8800M GTX problem

Recently I had a problem with my Eurocom Phantom-X I haven't been able to fix, I hope you can help me.

I'll try to expose the problem as clear as possible, but if you have any question don't be afraid of asking. (I'm not native English as you may have noticed, but I'll try my best. (with the help of translate.google.com )

System specifications:
Eurocom Phantom-X (Clevo/D900C/D901C/D90C)
Intel Quad Core 2 Processor Q9550
Nvidia GeForce Go 8800M GTX (x1)
4GB; 2x 2GB; DDR2-800
Windows XP Professional


What I was doing while...?
I was playing a video game, and updating windows on background. The hole screen became green and the PC frozen.
The first think I thought is that it was a driver problem. I restarted the PC, uninstall the graphic driver and reinstall, but I got a "Blue Screen of Death" with instant reset, tried to reinstall drivers again and got another "Blue Screen of Death" with the following information:

"PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
0x00000050 (0xEE700000, 0x00000000, 0xEE700000 0x00000002)"

Somehow, I don't have Blue Screens now.

What did I tried?
*Uninstall and reinstall graphic driver on Normal and "Safe Mode"
*Reinstall Windows XP Pro.
*Tried to Install Ubuntu (Linux) but it crash at first screen (see photo Ubuntu_Crash.jpg)
*Check fan, even if it didn't look like a heat problem, the game wasn't a high demanding one.
*Install OEM drivers.
*Install Newest drivers.
*Scan for Virus & spyware (clean)
*Install newest DirextX
*uninstall the Windows update I was doing on background
*Update BIOS to 1.00.22 (Thanks zfactor)
*Install Win7 x86
*Install Win7 x64 and back to Win XP Pro x86


Current state
*They are some lines and dots on the Windows Boot screen (the one with the loading bar) tried to do a photo but only have a crappy phone cam, so the photo wasn't clear
*No lines or dots while in Windows.
*Even if I install the graphic driver it doesn't work, behaviour like a when a PC don't have the drivers installed, like slow scrolling and so.
*(see 01.jpg, 02.jpg, 03.jpg, 04.jpg 05.jpg)
*No Blue Screens if I uninstall/install Graphic Card Driver.
*Tried to remove the graphic card so I could check for any damage but could not remove 2 of the screws from the heatsink. So no Oven trick till I find a way to remove it...

If I had to buy a new mobile graphic card I would like to spend the less money as possible because I bought my laptop not too long ago and I would not update if my graphic card was 100% working and no expired warranty (less than 2 month), in addition that update to a DX10 card when DX11 is around the corner is something I would not like to do.


Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks

 

Welcome to the NBR forums.

looks like your videocard might have gotten faulty.. or damaged.

checking the fans does not mean much, the vents is where you should be looking for dust clogs.

also, I hope you have been good in monitoring the temps, especially while in-game... this will tell you when your videocard is overheating (over 90-95C is not good).

also, when was the last time the GPU had a new application of thermal compound... because around a year or so the compound would usually get dry and crack.

as for removing the videocard to check out the GPU dye.... go grab the service manual from theriko's sig

 

Hi Gophn, thanks for the quick replay. And wow! Thanks a million theriko for the service manual, that's handy!!


All the vents (CPU, RAM, GPU) are dust free, I clean them not too long ago, and cleaned again after the graphic card failure.

I used to use rivatuner but swap to Everest, so I use Everenst to monitor GPU, CPU and even HDD temperature, and no head problems at all. Quite cold in Ireland right now I may add that the GPU was even too cold for the last few weeks (43 idle and more or less +10 while playing) but that could be because I reduced the video settings from the game (so it works smoother) and the cold weather.

About the thermal compound... I bought it Jul/2008 and never replaced/add new thermal compound, but while I was trying to remove the 2 screws I can not remove (screws are too small and they fix them too hard and don't think "3-in-one" is a good idea) I could check the thermal compound that I could see from the heatsink holes and near it, and it still soft, but I'll add more as soon as I remove the heatsink.

Should I try any other thing to resurrect my GPU?


