Clevo P170HM Barebone Trouble

Hi everyone. Want to write about my bad expirience with Clevo p170hm barebone that was bought on Ebay.com 3 weeks ago. Only last Saturday I installed CPU, RAM, HDD. Barebone was with 6970m installed by Eurocom.
Installed all hardware, press power ON and black screen. Fans and all Led was on. Firstly thought that I installed something wrong but no, everything was fine. Then decide to take off heatsink of GPU. I was shocked. Thermal compaund was everywhere near the main core. I carefuly take off all thermal compaund, installed new Noctua NT-H1. Press on still black screen. Then decided to connect extarnal DVI screen. LOOOOOTS of blue lines on the screen. I think GPU is dead. Have no idea what the hell they do with GPU. And that was supposed to be a new barebone . I even flash with another vbios but still nothing. Lots of blu lines on the external screen. Eurocom sucks. Now waiting when on Monday their support will contact with me about this problem. I am from Ukraine and dont know what to do. Should I request for a new 6970m or for a refund? Or may be somehow it can be reanimated? Also have no money to send them notebook back Even doubt if they will replace to a new 6970m. Perhaps they even can tell that I broke GPU

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hi and welcome to nbr

just a shame you didnt see this thread first http://forum.notebookreview.com/reseller-feedback-forum/428769-fair-legal-business-practices.html

could you post a picture of the screen so we can confirm its a dead graphics card

 

Bios screen
Thermal compound.

Can do more photos. This photos I send to Eurocom support.

 

can you take a picture of the lines on screen and post it on here so we can advise its a dead card or not.

 

Links:
http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/1416/img1483c.jpg
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9658/img1481b.jpg
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/7662/img1479iv.jpg
http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/7301/img1477j.jpg

 

blimey that thermal paste is bad.
that very well could be a faulty 6970 as its also showing on an external monitor.
i know a few companys stopped selling them about a year ago as there was a 40% fail rate on them and as we are talking about eurocom here i wouldnt put it past them to sell duff cards without proper testing.

the attached it what a graphics card is like when its totally died.

it defo needs to go back to eurocom. you could explain you cant afford to send it back so they may pay courier charges but then they could turn round and say as it was barebone its something you must have caused.
stand up and argue your point with their support staff.

good luck.

 

Ok. Thanks a lot. Will wait for answer of Eurocom support. Hope everything will be okay in the end. The ebay member that sold me this notebook seems to be a worker of Eurocom company. May be I should ask ebay to help me in this question if something goes bad, I mean if they will refuse to refund or exchange to a new 6970m?

 

Personally that does not look like a brand new 6970M is that suppose to be new? Screen problem certainly look GPU related.

The thermal compound is bad but it should still fire up and should be able to idle even with the worst of thermal compound I reckon that card has been abused and was DOA.

Blast them and make sure they replace it.

 

Here is link for notebook. Brand new and 30 days warranty. I received in 14 Febreary. So have all rights for replacment.
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Can be this a CPU issue because i have bought i7 2720qm (Engeniering Sample)? I cant test it on other machine.

 

Doubt its the CPU to be honest wont rule it out but it is a visual problem and once you rule out the screen it points to the GPU.

30 day warranty is a no go IMO you are buying hardware that I could easily call new and after 30 days it is game over. I would seriously think about returning it and and spending a bit extra to pick up a model from one of the rep sellers. You can pick up a model that is near bearbone and then add all your extras.

 

I'd like to turn it back but have no money for shipping it. Also there is not big choice of barebones on Ebay. Not many companise send their notebook to Ukraine. I am so confused about all of this

 

That is one hell of a bad situation you are in... Eurocom is the core of bad service. Might want to complain to Eurocome by sending a email.. just try.

 

I had already email them. Seller says to send them photos of blue lines on the screen. Also I was today in service center. They say that its only a gpu problem. So few minutes ago I asked seller to replace to a new 6970m or better or refund money for broken GPU. I said him if he will refuse I will ask Ebay Resolution Center to solve this issue. Also can ask paypal to help me.

 

I don`t know what VideoBios a healthy ATI card reports to the bios, but seing just the letter E wouldn`t be a good sign on Nvidia...just to make sure you did everything you could...did you try to remove the card and clean the contacts?

Also ask them to send you a 6990m to make up for the trouble it caused you!

 

Indeed vbios was very strange. I flashed tow different bioses. One from Clevo P150HM, Second from X7200 no changes. Also there was some strange name of my bios it was from E680/D900. Yep I removed Gpu and carefully cleaned thermal compaund near the core, still no effect

The seller form ebay agree to replace me a new GPU, but only after I will talk to their support today. They will say me where to send broken GPU. Would be grate if they will send me 6990m

 

Well actually the photo of that card that has been installed is not actually a Clevo part. All Clevo supplied GPU are green, this one is blue.

