Just had a repair...

Hello,

I've just had a repair of my M18x R1. It wouldn't turn on, and when the power adapter was plugged into the light on the adapter would go out.

Everything went relatively smoothly, they replaced the motherboard.

However, the graphics cards are not behaving at all. Running Heaven and I'm getting 20fps with 4x AA 1080p, and the fans are going mad...certainly the one on the left which I think is the primary one.

I've installed gpu-z and I see the primary card shoot up to 105c and the secondary card isn't doing anything by the looks of it.

Both cards are visible in the device manager, and within Catalyst. i've uninstalled the driver and installed the latest on offer from the dell site (so basically rolled back the driver to the supported one). Anything else I should look at? I'm happy to open her up and have a look at the connectors if need be.

Any advice appreciated...

Of course I can just get Dell out again to take a look at it, but if I can sort it myself I rather would do.

Laurence

 

I would re-flash the BIOS to the newest version, even if it is already on the newest version... just to be safe.

 

What was the repair? Did they have to remove the video cards? If they were did the tech clear and reapply new thermal pads and thermal paste?

 

Is Crossfire enabled? Try to run RadeonPro or any other OSD utility (precision x or afterburner), play a game, and see if both cards are running in cfx. Check their % load, clocks, and temps while gaming. If this problem happened after the repair it's possible that the cfx cable is not connected as it should (or it was broken/damaged during the repair), and might just need to be re-seated. As well, you may want to make sure both GPUs are placed correctly, because that could be problems with how one is dissipating heat.

 

This was my thought - at first unseated card, but with the temps maybe poor/no repasting after removing the card...

Then again, my experience level is minimal - I'm here on the website to try and learn from those who REALLY know what they're doing!

 

Hi all thanks for the responses.

The guy was pretty nice and very slow and methodical from what I could see. He came to my work so I sat with him in an office while we both got on with our day jobs so to speak. The job was to replace the motherboard...so that is exactly what he did. Everything came out...the whole lot!

We turned it on and it all was fine, checked keyboard panels wifi bluetooth etc. Before it was completely dead.

It was only a bit later that I started up Heaven to ensure all was fine, as I notice the left fan revving up a lot.

Neither gfx card clocked up and the left one is hot, and the right one doesnt show any stats in CCC, but does in GPU-z.

I've disaseembled as much as I can without taking the screen off and realised I cannot get to the GPU without doing that. I've reflashed the bios too, but no luck.

I'm just running on the integrated card at the moment and all is happy. Guess I'll have to give them a call Monday.

Wierd that both cards are visible in device manager, and I can enable and disable crossfire but it makes no difference..

Oh and he certainly didnt take the heatsink of the graphics card and reseat it...it came out as a unit and went back in as a whole.

 

Its quite easy Mr. Fox has a video on youtube that I watched when I was taking apart my laptop for the first time:

Alienware M18x Tear Down - CPU Heat Sink and GPU Replacement - YouTube

It might be a lack of thermal paste or maybe a badly positioned/worn out thermal pad

 

Hi all.

I've grew some balls and removed the screen, as with all these things, it wasn't that hard in the end.

Before I removed the palm rest I actually noticed a loose screen on the left hand gfx. Removed the rest of the palm rest and all four screws were loose. I can only assume that he started to remove the heatsink then decided against it....do you have to remove the heatsinks to pull out the cards for a mobo swap? Maybe he did and just didn't tighten them up properly.

Anyway, the only damage so far was a bit of the keyboard light cable clip snapped off (brownish colour bit on one side), so it is a little harder to align the clip, but once pushed down is nice and secure and works. Shame as its a new motherboard. Some guy has had the same problem: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-plastic-secures-connection-cable-socket.html I cannot find the bottom clip bit that makes it act as a hinge anywhere, so i cannot glue it back on. Anyone have this problem before, I presume the thing I'm pushing down is wedging itself between the cable and the inside of the connector?

Temps are now 75ish on both cards in heaven with no overclocking. Both core clock up to 715 now.

I can only presume that the left hand card has had a bit of punishment for less that 15mins over the course of 2 days. As I tried heaven a few times and the temps would hit 106c on the left one and never go above 400Mhz.

Hopefully no long term damage, but I still have 15 months warranty left.

 

Those little cable clips are a massive PITA when they break; sorry to hear that happened. To answer your question about removing the GPU heatsinks, it's not necessary when swapping the mobo. You can take the whole graphics card/heatsink assemblies out. The only heatsink that needs to come off is the CPU's.

 

Tell me about it! luckily what ever broke (I think the little nobble at the end of one side), didnt stop me putting it in properly and secure. If I have to go in again to it then I might not be so lucky. Im assuming you can put something else in to wedge it in if needed. Lets hope I dont have to go there otherwise it will be a nother mobo swop!

To be fair to Dell they did deliver and fix the latop next day (as they promise), just a shame the guy didnt tighten up the gfx card.

 

Yeah, I'm surprised to hear about the gpu heatsink, that's a pretty massive oversight on the tech's part. I had an awful experience with one of those little clips... the day I got my M18x I was installing my ssd, and the clip holding the hard drive ribbon cable into the mobo popped out, and one of the legs cracked trying to put it back in. Dell sent a tech to replace the entire motherboard since they don't have spare clips. Took me two more days to able to use my laptop (on top of a shipping delay) for me to use it. To top it off, Dell sent a defective mobo to the tech, and we didn't notice it until it was already installed lol. So I've had two mobo swaps, just because of a little piece of plastic

 

Well at least the computer is functioning normally as it was just the heatsink not properly seated. Here is some extra overheating info that you might find interesting.