Thanks!

 

I recently lost my 8800m gtx due to I am fairly sure, overheating. I would get a blue screen of death. I downloaded Speedfan which lets you monitor temps. I Then I ran a vid card stress test to get it heated up and noticed at a certain temp it would always blue screen of death.

I reapplied thermal compound which let the temp get higher one time and then it went back to the way it was before. Also tried the oven trick to no avail.

Ended up finding a brand new 8800m gtx on ebay for $250. Or you can look for a used one on the forums or a downgraded 8800m gts.

But I'd start with the speedfan and see if your computer dies as the vid card gets hotter.

 

That's the auction for a brand new 8800m gtx on ebay for $250.

Unfortunately not selling any one at the moment... other new or used 8800m GTX (or similar) on eBay are twice as expensive...

I tried to do some stress test with atitool but it's not working due the drivers, I mean, the drivers are installed but it doesn't "find" my card. I attach a photo so you can see what I'm talking about. (Atitool.JPG + Scan_for_artifacts.JPG)

So, no way I can stress the GPU.

 

you got to fully dismantle the heatsink assembly.

and add more thermal compound to old stuff is not a good idea.

you should clean the old stuff off, and then apply a new thin layer.

also check the memory thermal pads.

Also, RivaTuner can monitor all temps (CPU, HDD, GPU), you just need to enable the plugins. (and you can monitor them while in-game)

I do not recommend SpeedFan, since it was made for specifically desktops.

There are much better programs for temp monitoring for notebooks.

 

Pre-heat your oven to 380 degree's ish, put your GPU in there for a while... take it out and try it again.

good luck.

 

For the love of God! Really? How many people have actually done this?

 

Quite a few actually...

 

Actually, it's 425F and 10min in the oven

http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/30/nvidia-gpu-resurrected-after-10-minutes-at-425-f/

But all jokes aside, I wouldn't recommend doing this unless the GPU is completely dead and if your notebook is still under warranty.

 

It'll work... trust me.

 

Well, the masses don't lie. That's pretty cool stuff: "temporary warmth seemingly melted the solder points and healed micro-fractures."

 

This morning I bought an screw drive specially to remove the 2 screws that refused to collaborate. Checked for any visible damage but couldn't find any.

The graphic card was involved in something similar to aluminium foil (to spread the heat if I'm not wrong) and the thermal compound was like a layer except for the Core.
The layers were fine but I guess its about time to add new Thermal compound on the Core, any suggestion/advice how to remove and add new one? Do any one know the exact name of the thermal compound "layers"? (see photo Thermal_compound_layer.jpg)

And now the good news! Because I couldn't find any 8800m GTX at ebay for around 250$, no warranty, Eurocom is in Canada but I'm in Ireland and I removed the graphic card, I take the risk of trying the oven trick and it works!

Thanks a million Rob41 for such a helpful guide!!

 

Bad thing is, exactly the same thing happened to my 8800m GTX this morning!

Was playing MW2 and suddenly everything foze!

Opened up Task mgr and suddenly the screen started filling with grainy pixels and finally a BSOD.

After restart vista reached upto the logon screen and as soon as I logged in, blue screen appeared showing

" Hardware Malfunction
Call your hardware vendor for support
***The system has halted***"

Info regarding error - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315223

I was seriously heart broken!!(its just 1.5yrs old + plastic covers are still on!)

---Just some info---

-I used to perform weekly defrags, registry defrags etc.

-once every 2 weeks it used to get a full clean up(by opening it up, using a blower on the fans and heatsink to clean them + used Q-tips to throughly clean the fans and heatsinks

(+ routine external cleaning)

-At no point of time did the max temp while in a game exceeded 82C (idle 42C)

- Heatsink compound was changed every 3-4 months with OCZ Freeze

--------------------

Inspite of such dedicated maintenance it just gave up on me!

I did some troubleshooting and completely removed the drivers while in safe mode

+ also used driver sweeper and driver cleaner.

- After rebooting, surprisingly it booted into vista fine!
I thought that maybe it was a false positive!