 

May be this is Eurocom Gpu. They sell blue on Ebay. Talked to their support. Only 2 massages from support for all day. Very slow response.

First support massage:

Can you please clean the paste from the video card, there was a excess of thermal paste applied
Do not worry the thermal paste is non-conductive so cannot damage the video card.
After cleaning and repasting the video card can you please test and let me know the results.

I said I have done it two days ago and if they need more pictures of blue lines i can provide them.

Second massage from support:

Yes pls send examples of the video artifacting as you experience them.
Also can you tell me if this is all the time or intermittently?

My answer: Ofcourse its all the time.

Two stupid massages for all day.

 

what thermal paste did you use to reaply it. it only needs a very small amount.

 

Was stock on the photo. Then I cleaned it and used Noctua NT-H1. Small amount.

 

Today Seller told me that they will check if they have some 6970m in stock in Russia and send me one from Russia if available. Does Eurocom have their warehouse or support center in Russia? I know there is one resseler of Clevo notebooks but its not a Eurocom.

 

Lunched HWINFO in Dos. It show that videocard have 16mb of gddr5 sdram =)
Perhaps Memory chips is dead.

 

That is a good possibility. Keep us posted on what is going on with your laptop and if you get your issues resolved. We here in the forums always like to know what happens and the end results.

 

Yesterday seller said that there is no extra 6970m available in their dealer in Russia, so they will ship 1 card to Russia than to me. Offcourse I must ship my GPU first to Russia. But why to Russia? Why not to Canada? Very strange. He said today Eurocom support will give me adress in Russia where to ship bad card. Third persons innvolved. I asked him why not to ship directly to me from Canada to Ukraine? Still no response. Actually notebook works perfect. I installed windows 7 x64 with external DVI screen. There was other blue lines. But when I installed Video drivers Windows cant boot. Only boot with Safe Mode. My friend have his old Acer Aspire with dead GPU too. He have same issue. Windows boots only with safe mode and with lots blue and purple lines on the screen. Hope everything will be ok.

 

On Monday send the dead card To Canada. Today (Friday) German dealer send me new one. Will wait for package. Mass Effect 3 is waiting for me =)

 

Glad you got it sorted out! Hopefully everything is good to go when the new card gets here!

 

Open case on eBay Resolution Center just to be insuared of new troubles with notebook. My 45 days of eBay protection will ends on Friday so if there will be some troubles with laptop eBay will help me if seller refuse to help.

 

Good news and Mass Effect 3 is damn awesome!

 

Sorry to hear about your troubles, hope everything gets sorted out smoothly.

 

Ask them to send by EMS. They send by German Federal post office. It will take week ot two to come
Finish Mass Effect 3 in my old PC Its really awesome but ending a bit dissapointing.

 

On Thursday will install new card and look if everything is working well.

 

I'm impressed of quality of my new card. It comes with new heatsink, new match screws and everything was sealed. Notrbook WORK =) battlefield 3 6 hours of playing everything ok. Even more overclock with AMD overdrive 750/1000 6 hours of battlefield and its only 74-76C (temperature) with stock thermal compaund)/ So Eurocom is not so bad company or its just a good man from eBay ) Tommorow will try to overclock more my card and ES CPU 2720qm.

 

Glad to hear you are back in business with your laptop!

Be careful with the overclocking, I wouldn't recommend more than 10% to be on the safe side. Others may have some better recommendations for you though.
One thing to keep in mind when overclocking is that no two cards are created equally so someone may be able to get higher scores with their card.

 

I'll be careful with overcloking) Had some issue with RAM. It worked on 1333.
XTU dont work properly. In XTU 3.1 I can ovrclock CPU but with some issue. My ethernet card dissapiared after overclocking. Power off helps. Then Installed XTU 2.1 Can overclok memory and timings but it applyed after 6 reboot. Now Ram works like it should, 1600. But cant overclock CPU in 2.1. Only power and voltage tuning available for CPU. Overclocked GPU 820/1050 Works fine without any thronling =)

 

Bro, Id drop the OC down to 715/900 as your top OC. OCing the memory I find really does nothing for performance, but it can and will cause artifacting. Its not the bottleneck. As for the main GPU chip, if you want rock solid stability keep it at 715. Going higher is not worth it. Even though your temps are OK while running your game, its still a bit on the high side. Remember, your laptops cooling potential is limited.......anything over 715 on the 6970m/6990m IMO is stressing the card in a laptop, and is really unecessary, especially if LONGEVITY is a concern.