Got the rest of my P750DM-G parts, but…wrong WLAN card?? :(

Hi all...

So I just got the rest of my parts - the CPU, RAM, HDD ... and the aforementioned WLAN card. BUT... Apparently it's the wrong type for the slot?



Clevo's site specifies an M.2 slot for the WLAN card.
"Slots: • Four M.2 card slots
-1st for WLAN Combo M.2 2230 Card with PCIe and USB interface (A key)"

Newegg's Intel 7260 spec sheet says it's M.2.
"Interface: PCIe Half Mini Card / M.2 (NGFF)"

Apparently there's some discrepancy here?

I'll need to RMA with Newegg on the card, but what one should I get that will go in that slot? It has to be an Intel card for Linux compatibility, and I really need it by the 23rd. If I have to go to Fry's (or another place in town cause I'm not finding 7260, 7265 or 8260 searching their site) and pick one up I could do that, so long as the price vs capability/performance ratio is at least as good as this card would be if it was the right one.

Looking at Intel's Ark site again ... apparently I need to get a 7265. But, looking at Amazon, the card's physical plug looks different than the slot (there's 2 gaps on the card and only 1 gap on the slot).
Also I'm having trouble finding a reputable online site that has the 7265? Any ideas? Fry's doesn't have it, Amazon is confusing me (it does seem to have it, but maybe through third party sellers), Newegg says the wrong type (one reviewer says it's Mini PCI not PCI Express which NE says, another reviewer says it's the M.2 version of the 7260, etc; also the two 7265s listed only get 3 eggs with a too-high-for-my-comfort percentage of 1-egg reviews), I really don't want to use ebay, etc.


Also when taking the laptop apart ... I hope I didn't bend the keyboard too much



Looking at @HTWingNut's video again, he pointed to a screw by the left of the RAM 4 slot, but I actually ended up having to remove the one marked in the picture below.

On the other side, once the keyboard is up, that screw hole is labeled "KB SCREW".
Investigating further, the screw he pointed to was actually one of the ones you remove to get the back panel off, and the one I removed at first was below that.

Anyway, I'll put the rest of the parts in and see about getting Linux running, but I won't have wireless internet until I get the right card.

Anything else I should be careful about in particular? (Of course I know the obvious make sure the CPU and GPU have thermal paste and the heatpipe assembly is properly reattached, although it'll be my first time doing it on a laptop.)

 

Also, now that I got the heatsink assembly off, apparently the GPU already had paste applied. (I kind-of expected that, considering it was installed already.) Do I need to clean it off and reapply? It does look fairly clean, like it should just go back on... Also for the CPU, should I use the paste that RJTech supplied, or the Cooler Master paste?

I've had the CM paste since I bought my desktop parts back in January, and I used a little mini-strip (or small pea, I forget, but I think it was similar to how Linus & Luke apply thermal paste on their videos) on my 4790K. (On that I get temps of either 99C at 3.7 GHz with Prime95 2.87, or 84C at 4.5 GHz in Prime95 2.66 on the Small FFT test. I learned after running the newer version & seeing the high temps & throttling, upon researching, that the newest versions of P95 stress Haswell in a way that isn't good for it. Is there a better utility to use instead that's free?

 

Once you remove the heatsink you have to clean and reapply. The seal is broken basically and won't cool well at all. That looks like perfect coverage though. I think you're right. I think I missed a screw on the video that had to be removed. Thanks for pointing this out.

You will need an M.2 PCIe WLAN card like this: http://www.amazon.com/Intel-7265-IE...1450223348&sr=8-1&keywords=Intel+M.2+802.11AC

What you have is a mini PCIe card, not M.2.

 

That's what I thought, @HTWingNut. It'll be my first time cleaning off thermal paste, and I want to get it right the first time. Any suggested reputable tutorial sites/videos, or maybe just a q-tip and (I forget if it was alcohol or what but I'm thinking a liquid solution wouldn't be good to use, just in case) ... ? I think I might also ask on the Linus Tech site... Also I forgot to mention in the above post mentioning Prime95 that I only ran it (especially the hot test) for a few seconds, and aborted right away cause I knew something wasn't right.

 

I think you may have misinterpreted the spec sheet (easy to do, most retailers just copy/pasta the whole thing).

I suspect the implication is that it is available in BOTH mini-PCIE and M.2 form factors. Annoying that the product description doesn't actually tell you which version you get though, but the picture is definitely of a M-PCIE one. Should be a simply case of sending it back and ordering an M.2 version.

 

Okay, so which of the two 7265's on Newegg should I go for? This one? Or this one? Or maybe I should go for a different model entirely? Or is the 7265 my best bet? (Also in order to get the new one in time for my trip (I'm planning to leave as early as 7-8am from San Diego on the 24th, going through L.A.), would I possibly need to go to L.A. to pick it up?)

