AW M17 not an R5 vbios issue?

Ok first thing is I know there was never an R5 for the AW 17. But it seems to be how this laptop is known. Anyways here is my issue. I installed as 980M everything I went fine as far as the install. Card detected and the driver installed no issues. But I noticed the GPU fan was not kicking on. So I ran HWinfo64 and basically found that the 980m is not reporting any temperatures. 0s across the board. My thoughts are either a bad 980m or I need to find a vbios that will work for this card. All thoughts and comments are welcome. Thanks in advance for any and all assistance.

Oh ya @MickyD1234 if you see this it is not the R4 i was dealing with before. That one has been running like a champ.

 

My bad. It reporting temperatures but no fan GPU side. HWinfo64 will not activate the fans.

 

Get the MSI vbios

 

Well it wasn't the vbios. I think it might be the fan itself. I put the original 780 back in and the fan worked for a bit. But as soon as I went to benchmark the fan It crapped out. So it seems to be an intermittent issue with the fan. I have a replacement coming and will update when I get it in.

 

Update

980M
1) Flashed 2 times with MSI bios

• Still no fans GPU side
• MSI bios was provided for me by one of the techsat Eurocom (thanks by the way)

2) Tried HWinfo64 and fanspeed

• Both will run fan CPU side no fans GPU side
• I can monitor the fans and temp with either.But as soon as I attempt to use the softwareto control them GPU fan stops working.
• This behavior is both pre and post MSI bios flash.

If I put the 780M back in place. I only bring this up because it has its own set of issues

780M

GPU fan runs correctly

• But the system seems to have issues moving heat from card side of the heat sink to the copper defusing element.
• I can run my figure along the element fan side to GPU and there is a point just prior to the GPU it goes from cool to untouchable.
• I have usually found that this is due to bad thermal pad placement. But that does not appear to be the case. Verified through pics taken of 780m prior to installation of 980m

Tried HWinfo64 and fanspeed

• Both will run fan CPU side no fans GPU side
• I can monitor the fans and temp with either.But as soon as I attempt to use the softwareto control them GPU fan stops working.
• It would appear that this system does not like software fan controllers.

Potential bad heat sink?

• It is a 3 bar heat sink
• In my experience usually a bad heat sink has a tell if it bad. Sometime visual other times audible.
• Crack where bars meat the heat sink or heat defuser. Or a vibrating or ringing sound when tapped.
• yes I understand this is not 100%

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank for your input in advance.

Patrick