put in my M15x yesterday and it will be here on Monday probably. I have not been able to find many detailed guides on MXM replacement, other than an official dell M15x GPU replacement guide that a dell representative gave me when he replaced my broken keyboard, so I just wanted to get as much last minute info as i could, since this is my first computer component replacement ever. Mainly, i want to confirm the materials I will need for the installation which i so far know to be non-conductive thermal paste(so i don't mess up), anti-static wrist band, and precision screw driver(what size do i get?). I will probably buy these things at fries tomorrow. thanks

ps: incase anybody wants to see what dell tells it's technicians about replacing GPUs, I might be able to give u the guide.

 

service manual link:
Alienware: Online Documentation

youtube video link:
YouTube - Alienware M15x Teardown 1 of 3 **READ SAFETY PRECAUTIONS PRIOR TO REPLACING PARTS** (Official Video)

i also have in my sig that you may also use too.

 

Hey, if you feel the least bit uncomfortable after perusing those links you can always just give me a call

I don't mind helping you out / walking you through it. Also, one last thing you might want to purchase is some thermal pads. The ones that come with the 260m will suffice for a bit but if you want to keep your temps down i highly suggest buying a sheet. I'd post the link to it but i'm about to head out. I caught this as a last minute check before i left the house. I kinda do that with this a few other sites

P.S. - The package is boxed, labeled, and ready to be shipped. The only thing i'm waiting for is the payment to be cleared into my bank account.

 

Where will you attach the anti static strap end to?

I find one of these better to use. They are Anti Static ESD Grounding Plug, Wrist Strap and (12ft) Cable Kit. I recommend MX-3 thermal paste and the line method. I don't know about the M15x but the screw driver I have used on my current laptop and previous NP8662 was the precision screw driver PHO x 100, it came as part of a big set of many.

 

Inap, thanks for the links.

Thanks archnemesis, I might just call u before I actually replace it, but I am curious as to that I sent the payment yesterday. Do they sell good thermal interface material at fries?

Laptopnut, that is sort of what I meant by anti static wristband, I hope they sell them at fries. I am interested in not spending super much money, so hopefully sum1 can tell me what size screwdriver to get just 1 of for the whole disassemly.

 

people have been buying pads from here:

EK Thermal Pad Sheet - 160mm x 155mm x 0.5mm - FrozenCPU.com

also just a standard screwdriver works well, there is no need for a precision tip.

also get some good thermal paste too. i recommend mx-3,mx-4 or ocz freeze

 

I'd definitely go for OCZ freeze. I hear it's the same as MX-3 (which i have and can vouch is great) but at a fraction of the cost.

I don't know if laptops work the same as a desktop but when working with Desktop parts i always have a part of me touching the chassis to ground myself.

Hell, i have a old desktop that i've built a Loooooong time ago that i've always messed around with that STILL runs perfect and even boots up faster than my M15x. lol

It's an AMD athlon XP 2000, 768 megs of ram, Nvidia FX 5200, and a 7200rpm 60 gig HDD.

Oh, and and a little off topic, but i received the payment through Paypal already. I'm just waiting for it to clear to my bank account.

EDIT: OH! one last thing i forgot, make sure you have at least bios a06... At least i think it's A06. Otherwise, your laptop won't recognize the card. Of course, anything after A06 is fine too.

 

Yea just yesterday I updated bios to a08. Did you say it is safe to just be touching an unpainted metal surface periodically throughout the installation? And also any screwdriver works? That sounds great now I just need nonconducting thermal paste and maybe thermal sheet stuff. Hope they have that at fries.

 

Well during the installation of all my parts i'd always have my elbow touching a metal part of the Chassis...

Like i said before though, i don't know exactly if it works the same as a desktop since they say it has to be plugged in for that to work. If you really want to be cautious go for the wrist strap. It's all up to you.

When you go to fries just ask if they have MX-3 or OCZ freeze. As mentioned before, OCZ freeze is probably about the same quality only less pricey.

I think as long as you hold it properly (by the edges and NOT the top or bottom side of the board) you'll be fine. That's just me though.

 

When i went to fries they had about 7 kinds of thermal paste, all around $10, none of which i had ever heard the name of before. I wanted one that was non-conductive so that narrowed it down to a couple and i just chose the one with highest thermal conductivity, "Biostar nano diamond thermal compound" with apparently >3.8 W/m-k thermal conductivity. Apparently, it has actually diamond fragments in it, isn't that weird? The other specifications they listed seemed kind of irrelevant to me. TELL ME NOW if i should return that and look for other specifications? Also, they did not have thermal padding of any sort, but did have wristband thing i got for $5.