- Then tried installing the same driver(Dox Optimized 185) and it installed fine, rebooted into vista and all was well for about 10 mins.

- after which the screen began to go grainy(while on desktop) and then went black and recovered(nvlddmkm error)

- After a few episodes of this, it finally BSOD'ed.

- Again booted in safe mode and uninstalled the driver fully.
Dloaded the newest driver from Lv2Go and installed with a modded inf using 'Have Disk' method

- After reboot, it didnt even let me login and showed the same "Hardware Malfunction" blue screen after I clicked on user name.

I just hope my well maintained 8800m didn't just go kaput.
Currently I'm installing official 186.81 from nvidia's website(which supports 8800m and is WHQL certified)

Lets see what happens.
btw will I have to cook my gpu in the oven too!??

Pls help and pour in your suggestions!

PS - I hope you dont mind DVN regarding me posting my prob in your thread!

 

I am sorry to say, but your 8800M is dead. You should start looking for a new one or prepare the oven for one last try.

 

What Blacky said.

Are your thermal pads dusty or kind of dry looking?

 

Last time I opened it up, the pads that go over the memory modules in the GPU looked clean!

I'm in the process of opening it up and taking out the GPU currently(typing this from a backup rig)

btw do i need to remove the copper housing of the gpu before cooking it? or cook it along with the housing!?

I hope my GPU recovers! I so used to love this thing!

 

Without the housing... there was a detailed procedure on laptopvideo2go.

 

O-M-F-G!!! It worked!!!

I just cooked my GPU exactly the way Rob41 mentioned here - http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=385973

It worked perfectly!

When my lappy first booted up after the process, I literally had tears in my eyes!

I'm so happy my mate is back!

Thanks a lot Rob41, Blacky, Soviet Sunrise, DVN and others who contributed to this method and this thread!

You guys are amazing!

*Goes back to loving the laptop*

 

Another happy customer out of the GPU bakery.

 

I am glad to hear that sohail...

 

It really looks like there is something wrong with the 8800M GTX, probably a manufacture problem. I would say Nvidia already know about that. It would be cool if they refund the money for the defective graphic card.

Could anyone give me a bit more info about how to remove and add new Thermal compound. The exact name of the thermal compound "layers". (see photo Thermal_compound_layer.jpg) and if you know anything about the "aluminium foil" like, that was involved my graphic card in? (name, can/have to be replaced? were do I get a new one?)

Sorry for bothering you but I'm a bit lost about PC hardware. T_T

I'm glad you could fit it sohail99 hopefully we don't have to cook it ever again!

 

There were some extended warranties for graphics cards with the problems, but you have to go through your laptop manufacturer, and I think only a few laptop manufacturers did it (I think Sony was one).

From your picture, from what I can tell, the crusty dried stuff you're dribbling liquid on is the old thermal paste. You'll want to clean off as much of that as possible from the heatsink (which is what you photographed) and the corresponding GPU core on your graphics card. The rubbery-ish gray sheets to the right and top of the picture look to be thermal pads; I'd leave those alone, unless you want to buy all new thermal pads to replace them with, or if you have a thick paste that can fill the gap between where those thermal pads were and what they were in contact with (probably the GPU RAM). I don't see anything "aluminim foil-like" in the picture, so I'm not sure what you were referring to by that.

So, basically, from what I can see from that one picture, all you need to do is to finish cleaning off the old thermal paste from the heatsink and GPU core (not pictured), apply new thermal paste there, and screw everything back down. Hopefully someone who actually owns a D901 can actually confirm all this.

 

The sticky 'tape-like' stuff is thermal tape for the GPU VRAM. In my 13+ disassemblies/re-assemblies in 3 days of my machine, I basically ruined mine on all 3 GPUs. I had to order more. What remains of the tape still works, but my GPUs run hot really fast (less than an hour) so I can't do very much at the moment. I had to order some new stuff ("Sekisui #5760"). Should be here Friday. Make sure you don't ruin your thermal tape!

