SAger 5793 fubar?

My sager turned off abruptly when playing a game. I turned it on but i saw some video artifacts that were flickering along the screen. I immediately turned it off, disassembled the bottom, let it cool down, removed the pipe the gpu, applied some artic silver, assembled it back, and now i cant power up.

I get the blue button to light, i hear the fans engaging, but after a sec it powers down.

 

Sounds like an overheat, repaste it and try again.

 

Do you have a 8800MGTX?

 

No, this should be a 9800gts version. I am desperate, this is the second sager that overheated (5720 was the first) and the one in between, same one with 8800gtx was stolen.

I did repaste, but it's not powering up, maybe i need to repaste the cpu?

 

It seems to act exactly the same even if i try to power it up without the video card.

 

uhh that sounds a lot like it your card is dead. sorry man. I don't thing it could be much of anything else.

here is a cheap replacement. its still a pretty good card. at least you dont have to downgrade to some 32 shader crap, this one has 48. HP EliteBook 8730w 512MB Video Card G94-975-A1 TESTED - eBay (item 370450148703 end time Dec-25-10 14:29:00 PST)

 

The really messed up thing is that i live in serbia and i dont even have access to paypal. I need to somehow pinpoint the exact problem, if its the card then fine. My 5720 also had its card fried but it would boot up normally, only the sceen would be totally messed up.

I tried to dissasemble the entire body to see if there are any burn marks underneath the battery but i was unable to get it off. The gray metal cooler thing is a bit loose because one of the screw mounts is not attached to the board or the plastic underneath, dunno if that is overheating as well.

I contacted the ebay seller, to see if i can buy it somehow. But ill try calling sager today as well.


What exactly have i done to fry it? It definitely did overheat, and i was an idiot not to let it cool down completely. I turned it on again and it started booting normal, but even while booting it had slight artifacts but they were changing. After that i opened it up. Was it too hot to be detached from the heatsink?

 

Your GPU had a good chance of failing from the start, the BGA probably cracked.

One way you might be able to fix it:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...r-your-dead-graphics-card-your-alienware.html

 

Im trying that right now with my 7800gtx from a 5720.

 

Well i wasn't able to bake the 7800gtx. Now i just get a black screen while before it was full of artifacts. I dont think ill dare to do that to this one until im sure its the gpu.

 

If you repaste carefully and it still happens there is a good chance its a dead GPU.

 

Yeah, it doesn't go on. But the thing i find weird, i put the 7800gtx in the oven. Placed it back and the thing still runs. The screen is black, but the lappy doesnt turn off immediately.

 

Hmm. Yea thats happened to me with cards before.

Its the solder that cracks fortunately, not the actual core.

If you do any more baking, perhaps you should try clamping the BGA or applying even pressure somehow to get it closer to the circuit board.

 

Seems its definitely fubar... caled sager, they said it can either be the mobo or the card. Fixing this either is at least $500 and along with the shipping would end up costing as much as a new one.

I was wondering, a friend is coming here in january, he could bring me a new one (i probably wouldnt go nuts and go for the one for $1400 which seems similar), if i send both these dead bricks to the states, what are the odds of selling these for spare parts? I don't have much experience with ebay.

The first one has the pentium m 2.26 which alone cost $700 back in the day

 

Not sure what you are talking about here, whats the bga? I tried baking the 9800gtx from the new one, no avail.

 

Ball grid array.

 

Well, I'm talking about the core BGA which is the chip with the codename you can see on the center of the card etc. but all the VRAM is on bgas to, their solder could have cracked too.

BGAs are particularly sensitive to being mounted, its what makes them more efficient.

Actually I think SMT ovens use a sort of press system to mount the chip.

This is why I think applying pressure while baking might have a higher chance of fixing the card.