How to: Replace your broken (8600M GT) graphics card (in the [I]FL90)

Hi,

as a first, try to bake the 8600M GT - that should make it work for a few tests. See first post on some hints on that (short story: 180° C for 10 minutes, chipset facing UP, let it cool off, put it in)

The blue 4570 looks like a Toshiba card to me. These are not compatible out of the box. Might need some soldering, but I cannot help there.

The 2nd looks okay, might just be faulty. The backing trick does not work there, you have to resell it as-is.

If you or your pal wants to play video games with the laptop, try ATI 3650 DDR2 (NOT DDR3, they sometimes make trouble) with 512MB, or a ATI 4650 (which might give you heat issues and sometimes also bad performance .. .see 1t POST, PCI-E throttling).

If you just want to have a laptop for office and 2D stuff, go get an ATI 3400/3450/3470. They work very good, very reliable, but close to no gaming performance.

Good luck

 

i have still in my fl90 gt8600m, but the good questions is however 4870 from clevo fit?

 

If space would suffice (which I doubt), as the 4870 is larger than "normal" MXM II cards, you get it with the right connector (MXM II, not MXM III A/B) and you somehow can keep it cool (which I doubt, again), than go ahead.

I wouldn't try it ... not worth the money.

Good luck

 

Hi,

I am selling my ATI 4650 DDR2 of my FL90 on german ebay -> !TOP - ATI 4650 MXM 2 II 1024MB DDR2 aus Acer 6530G, Compal FL90, u.v.a.m | eBay

It's undervolted, for maximal life time, but still has enough power for decent gaming.

Some people here reported interest, so I post that info here. As I do not know how much it is worth it, I put it on ebay, as I do not want to ask a certain price for it.

Cheers

 

Hi,

thanks for the timely response. I actually DID try to bake the 8600M GT, and it allowed the laptop to work just for a few minutes, so I was able to verify that the rest of the components are working. It seems the first 3650 I bought was a dud, as I ordered a second one and was able to finally revive the laptop with it. Fortunately I will get refunds from the sellers of these defective cards Thanks for the great tutorial As a side note, I did have to use the old bracket from the 8600M GT on the HD 3650, as it was not supplied. Using a dremel I had to make some modifications to it so that it wouldn't touch any surface mount capacitors. Just a heads up if the card does not come with a bracket, the old one can still be used with slight modification.

 

Great news Congrats! Keep an eye on the GPU temps, e.g. with GPU-Z.

Good luck!

 

Hello,
What a great thread and forum.
So here what I want to ask about. I just rescued a Zepto Znote FL92 from being slaughtered at recycling station.

It came complete with 4 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD ( fully functional without bad sector ) and a T8300 CPU. The GPU in is a 8600GT and still post very fine. The only things missing was the battery and the cover over HDD. Was getting recycled just because of the overheating.

After a complete disassembly, thorough cleansing and applying new thermal pasts and pads the laptop is almost in a mint condition. The only thing that worries me is the fact that the fan kicks in by the CPU temp not a combined CPU/GPU ( or which comes first ). The idle GPU temp is 65-67 C.

I've read a reply about re-soldering the fan wirings to get the fan always on. I'm keeping that as a last resort. What I was wondering about is whether there has been some BIOS hacking allowing additional options in BIOS like fan control etc.

 

There are some tools for Windows which can adjust the fan speed, and the timing when it would start ... google "fan control" or something like that. This needs some adapted settings to works with the FL90. I think I got it to work with the FL90, and you should find infos about that in this thread or this forum, including the adapted settings.

That's all I remember.

Good luck

 

Yes, modification work is indeed needed.
Comments on "3.4 Removing the graphic card"
1) Use a hair dryer to soften the glueing on 8600M GT.
2) Unfortunately, the screwing bracket from 8600M GT is not fully compatible with HD 4670 (1GB DDR2). Cut those areas of the bracket that prevent it to be fully seated on the surface of the HD 4670 card. Fortunately, the metal is very soft, but still quite a bit of work is needed. Do not remove the glue. The result of my work with snips/shears is here.
3) Continue to "3.5 Modifying the heat sink"

 

Long time no see but just half an hour ago ive installed the card, not because it toke to long to arrive, its just because only now ive got time to change the card. the notebook were away for a few months now because the screen didnt't come up.

Well, its a Ati Mobility HD3650 with 512RAM version VG.bla bla.004. Had to take out the metal plate behind the old GT and from the new ATI because the screws werent compatible. Then put everything on place, i had a DREMEL here but it was not needed. Placed everything together and it work the first time ive power it up. Went to driverscollection.com and downloaded 13-1-legacy_xp32_dd_ccc_whql.exe for Windows XP 32. Drivers installed and ready to roll.

