GPU and Screen AND harddrive related issue.

Okay guys, I own an Area-51 M5550i R3, With a 6600GO from a regular M5550, And like the tard I was back in the day with no technological knowledge, I drilled out the holes on the heatsink and appled bolts to the heatsink and up through the card, Now, The laptop hasnt been powered on since that mod because I have no method of actually seeing, Since the Screen got smashed my someone putting something heavy on the top of it, AND THEN, I came across another issue, My harddrive was somehow slammed to pieces.

Now, My question is, Would a new screen of the exact same model, and a new harddrive be the fix? because just earlier I attempted to boot it with no HDD and no screen when attached to my 24 inch asus monitor, and I received no output, and I have no way of telling if the GPU fan is operational.

So Is the lack of harddrive and screen preventing me from seeing bios? Also what are the chances that when I applied the bolts to the GPU that it grounded it and is causing a short? All the proper thermal paste was appled to my knowledge.

 

From the way it was tryped it sounds like you put bolts through the card. That alone will cause issues. Please correct me if I misread that.

 

No no, I put them through the holes that are meant for screws, the bolts fit through the card fine, but the heatsink was too small of a fit, so I drilled it out and then tightened them down creating a sandwich type of thing.

 

Thats really one chain of bad luck I guess. Well, as long as you only did a heatsink mod, the card should still work if you didnt damage it. What kind of card is it? Maybe you can fit it into another laptop and do a quick test before spending bucks on additional hardware.

 

I understand what he talking about it seem the same issue I had with my m5550i r3. There is a gap between the heatsink and gpu. Even with the thermal paste. You can see light between it on this picture.



You should be able to get part from the website below it might help

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=238801

http://www.excelcomputerinc.com/html/xlsearchbrandresults.asp?brand=alienware

Another idea is take the bolts out and try with the normal screws. If the gpu get to hot it will shut down at 100c. You need to find out if you can get to the bios.

 

Seah, Normal screws wouldnt work because they had nowhere to thread, and even without the bolts, I could get into bios with the heatsink just sitting on it, I could even be in windows doing things for 10 to 20 minutes before the dots showed up signifying overheating. I would be trying to get into bios now but for some reason when I connect the laptop to my Asus that I use for my main computer, I get no signal.

 

I would make sure that the heatsink isn't pressing on the card anywhere else causing a short, that would stop it from booting and as you said it booted with it just resting on it.

Also What the hell was done to that laptop!? to smash it all up

 

Like I said, someone decided to have a field day with it possibility of just laying tools on it or just being rough in general, I wasnt the one to do it. But Im the one that gets to fix it.

 

So I SHOULD be seeing bios when I connect my monitor right?

 

Usually if there is an external display connected at boot up it clones the screen to that too, so yeah, you should be seeing something at least, It does power up though, right ?

 

as far as I can tell, The HDD is spinning and all the lights are on etc (I got a new HDD in, however im sending it back if the GPU is broken here.)

 

It may be a knackered GPU, but make sure everything is seated, screwed down properly and not shorting epecially on the GPU, as it sounds like that laptop has taken a beating and rattled about.

 

Yeah...Im just going to try it with the new screen I have on order, and if it dosent work I quit, I'm not putting anymore money into this.

 

You can always strip it to parts and sell to recoup some money from it if it comes to it...