XI 1546 & X1800 Mobility

[cL0bb3R]

Hallo,

Fist I have to say sorry if my thread was posted in the wrong section,but to me this section seems to be right one for my problem.

I hope someone in here can help me.

The problem I currently have is, that my X1800 produces graphic-bugs ( streched textures)

I thought it was because my card becomes too hot, because the bugs only came up if I played games on high quality.

Then I replaced the old heat-condutive paste with liquid metal pads from Coollabratory.

I think my problem is the cooling of the X1800's RAM and chips. First I removed all the old pads from the RAM and from the rest of the card,

and then put back new ones only on the RAM. Since then my problem got worse. Although the NB works fine with older games and under Windows,

in new games I have to put the settings as low as posible to play without bugs. Best example FarCry, playing with details at max. plus AA&AF at max.,

the game runs smooth but after a minute or so, I get graphic-bugs.

Not to forget the temperature of the NB is about 5°C lower as before

So my queston is if someone can thell me where to put the heatpads on the X1800 exept for the RAM?

But maybe I'm wrong, what other reasons have to be considered.

If my card is broken which card would you recommend as a alternative

-----------

Sorry if my English is bad

[Ice-Tea]

How thick are the liquid metal pads? You need 1mm to cover the distance between heatsink and GPU.

I've also never really seen artifacting due to overheating. It shuts down, I never seen it artifact.

If your card is indeed broken, I can offer you a x1900.

[cL0bb3R]

The pads are like paper thick. But I also tried with paste.

Is there really a gap of 1mm within the XI 1546 ?

For me it seems like much less.

With paste and pads I always had contact between DIE and Cooler

Thanks for the fast help but I think a x1900 doesn't makes that difference.

Since my x1800 works fine under Windows and most of the games I play right now.

Maybe I'll wait till the 8700GT comes out.

[Ice-Tea]

Simple test: install your GPU with a piece of paper (or two) between die and sink. If you can pull the paper out, it's thicker than that.

I wouldnt' replace the x1800 if it ain't broke.

http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/benchmarks.xls

[Guest Michael]

Well i have an Amilo Xi 1546 too, (with an X1800) and i have the same problems.

When i start 3D Apps. and Games as WoW and BF2 after same minutes artifacts start to show off on the screen, after some time it gets worse and the Notebook starts to freeze so that only an manual reset would start it again.

Bios updates from FSC wont do anything better in this situation.

My Card also gets verry hot. I tried new heat conducting Paste alla Artic Silver 5. First it worked verry well but after 2 months the probs started again.

Now i thing that the heat conducting pads on the RAM (GDDR3) are the problem. Actualy i cant find any pads on the Greek market.

I also think to buy the X1900 witch you sell here .oO( but the price of 350? is a bit heavy , dont you think?)

If there are any NEWS on this specific problem pls post it!!!!

Thanx for your time.

Greatings from Greece.

[Guest Santeri Niemi]

Well i have an Amilo Xi 1546 too, (with an X1800) and i have the same problems.

When i start 3D Apps. and Games as WoW and BF2 after same minutes artifacts start to show off on the screen, after some time it gets worse and the Notebook starts to freeze so that only an manual reset would start it again.

Bios updates from FSC wont do anything better in this situation.

My Card also gets verry hot. I tried new heat conducting Paste alla Artic Silver 5. First it worked verry well but after 2 months the probs started again.

Now i thing that the heat conducting pads on the RAM (GDDR3) are the problem. Actualy i cant find any pads on the Greek market.

I also think to buy the X1900 witch you sell here .oO( but the price of 350? is a bit heavy , dont you think?)

If there are any NEWS on this specific problem pls post it!!!!

Thanx for your time.

Greatings from Greece.

Greetings from Finland,

Sadly I don't bring help, only my own worries.

I have the same problem. I see stretched pixels and all sorts of quirky glitches. This happens with most games.

I recently changed the thermal grease to Arctic Silver V too. After this the problems got worse. Now I'm also having blue screens due to ati2dvag.

While changing the paste, I noted that there are some sort of thermal tapes in a few places, and there are imprints from the memories and some other parts.

Could it be that there is no longer a solid connection between the memory and the thermal tape/heatsink?

I have a picture of these blue tapes too, have you got the same ones?

Any ideas, any help?

Regards Santeri

[Ice-Tea]

There should be a thermal pad between the GPU and heatsink. Replcaing it with paste is no good because there is a gap between the GPU and heatsink. Paste is not designed to cover that. You need new and decent pads (if heat is indeed the problem.)

[Guest Santeri Niemi]

Do you mean, that there should be a thermal pad between the gpu core and the heatsink?!?

