Upgrade a G73-jh to 6970?

G74 mobo in a G73 won't work. The fans are place differently for example.

 

I was not talking about the motherboard, only the top panel which goes above the mobo. There might be problems with the connectors, the placement of the PCH but that's the only real issues i can foresee. This isn't something i'll try until i can compare pics of both panels.

 

Ah, ok, sorry. Yes... that's an idea... but since the hinge of the G74 is differently it might not work physically.

First of all slap back the 6970m
Too bad exchanging the GPU of the G73 is such a strenuous, time-consuming task.

 

Yeah, well i encountered problems other than the swap itself. They mostly weren't 6970m related, but i had to switch back to the 5870 just to make sure. Anyways, in 4 days there will be another attempt. Like my title says 6970m or die trying...

If i can't make it work, i'll go hide in a corner out of shame. If i can, well you can be certain the neighbors will be wondering what's going on.

 

How does one change his title anyway?

 

USER CP -> Edit Profile. Its at the top.

 

You need to attain the title of notebook deity in order to do so i think. I'm sure there's a minimum amount of post to get to before you can...

 

Doesnt seem to be there for me either. *shrugs*

I am itching for a 6970 though...

 

Come on crappy your lacking posts!

 

New GPU-Z is out: 0.5.4

 

Updated link on Driver & App page.

 

Cool, i'll be sure to get it for this week-end's testing.

 

Just a head up that later today, i'll be putting the 6970m back in my G73 and working on having it perform as it should over the week-end. Expect an update in a few hours. For now, i'm gonna grab something to heat. Too bad, the materials for the heatsink mod i'm planning haven't arrived yet thanks to purolator's drivers who can't find an apartment buzz code by themselves. It's not like there's a list in the entrance either .

 

Good Luck!!

 

Thanks, but unfortunately, i might have killed the card. Will try again putting it in tomorrow, but i got a similar problem to tudor.

On the bright side, i managed to get the Dell vBios onto the card, install the drivers and i started a furmark run. clocks went to 680/900 without me having to touch anything so that's good at least. That when 1 or 2 mins into furmark, the screen went black and nothing was displayed. Didn't manage to get POST to display either after that. Everything works fine with the 5870. When i removed the heatsink, i saw that the corners of the die weren't covered completely and that makes me think the card is dead. Oh and i was hitting over 30fps in furmark 720p 4x AA, dynamic background, post fx and extreme burning so the card was probably performing up to specs. There is no visible sign of damage on the 6970m, but that doesn't mean anything.

So far, this seems to be the biggest fail of my life...

 

Uh, damn
I can hear your scream.
What were the temperatures at this moment?
Could this be a problem from a bad batch of 6970's?

 

Temps around 80C, but like i said, the corners of the die weren't covered with paste. Bad batch maybe as well.

 

So you have prooved that the 6970M DOES work in the JH model with the Dell Vbios and performs as it should.

However the heatsink is not easily modified to fit it and that seems to be 2 cards burnt out because of it. I noticed that the JH is not great as it is the bloody thing is no way straight when it covers the 5870M.

A custom made copper heatsink and the JH will own.

Good work Tijo real shame bout the card

 

IMHO, the paste is just to make a better contact. If the heatsink sits flat on the die, even no paste should work. Just with higher temps.
And 80's on all (?) sensors are fine.
But this won't help you now.

 

Yeah, this won't help me. I will still try the card in it tomorrow to see if i can get something displayed. I highly doubt it, but it's worth a try at this point.

I'm a bit surprise too as the card was fine the first time i tried it with a similar paste job.

 

I had no problem with the JH heatsink which I modded, the die was covered very well, and the paste spread evenly across it...

Sorry to hear about this...!

 

Didn't have problems with the modded heatsink the first two times either.

 

Yes, I know... weird. Bad applying of paste happens... hmmm but it must've been really bad luck if it killed the card.

 

Indeed, i'll know for sure tomorrow. Shame though, i get the card working properly and bam it dies! Fate is out to get me it seems.

 

Strange that two cards have died when they have had full conductivity with the heatsink. Is there definetely no other sections that needs contact like a memory controller?

Maybe there is another factor and the JH mobo is killing the card.

 

Yea I agree, there's got to be something else at play.. If it was a temp problem shouldn't it be causing a thermal shutdown before burning out the card..?

or perhaps the Clevo guys were right and the 6970m does have an unbelievably high failure rate when putting it.. IIRC, they said that they had a lot of cards fail when building new systems but once they did get a card which worked through their testing there were no further problems..

So, I guess if there is a 3rd try by anyone, they should ask one the Clevo Sellers (ken@gentech,Justin@xotic,etc) whether they can sell them a tested card coz IMO if they have card failures i think they dont have to bear the brunt and can just return em to company (or at lest that's how it should work..)

Btw if any of the resellers are reading this, input would be welcome as to whether even you guys are facing such failures with the 6970m...?

 

Thats why they took the card off from production in the first place? as it had a lot of faults.


Hmm did you get the voltage when it furmarked? was voltage normal or did it by any chance spike ?

 

I think this 6970m reseller should be testing his cards before selling them.

 

Im really starting to think its really just a bad batch of 6970m's...

 

Or maybe there is a voltage issue with the G73's connector when used with a 6970M?

 

I doubt that Revan, it's still MXM 3.0b standard.

 

tijo your card is from same source like tudorwolfs? It is shame that you guys have both burnt your new 6970m. I feel with you and if you had been closer I could maybe be able to help you as I am skilled with small electronics repair.

 

Well, if I was to buy a 6970M, I'd use another vendor.