 

The way I see it is, considering how much we pay for our laptops, we owe it to ourselves to take reasonable anti static precautions. Part of the problem is that we won't even know or feel it if we have damaged a chip due to static discharge, and in some cases it will just negatively affect the performance or reliability of a chip in the longterm as opposed to destroying it outright.

 

That adds a whole new scariness to computers I didn't even know about until sortof recently

 

Where can you buy the 5870 for the best price?

 

I bought one from Archnemesis, who bought it from Babyhemi, who bought it from clevo because i think he works for a company that buys a ton of them from clevo. As far as I know, most people buy them from babyhemi. I believe his email is [email protected]

 

I kinda forgot about alcohol. You might want to have alcohol handy to clean the die of the card. I forgot to clean the paste off of it before sending it out =(

It's not going to cause harm or anything like that, but it would have been nice of me to clean it up before sending it out. >_<

I'm terribly sorry about that.

 

I have alcohal, but in addition, when a guy came over to fix my keyboard, i told him i was gonna get a new graphics card and he gave me some professional die-cleaning wipe, which i assume would be effective.

 

Perfect! Nice going on that one!

 

thermal pads are needed for the ram chips. i recommend using .5mm pads.

 

Thanks for the post dude. So Only the pink parts require thermal pads, right?

Or is it just the main rows of 4 chips?

 

that is a very helpful picture, thanks inap.

 

Just the main RAM chip 8 total. The other parts are not needed, from testing it didn't make a difference.

 

So only the 8 ram chips in the 2 rows need to have thermal pads on them? How would I go about cutting the pieces of pad out of a sheet, with scissors? Do I make them bigger or smaller than the chip? thanks.

 

yeah just cut the pad with scissors, cut two long strips. one for each row and it can be slightly larger.

 

I still have 2 questions. Do I still need that EK thermal pad .5mm if I get the 5870 in with the AW pads and it doesn't overheat? Do I uninstall the current nvidia driver before putting the 5870 in?

 

the ek pads are recommend on the clevo 5870 because those tend to run hotter then the dell cards. yes it is also best to uninstall all the nvidia stuff, use driver sweeper and ccleaners, before installing the ati card.

also i recommend flashing your card to a lower voltage to keep it cooler, the stock voltage on a clevo card is 1.15v. lower it to 1.0v or 1.05v.

 

How do I lower the voltage on it?

 

you will need a bootable usb stick with atiflash on it. but first install the card, if you see it running too hot then i will help you make the bootable stick.

 

good, cus i lost my 16gb USB drive which i found on the ground in 7th grade.
I think I will try installing it now after running those programs you mentioned, get back to you in a few minutes.

 

I put the 5870 in and my computer didn't recognize it! It installed some standard VGA adapter and in gpu-z it is blank. Help

 

After a reboot gpu-z recognizes some info but not all. I just installed ati catalyst and rebooting again now.

 

yeah thats sounds right, its always a standard vga driver when you first install it in without any drivers. if its booting up then you know the card is good already.

 

Ok. Now I have rebooted, it seems everything is working fine. the 5870 is now at
51/58/54 idle temps. I downclocked the core to 250 and the ram to 900 because fans were going on so loud I was worried of heat, at that time i didn't have GPU-z open yet. I am only worried that it has no shader speed. Do only nvidia cards have shaders?

 

Wow now the temps are 49/52/50! is that good?

 

yeah those temps look good. but watch out for load tempt when playing a game. you can down clock it lower too, about 200/300.

 

I was just playing a game called combat arms if you have ever heard of it. ram reached peak of 71*C. now trying crysis

 

Those are pretty good temps. Around the same that i had. i NEVER went above 73c Unless i was using Furmark for a good amouint of time. Even then i think after 10 minutes i only peaked around 80c before the fans would blast like crazy.

Anyway, i don't think you have to flash it since i already flashed them to run on 1.05v

I hope you're enjoying the card. She's great isn't she?

 

Crysis peaked at 82c after about half an hour of play. I did notice that it is already flashed to 1.05v. I am very satisfied with the card so far. It runs crysis looking practically real.

 

Yeah that's not bad. Once you get those other Thermal pads you should be good to go.

 

By how much does lowering the voltage affect the performance? If I ever get the temperatures very controllable, would there be a reason to turn the voltage higher?

 

higher voltage is only necessary when oc'ing to keep higher clocks stable.

 

So there is not even a performance drop from normal voltage to 1.05, only heat?

 

yeah running at stock clock you won't see any difference in performance, just unneeded heat like you said.