M15x + ATI 5870 (MOD)

I brought the ATI with the clevo heatsink. So i still have it laying around, how did you remove just the square part from the rest?

 

you speak in riddles rengsey lol that picture just has me puzzled now

 

All he did was use the clevo heatsink that come with the ATI 5870 and mix it with the original 260m.

 

Yeah he didn't have to be "a smart @$$" about the whole thing. Simply could have said combining the clevo and original heatsink gives us a nice drop in temps (if you've ever modded anything you've used a dremel tool).

 

not the picture from before look at his last post now it doesn't have the clevo heatsink

 

I'm going to mod it too. I just pry it open.

 

dude that was uncool bro, i contacted baby hemi and everything. could of just posted this picture first.

 

I was just having a lil' fun. my bad. But yeah..my last pic of the modded stock gtx260m does the job for that major temperature drop.

 

What!!! I pry that thing open for nothing!!! What tool did you use to cut that heatsink off?

 

No you didn't. What you have to do now is cut the inside of the Clevo where it screw to the GPU. , so that way the gtx 260m heatsink fits in the cut out and on top of the GPU chip to make full contact.

 

But the last picture you show is without it? I'm confused, so did you use the clevo heatsink or you just cut the gtx 260m heatsink off and just use it by itself?
What did you use to cut heatsink off with?

 

With the Clevo heatsink, it sometimes boot up and sometimes don't, maybe there is a grounding point somewhere that I don't know about.

As for the GTX 260m heatsink, it works fine , and the temps were from the GTX heatsink by itself. So for now, thats what I am doing , until I figure out why the laptop does not boot up with the clevo heatsink added.

 

Wait your totally conflicting here "don't do that mod didn't work" and you post a picture without that piece on from the clevo heatsink then "no that's right just cut the center out"??

FYI for all. Just ran all the same benchs and games testing temps on my friends G73JH he idles around 65c 700/1000 while I idle 59c 700/1000 and gaming it's on average 4c/5c average higher temp at all times (BC2 LAN) and also FurMark after 8 minutes averaged 96c/97c compared to my 95c/96c (G73JH ramped up faster to those temps too). This tells me it's more than sufficent to use the stock 240/260 cooler, good thermal paste (mx3), and some good thermal pads memory/componenets (1mm ek thermal pad $18.99 frozencpu.com for a sheet) layering them to get proper contact (240/260 heatsink sits high on the edge away from the GPU core).

Pretty much nothing to worry about as far as temps and life of this card goes compared to another 5870 equipped machine.

 

Is it ok to leave those memory expose with just the thermal pad?

 

The pictures Rengsey posted are very confusing, what exactly did you end up using? The second picture just looks like the stock heatsink with the RAM sections removed, but surely that wouldn't help would it?

 

To me it seems that the GDDR5 Ram generates a lot of heat. thus removing the big part of the heatsink will cool down the core of the gpu. This probably is not safe, but I am not an expert on the topic.

I am curious what temps the clevo heatsink provides

 

I hate to just throw speculation out but I think it is not safe to just have pads on the memory and other components that are supposed to be making contact with a heatsink/pipe. The thermal pads are meant to be a transfer material, not an outright cooling solution.

For extreme purposes I appreciate what Rengsey has done but...it's a bit extreme

When I first received 5870 with the nice copper heatsink for Clevo I started wondering how it could be adapted but didn't actually do anything so props to Rengsey for experimenting. How exactly did you interface the 260m pipe with the Clevo plate (what material did you use?)?

Rengsey: What if you cut out the "L" from the Clevo copper plate for the memory, etc.. and used some thermal epoxy to interface the rest of the components so they had more than just thermal pads.

 

If you can transplant the whole heatsink + the heat fins it should be near this temp.

 

i have the feeling that the fins do all the work and the heatsink is secondary. The fins look almost twice as long as the m15x one

 

Yeah. It seems the temps are doing pretty good just using your existing heatsinks.

 

For all those out there who seek better temperatures please do not mod your heatsinks by removing the memory cooling section. The plate is there for a reason, to actively draw heat from the huge DDR5 chips. I can guarantee that without them you will get artifacts in game and poor overclocks if any.

 

Just played Bad Company 2 for around 3 hours straight on all maxed out settings and my card hit a maximum of 79 degrees and was currently at 72 degrees when I tabbed out to check according to hardware monitor. I am very happy with this kind of temperature while gaming.

 

wow those are awesome temps tomuk, right now my max is 84, its ok but would like it to be a few degrees cooler.

 

Yeah I share the same concern cutting up the heatsink and only actively cooling the gpu core with it. While that gives you great temps on the core (no shared heat from the GDDR5) one can only imagine how hot that memory is getting without anything pulling the heat away. Rengsey could you monitor AMD GPU clock tool while letting furmark run curious what temps your memory hits (one would assume hot without anything pulling heat away).