After my laptop was at the local repair shop, they put thermal paste on to the gpu core.

I hadn't removed the heatsink before, because it was still under warranty until 27.12 :)

Just seems really odd, that they would have made such a mistake, but hey, anything is possible, and at least I'll know who to complain to.

Thanks Santeri

[Ice-Tea]

If you wish, you can check: clean the card and sink (watch out for ESD!), put a piece of paper between the sink and cooler and mount everything again. If you can pull the paper out, you can not use paste. Your repair shop may have applied a thick layer that works eventually but it starts to spread after some time, especially with the heat.

[Guest Santeri]

My my, this requires some intensive complaining to the repair shop. Thanks for this info. You'll be having some good thermal pads for sale in about 2 weeks, right? Because if I don't find somem here, I'll have to order some from you.

[Ice-Tea]

Heh, well, check before complaining. Could be wrong, I'm not the pope :)

But yes, I'll be having very decent pads shortly.

[Guest Santeri]

Wonder of wonders! There is actually a contact between the gpu die and the copper heatsink! The thermal paste shows a clear imprint of the die and the paper didn't come out when the heatsink was connected.

Well I still put a thermal pad on it this time, mine was 4 W/m.K so not too shabby. After I booted up and tried to scan for artifacts with ATT, it still found them almost instantly.

It could be the memories that are heating up, even though i replaced the old pads on them with my new ones (the same as on the die).

I wanna order a couple of those new pads you've got coming.

Also, I couldn't get the nhc script to work on my Xi, any help on that?

And the clip on fan, could you give some more info on that?

This is my only comp at the moment, so I want to get it gaming as well as possible.

Frosty regards (-12 C)

Santeri

[Guest Michael]

Hello again....

Back to the problem... recently i discovered that on the backside of the X1800 PCB are memory chips too, i think there are also a problem because they are not cooled. You have may noticed that side over the pci-x slot (for expansion cards) gets very hot...

As i sad , those chips might be the Problem for freezing the Notebook. I put thermal pads too on them but there is no way to get all the heat off them.

If theres any solution its helpful pls post it, thx for your time...

And again , greetings from Greece.

P.s. i found the thermal pads on the German market.

[Guest Santeri Niemi]

Well, It didn't go as planned. I bought a premium heatpad from MXM-Upgrade (thanks anyway Kris, at least it helps a bit), thinking it would magically solve my problems.

Suprise suprise, that wasn't the case. Initially everything seemed just fine, I stressed the cpu with Orthos to get the fan spinning with earsplitting noise, then used atitool to scan for artifacts. There weren't any after about an hour, so I was content.

After that, came the gaming, hooray for Hellgate London. Well, the story really is short, the machine BSoD in five minutes with the cause being ati2vdag or whatever the hell its called.

After rebooting, I tried the same thing, stress the cpu, fans running, stress the gpu. It took about 5 seconds for artifacts to start appearing. Good damnit!

I removed the card while putting on my new heatpad, and put some heatpad strips on the backside memories too, so that shouldn't be the cause anymore.

I'm hesitant to even tell this, because i really don't think it's the cause BUT, when my notebook was in warranty service, they applied some thermal paste on the gpu core. When replaced the paste with my heatpads, I did notice some thermal paste residues on the little "spikes" besides the actual core. I removed anything I could with ArctiClean, but I guess some always remains. If this s*** shorted the gpu, shouldn't it just waste the whole card and not just behave this way under stress.

I'm starting to be at my wits end here. Any suggestions would be appreciated greatly.

Santeri

[Ice-Tea]

Well, It didn't go as planned. I bought a premium heatpad from MXM-Upgrade (thanks anyway Kris, at least it helps a bit), thinking it would magically solve my problems.

Suprise suprise, that wasn't the case. Initially everything seemed just fine, I stressed the cpu with Orthos to get the fan spinning with earsplitting noise, then used atitool to scan for artifacts. There weren't any after about an hour, so I was content.

After that, came the gaming, hooray for Hellgate London. Well, the story really is short, the machine BSoD in five minutes with the cause being ati2vdag or whatever the hell its called.

After rebooting, I tried the same thing, stress the cpu, fans running, stress the gpu. It took about 5 seconds for artifacts to start appearing. Good damnit!

I removed the card while putting on my new heatpad, and put some heatpad strips on the backside memories too, so that shouldn't be the cause anymore.

I'm hesitant to even tell this, because i really don't think it's the cause BUT, when my notebook was in warranty service, they applied some thermal paste on the gpu core. When replaced the paste with my heatpads, I did notice some thermal paste residues on the little "spikes" besides the actual core. I removed anything I could with ArctiClean, but I guess some always remains. If this s*** shorted the gpu, shouldn't it just waste the whole card and not just behave this way under stress.

