Replacement 8600M GT GPU

So my Acer 5920g laptop turned off while playing the Left 4 Dead demo last night, and on turning it on again I'm presented with no display; just power lights.

I've been told on another forum that the laptop GPU (apparently 8600's are prone to overheating easily) has probably been fried and that it is failing POST, and to add to that I'm pretty sure my warranty is out of date by now

So, seen as how I'm probably going to have to be paying for the repairs myself...how much do I expect this to be?

The laptop has only just recieved a replacement motherboard 2 months ago while it was still under warranty for having a problem so the constant problems especially when dealing with acer customer support has been very frustrating.

Thanks.

 

A new 8600mGt isnt very cheap. Probably about $350 or so

But your in luck
a Guy on nbr had like 15 of these graphics cards for sale for a good price
Here is a link:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=278046&highlight=8600+MXM

The post is a few months old, so try sending the guy a PM (personal message) to see if he still has any.

K-TRON

 

Hi K-TRON, thanks for your reply.

I'm not overly-familar with laptop hardware, so is the current 8600M GT 256mb card in my laptop an MXM card? I thought MXM was an expansion card type thing, not a standard slot for your current card if that makes any sense? Plus these cards seem to be 512mb, would they still be compatible?

Also, I'm not too keen on buying from an eBay seller. No offence intended to the dude, it's just I would feel more comfortable getting it directly from acer plus I would have no idea how to fit it although that isn't much of a problem because I'm sure there are instructions flying about the interweb

 

After checking out that eBayer, he seems legit enough and my dad said I could go ahead with it.

Please can you answer the above questions however, as I need to know exactly how this works

Apologies if this seems impatient, I just really need to get this fixed!

 

The 8600mGt in your laptop is removable, and comes on the MXM interface.
So installation of the card is basically a snap.
Here is an image of the underside of a 5920G laptop: (the graphics card is between the Toshiba harddrive and the cooling fan - The graphics card has the MSV086B0706292632 number on it)


To operate,
flip the laptop over, shut off all power (Ac power and main battery)
Than with a small phillips head screwdriver, remove the screws on the bottom plastic cover of your laptop. When the cover is unscrewed, you will be able to remove the cover, and gain access to your graphics card.

The graphics cards for sale should be 100% compatible with your current laptop.

If you want, you can call up Acer and see how much they charge for a new 8600mGt, and than compare prices with the guy selling online.

K-TRON

 

Good work Ktron, useful info.

 

Very good info there K-tron, thanks man

 

anytime, guys.

Just make sure to be gentle with your laptop. If something doesnt come apart right away, check to see if you missed any screws, before trying to force anything apart.

K-TRON

 

Before you go ahead and buy it, try hooking up the laptop to an external display (such as a TV) and seeing if you get any display. While it could be the graphics card, it's also possible that it's something to do with the LCD that's the problem if there's no display. It's not better if it's the LCD that's the problem; you just want to make sure you don't buy the wrong replacement part for the problem.

If you don't get a display on the external monitor either, chances are quite good it is the video card.

 

Hi Apollo, thanks for the advice I did hook it up previously to an external display and had no results.

So my replacement card arrived today, it was nicely packaged but the sender has recommended I apply thermal grease before fitting. Where exactly would this be applied on the card?

The laptop already has "thermal pads" in place, I just need to know where to apply the grease! Also, there was some "tissue" or material near the screws stuck onto the card...I'm wondering if this is a problem although the laptop started fine and worked perfectly with the new card regardless of this tissue like material.

Thanks!

 

The grease is applied over the gpu itself - so you'd remove the heatsink in place, add a small film of grease over the GPU (and under any other heatsinks), and replace the heat sinks. However, I'd ask the person who sent it though to make sure, and try googling for this - there are zillions of pics of people doing this out there.

 

Be careful with removing thermal pad from GPU. It is possible that in standard conditions GPu does not touch heatsink at all, only the pad will fill this gap providing heat transfer. At least mine does that and I read about it on MXM-store homepage.
Anyway, It's sad news for me as I just bought and mounted 8600M GT and now I read that they easily fail and have major design flow that makes them fail...
Not good, not good...

 

Sorry if I sound like a total noob, it's because I am

The Artic Silver 5 stuff hasn't arrived yet, I'm just preparing for when it does. So I removed the card from the MXM slot ( I only have 3 out of 4 screws on the card, is that a problem? ) and underneath there are 3 sticky pads. I assume these are the cool pads providing heat transfer which you're talking about.

So I basically have to remove these pads, and in the area where they were use the thermal paste instead?

Is it not more effective to cover the pads with the paste?

 

I'd say to not remove them and do not cover them with thermal grease !

 

Thanks but for what reason?

 

Thermal pads will fill the gap between GPU and heatsink. There is no need to use thermal grease on pads as the grease is used usually when you have bare CPU/GPU - heatsink connection.
And AFAIK pads have bigger heat transfer than grease...
It all depends if GPU touches heatsink without pads or not. If yes then use a little of the grease (read somewhere how to use it).

 

Wojtek, thanks. I am sure my card will not touch heatsink without pads, so I will continue using that. However, I think I should replace the current pads as they are quite worn down with some small gaps in between.

Can anyone suggest a very good type of thermal pad that I could buy?

 

Try here: http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/store.html. I got my card from there with pads.