The only problem i detected so far is that the temperature is a bit higher than the GT, the GT stand on idle around 60ºC and this one stays on 62ºC. The real problem is when i run the Fur-mark burn-in test, the temperatures goes up to 100ºC on the first 2 or 3 minutes..ive stoped the test because the fan didnt start to increase its speed and that way the temp would stay on that values on maybe getting worse.

Is there something i can do to prevent this high temperatures while pushing up from the GPU? Ive tried catalyst but the option isnt there, ive tried rightmark, MSI afterburner but i cant find in none of them an option to throttle the fan speed to 100% as soon as the GPU gets to 80ºC (for example). Righmark also doesnt show any option for that. Ive tried also NHC (Notebook Hardware Control) but fan control is not available anywhere, maybe its hidden on ACPi functions but its grayed out because my system is not ready to use it yet (whatever that means).

So, no solution or someone knows some remedy to this?

Best regards everyone

 

Hi,

I am 100% sure that there is no proper contact between the chip and the heat sink.

Taking it apart will reveal that, normally, as there should be a "foot print" of the thermal paste from the chip on the heat sink - where both make contact.

If there is proper contact, then you should have thermal paste remains on the heat sink, after separating the two. If not, you either had no enough paste, or, more likely, the is no proper contact.

You said you did not have to dremel. Thing is, the dremel is not needed no make it fit, but perhaps to ensure proper contact.

Also, TOO MUCH paste can be a problem. Or maybe you forgot to screw it tight (just adding options here, no blaming, hehe)

Good luck!

 

Hy Doc!

Yeh, the foot print is there, i could seen it before assemble everything. i toke it out to check if the paste is there. I only put a thin layer of paste on every heatsink i mount to obtain the best results, on this case Artic Ceramic paste.

The Dremel wasnt necessary because i think everything is in place, ive put pads on the memory chips, noting was left behing i think. but if from your experience there is something on this card needed to MOD please tell me to attack the right spot.

besides the hardware mounting advise there is something else to do ? software ?

ive seen that the temperature jst keeps climbing slowly from 85 to the 100ºC and the fan stays at 30% and doesnt increase... it should start going up IMO. oh, one more thing, the voltage comes from 0.9V to 1.1V...is it normal?

 

Hi,

for fan control, check perhaps this thread -> Recepta na wysokie temperatury w FL90? - Forum Notebookcheck.pl. I assume you are fluent in polish Try google translate otherwise.

I think I tried it that way. There is an attachment in that post, I think that would enable the tool to work for the FL90, to control the fan speed. But really, no idea if it does, too long ago, sorry.

Thing is, the fan speed is controlled by the CPU temp in the FL90, and not by GPU at all. Normally, this is okay, because with GPU load often comes CPU load, so it will run eventually.

Stil, 100° is too much. I had a 4650 in mine, and it still would not reach 100° (i got a heat pad from mxm-upgrade.com, which worked quite good), ah, and I undervolted it.

Btw, going from 0.9 to 1.1 is normal, as it goes to the high-performance level / higher clock rates, where i needs more power. You could perhaps undervolt it, which would require flashing the bios of the card.

I did that with my 4650, and it paid off, but it's very long ago, not sure if I could assist. But you will find source/threads around here and in the web. For undervolting you need atiflash and RBE - Radeon BIOS editor.

Before going down that path, have you logged temps during gaming? As I said, with the CPU getting load, the fan will turn up, also cooling the GPU.

Good luck!

 

Hi guys, I need a little help here (I think that's the right place). I have Asus F8SV and my video (8600m GT) died, I will replace it (at least I want to) with 9300m GS, but of course I have to update the BIOS. Is there anyone to help me include support for the above gpu in the original bios? Or to point me to such place.

There is the link for the original bios: http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/F8Sv/F8SV300AS.zip

Thanks in advance.

 

Hi,

1. The Asus (sub-)forum might be the better fit.

2. are you sure you have to update/mod the BIOS?

3. the 8600M GT is not that strong (anymore), but the 9300M GS is even weaker. I am just saying, not that you think you are upgrading. Of course, for office, web and mail, the 9300M GS is a perfect and cheap replacement.

4. I cannot help with BIOS modding, sorry.

Good luck

 

I'm pretty sure it need updating, in the time of release of the notebook, 9xxx was still unreleased generation. And yes I know 9300 is weaker, but thats all I have right now, otherwise should trow the notebook in the bin.