I'm starting to be at my wits end here. Any suggestions would be appreciated greatly.

Santeri

I don't imagine that the memory chps at the backside are at fault. Memory doesn't consume that much power and the setup work in all other cases.

Sounds like your GPU is shot, maybe due to the paste spill, maybe due to using paste at all (always advised against it on GPU's) maybe because you simply ran out of luck...

[Guest Santeri Niemi]

I just don't believe it's the paste spill. I mean just look at the pictures of the same card on an Alienware machine:

Alienware site

I was looking at this store in the US for a replacement, but I would first like some kind of proof that the card is fried, and not some other part.

http://ztronics.com/store/mobility-radeon-x1800-p-452.html

A bit over 100? without shipping is not bad. I'm just not going to spend 350? on a notebook that's going to africa with me and after that, I'll get a desktop anyway.

Any thoughts?

Additionally, I still havent been able to make the NHC script to work, my machine is reporting itself as Xi 1547 with the motherboard code/version P72IA0 after a bios update.

Santeri

[Inioch]

Again, I really dont think that the paste is the reason. At least not AS 5 as it is non-conductive. Also I base my suspicions on these pictures fom an Alienware guide: Guide

I was looking at this store for a replacement (Store), but I'm not sure about ordering from the US, as there can be additional taxes and tolls etc. The about 100?+shipping is acceptable, if there are no hidden costs.

I know that the x1900 would be a great replacement, but I'm just not going to spend 350? on a machine that's going to end it's service with me in about six months.

Before I order a new card, I'd like to conclusively find out that the card is broke, and not something else on my computer (although I don't know what that would be).

Ice-Tea, can you help me out with the NHC script, I havent been able to make it work. I understand basic coding, but nothing I've done so far hasn't helped.

After a bios update my lappy reports itself as a Xi 1547 and the motherboard code that's in the scripts is P72IA0.

This post may show up twice at some point. I already wrote it once, but I got a message saying it will be moderated before it's put on???

After this I decided to just register.

Santeri Niemi

[myron]

Again another Xi 1546 user having the same problems with X1800. My laptop is 14month old.

Besides glitching during gaming I sometimes get a complete system crash. Recently I get a BSOD which prompts an NMI Memory parity check error (when playing COD4 or Gears of War).

All the above appeared after the warranty expired :) as there is only 1 year warranty for FSC products in Greece.

I've tried using various drivers, official, mobility modder, omega etc. Also, i've downgraded BIOS from 1.25 to 1.17 where the fans were working at lower temperatures but no luck.

I've also used AS5 for replacing the old paste and cleaned the entire heatsink from dust.

I was thinking that the problem was overheating in the memory chips of the GPU and I wanted to buy these high quality Heatpads (17W/mk) to solve the above issues.

Do you think that Heatpads will do me no good at all?

Is it damage to the GPU problem? I can play COD2 in DX7 mode with no problems at all, but when I play it in DX9 mode I get glitching and crashes. I used to play at least COD2 in DX9 mode with no problems at all 3-4 months ago.

Is there a chance that the motherboard or the CPU is damaged (I've thouroughly tested the RAM for errors).

I was considering a GPU upgrade but I guess we can only upgrade to X1900. I don't know if it worth buying an X1900 (if the GPU is the case) as the heatsink could not even support an X1800 in the first place.

Edited February 16, 2008 by myron

[muppet]

>>At least not AS 5 as it is non-conductive

Check http://www.arcticsilver.com/as5.htm

"While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths"

Note sure if this is your problem - just noting that AS5 spills could cause problems. I have also read about issues arising from removing the existing thermal compound with cleaning solutions not specifically designed for electrical usage that contain a percentage of water.

[Guest Tony]

Again another Xi 1546 user having the same problems with X1800. My laptop is 14month old.

Besides glitching during gaming I sometimes get a complete system crash. Recently I get a BSOD which prompts an NMI Memory parity check error (when playing COD4 or Gears of War).

All the above appeared after the warranty expired :) as there is only 1 year warranty for FSC products in Greece.

I've tried using various drivers, official, mobility modder, omega etc. Also, i've downgraded BIOS from 1.25 to 1.17 where the fans were working at lower temperatures but no luck.

I've also used AS5 for replacing the old paste and cleaned the entire heatsink from dust.

I was thinking that the problem was overheating in the memory chips of the GPU and I wanted to buy these high quality Heatpads (17W/mk) to solve the above issues.

Do you think that Heatpads will do me no good at all?

