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How to fix your 6800 go AMilo m3438g


Guest khawarizmi

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Guest khawarizmi

I sent my laptop AMilo 3438G to a pc shop, i ordered the 7600 go , supposed to be MXM type 3 card, but he said it wasnt compatible

so he 'heated' / 're-flowed' my graphic card (he explained to me that the solder under the gpu chip has been heated)

before the solder was brittle and wasn't functioning well

heat/high temperature cause my graphic card to malfunction and heat again has been used to fix it.

its a small simple process, with many amilo 6800 go laptops going faulty maybe most have this same problem?

mine stopped working just 10 or 11 months after i bought it. most would say u need motherboard replacement other new graphic card.

i suspected it was easy to fix

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Guest khawarizmi

been using my laptop for a week now , no trouble with graphic cards, tested card using Half life CS source,

though its very slow due to my 512mb ram, which is not good :)

i have 1 month warranty/guarantee on it

Anyone else fixed their amilo m3438 graphic card or replaced it without reflowing it like i did?

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Guest skyos

hi ,

in what country are you ?

how much did you payed for those repair?

been using my laptop for a week now , no trouble with graphic cards, tested card using Half life CS source,

though its very slow due to my 512mb ram, which is not good :)

i have 1 month warranty/guarantee on it

Anyone else fixed their amilo m3438 graphic card or replaced it without reflowing it like i did?

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Guest Guest
been using my laptop for a week now , no trouble with graphic cards, tested card using Half life CS source,

though its very slow due to my 512mb ram, which is not good :)

i have 1 month warranty/guarantee on it

Anyone else fixed their amilo m3438 graphic card or replaced it without reflowing it like i did?

Plesase can u give to us more information about the repair of the geforce go 6800, precisly who is the component that make the vga card no boot???

Thank you.

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Guest Radeon

Hi!

First of all, excuse my bad english, i´m spanish.

can you explain a litlle process of repair of your 6800go???, my amilo3438 start malfunction 2 months before and the official support only want change the grapics card, at the modest price of 422.00 EUR =656.257 USD xDD

Obviusly i prefer, try to repair it , anyway i contact with ebay seller of fujitsu siemens for 7600GO for my laptop, plug in and works i think.

Thanks for all and best regards.

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Guest Guest

Guest_skyos_*:--- hi , it cost me about 80 euros to fix it, i was lucky i found a small computer shop that was able to fix it.

Guest_Guest_*:-- in my case the laptop was working just at like safe mode or lowest resolution with everything pixilated. As i mentioned above, the solder was heated (turned to liquid i guess) and solidified again. That solder/material was brittle and soft and broken (thats what the shop owner said) and so it was re-flowed. thats how my laptop was fixed and i imagine most have that same problem ...

it depends on the expertise of the laptop repairer, maybe it just needs chip replacement but for me the above was done.

Guest_Radeon_*:- If u still have your warranty , use it and let them change the graphic card, some changed the motherboard as well. 422 EUR is too much better just buy new laptop and sell the one u have, but try to shop around find a computer shop that will do for the same price as me from 50ERU to 90 EUR

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Guest Guest

Forgot to mention , the shop had 7600 Go graphic cards which is what i have chosen, he said it wouldnt fit in, i thought it was MXM type 3 card just like my laptop , so then he just fixed it as above

i was quoted 100 Euros for a refurbished 7600 go. Good price .

IF u decide to use the 7600 go and pay for it pls tell me about it and if the 7600 go will work on it.

when did u buy your laptop? mine malfunctioned 2 years ago or 3 and just fixed it 1 month ago. :)

Good luck

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  • 1 month later...
Guest Radeon
Forgot to mention , the shop had 7600 Go graphic cards which is what i have chosen, he said it wouldnt fit in, i thought it was MXM type 3 card just like my laptop , so then he just fixed it as above

i was quoted 100 Euros for a refurbished 7600 go. Good price .

IF u decide to use the 7600 go and pay for it pls tell me about it and if the 7600 go will work on it.

when did u buy your laptop? mine malfunctioned 2 years ago or 3 and just fixed it 1 month ago. :)

Good luck

Hi everybody!!

First, thanks for the answers, the warranty ended in febrary, but i find a repair parts customer in ebay, and its from my city!!

