Dell XPS M1330 - nVidia GeForce 8400M GS - Copper Mod

The reason these GPUs are failing is because the solder that they have been made with have the wrong tin/lead ratio. As a result, over a large quantity of heating up (expanding) / cooling down (contracting) cycles microscopic cracks begin to form in the GPU. Heating up the card at just over the temperature that solder melts allows the solder in the GPU to reflow, mending these cracks. Of course, the material hasn't changed and it's GOING to happen again, but hey, at least it's fixed for another year and you know what to do when it happens again. I don't mind it.

Here's a link with more info and a guide. I didn't follow it to the t, but I did close enough and it worked great.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=385973

 

There a post on this some place here but in short it fixes the dry joints on the mobo. The solder melts while in oven, once cooled down the solder joints make a good bond to the circuit board.

Found it
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=385973

@Hep sorry bro I see you added the thread, my internet running real slow...

 

Guys I have a question!
Is this 8400 failure caused by solder joints? IE cold solder balls under the GPU?!

Are those ba$tards using lead free solders just like Microsoft with their Xbox 360?!
If that's the case I would be reaaaaaaaaally happy cause guess what?!
I've been fixing dead Xboxes for about a year and a half now and I have every piece of tool required to fix those solder balls (like a reflow station, flux, etc.)
and I'm a professional!

One other thing is that I was one of the guys developing the Hybrid x-clamp fix for Xbox and I was wondering if I could do the same thing with this XPS as well.

 

It's super similar to the Xbox, but not exactly. The Xbox is partially because of the solder, partially because of unequally distributed pressure. You can use your reflow station to do pretty much any motherboard with an 8400 and it should work (I don't need to give you the disclaimers, you're a professional), but I wouldn't bother modifying the HSF assembly, because it's already distributing equal pressure and is not really part of the problem.

 

wow thanks for the info man!
The x-clamp fix for Xbox actually puts more pressure on the chip so that those weak solder joints won't break and get disconnected and reconnects them in case they are already disconnected. It also (as you mentioned) equalizes the pressure distribution over the whole chip.

So if the cold solders are the case with these 1330s, then I should be happy!
But I hope fixing these are easier than a Xbox! Those boxes are sometimes a real pain in the a$$...

 

Having fixed both I can attest that the M1330 is easier.
Xbox 360 was designed to be very difficult to take apart.
M1330 was designed to be very easy to take apart.

M1330 teardown to motherboard: 10-15 minutes
Xbox 360 teardown to motherboard: 30-45, sometimes more, minutes.
Though I take apart laptops all day every day, whereas I've only taken apart two 360s, which does probably factor into those times.

Point is Dell designs their systems to be easily serviceable, Microsoft designed the 360 to be difficult to open let alone fully disassemble.

 

Xbox 360 tear down to pieces takes like 10 minutes for me!
But I think M1330 tear down would take something like 30-45 for me!
Cause I haven't done this even once!

Yeah you're right! M$ doesn't want anybody to be able to tamper with those 360s that easily.

Thanks again man

 

No problem, as always, glad to help. Be sure to post back your results/if you have any more questions.

 

Just reporting in my results from the Copper Mod. Idle temp of GPU has dropped to 57 from 67 and stress temp has dropped to 65 from 80+. Truly amazing, and all for about 30 dollars and ten minutes work. Thanks so much to everyone that contributed to this guide.

 

hi guys.

my first post in here, so be gentle please...

ok. so I got my copper shim, proper thermo grease with silver and other bits that I'm going to need, but... can anyone who oven baked his motherboard can tell me, do I need to cover anything on the board? see... on my also broken xbox 360 I had to wrap few parts of mobo in thermo insulating material to avoid blowing/ burning things like capacitors.

is there anywhere any detailed, idiotproof guide how to bake m1330 motherboard?

thanks

 

Search within this forum or Google for it details are all there.

 

thanks mate... :/ well... I was actually hoping to get a quick, non generic answer from someone who baked m1330 board, but ok... my bad. I should remember that I can get flamed for asking for help in first post.

oh well... at least I know that detailed guide is hidden here somewhere.

 

It has nothing at all to do with how many posts you have. It has to do with the fact that this topic isn't about baking M1330 motherboards, if you want a guide, search for it. If you can't find it, make a new topic. You'll probably have better luck just searching for a more generic, laptop motherboard baking guide.

