Life and death of my Aorus X7 v8

Hello Guys:

Recently my Aorus X7 v8 has died, and I thought that my experience could be helpful for someone. Here it goes:

Why I chose this laptop

Last year I needed to replace my aging MSI GT72 (4720HQ, GTX 970m). When it came to my attention the X7 v8, I knew it was the best fit for me because it was the most powerful laptop in a format that you could actually carry around. Portability was something very important for me because I had to carry a laptop every day for work, and I needed a machine that did everything. The price of the device wasn't outrageous since you weren't paying a premium for the 8950HK.

Purchasing the device

In my home country of Spain there were going to be sold by the two mayor stores (Coolmod and PC Componentes). After months of waiting, just a few units arrived to the entire country, and that was it. I had to resort to purchase it to Overclockers.co.uk, where it promptly when out of stock, never to be replenished again.

My unit was serial number 48.

When I got it and setting it up

The first time I opened the box I was surprised by the strong rice smell of the box. But I was more annoyed by the rice smell the laptop had for some weeks.

I was happy with the build quality and performance, but since I'm a tinkerer and Gizmoslip had such great results with his liquid metal X7 v8, I decided to proceed as well liquid metaling the laptop.

When I removed the heatsink I was shocked to find the lack of thermal pads on several components and instead Gigabyte used thermal paste. I made a preliminary re-paste and re-pad and found the laptop performed worse that stock. Then I realized that the reason of using thermal paste instead of thermal pads was to improve the fit of the heatsink to the CPU and GPU while also improving thermal performance. Hence, on my next attempts I used this method.

Stock application



My fist liquid metal application wasn't successful because the GPU heatsink wasn't sitting flush enough to the GPU. Therefore, I decided to run liquid metal ( Conductonaut) on the CPU only. The GPU and rest of components where pasted with Kryonaut.

Issues and dealing with them

Weeks after I received the laptop I noticed that the right arrow key would get stuck with ease. I contacted Overclockers.co.uk in this regard and they told me that I should contact the Gigabyte repair center in the UK. I decided to delay sending the laptop for repairs because I needed it and the issue only affected a key I used very little.

Since I had to check the liquid metal application due to the GPU overheating, I decided to see if the keyboard was removable in case I could do something to fix the key. Turns out that the thing is riveted to the chassis.




I continued using the laptop without more problems until I noticed back in April that there were some dead pixels in the center of the screen. That was quite and annoyance because they fooled me when editing photos on the device. I set up to send the laptop for repairs on July, also wanting the hinge looked at since the laptop wasn't closing flat.

Sending the laptop for repairs and its death

After contacting the Spanish/Portuguese service center I had the laptop picked up free of charge. Repairs of the device took almost 4 weeks because they had to wait for the replacement parts.

Upon receiving the laptop I noticed that they did a very shady job, with visible double-sided tape remains on the screen, and the screen trim came apart with ease (I repaired this by myself removing all double-sided tape and applying 3M 9495LE tape). The laptop wasn't booting up either, but after tinkering with the memories it finally posted. I also noticed that the laptop was running hotter than usual and decided to check the thermal paste (the service center did not remove the heat sink per my instructions).

A two weeks later I received a new tub of Artic MX-4 from amazon and proceed with the repaste. When I removed the heatsink a chunk of the CPU came off, and the CPU also featured a large crack. There were also signs of a hot spot on the GPU die. After the repaste the laptop did not post.



Final fate

The laptop was sent again for repairs to the French service center of Gigabyte. After 2 weeks of waiting I was quoted about 2500€ (inc taxes) for the repair (new entire motherboard). Since this laptop is insured by the insurance of my company the repairs are not worth it and I will soon replace this laptop with an Alienware Area 51M.

How it currently sits



Overall I'm not certain what has caused this issue, but just in case I'm not liquid metalling a laptop ever again. The first bad experience I ever had with liquid metal, despite great successes back in the day on previous hardware.

 

Did you perform any of the recommended insurance methods around the cpu?

Also know that the 51m catches flame. It's well documented. I believe they lowered performance to undercut the shoddy vrms they used.

 

Gigabyte when manufacturing the motherboard applies some sort of lacquer to the CPU, so there's no need to tape it or lacquer it.

I'm aware of the issues facing the RTX 2080 on the Alienware Area 51m. I have some ideas of how to resolve those issues with the MOSFETs, will probably share them in the forum.

Enviado desde mi GM1913 mediante Tapatalk

 

Its not specifically for the CPU but to attempt prevention of it getting somewhere on the motherboard.

 

Unless you seal the gap between the cold plate and the CPU substrate, masking the CPU is not effective to prevent spills. Also commonly available tapes have the habit of coming of over time.

Additionally, the gap between the CPU die and other components is substantial. This was a very safe laptop to liquid metal.