 

$1000 of scrap metal. Think its time to wait until prices drop before trying again or at least try to figure out what is happening.

The 5870M is still a great card dont wanna see you guys lose anymore money.

 

Well, dead card and dead G73 now . I'll have to find a replacement unit for my G73 or RMA it. Unfortunately, it is now obvious that it's been tampered with so when i send them the unit, they'll charge me for it. I tried the 6970m in it this morning, confirmed it was dead, put back the 5870m, screen started flickering after a while and then it died. Now it won't even turn on. Tired resetting everything i could think of and still nothing. I guess i took it apart one time too many. Now i'll have to find a replacement for it that won't cost me an arm and a leg. So it will either be refurb JH with a screen swap seeing as the screen wasn't the problem or a G73SW. What do you guys think?

Or order a new mainboard and 5870 from Asus if i can...

Well, it turns back on now but still no display.

 

Sorry to hear that. You can try this when you disassemble it next time: try and power on machine without gpu if it starts and load windows (you cant see but you hear noise) then it is nothing else but your 5870m, if not then its something on mainboard.

 

Well, i still can't explain what happened, but now it seems to be working again. I guess i assumed the worse too soon. Still, it's weird as i completely had no display what so ever, it didn't want to turn on but now it does. I couldn't install 11.6 normally though, i had to use the asder mod but if that's the only problem i get now, i won't complain. This machine has been through hell. Well, now it only has to last for another 6 months or so. I start a Ph.D. afterwards and the university will pay me a new notebook. Yeah, that is awesome by the way. They paid for more than half of my G73 anyways so even with the cash i dropped on it, i didn't pay more than what i would normally have paid for an A2.

 

Glad its working again buddy!

 

LOL. That is good to hear . Our g73`s seems to live their own lives...

Anyway tijo you didnt answered my question. Did you got your 6970m from same seller as tudorwolf?

 

Yes i did, i live in Canada so my options were rather limited. $420 for a Clevo card or $800 for an AW card...

I'm sure the driver install problem isn't with the card itself but rather me doing something stupid. Anyways, all i'll have to do when 11.7 comes out is install it on top of 11.6, it always worked well for me so far as long as i installed on top of other 11.x drivers.

 

Now its working Tijo I would just stick with your 920xm and 5870M if I were you fella clearly it does not like the power the 6970M chucks out and last thing you want to do is be stranded with a brick.

Good attempts and advice to help prevent others from risking it. +1 again for your work.

 

Ok, well everything seems to be working fine now. I might be stuck with a case of cracked PCB that will come bite me in the rear sometime in the future though. Only time will tell. Everything seems stable now so that's good.

Now are my conclusions on the 6970m

The mobo can certainly deliver the power, but it might also be what's killing the card (voltage fluctuations or something else maybe).

My main two hypothesis as to why the card died are:
1. bad paste job or loose heatsink (thermals if you prefer).
2. Faulty Clevo card.

My advice is don't try it unless you're willing to kill the card and if you intend to try it, do it with a Dell card.

The other good piece of news, is that my desktop budget for this month will be intact .

 

Hmm, I think it might be a conflict between the motherboard BIOS and the card itself, as you've documented an odd chain of events. Most 6970M upgrades (M15x, M17x, Gt660, etc.) were relatively simple plug-n-play type installs.

BTW, are you using a 150w PSU and is your 920XM overclocked?

 

Hmm, too bad. I doubt that the card was faulty. It could be an issues with the mobo or PCI-E, who knows... it's really weird, two attempts and two dead cards...

Though I tried the card in the 6970m twice and it didn't die...


Let me know in case you're selling your dead card, could maybe use some parts of it.

 

I'll see if i can take it to the sager reseller near me to get it tested first. That way i could be able to confirm whether it is dead or not...

 

Sorry to hear your card is fried but good to here the G73 is alive and well. The Ebay re-seller has a low rating IMHO. Ebay is one of the worst places to buy parts from. The seller does not warranty a brand new card? I find that highly suspicious as they should be backed by the manufacturer. I think whoever it is got a batch of defective GPU's at a low price and is trying to sell them off. I would advise anyone else attempting a 6970m to use a Dell as Tijo said.

 

Any news on the card ? dead or just passed out ?

Been thinking a bit and and the problem maker might be the amperage.
We know that the card works by tha fact that it gets voltage and runs on the 150w powerbrick..... now the only thing we do not know is what amperage the motherboard is feeding the card.

Almperage is the main reason for overheating and killing electronics.

Still looking for some info on what the cards use but not that much luck. It might be that the G73JH amperage that is use by the card is controled or even hotwired to the motherboard and why your card kicked the bucket was a result of overheating transistors on the edge of the card. Bad part is if they did get a heat damage you would need special tools to find out were the damge is as it does not show on a transistor.

P.S at first the clock were off right well was the voltage correct then ? Lower voltage = more heat .....just saying

 

You mean higher voltage = more heat (actually a lot more heat)

 

That, however there didn't seem to be a voltage problem the first 2 times i tried it. For those who know a bit of math, heat increases to the square with voltage while the increase is linear with clock speeds which a more radical increase in heat generation when increasing the voltage versus clock speeds. Hence the reason why it's better to OC a xm CPU with the multipliers instead of the BCLK.

If i had the cash, which i don't, i'd get a second G73 as a test bed and a 6990m, but like i said i don't have the money for that .

 

Amm i think you need to read some more....current creats heat. Think about it. It is current (amperage) flowing against a resistance that does work and produces heat. Not excess voltage.

Well thats what my physics teacher taught us