Origin EON-17SLX (Clevo P870KM) GPU Issue

I am reaching out to the masses with a question, that I hope someone could answer.

I currently own an Origin EON-17SLX laptop (Clevo P870KM), equipped with an intel i7-7700K and an nvidia GTX-1080 gpu. Recently, an odd occurrence happened, where after doing a repaste on both the cpu and gpu and closing up the laptop, I heard what sounded like something loose floating around inside. I reopened the laptop, only to find a very tiny piece of metal, which i confirmed to be a resistor. I thought nothing of it and kept it and went along my business but later on, I started to get intermittent system lockups, with my only option being a hard reboot and then everything was fine. The intermittent lockups are still happening, so I went back inside the laptop to try to track down where this resistor came from. I found out that it belonged to the gpu card, and it appears that it just plain came away from the card, since the solder points are still intact. Further observation of the card shows another resistor starting to "tombstone", or rather one end is coming away from it's solder point.

I reached out to Origin about this matter but I seem to be getting the runaround. The downside to all of this is that the laptop is just over 2 years old, and I only had a 2 year warranty, but my point to all of this is that why can't someone (like Origin) claim this to be a manufacturer defect and have it exchanged by Clevo, as such?

Worst case, I have to replace the card, but $1000-$1200 is a pile of money i really don't want to have to give up (cost quoted by Origin). I thought about resoldering the resistor back on, but if it came off and not by defect, maybe it was shot off the card due to a power issue?

Excuse my ignorance in this, since this is the first time i have ever experienced something like this. I've scoured the net for replacement cards, have seen some that are used, but I am weary about buying used gpu cards and of course, brand new is uber expensive. I could use some sage advice from anyone who may have experienced this issue or know what other options I might have.

Thanks.

 

Is the card dead? Can't a proper shop get it repaired?

 

The card is not dead. Crazy as it sounds, with the resistor (actually, I found it to be a capacitor, located in the vicinity of the power plug on the card) not being on the board, the card appears to function normally, but I have no way of running any diagnostic to see what impact the missing part is having on the card. I also don't know how I can test that little capacitor to see if it still functions (if by chance it is still functional, maybe I could solder it back on). I can do 3D modelling and rendering with the card, game with the card, as well as do anything else on the computer, it's just that intermittent freeze that concerns me, and whether or not it'll get worse.

I have yet to hear the word "repair" from anyone I have spoken to about it. I'm following the "chain of command" petitioning Origin to come up with something, even if my warranty is technically expired, but as of now, I've had no productive conversation on how to move forward. I'm honestly trying to push the issue that the card is defective, that something went wrong when it was manufactured, thus causing the issue I have now. It's only been 2 years and I've never heard of something like this happening before, so I feel like I'm stuck with a lemon...a very expensive one at that.

 

Can you share a picture showing both the board without the part and the part itself?

Here is a picture of a 1080 mxm:

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-gtx-1080-mobility-gddr5x-gpu/

Do you have any thought as to how the part came off? Did it accidentally break when you removed the heat sink?

 

If 2y warranty past than you're on your own. Your best bet is to find reliable service some place near you that would solder this thing back in GPU +fixing another resistor and give u warranty that card wont be dead after "repair".

It will probably cost some $ but it will be far less than what you would pay for new one. If you decide to do it on your own - in best case you will succeed, in worse GPU will be dead. If you feel confident enough - go for it. But if you cant afford to brick this GPU - think about first option.

PS. Can you describe more specific this " intermittent system lockups". I had something which sounds similar -and in my case clean windows was way to go.

 

Here are a couple of pics of the broken off capacitor and the other is the tombstoning capacitor:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Rc3-Ayk3etG1qv-LEN2mncqvUg80yNG0

I understand that my warranty is up, but my point (again) is that if a failure occurred from a manufacturer defect, isn't that good for something? I have Origin involved because that's who i bought the laptop through, but we all know those laptops are made originally by Clevo, and as the gpu component is Clevo, they should be made aware of this as well as be open to rectifying the issue. The lifespan of this card should be more than 2 years (my old EON 15, with a GTX-980 I sold to a friend and it's over 4 years old and still runs like a champ).

As for how it came off, the position of the capacitor, in relation to where the card sits and whether anything could bump it, is a mystery, since I never took the card off the mobo until recently when i wanted to find out where the capacitor came from. As for the heatsink, that's on the opposite side of the card, so nothing could conceivably brush against the capacitor. In the pic, you can see that the capacitor essentially broke away from the board cleanly, so it may be possible to solder it back in place, I just don't have the tools to do it myself.

All of the times I have transported this laptop, I'd never heard anything moving around in it until recently, I've treated the laptop with care, never incurred any bad bumps and most certainly hadn't stuck anything inside of it that I shouldn't have.

 

Here’s a link to a similar problem as yours:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/need-help-identifying-smd-capacitors-on-videocard/

The ceramic capacitor may be very fragile, and possible flex on the board may have been enough to damage. Solution might be to clean up the remaining debris on the board, buy a replacement capacitor and solder. Not sure I could do that myself. I might need to see about getting the board professionally fixed or replaced altogether.

 

Thanks for this. It does shed some light on things, but from what I can tell, this person never really got any clear indication whether or not with the capacitor off the board, if the board would die or not.

I'd be perfectly content knowing that the card would be fine without it, no more issue and I'll soldier on, but if this is a sign of an early demise of the card, that too would be good to know as well. i would think that the repair would be as simple as just soldering it back on and from what i can tell, the capacitor is fine, not broken or cracked. Someone stated the Clevo cards are "bottom of the barrel"...not a comforting statement but it would explain a lot about the quality of components being manufactured for gaming laptops.

 

That's a very hard question to answer without a full schematic and understanding of operating levels. One of them is certainly in parallel which could be a load thing or could be different values to filter different noise.

I'm not going to point fingers at the cause here as that would need further investigation.

However with those SMD devices sorted, for the broken off one replaced and resoldered for the other then it should be good to go.

I would not run it in that state for fear of overloading a part.