 

The 9300M basically is a 8400M - not sure what changed beyond the name

I am not sure if you can grab any NVidia card (be it 8XXX or 9XXX), for Compal FL90, you either had to get the card from another Compal, or get an ATI card. Taking, e.g., the 8600M GT from an Acer laptop would fail, because the Compal card came without VBIOS (integrated in system BIOS), while most other cards had their own VBIOS.

No idea what's the deal with Asus ... sorry.

Good luck

 

Hi, I get one Ati X700 from an amilo A1667 and works fine in my FL90, in other moment try to take a photo.

Thanks

 

Ah, great, sounds like the most economical replacement, the "cheapest" I got so far was from the ATI 34*0 series.

Thanks for letting us know.

 

What a great thread! Dr. Colossos, do you have a similar solution for my Toshiba Satellite X205-SLi1? The cards are also 8600m's ( I do believe) and they died on me. I would love to replace them and maybe upgrade my hard drives and then install System 7 (64 bit) and maybe upgrade my RAM to 4GB. Any advice? Thanks a million in advance for any advice...

Rich

 

I think I can only point you to this thread -> http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...s/358443-toshiba-x205-sli1-graphics-card.html

Or google -> https://www.google.de/search?q=Toshiba+Satellite+X205-SLi1+mxm

But honestly, for a laptop of maybe 5 to 7 years old, I would think twice if I would repair it, or sell it for parts and get a new machine. Thing is, if you buy a replacement 8600M, it will fail again, eventually, because it is build to fail. So you will have to get a replacement for the replacement sooner or later. Guessing you will at best get a used 8600M GT, this card normally is also 3-7 years old, and then again will fail sooner than later.

Good luck!

 

hi guys i just recently acquired an ibuypower Fl92 notebook for less than what i would spend on a new notebook nowadays and my Gpu just crapped out after a couple of weeks. im guessing this notebook is about 6 or 7 years old. I gamed for a few weeks for up to 6 hrs straight and no problems til today. I am not a Modder or Hardcore Gamer, i simply bought this Turd of a Laptop just to play an old dx9 mmo on my days off from work. Now that this isnt happening, Everything else on the pc is fine. The Gpu itself is getting ready to Die. What would be a stable working out of the Box card from ATI thats just as powerful as an 8600m GT? Im just simply looking for an easy replacement. Mxm Upgrade doesnt have any Cards and Ebay is flooded with ati cards ranging from Toshiba, asus, and Acer. All of which have ddr2 and ddr3 written on them. I need something that requires almost no Modification. Any advice on what still works? i know this is old tech but if i get a year or 2 out of this laptop then its worth my investment of a new card.

 

will either of these 2 cards work? ATI X1700 256MB MXM II VGA Card for Acer 4520 4710 4720 4920 | eBay

 

HP Dell Alienware Lenovo Acer Gateway ATI Radeon X1600 256MB MXM II GPU Card 877630000744 | eBay

 

The very first page of this thread has all the info you want.

I'd aim for an ATI 3650 DDR2, 512MB. This is the card working in 99% of the time and performs as good, or slightly better than the 8600M GT. If the game you play is less demanding, then a 3400/3450/3470 would also work, and is cheaper. You want a card pulled from an Acer, with Acer BIOS (no HP, Dell, Toshiba, Asus) - if is red, you can be quite sure it's from an Acer. if it's green or blue - hands off!

These are your two best options.

Cheers & Good Luck!

 

Hey Doc i managed to score me a working 8600m GT. Card was pulled off an Fl92 that was never used and dissambled for parts. So card card ois basicaly brand spankn new Problem is no thermal pads. where can i get some? ive checked ebay and mxm upgrade. They aint got SQUAT!!!

 

ebay got this: thermal pad | eBay

You could also use the old one from your broken card, but of course, new ones are better.

When reassembled, be sure to check temps with GPU-Z both in idle and under load.

Good luck

 

hey dr. Colossus what specific thermal size or measurements do i need for the 8600m gt card? i know some pads are thicker or smaller in size and i dont know which one to go with.

 

hmmmm ... 0.5 or 1mm maybe ... sorry, dont really know. Got an old one left over?