 

Sure, ONce I get off work. Work is boring and long ..... but It is what it is.

 

Do nobody have an idea for this problem?

 

Anyone know what is the 5870 compare to nividia desktop card? I know for ATI it compare to the 5770. So just wondering what it compare to nividia desktop card.

 

Not actively cooling the GDDR5 is just asking for trouble.

 

Any new action here? What's the latest on the temps?

 

im interested to know as well. I just got a heatsink and fan changed by DELL. They even brought a new GTX 260M To swap but turned out that card DOA. I didn't want the change anyway as my current 260m was doing well but the new heatsink and fan change have brought my temps down from a previous high of 84celcius to the mid to high 70s celcius. Its a significant change and I am looking forward to jumping onto the 5870 wagon as soon as I can. Babyhemi I emailed you at your provided email. Thanks.

Hows the rest doing? rengsey managed any new benchmarks? I just hope the card operates below the low 80s here in tropical Asia....

 

In a nutshell, would users who made the switch to the 5870 say that...

1.Installation was fairly easy? No real modding required? (Dremel, Sanding, etc.)

2.No true heat issues?

 

1) Hardware installation is easy. Just use the 260M heatsink.

2) The ATI definitely hotter than 260M but in perfectly manageable temps.

The only issue I have right now is that I cannot underclock the card in linux, which results in only 1 hour battery time on the 9cell bat.

 

1. I found Installation to be very straight forward, All I ended up using extra was a Philips screwdriver, cotton buds for wiping the heat sink, MX3, and some thermal surface purifier. Took no more than an hour and I was being very careful and looking over things, I am sure it only took some people 20 minutes or so.

2. I find that during long hours of gaming, 3 to 4hour sessions my temperatures are consistently around 70 - 78 and peak at 80 - 82. This I believe is lower than a lot of people are getting with the Asus G73 with this card. So overall I think temperatures are pretty well managed. Haven't had any issues whatsoever.

 

Here's a handy little gadget to show core temp and clock speed on the 5870 (or other video card). Been using it about a week, and it seems well behaved. Avoids having to keep Hardware Monitor, Clock Tool, etc. open just to track GPU temp. Also reminds those who underclock or overclock of current clock settings without GPU-Z.

​

If interested, it can be found here: OrbLog

 

Great new from you guys. Looks like I need to get some thermal paste then.... I can't reuse the one from the GTX 260 Even though my heatsink is 2 weeks old after the recent change....

 

thermal you can't reuse, but the thermal pads from the 260 and the mounting plat from the 260 can be used, sctually the mounting plated must be used as the 5870 mounting plate will not fit.
also there is a guide in my sig if you wish to see the steps.

 

Can someone please tell me if I need to flash the bios of the m15x to a specific version and if I need to have a specific bios version on the 5870 card?

Or doesn't this matter anymore, I updated the bios of the m15x on yesterday so I'm sure that it'll be the latest version. But I'm not sure if that works with the 5870 and if the 5870 needs to have a specific bios on it.

I'm terribly sorry if this is already answered, but hey there are a lot of pages to view in this topic .

Thanks a lot for the answer.

 

You can check in your bios what version it is. You will need A05 for the 5870 to work.

 

onlt the newest A05 bios supports the 5870. so far no one has needed to flash the gpu bios.

 

Thanks, it is already the A05 bios which I have on my m15x So it'll probably work Thanks for the fast response.

 

i don't think anyone has tried yet, but try to go into the idt control panel and set it to output through the display port.

 

Rengsey any updates on all three sensor temps running under load with furmark? (using AMD GPU clock tool) Curious to see what the GDDR5 sensor is pulling without the heatsink actively cooling the chips.

 

Apologies - didn't even notice the different card. thread opened and title changed.

 

That is good, because this thread is much more exciting than the potentially emasculated 5850 that will be officially in the M15x

(since Alienware is completely unable to show vram type in the order page for some mysterious reason)

 

We're BACK! Now let's continue...

 

rengsey was about to reveal the uber solution to have a cool M15x with 5870m

 

Well if you all need a reference point, here are my 4870s. Max is full load (furmark after 20+ minutes) min is idle. This was sitting on a Cryo LX at full blast in a mildly warm room (mid 70's) with the bottom cover still on the machine. I have applied OCZ Freeze on the GPUs and am using the stock thermal pads.

This tells me that the 5870m is indeed hotter than the 4870m given that the M15x GPU cooling is pretty much on par with the M17x GPU cooling

 

question scook im looking for a good thermal paste been referenced to MX-3 what do you think of OCZ freeze?

 

I have been happy with it thus far. People seem to use it interchangeably with MX3. I just wanted something easier to work with than AS5 which is what I used previously.

For what it is worth, Johnkss has tested anything under then sun and is happiest with OCZ Freeze.

 

ok cause im about to order from newegg for a few things like new mouse, ext. hdd, and OCZ freeze. great price compared to MX-3