 

well... I was just trying to avoid creating a new topic, as I would probably be flamed even more... quick answer to my question (which wasn't very offtopic btw) would cause less nuisance than this debate.

anyway, thanks for Your time mate. I'll go and do my homework now. I will try to post my results tomorrow or on sunday, even if You don't care much.

what a nice forum full of friendly people...

 

You're negative attitude is the problem, not us man.
I am always willing to help anyone on this forum, so long as they post a question in a coherent manner, respectfully, and in the right place.

 

I guess You're right. sorry about it and sorry for the offtop. apologies accepted??

the board is disassembled, ready to be cooked. after reflow is done - coming back to the topic.

 

It's all good.
Be sure to remove any soft plastic or foam on the board before baking it. Of course hard plastic, like connectors or slots, cannot be removed, but shouldn't be touched either until 100% cool.

 

ok. so I though "wth... I'll risk it. new mobo is only like 300 pounds..." lol

... well. IT F... WORKS!!

completely dead gpu, non starting laptop, v. dark grey screen with wide light grey stripe before that colour artifacts on the screen. typical stuff...

completely naked mobo in the oven, heating up slowly up to 225C deg., about 8 minutes of baking, half an hour of cooling down (again - in stages) and the result is me typing on my m1330 again WITHOUT spending a single penny on other ppl labour.

thanks for this thread guys. I hope that it's gonna last quite long with this mod, as I don't really need a new machine.

br

bro

 

Very glad to hear it worked out for you. Makes me want to pick up some more dead machines and fix them like this for myself.

 

Fore the few bucks it cost to get a Ally or cooper plate plus some good terminal paste it's worth doing the heat sink mod (copper mod), and may be you could left the rear end of the laptop with say a book so the underside has a better air flow.
Happy typing.

 

yeah... I've done this copper mod, but can't say much about temperatures as I haven't checked them before failure. now it's like 58-60 C deg. idle and below 80 on heavier use. I'll do some tests tomorrow, but that damn thing came back from the dead and it's a sweet thing. imagine, my only computer for last month was se xperia pda.

 

Just wanted to say thanks for this mod...

I ordered the shim from ebay and installed it with AC5 today. Wow, what a difference!

I'm using Linux on my M1330 and previously the fan was running 80-90% of the time @ high speed. As a result battery life was atrocious, not to mention the laptop being extremely hot to the touch (and noisy).

I updated the BIOS as per Dell; this really did nothing. Cleaned out the fan with compressed air (this helped quite a bit) and finally today I installed the shim.

The Nvidia GPU is now much cooler, 41C at idle (down from 60C+).
The CPU cores are now 30-34C at idle, which is also a HUGE improvement.

This is really where I expect the temps to be in any notebook and now consider the issue fixed and the M1330 operating normally. It's cool to the touch and very, very quiet.

Many thanks!

Update: After several days of use, I'm pleased to report that the temperatures have dropped even further:

Nvidia GPU: 38C @ Idle
CPU Cores: 26-29 @ Idle

I've yet to hear the fan operate at anything other than it's lowest speed, which is another nice side effect.

 

Glad it worked out for you, and thank for for the feedback.

 

Hello everyone.

I do remember that someone already mentioned about applying copper mod to Inspiron 1525, but I can't find that again. As 1525 does not have dedicated graphics, I thought about placing a shim on top of the chipset, but after looking into it, it seems that 1.5mm is a bit too thick. The heatpipe is already bent a little in 1525's heat assembly.

Has anyone done this? Any recommendations?

 

Are you having issues with your 1525? Unless you are having heat issues (which I have never heard of) then I would suggest leaving the system as it it.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

Well, it's not a big issue, but it's fan keeps kicking in once in a while even when laptop idling. And I'm just thinking, if copper mod would help. I guess you're right and I'll leave it alone

Thanks!

 

Good idea lets see how this plays out!

 

Try cleaning out the build up of dust from fan unit and take it from there.

 

Done that. Also replaced original thermal paste with AS5.
As I said, I'll leave it like it is now

 

What is getting hot enough to kick in the fan (chipset, CPU, GPU)?
Use hwmonitor to watch temps to see which runs hottest. There are other things that can be done which I would personally try before heatsink modification. Cleaning and paste are two which you've tried, but I would also update my video drivers, update the system BIOS, and undervolt my CPU.

 

I kinda sorted it out. It's all due to different fan control logic. The fan on 1525 either does not spin at all or spins faster than 3800 rpm. So, the CPU & chipset warm up to 50C, fan kicks in, cools it down to 38 and stops. CPU & chipset warm up and so on. While 1330 in contrast keeps fan rotating at a very low speeds, so it cools but barely audible.