Is it damage to the GPU problem? I can play COD2 in DX7 mode with no problems at all, but when I play it in DX9 mode I get glitching and crashes. I used to play at least COD2 in DX9 mode with no problems at all 3-4 months ago.

Is there a chance that the motherboard or the CPU is damaged (I've thouroughly tested the RAM for errors).

I was considering a GPU upgrade but I guess we can only upgrade to X1900. I don't know if it worth buying an X1900 (if the GPU is the case) as the heatsink could not even support an X1800 in the first place.

Ok people. After having a lot of similar problems with my amilo xi 1546 (artifacts, glitches, and after a while a BSOD or crash), and after trying all the solutions in forums , I have spoken with FSC service and they told me that my card is damaged, and even maybe the motherboard. Stop messing with various tricks (placing new thermal pads or thermal paste, drivers,BIOSs etc.) because the answer is that there is hardware malfunction. No matter what you do, no matter how many degrees you manage to drop the temperature, the problem will still exist. The thing is that if you mess around to much you risk some serious stuff (losing your warranty - something that nearly happened to me) and some minor stuff (messing up with windows leading to the loss of data and finally the waste of A LOT of time). Sorry for being blunt but I'm trying to help some people to realise that there is a hardware malfuction and to prevent them from losing ther warranty that can save them a lot of money.

Now for those who are already out of warranty, I have a suggestion: Since you are going to pay money, I advise paying a bit more and buy a NEW laptop, than trying to buy a new card (like the x1800 or x1900 mobility). Believe me the difference in money will be very small. Plus, buying a new computer also buys you warranty (for any future damages if they occur), because if any similar damage occurs after some time in your new-bought card, it will be like throwing money. Plus, a new laptop always is considered an upgrade in a lot of things compared with your old laptop.

Hope I helped (I'm sure I upset a lot with this, but sorry guys). Believe me that now that I'm writting this, I have my xi 1546 in Service. I'm just trying to save you from (more) trouble.

[SirKhan]

Ok people. After having a lot of similar problems with my amilo xi 1546 (artifacts, glitches, and after a while a BSOD or crash), and after trying all the solutions in forums , I have spoken with FSC service and they told me that my card is damaged, and even maybe the motherboard. Stop messing with various tricks (placing new thermal pads or thermal paste, drivers,BIOSs etc.) because the answer is that there is hardware malfunction. No matter what you do, no matter how many degrees you manage to drop the temperature, the problem will still exist. The thing is that if you mess around to much you risk some serious stuff (losing your warranty - something that nearly happened to me) and some minor stuff (messing up with windows leading to the loss of data and finally the waste of A LOT of time). Sorry for being blunt but I'm trying to help some people to realise that there is a hardware malfuction and to prevent them from losing ther warranty that can save them a lot of money.

Now for those who are already out of warranty, I have a suggestion: Since you are going to pay money, I advise paying a bit more and buy a NEW laptop, than trying to buy a new card (like the x1800 or x1900 mobility). Believe me the difference in money will be very small. Plus, buying a new computer also buys you warranty (for any future damages if they occur), because if any similar damage occurs after some time in your new-bought card, it will be like throwing money. Plus, a new laptop always is considered an upgrade in a lot of things compared with your old laptop.

Hope I helped (I'm sure I upset a lot with this, but sorry guys). Believe me that now that I'm writting this, I have my xi 1546 in Service. I'm just trying to save you from (more) trouble.

Yeah well I agree with the part that the best decision is a new laptop, HOWEVER I don't agree at all with your "No matter what you do, no matter how many degrees you manage to drop the temperature, the problem will still exist." line. The simple test proves me right: get off the backside of the laptop and put a very powerful fan behind it and you'll see that there will be no artifacts, no anomalies at all.

THIS is why it's 100% sure it has something to do with the heat... we just don't know how to fix it (yet). :)

[Guest Facey]

Just to add a further note as I'm curious if anybody else has the same result. If you run Passmark Burnin test on xi1546 check and see if you get a failure in the video memory test. If you do I suspect the x1800 shipped with these laptops has a bad batch of memory chips because this is a common problem.

[Guest skyos]

there is nothing wrong with those GPU cards the problem is that FSC do not make all the job right for maintaining all series of amilo notebooks including ATI or NVIDIA GPU's

problem is heat and how is dissipated on those notebooks

if you wanna long last your amilo you have 2 choice 1 .use it less time and no game at all or 2. use a notebook cooler and use the "cabrio edition"and controll fan speed of your notebook to the maximum speed install a soft -temp controller for your VGA

I suspect the x1800 shipped with these laptops has a bad batch of memory chips because this is a common problem.