 

That first one you link indicates it's M.2 which is what you want. The second one shows an M.2 as well but no description. I'd opt for the first one.

Also, to clean the thermal paste, just get the highest content isopropyl alcohol (preferably 95%+), soak the thermal paste with some alcohol for a few minutes then wipe it clean. It may take multiple cleaning swipes to get it completely clean. See this video here of how I did it (start at about 1:25):

 

You can just wipe the paste off with tissue that does not leave lint behind too, does not look quite as clean but functions perfectly well. We would always clean it properly for customers but for my own personal machine I don't bother.

 

@Meaker, if I use the tissue method, which would be better, something like Kleenex, or a dryer sheet? (And a fresh one or a used one on the dryer sheet?)
And @HTWingNut, if I do the 95% isopropyl alcohol method, would it be a good idea to remove the GPU, or.... you know what I should watch the video to see what you do. And I see the card was out of the laptop, as I expected. I noticed you dripped it straight out of the bottle on the GPU, but used a tissue or something on the CPU.

Also, once I get this all put together and an OS loaded on it, what temps would be reasonable to see at stock settings on a GTX 970M and i3-6100?

 

Not necessary to remove it from laptop. I use paper towel to clean, won't leave any dust or residue.

 

Hmm... seems I only have 91% isopropyl alcohol - would that still work? (My mom said that's the highest concentration she's able to get - maybe you have to get the higher stuff at a computer store or someplace like that?)

Fry's does have this 99.953% M.G. Chemicals 824-1L Isopropanol Cleaner 1L, but I don't really want to spend $12 just for that, and I wouldn't know what else I'd use it for within its usable life. I'm considering going over there either later today or this week to look at laptop carrying cases as well. I went last Saturday and looked some, but couldn't decide which one I wanted (preferably under $30 or so) in the time I had available.

Also found this one for just under $9, but via Google - searching Fry's for isopropyl alcohol either doesn't bring it up, or brings up unrelated content including music CDs that have alcohol in the title.

 

Kitchen paper is pretty good, 90 ish percent is fine, just be sure to remove any residue.

 

So I got it cleaned off, reapplied paste (used the Cooler Master paste I had) and put the laptop back together. It posts, but of course doesn't (yet) boot as I have no OS. I'm currently putting some Linux distros in a multiboot configuration (using YUMI) on a 32GB SD card, then planning to boot off of that via an external card reader.

I have learned that I can't boot off the internal SD card reader, but at least in the bios it does recognize an external reader when it's plugged in. (It didn't recognize the older version of Ubuntu I had on a 2GB card, but my desktop had some trouble booting that a few days ago as well.)

If using the external reader doesn't work, then I'm thinking I'll temporarily pull the 2TB hard drive out, plug it into my desktop, and see if I can make a small partition and put some bootable ISOs on it, like I'm now doing with the SD card. Then I'd use those to try various Linux flavors and see which works best for me, then install it. Anything I should watch out for? I will probably unplug all other hard drives in my desktop while I'm putting Linux on the 2TB drive, just to play it safe so I don't accidentally overwrite something in the desktop.


Edit: Booting externally off the SD card didn't work, so I'm in the process of preparing another workaround.

I pulled the 2TB HDD out of the laptop, then opened my desktop and pulled out one of the HDDs to make room for the laptop HDD. I then booted Linux off the 256GB SSD's existing partition, then did some figuring to determine what partitions & sizes I wanted.

What I'm doing so far, is cloning the 32GB (FAT32-formatted) SD card (that I'd used YUMI to put multiple ISOs on) to the 2TB HDD, at the beginning. (I thought of putting it at the end thinking I might delete it later once I decide what to install and resize the data partition to fill in the blank, but decided it'd be better to keep it, and put it at the beginning. In the back of my mind I was thinking maybe it'd have trouble booting if it was not the first partition on the drive, but all I could find on Google searches when asking about that was people debating whether to put swap at the beginning or end, not boot/root.)
Then, I'm making a 116GiB ext4 partition to install Linux on, a 64GiB linux-swap partition (yes I only have 8 GB of RAM, but I don't want to have to redo it later when I max out my RAM later, also it's for being able to hibernate when I want to), and the remaining 1.61 TiB is an NTFS partition for data. Why NTFS? Cause I anticipate getting Windows later, probably when I get an SSD. (Also I'm thinking I'd get a 480-512GB SSD, meaning if I just copy the Linux OS & Swap partitions over, I'd have 300-332GB available for Windows, theoretically, although in reality it'd probably be less due to the 1000 vs 1024 discrepancy.

So I'm hoping this works. Otherwise ... I wonder if a ghetto solution for making an optical drive temporarily work would be to power it from my desktop's Corsair AX760 PSU, but hook up the SATA cable to my laptop's spare internal HDD SATA port?