np5793 - 8800m freezes during gaming

Hello everyone,

I bought a sager np5793 laptop from xoticpc (was a pleasure dealing with them) in july 2008. It worked without issue for quite some time. The brief specs:

t9300 2.5ghz dual
4gigs ram
8800m Gtx

At some point, I believe a few months in, I noticed that my system would slow down considerably (100 fps to 15ps for exampe) when it had been running a game for a while. It would slow down, then eventually return to full speed, then slow down a few minutes later, etc. Not knowing what the issue is, I installed various drivers. Eventually the computer stopped slowing down during game play, I'm unsure of what the fix actually turned out to be.

Anyway, over the recent couple of months, I've begun to have my 8800 freeze the system while its been running hot for a while. It began by only happening once a week or so, gradually becoming more frequent. Now i'm lucky if i can game for more than half an hour. It has yet to freeze outside of a game.

I am running the fan at full speed while gaming using fn+1.

I opened up the back of the comp. to see if it was just the fan that needed cleaning, and ensured that it was completely dust free.

Unfortunately, the problem persists. My gpu is around 60c while outside of games, and varies from 80-90 in them.

I also tryed running a game with the bottom panel off and the computer upside down, while this did decrease the temperature by a good 10c, the computer still eventually locked up on a black screen.

Any advice, or is my 8800 more or less done?

 

Hi, 60c is what you should see when gaming not idle! New thermal compound for cpu and gpu should fix the problem. Clean the heatsink,s radiator,s good with hot water and soap and a brush. Grease and other stuf get stuck in the radiator. I always clean the heatsink where it sits on the chip with very fine (waterproof) polish paper (2500).

Make sure that there is no water stuck in the radiator when you mount it back in the laptop!!!!!!!!

Ive it help i can make you some pictures from it.

My clevo is idle 39c on the gpu and 28c on the cpu with fan on auto. After long gaming its 78c (with oc) on the gpu and i did not tested the cpu temp.
When i run the fan on max i get even lower temps .

With thermal compound a mean Artic silver 5 or other brands. (what the good name for termale compound?)

Check your clock too with gpu-z idle and in game, is it running max clocks idle!? Whats your driver number?

 

Re-apply Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste to CPU and GPU/heatsink. Should clear up any overheating problems.

 

thanks for both your replies. I have cleaned the heatsink, will soon buy some compound and apply it. As to your question ben, I've been switching drivers fairly often, currently using the latest xtremeg drivers.8.16.11.9062

 

Have you tried flashing your system bios yet as well?
If you contact Sager they can send you a BIOS update.

 

Do you use a notebook cooler ? If not, try one. I've got a Zalman 2000 and its like setting my notebook on a freezer. Highest I've seen my gpu is around 55 degrees, after some serious gaming !

 

Hey graydon, I bought a np5796 in July 08 by sagernotebook and I have those "fps hiccups" too. It definitely is heat because of the design. I have to clean out my laptop once every two weeks to fully keep the tempures at a steady rate. Recently I've been neglecting it and I kind of regret it.
It's just too small in there for dust to pass through properly so it builds up more heat than it should intake. I'm currently having artifact problems so which means my 9800mgt is going bad. One reason that effects many chips is excessive amount of heat that slowly cracks the solder between the circuites, as more accumulate, there more problems you have. I think of it as your respiratory system. The the more clottage the more problems in certain spots. I receive artifacts because my 9800m gt can't load something properly.

So just remember to keep it clean
Just keep using that fn+1 goodness while you game!!

 

ok... I've purchased thermal compound, removed the old stuff from the gpu with rubbing alcohol, put a slightly larger than rice grain bit of thermal compound down, and reassembled the heatsink/heatpipe.

No change

The graphics card is completely dust free, new compound in place, and still idles at high 50s celsius. When the gpu load is at 90% it was at about 90 celsius. (Tested with GPU-Z and windowed starcraft 2.)

This is also with the plastic at the bottom of the computer removed, with it on, it seems to be higher.

Not that I only replaced the compound on the gpu itself, not the stuff on the ram modules on the card.

Any other thoughts/suggestions?

Through google, I've noticed several reports of 8000m series cards having an overheating problem... but frustratingly, without specifics of how to fix it. Several places note that Nvidia has said that there are 8000m's with overheating issues, but i haven't found any statement actually from nvidia, much less a solution....

Again, any help is much appreciated. This thing has been such a headache for me.

 

You can try a other driver, the 185.85 from Dox is a very good one and keeps the clocks (temps) low when brouwsing internet ect. You can try to bake the card in the oven.

Apply the thermal compound again.

Idle around 50c with max clocks is normal, 90c in game is 20c to hot!

 

Well, I've tryed the drivers Benjamin posted, no significant change. It's still overheating. It seems to be gradually artifacting more and more as well. I'm going to try baking it in the oven. Question: do i need to remove the thermal paste prior to baking?

 

Well, I removed the thermal paste and plastic bit from my 8800. Preheated the oven to 385~. Put the vid card gpu face down with little tin foil balls holding it up by the corners. Left it in for 9 minutes, turned off the oven and left it half open for 45 minutes to cool. Pulled it out, it was cool to the touch, reapplied thermal paste and attached heat sink. Doesn't turn on, laptop boots to a black screen . Fan doesn't turn on gpu and heatsink doesn't appear to warm up.

Dunno where I screwed up, but looks like I finished it off .

 

I think your gpu was probably fine but there was something wrong with the cooling. If your gpu was ok til around 90 C thats working like it's supposed to. I mean it's not supposed to run that hot but if it takes those sort of extreme temps to make it glitch then it was probably ok. Hope you didn't bake a perfectly good card.

If you got a new one it'd still over heat maybe. Were all of the fans kicking on? Did you try reapplying thermal paste a 2nd time to make certain?

 

Yes, the fans were kicking in, and yes, I reapplied thermal paste a second time. Reducing the amount of thermal paste slightly had slightly improved tempatures, but only by a couple of degrees. Before I baked it i was starting to see a fair bit of artifacts in game, and even some in windows. The screen would occasionally show bits of "static" (for lack of a better word) accross the screen... I don't feel too badly about the damn thing, it seemed to be dying anyway... still sucks pretty hard that my otherwise good laptop is more or less a paper weight now :/

 

but graydon, you can get a gtx 260m mxm 2.1 from rjtech. it cost like $390 and is a nice upgrade.

too bad for your dead card but there is allways a chance.

http://rjtech.com/shop/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=29873

 

Sorry to hear that the card is really dead now! Stupid 8 series nvidia sh.t!!

When the card is slowing down the core threshold kicks in at 105 degrees! It depends on your vbios but mine was set to 105 degrees with vbios 62.92.23.00.14

Please try a 260m or 280m mxm 2.1 from mxmupgrade, you can send it back when it not works!!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=207159&page=105

 

Many of the "problem" chips produced in the 8-series were really poor. But a typical respin of the silicon fixed that right up with the 9-series and onward.