He offer me the 7600go for my desktop, i buy the card and put myself, total operation: 140? xDD

Thanks again,

Best regards from spain

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  • 5 months later...
Guest Boomshanka

BOW*

omg thank you soo much for saying about the solder. ive had my M170 XPS repaired twice now at cost of £120 a time when i opened it up and had a look it was blatent this is how they fix it, woped out my iron and heated up the solder were it looked the most new and walla works again

total Epic repair thanks man saved me 100's

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  • 2 months later...
Guest Guest

I have two broken 6800go graphic cards, and they are both doing the same as above. Does anyone have a picture exactly what solder is ######** up? It would be so nice to have my Amilo back on the road :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

First of all,sorry for reviving this very old thread and hi.

This is my experience..If you feel uncertain..dont do the steps i did

So my laptop slowly started to die on me while playing wow (yes i still play).

I got these red dots all over the screen and browned my pants. Shut the game down usually and was a bout to turn the computer off by normal procedure in windows xp.

During the logoff i got the blue screen of death telling me that nv4_disp something failed and then it started dumping some memory.At this point i browned my pants again and panicked and pressed the power button and pulled the battery.

After a good hour i inserted the battery and powered it on.Horror struck my eyes as i saw blue artifacts during POST and the same blue artifacts on the windows logo.

Computer wouldnt boot into windows, so i rebooted,pressed F8 for failsafe to remove drivers.Removed drivers and rebooted

Sure,the computer starts normally into windows,no artifacts in windows only.

I started to sweat like never before.Didnt know what to do.

Started scouring the web for solutions on my desktop computer.

I found this thread and thought could this be true. I even went as far as to bother the head of mxm-upgrade.com with my issues and asked if this is true. :)

Yes he said...One can re-flow the BGA which very little effort in fact.

And all this about a week or so ago.

Luckily i didnt sleep the past night so i scoured some more and found a few vids on youtube about how to re-flow just about anything with a BGA. So i gathered courage and dismantled my laptop and pulled the mxm card.

I didnt have the equipment as shown in the youtube vid so i pondered for a while and thought it should work in the oven as long as it gets hot enough.

Very well..aluminum foil would be easy as i ate a cheeseburger yesterday.

So i wrap the card in the foil and locate and expose ONLY!! the gpu core.

Heated oven to 75c at first.. 2 minutes at 75c

Cranked the heat to 100c and went outside with doggy ..so about 4-5 minutes

Came in and cranked heat to 150c ..approx 2 minutes

Even more heat at 180c ..approx 2 minutes

Final heat at 200c .. approx 3 minutes

I then left the foiled card in the oven at 75C for about 4 minutes before i took it out and left it on the table allowing cooling ~25 minutes.

Assembled the computer and what do you know..it worked.

Artifacts are gone,windows boots with drivers instead of giving me the dreaded white background.

I have yet to flex the card once again before i can make a final statement.

Nevertheless i see this as a temporary solution, not a final.

Just wanted to let someone know that for once in life i succeded at something on my own :P :)

Remember this is just me. If you feel uncertain then dont do this,in fact dont even think about it.

If you do try this method i take no responsibility if you burn your home to the ground.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Mupp,

I have an Amilo M3438G with the same problem, blue dots, only VGA res... but...

Yesterday, I followed your steps and now my Geforce Go 6800 is working fine !!! :) :unsure: :)

I've installed Windows 7 RC, all drivers updated with my 6800 working at 1440x900 !

I'm just curious to know where did you get that info to rework your graphic card... :P

Thanks a lot!!

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It has been pretty much talked on German Amilo forum - there's also an English version of the forum.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Mupp you are the best :) ) The best ideea with the oven! I love u

I had the same problem and now it works like new after "cooking" my video card :) )

Today I read an article and I was curious if somebody tried to do that with an M3438G... I searched on google and I got here.

Thank you Mupp!!!

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Guest Guest

What stuff you guys use to make contact between GPU and the heatsink? I can't use AS5 on GPU because the gap is too big. Are the memory heat pads better than the one that's on the GPU?

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I was curious if somebody tried to do that with an M3438G... I searched on google and I got here.

It was pretty much where it started - go6800 (especially in Ultra version) was a hot card and many of them failed in Amilos.

Not mine, it blew the backlight system...

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  • 1 month later...

hi

i'm selling a 6800 go 256mb/256bit for 40eur with shipping worlwide

mail me if interested at: madaleno at gmail.com

i can send high res pictures if you want

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Hi, my video card doesn't display anything, i would change it, but your experience give me some hope. I have a question. do i have to remove all the pads on the video card (there is a black protection behind that is attached) ?

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thank you Mupp, i've resolved my problem with the video card :)

now i'm searching for something to keep the fan going always on

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These lines are used in Amilo 3438 to slow down the fan of go6800 - you could try altered values to

see if the fan can be forced to higher speed.

