Radeon HD 5870 in XPS 1710

Hi people.
I own machine called XPS 1710 and it has 7900 in it.
From around 1 year i do lots of video editing, so this machine goes 100% 12h/day.

BGA broken twice in my graphics card, i repaired is with heat gun and no mercy, to my surprize it worked.
After 5 months on cycle like this:
5am from 16C -> high temp
830am high->17C
1730 18C->high
2300 high->18C
more balls get cracked.
No wander, ROHS removed all soft and plastic lead from solder, so it cracks like popcorn on new chemistry.
I went to my home country, we desoldered chip, many balls were cracked, so i become interested in why it cracked.

I heated up chip up to 85C measured heat expansion.
I heated up PCB up to 85C measured heat expansion.
THOSE VALUEAS ARE COMPLETLY DIFFERENT, like gravity of moon and sun.
Big bga chips require pcb with similar heat expansion value as chips.
This is major up from Nvidia finishing life of product.

There are even some mathematical formulas where input is, type of solder, heat expansion of pcb and chip, size od chip, size and number of balls, temperature difference, heat up heat down cycles, and effect of those math is how quickly bga leadless solder will fail. I don't know those formulas as i am not soldering engineer, but my experience tells me pcb chemistry is incorrect or somebody deliberately decreased life expectancy.

So...what is my target?
I am fed up that 1710 is limited only to DX9, and fastest graphics is junky NV 79x0.
I work in company which designs electronics generally, high speed PCB design is no problem for me, to be honest it is not high speed.
Real problem is schematic.
I have pinout of 5870. I might consider some high end NV chip as Premiere CS5 supports NV graphics in timeline job and compression.
I have pinouts of memory chips.
DC/DC converter might be required but it is not a problem to design.
Underclocking 5870 is not a problem as well, i aim for 40% lower clock which should be fine for funny heatpipe in 1710.

I need help only with 1 thing:
Pinout of motherboard to graphics board connector in 1710 and values of maximum current i can drain from power lines.

 

Even after all that work, I doubt M1710's bios will support the new GPUs.

This isnt a desktop btw.

 

iirc, the XPS 1710 does not use MXM. So I don't think any upgrade path beyond the 7950 Go exists for this laptop.


If you are still under warranty, you can push for a replacement laptop, which will likely be far better than the old XPS 1710.

 

For me it looks it is not MXM connector as well, thats why i am asking for pinout.
But, logic signals passing through this conenctor are pci express signals, there is no other choice.

It is chipset - gpu communiction and bios has nothing to do here.
Usual pci express but just in different connector, i should be able to connect any pci-x supporting gpu.

I had 1 years of warranty over my 1710 so it is gone.

 

Like I said, it's not going to matter even if you modify and fit the card unless dell updates the new bios for the M1710 just for you.