So far as I know, the 8800m GTX cards were unaffected by the bad batch of 8000 series mobile GPUs.

Removing thermal paste: I use a microfiber cloth plus rubbing alcohol. DO NOT PUT RUBBING ALCOHOL DIRECTLY ON THE GPU (OR HEATSINK). Instead, damp the cloth with the rubbing alcohol, then gently rub the GPU core until all paste has disappeared, also gently rub the heatsink. Allow both units to dry for 10 minutes or so after cleaning.

Re-applying thermal paste: Get a good brand of thermal paste that is preferably not conductive (I use Arctic Cooling MX-3). There are so many different ways of applying thermal paste, but I'll go through the "line method". Once you have seated your graphics card(s), get out your thermal paste. We want to put ONE (1) line of paste straight across the middle of the GPU. Don't use too much! If you somehow do use too much, just clean up what's there and try again after it is dry. I know that the line method doesn't make lots of sense at first, but once you seat and clamp down the heat sink(s), the paste will be squished and spread out across the entire GPU core automatically.

Note (slightly off topic): To anyone who is interested in my old 8800m GTX, the reason I am holding off selling it is due to the thermal tape issue. I don't want to sell something that you can't use immediately.

 

No joke, 10 minutes ago i cooked my 8800M GTX out of my np5793 and it works!!!!! 2 days ago it died, yesterday i was trying to figure out how i was going to afford a new one, and today im posting this message on my once dead card. Im speechless. Now my laptop gets to deploy with me again! i hope it doesnt get mad at me.

 

Yep the GPU bake always works.... should be an official method of fixing it imo. Infact sometimes I throw mine in the oven even when its working fine just to make sure....

 

>.> thought they already came to the conclusion that its only a temp fix. Which makes sense seeing as how the issue is in the fabrication and will continue to get worse the more its repaired.

 

Well, certainly it is a bit of a temporary fix, but the only "permanent" fix would be buying a new card, so...

 

Well, I just wanted to add my 1 1/2 year old 8800GTX to the list of failures this week. After reading everything here about the bake, and having no other choice, I baked mine at 380 for 8 minutes. Worked like a charm, now I'm back in business.

Mine had the same symptons before, as defined here, blue screen unless I uninstalled the drivers, then the VGA only would work fine. Loading drivers back in and again blue screen.

Baking it brought it back at least for a time. I am going to report back when(if) it goes bad again anytime soon.

If anyone knows where to get new cards (5793), I'd like to know where and how much.

Joe Martin

 

sucks when you have an upgradeable laptop and you can't buy a replacement for it.

 

I had my 8800m GTX die a few months ago and it was also about 1.5 years old. I did the baking trick and it will work as a temporary fix, but it will die again and you will eventually have to get a new card.

I ended up getting another new card on ebay for $250.

 

No kidding. Wish they'd make them compatible with desktop vid cards.

 

This is the first laptop I have owned that had a failure before 3 years of use (I've owed 4 laptops). Then not being able to get parts is discouraging. 1.5 years for the graphics card is a very short lifespan IMO.

 

Hey guys, this is my first post here, but unfortunately it's a sad one.
My 8800m gtx just died on me after 2 years
Found this while looking for solutions. My distributor can get me a gtx260 for 270euros, which is the cheapest i've found. I'm thinking of baking it but i've seen some people say the laptop won't post whithout the card, and i need it for school, so if i ruined it i'll be screwed. Can anyone confirm this? Anyways, as soon as i get money for the 260 i'll try this. Do the guys who did this still have their card working? If not how long did the fix last?

by the way my laptop is a clevo m570tu

 

Well I was doing some lurking because I was bored at work. Anyway I have a alienware with 9800mgt in SLI and I had to bake one of my cards about 4 months ago. It still works. The 260/280 series of cards will work, they are available in the MXM 2.1 III type slot just make sure that your lap top can handle the increased heat.