I can't tell if it's CPU or chipset (or both) heat up the pipe as I see no sensor on the chipset (tried only speedfan and hwmonitor though). Mine is with Intel graphics, so no dedicated GPU.

It appears, there is no solution for that issue. For now I've just undervolted the CPU, so fan starts more rarely.

 

Did the mod, worked excellently! I used Artic MX-3 thermal paste on both CPU and GPU with copper mod, and my temps have been reduced drastically. Thanks to the OP for this mod!

 

ok. some time after the mod I come back to post the results. gpu temp seems to be 76 c deg. max under heavier use and about 57 idle. cpu is about 70 max and 45 idle. (measured with CPUID Hardware Monitor)

sooo.....? is that quite ok?

once again - thanks to op of this thread and the rest of the community who have helped owners of m1330 to feel bit more safe now.

 

Your temps are fine but if you use your laptop often do a maintenance on it say every 2 months or ever 4months light usage by cleaning the fan unit and exhaust fins.

 

umm... do You live in here BlackRussian?? that was darn quick answer. thanks for the tip!

 

I'm always in the back ground
While on the subject of tips if you use your laptop in a fixed location you can also jack the rear end to aid cooling.

 

Hi
is there any problem if i use 150mmX200mmX1.5mm C106 half hard copper sheet which i fined in ebay?
If i cannot used this dimensions , How I can cat it ?
Thanks a lot

 

Why don't you use that one. 15x20 is fine as long as it properly contacts your thermal assembly. After you disassemble everyting, check that your copper shim is fully covered with thermal assembly. i.e. does not stick out. If it is, then don't use it.

 

I can't remember the overall clearance area just make sure it does not foul any components or contacts around the GPU die.

 

I purchased my shims from an ebay supplier who confirmed they were cut for the M1330. When they arrived, they were the corect thickness but were almost twice as big as the central die. Luckily I had some metal cutters and trimmed them down to be a perfect fit and both work very well. As the central dies are not that high I would definitely NOT recommend fitting shims that are much bigger than they need to be or you could risk shorting out the chips.

 

Which copper shim is better C106 or C101 ? I am not good in these things

 

I find that C101 has higher thermal conductivity.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=318359

 

Hi guys,

I am now having problems with vertical lines on the screen with my warranty running out, so I decide to do this "copper mod" myself. I used i8kfangui31 on my lap, and I saw that my GPU temp is usually <50C, while chipset can be over 70C at times.

I think the chipset is the closest one to the fan, not the NVIDIA thing, right? So should I apply the copper to the chipset instead? Also, do you think this mod can solve the problem when it just appeared?

 

I doubt that your chipset (NB or SB, I dont think either has a temp sensor) has a temp sensor.

70C is either a CPU temp, or it is the TZ temp.

TZ = thermal zone, a value based on your CPU temp (actually based on the devices in the TZ, but usually the only device is the CPU).

So I would suggest undervolting the CPU, changing the thermal paste and cleaning out the dust.

 

Thank you for the quick reply.

I think I will use Arctic Cooling MX-3 for the copper mod on the GPU (I will use this MX-3 on the CPU too), and then undervolting the CPU (like you suggested). I hope it will work well.

Also, has anyone applied the copper mod AFTER seeing the "vertical lines" problems a few times like I am now? If yes, how long has it (or would it) last?

I heard that MX-3 > MX-2 > Arctic Silver 5 and MX-3 doesnt require the 200 hours break-in time like AS5. Can anyone confirm me about this information?

Thanks so much!!! I will surely do the mod and fill in the poll above .

 

Good choice of paste (MX-2/3), as to your point it's more likely to fail even with the mod as the sign's are already in-place. Try and get mobo replace and do the mod once the mobo has been replace. Even with the problems you have your temps will come down with the mod but the time bomb has already started to tick in your case.

 

Ye, I know that replacing the hobo would be the best choice; however, right now I do not have that hundred USD to cover for the cost. So I intend to do the mod to cool things down, and hope it will last for 2 or 3 more years, at that time I would be able to buy a new laptop (and it may not be a dell anymore...)

About the MX-2 and MX-3, do they really not need the break-in time?

 

If you still have warranty, shouldn't they give you a free replacement?

 

Too bad that my warranty has expired Y_Y.

 

Yes but Dell have a extended warranty by 1 year on these mobos/gpu nvidia @ no cost.(fauty gpu)
I used MX-2 and it kicked in right away.