6990m Dying? Would baking method be worth trying for these symptoms

Hi there all

First time poster here, so ello all!

I have a p150hm with a 6990m in it; laptop still boots and will function fine atm. It had crashed and would not boot; but a fresh windows installation (and completely unknown reasons) means it will boot with the card in now, when it would only boot in safe mode or with the gpu drivers uninstalled before.

Now it boots, but in a game or browsing the internet, clocks will go to full and the temp will skyrocket to about 100-105. It does not shutdown etc. but obviously this isnt good :thumbsup:

It idles at about 55-60; which suggests something is borked. My question is what normally goes on gpus to make the temperature skyrocket like this? I had a destop 7970ghz edition that did the same eventually.
Also, is there any chance the baking method will do anything positive for this situation?

If there is anybody out there that can get hold of a 680m 4gb or a 7970m for me to replace this one with, that will be great. I can blind flash etc. following the guides in the case of the 7970m.

Thanks for reading!

Edit: Drivers are installed on new windows 7 sp1 installation (updated to latest) and are 14.9.

 

skyrocketing temps would point into the direction of vents/fans clogged with dust/dirt, i would check those and clean them out properly. also, while ure at it, u should consider a new application of thermal paste, that should definitely help the temps do that first and see if that helps, before going for a new gpu!

cheers

 

Welcome to the forum!

I am not 100% sure what is going on with the card, but in general baking cards will just buy time if it is indeed going out, if it is going out then I would just replace it.

 

Apologies, forgot to mention, it has been opened and completely cleaned of dust etc. The paste job is rubbish on it, so i could repaste the thing. I wonder how much difference paste actually makes? I suppose if the heatsink isnt in contact with the paste etc at all because it is dry/cracked it would make some sort of difference, but enough to reduce it from 105 degrees?

At the moment, a replacement is not going to happen as there is nowhere i can buy a replacement in the uk that i am aware of. I would like to buy one, but have no idea where to look that gets them in. I have contacted golden star uk; but am yet to recieve a reply and Aliexpress linkl am reluctant to buy from these places lol

 

paste makes a lot of difference! especially if your current paste job is "rubbish" as u put it and the paste is dry/cracked. i would definitely suggest to apply some new paste first and then check if the situation improves

 

Welcome to NBR!

It does not sound like baking it will provide any help. What that is for, is cards that may have issues do to an issue with soldering. Baking it reflows the solder which restores that connection. The overheating you're describing typically isnt cause by a bad solder. As mentioned above I would repaste first.

 

Thanks for replies guys, have ordered some paste and new pads and will attempt this as soon as they arrive :thumbsup:

Best to go down this method first; it might be the thermal sensor that has gone on it, but we will see. Will let people know the results.

 

What kind of thermal paste did you get?

 

+1 for repaste before continuing to dream up what may be wrong with it. Yes it really does make that much difference.

Personally I've never had a laptop I've used AS5 on have it dry out even after 3 years. Fans and fins still get clogged tho

 

i could imagine the paste drying/cracking when taking off the heatsink in order to clean the heatsink fins.... *whistles*

 

I bought arctic silver 5 actually. Yeah, concerning the old stuff that I removed with isopropyl; the cpu side was actually still a little soft, but the gpu side was a lot more crusty, took a gentle scraping as well as the alcohol to get rid of.

Id personally imagine that this is as the gpu has been rocking temperatures far too high for a long time. This is my girlfriends laptop, and we could physically feel the room getting hot after continued use of it on gw2. Temps of 90 degrees were pretty common for it from a few months in. The fn f1 trick had to be used on it sometimes as it was just ridiculous, and this is with the laptop sitting on a cooling pad. Then one day it just crashed and wouldn't boot again. Edit: This is after is had been opened and dust and fluff blown out of it several times; the heat-sinks were not removed to do this as there is enough room to get at the rads without doing this.

Tbh, I'm not sure how reinstalling windows has helped make it work again, unless it corrupted windows files when it crashed and was turned off using the power button, but im just trying to get some life out of it before the gpu needs to be replaced; which may instead result in it being junked.

I think it is just this card that is poor, or was never right. She has a (granted, much newer tech) 870m in a new version of this laptop, and it rarely exceeds 68-70 degrees during the same session. Im not sure if the fan tables on the p150hm were bad or the 6990m itself; but it always got too hot. Nevertheless, a new thermal paste job is worth doing, as it looks like it was put on originally using a muckspreader.

 

A thought...as it is an old card, the latest driver may not work that great on it. I actually experienced the 14.9 catalyst drivers pushing my windforce r9 290 temps up 10 degrees in some games, as compared to the latest beta, which seems to make them run extremely cool. I may also try installing an earlier driver; not sure if this will result in not booting again though; but worth a try after testing with the repaste.

 

looking forward to your results

 

Hi all; thought I would post back with results.

Absolute night and day difference. Huge success, 6990m card now idles at 42c (Im uk based, so at ambient temps here) and tried some benchmarks and gaming, most it got to was 75c. It never a) idled that low and b) went that low when stressed.
Very pleased with results; no fps drops (that arent related to the performance of the card) and a much better performing laptop.

So therefore the paste on it when I got it either must have been poor then, and got worse; or it was never done properly. I used the line method of applying the paste, and then simply put it all back together. I did also take out and reseat the card; not sure if this made any difference. Hope people have similar success if faced with my problem. Happy days. Interestingly I did get an email back from the clevo reseller/servicer in Reading who stated that they could get a replacement 6990m for me, but as yet did not get back to me with a price when asked.

 

glad to see uve got everything figured out so easily enjoy!