 

Ok thanks. The heat shouldn't be a problem since there are clevos with same interior design that come w/ the 260. But as soon as i get the money ready i'll bake it anyway and if it works i'll save me some paper

 

My second 8800gtx died as well last year, was only about 8 months new/old unfortunately pc microworks ran off with my warranty and I didn't want to spend 550CND + shipping + import VAT on a new one at eurocom...
not sure if they got any cheaper by now though but would love to run my system back in sli mode. I still haven't tried the oven trick cause I'm pretty sure it's a fault in the memory chip.

cheers

 

TRY THE OVEN IT WORKS!!!! Nothing to loose my friend.

 

Hey guys. I've finally got the money for a new card, so i should try the oven tomorrow. @The Voyager: I'm pretty sure mine has a problem on memory too. I can still use my computer by disabling the gpu on windows. During post some weird lines(or half lines or dots really) will show up at random places (which make me believe it's the memory). Anyways, may the force be with us

 

tried the oven trick and didn't work, don't have the money for a new 8800m gtx, does anybody know what cheaper cards I can get to replace for my Sager NP5793 so I can sell it for a decent price? Thanks guys

 

You can get a FX3700m to stick in there for $200 from notebookparts.com.

I can't imagine how they came across so many FX3700m cards. They have sold at least 8 to the people here alone. They have all worked if I'm not mistaken. Niff even got lucky and received one with the .10 BIOS which flashed successfully to a 280m.

 

I would also go for an fx 3700m.

Or could get an fx 3600m (probably around $100).

If you want the cheapest, I believe they made 8700m GT cards in the mxm2.1 type III format.

 

does the card have to be from Sager itself because those cards listed are from Dell and HP. Will those still work in my Sager? Also, my display won't even turn on, would it be best just to send it in to be repaired? Thanks for the quick reply, I'm looking to get at least a little money from this and snag me a new G73

just saw these 2 on ebay, any of them compatible with the 5793? Thanks for the help guys

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170528556940&ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:US:1123#ht_2914wt_995

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nvidia-Quadro-FX3600M-FX-3600M-MXM-III-HP-8710W-512MB-/280520932485?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item415059bc85#ht_1372wt_905

 

The HP version of the FX3700M will work.

The lenovo version might have problems.

 

thanks hazard, the HP card is actually a 3600m not a 3700m will that still work? And so if I were to get the hp card, could I just send it in Sager and have them install it for me because the screen will not turn on at all so there isn't much I can do myself

 

>.> If the graphics card is the reason your laptop won't turn on, replacing it should fix that problem. The only thing you would have to install is drivers for it.

 

The screen will not turn on at all though, I can hear it booting up but nothing on the display so I might have to send it in to Sager with a new video card and have them take a look at it

 

The screen not turning on at all is a sign of a bad graphics card, replacing it with another graphics card as I said in my previous post, should fix it. There is nothing special that sager would do that you can't.

 

thanks rorschach, I wasn't sure if it swapping out the broken 8800 for a different card like a FX 3600 would suddenly turn the display on. I thought there would have to be some drivers installed or something along those lines that would also have to be done. I'll give it a shot, thanks for your input

 

Last year one of my 8800gtx cards died, similar issues and couldn't boot etc, diagnostic screen turned purple and so on... long story in short, tried to recover my pcmw warranty etc but that was a no go, so the card ended up in the closet for about a year now.

Yesterday I figured it was a nice rainy November day so I thought to give my xr5 a good cleanup and add new thermal paste etc.
While it was open I thought to give the broken card another chance and installed it with a good drop of thermal paste.
Tried to boot it up but nope didn't work, I kept trying for about 5 times, suddenly I heard the beep and knew I was at the windows login screen even though my screen was black but with the mouse pointer where it normally is during logon.
That didn't happen during all my attempts so far. So I moved the mouse cursor around a few times and to my big surprise the blue windows log in screen appeared and everything worked again... big surprise though.

I ran some 3d and benchmark tests on it without a glitch, so I took it out and installed both my cards again in SLI mode and so far so good, there's about 3 degrees Celsius of a difference in temperature between them.

I'm actually stunned by it and very happy I didn't put it in the oven.

Cheers