(fancontrol.reg)

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak]

"MXMThermalControl"=dword:00000001

"SilentModeControl"=dword:00000001

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  • 1 month later...

Well, I must say...I was a bit skeptical...but all of the symptoms outlined in the above posts were present. I have a Sager 9860 with a Go6800, and about 4 months ago the computer abruptly shut down. When I restarted it, I could see patterned arrays of dots across the screen...and I could not boot into Windows normally. I booted into safe mode, backed-up everything with Acronis, and started hunting for a new video card.

However, I could not justify the price! It didn't take long to figure out that it would make more sense to purchase a new laptop than to shell out for a new card. I kept searching for an answer.

Then, three days ago, I stumbled upon this thread. While pondering removing my video card and throwing it in the oven, I concluded that the computer was just a paperweight at this point, so why not try it? Yes, I researched "reflow" first...and then, tonight, I took the chance.

I didn't wrap mine in foil, as it is already encased in a sort of metal enclosure. I went online, converted the celsius instructions to fahrenheit, crossed my fingers, and did it.

20 minutes ago I reinstalled the card after applying some AS5...and geez, well...it just plain works! Now I feel it is encumbent upon me to inform people on other forums of this ridiculously easy fix to an all too common problem, especially with these Sager units which are notorious for generating excessive amounts of heat.

All I can say is "Thanks so very much"...my $3600.00 computer lives again!

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Oven to fix a gpu card, funny. :)

Nevertheless, since i own a amilo 3438g 6800go with symptoms mentioned here, and since i believe everything that is written in the internet, let the cooking begin...

Didnt find anything needing soldering so:

Receipe to happy laptopping:

Didnt have aluminium foil but wrapped most of the card with cooking paper (or whatever it´s called), left gpu core exposed, sprinkled some imaginary cheese on top and threw the sandwich in the oven.

Set the oven to 200 celcius.

Waited the oven to reach 200c.

Turned off the oven.

Waited couple of minutes, maybe 4-5.

Took the card from the oven.

Voila, crispy gpu card waiting to be enjoyed.

As soon as i could handle it with my bare hands, installed it.

Waited couple mins so the coolingsink took rest of the heat.

Fired up the machine and ofcourse, works perfectly!

Thanks for the grazy guy who thought of putting a gpu card in the oven!!!

ps. Maybe thats how the fix them in the shops and ask 50-100 bucks for "repair" :)

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I've seen tens of successful reports during a couple of years - go6800 was prone to develop this fault which mostly was baked away.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've seen tens of successful reports during a couple of years - go6800 was prone to develop this fault which mostly was baked away.

I sure went on myself since I had the same problem, it seems I am not going to be a baker cause I apparently overbaked mine... :)

or at least it dont work anymore. Perhaps I forgot the imaginary cheese :) mentioned in one of the recepies.

I only kept the board in oven for say 4 minutes in the 200 Celcius and now it machine dont even boot.

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  • 1 month later...

Hey I just wanted to post this so it will come up if someone else like me is searching for info:

I have a Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 laptop with the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra card. Bought in fall of 2005. The video card went dead on me, starting with wierd line artifacts, and eventually became a black screen at boot. For a few days it would work intermittently here and there, but went to black screen on a permanent basis after that.

I removed the Geforce go 6800 from the laptop and removed the heat sink assembly that was attached to the PCB with 4 torx bit screws.

I took 4 small pieces of foil and rolled them to make little "legs" that would fit through the screw holes on the corner of the PCB and hold the board up off of a surface.

I put the card on a pizza pan covered in foil - GPU facing upwards. I preheated the oven to 385 Fahrenheit and put the card in for 8 minutes exactly. After the 8 minutes I removed the pan gently and let it cool on the top of the stove for about another 15 min.

After the 15 min, the card was cool enough to handle. I took the heat sink assembly and cleaned off the old thermal compound where it makes contact with the GPU. I put a ball of arctic silver compound on the GPU and reattached the heat sink. Installed it in the computer, and reassembled everything.

It worked great. I just did it tonight, but everything looks good so far - no artifacts, video is perfect. I'll repost if I notice it goes bad.

so all in all, this trick saved me like $350 US.. If you've got no better option, why not try this?

PS didn't smell any toxic fumes in the house but had windows open and range hood fan going full blast the whole time.

Kris

These lines are used in Amilo 3438 to slow down the fan of go6800 - you could try altered values to

see if the fan can be forced to higher speed.

(fancontrol.reg)

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak]

"MXMThermalControl"=dword:00000001

"SilentModeControl"=dword:00000001

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