Also, for the chip set use paste, pads only for memory banks.

good luck

 

Hi guys, after baking my GF8600 for the second time, I have upgrated my FL90's gpu to a radeon 4670 card (512MB DDR3 version from MSI). It works nicely. I get about 6950 pts in 3dmark06 (1280x800), pci-e throttling occurs, but very rearly, it's not a problem for me. I had to modify the heatsink and undervolt the card to 1.1V becouse it was overheating, now it's temperature after 30 minutes in Furmark is max 85°C. The external display also works. But recently i saw something disturbing. When my CPU is under full load and it's temperature reaches about 80°C, the fan shuts down and no thermal throttling occurs, the cpu temp keeps on rising. At 98°C i turned off my computer to prevent damage. The CPU is a T7700 C2D. The seccond thing i noticed, are erros when running Memtest86+. After a minute of testing the test halts due to a fatal exeption. My ram is 100% ok. The funny thing is that none of this happens when I put back my old GF8600. My bios version is 1.18. This also happens when I replace the CPU to T6600. Despite of this, everthing runs great, no BSOD, no freezes, restarts. Any ideas what might be causing this?

 

I know both problems, got no solution for the memtest problem, but for the fan, you might try notebook hardware control - you might need an adapter (small dll? txt? dont remember) for that to work with the FL90. I found that in a polish forum.

This is the thread where to download the adapter (I think) -> Recepta na wysokie temperatury w FL90? - Forum Notebookcheck.pl

You may try that, I cannot remember if that worked for me.

Good luck

 

Hi,

I would like to replace my broken 8600 GT in Compal FL 90.
Could anybody give a clue whether ATI Radeon HD3650 from Acer aspire 6530 G will fit?
I am asking because the Acer has HDMI port and Compal has only RGB port.
I suppose it shouldn't be a problem, but I would like to be sure before buying it.

 

It works, I always pulled my cards from Acers, also several times from an 6530G.

Good luck

 

hey doc what should the normal temps be under Gpu Z with the stock 8600m GT? i finally got my card in and i checked the temps as follows: running under windows is 75 C and Gaming under Load ranged from 85 C to 91 C before i turned it off. Notebook is still completely stock is this normal?

 

Sounds somewhat ok, but lower is always better.

Maybe clean out some dust. You can access the fan from when removing the rear panel. Also, get a vacuum cleaner, and try to get dust out of the vents.

Do not remove the heat sink, as you would need to reapply thermal paste.

Good luck

 

OK, I'm ready to shop for a Radeon card.
1) Is there any card for which the 8600M heatsink is great as-is? If this does not work out, I want to be able to try the baking option, you see.
2) Is there any card on which S-Video is known-working?

Are any of the following a good buy?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/221803858198
http://www.ebay.com/itm/231580754221
http://www.ebay.com/itm/400862948490

 

Pulled from HP, wont work.

Pulled from HP, wont work.

Is MXM A, wont even fit.

Read the first post, top to bottom. Then you'll learn to get either the ATI 3400/3450/3470 if you only do 2D stuff (i.e., no 3D ego-shooter), or the ATI 3650 DDR2 512 MB if you do casual gaming.

If you wanna game more/hardcore, get a new machine.

Good luck

 

So 4570/4650/4670 cards are not recommended? I see a bunch of those on eBay. I don't see any 34x0 cards right now, but I do see these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/151625712976
http://www.ebay.com/itm/121699875595

Any word on S-Video?

 

4570 is okay, but more expensive than 3650 at no added value (not really faster).

The 4650 is good, but might lead to heat issues, also PCI throttling happens with some models - reason unknonw.

The is only one 4670 (from MSI) that has DDR3 RAM, and would be worth the trouble, as all 4670 make too much heat.

The first is a 3870, doubt it will work. The ther is boxed, and I see a fan - doubt that is for notebooks, looks more like for Desktop PCs.

You have to browse the forum, mihgt work with the ATI 3650, mabye also with 34X0, not sure though.

You could get this laptop -> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Acer-6530-B...050?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item4d32b1a65a

Pull the card, should be either a ATI 3650 or 3450/3470, and put it in yours, sell the rest, and you come out even.
Thats how I used to do it.

Good luck!

 

It says 3670, not 3870. Bad?

 

There are no reports that either the 3670 or the 3870 would work in the FL90. You could try, but I doubt it will work.

 

OK, I've gone back and read the whole thread. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to have said that a 34x0 would even be a downgrade from my 8600M GT. I think I wouldn't want a less capable card than what I currently have. I'm intending for VGA to work as well, not just S-Video. Here is what's currently available, in order of price ascending up to ridiculous:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-3D-Grap...GA-Card-256MB-DDR3-VG-86M06-002-/201350227316
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Mobilit...deo-Card-For-Acer-Series-Laptop-/252004521379
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-MSI...Gb-Graphics-Card-Radeon-HD-4570-/161453510595
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/HD36...ideo-card-Mobility-Radeon-1G/32380316849.html
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Orig...216-0683013-ATI-Radeon-512MB/32347594752.html
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Lapt...-HD-3650-512M-MXM-II-for-ACER/1948282689.html
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-3650-1G-MXM-II-Video-Card-/180499835294

 

This might work, not sure, but MSI cards tend to be compatible:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-MSI...Gb-Graphics-Card-Radeon-HD-4570-/161453510595

These will work, 99% sure (you never know, until trying out)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Mobilit...deo-Card-For-Acer-Series-Laptop-/252004521379
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Lapt...-HD-3650-512M-MXM-II-for-ACER/1948282689.html
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Orig...216-0683013-ATI-Radeon-512MB/32347594752.html
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-3650-1G-MXM-II-Video-Card-/180499835294 (way to expensive)

And yes, the 34XX series is a downgrade, but as long as you do not play 3D games, it does not matter.

And nobody said MXM replacement is cheap. Sure not for a laptop that is close to 10 years old.
The cheapest is to get a broken laptop with a ATI MXM Card (several older Acers do have these), and pull it from there.
Be sure to have thermal paste/pad, or the joy will be short.

Good luck!

 

Do either of those generate more heat than the other?

 

They should be pretty much the same, as the are equally powerful.

But if you decide between these two, get the 3650, because it is known to work best in the FL90. As a matter of fact, I have the exact same still running in my old FL90, which my girl friend uses still after all those years.

Good luck!

 

I had a question about the boot up on the FL92. Upon boot up my laptop would show the Phoenix Boot Screen then immediately shut off. I recently replaced my motherboard with an extra I had laying around and keep getting the same problem. I baked my GPU at 385F for 9mins, but still no luck. Would it be wise to buy the ATI 3650? I really want my laptop back lol. Thanks for the help guys!!

 

So you see the boot screen, picture is okay, than it turns off?

Try with battery only, and with power cord only (i.e., take battery out).

It also could be heat (but strange it would happen that fast). Did you apply thermal paste when you switched mainboard and graphic card.

If all this does not help, try disassemble, and reassemble, step by step, meaning try booting that laptop with only power cord on (NO BATTERY, THIS IS IMPORTANT, MIGHT BRICK IT!), mainboard just with CPU, 1 RAM, and GPU, display connected. If that works, add more, like keyboard ... WLAN ... case ... screws ... DVD, and test it after adding a new component. Could be a short of any component ...

Good luck

 

It's the weirdest thing. It wouldn't even show the boot screen at first; just a single horizontal line across the bottom of the screen then it would shut off. Then after taking the battery out and only using the power cord it would shut off almost immediately. Then after taking the battery out with the power cord plugged in then putting the battery back in mid-boot it started showing the boot screen again then powered off. In all these cases there was still a small horizontal line across the bottom of the screen. I did re-apply thermal paste to CPU and GPU and I also kept the heat pads upon switching the main board. I'll try disassembling it tomorrow and try out what you told me. I hope I get some good results. Thank you for your help!!

Edit:
Tried what you told me to do with no luck. I have a 3rd mainboard, FL90 non-revision, that I will replace my FL92 board with. If that still doesn't work. I will try to bake it a 2nd time for about 1min longer. I will post results!

Edit#2:
So the other board didn't even want to turn on so I switched the boards back. I did make some progress though. Are you guys ready for this? Okay, so when I turn the laptop on, with battery only or AC cord only, it shuts off seconds later, but! If I turn the laptop on and unplug and plug the AC cord repeatedly while the battery is kept in, the laptop stays on! It will boot all the way to windows and I can run programs and stuff. As soon as I stop unplugging and plugging in the AC cord, the computer shuts off seconds later. I'm puzzled with this one. Is this still GPU related? Processor related? Tonight I'm gonna try switching to my original FL92 board I left at work and will see if that helps. Let me know what you guys think.

P.S.
How is sleep mode triggered when the laptop is closed? I heard people having problems with their GPU once entering sleep mode. Is there a switch or plug I should look for? Thank you!

 

Sounds something blew on the mainboard. Or your power supply unit is damaged (but then, it should work wit battery, which it does not, right?).

I doubt it is related to the GPU or CPU, or RAM. I think this is a lower-level problem. Conductor, stuff like that. But this is were my understanding of things ends, sorry.

Lapto plid closing triggers some APCI event, but don't ask me details. Sorry, no clue.

 

dear forum
I have an 8600gt from a msi gx700 you can get it for free