Everex XT5000T Support thread

The GPU finally died last Friday. I decided to test the GPU to see if I will have the same issue again with the screen going black so I tried the ribbions screensaver and after couple of seconds into it the screen went black. So, I immediately turned off the laptop. After turning it on again it booted up fine and I was able to log into Vista, so I decided to watch an HD video on Youtube, after about 8 or nine minutes into the video the horizontal green lines begin to appear and the screen went black eventhough I could hear the sound from the video going. So, I did a manual shut off and turned it back on, this time the screen would show what looks like burning in, as if there is smoke going through the screen. This definitely is the nVidia GPU defect that we all have been hearing about. After all the pampering I did, like leaving the back panel open while gaming, which I did last month, replacing the network card because of the IRQ conflict, and all these extra care I put in, it eventually had to die. I am out of $800 :mad: and this laptop only lasted 2 years, 2months and 5 days. All I can say is a BIG F**K YOU to nVidia and, Everex, for going out of business, I especially blame nVidia because they are the primary culprit. Even if I had an HP or Dell with a extended warranty I would have to wait for weeks to return the laptop and have it replaced. As a college student I would be without a laptop for couple of weeks which would be a real bummer. They would have replace the laptop with the same defective GPU anyways which will probably last another year or two before dieing again. I expected to use this laptop for at least 5 years. I AM NEVER EVER buying nVidia $hit ever again! :mad: I suggest people do the same. I recently picked up a Dell Studio 17" laptop with an ATI Mobility HD 3650 that I got for around $560 including shipping. Hopefully, this will last me much longer that the two years that this piece of crap worked for. This whole thing feels like a very nasty divorce. First, everything was fine with the "hot" girl when you first met, in this case when I saw the XT5000T for a sweet price with a Go 7600 and after the two years the girl bails on you kind of like the laptop did. Which goes to show if things are too good to be true it probably is, I never should have brought Everex granted that this was mostly nShitia's fault. But I still could have at least got a replacement. From now on, I would suggest sticking to know brands like Dell, HP, none of this Everex $hit and certainly no more of nVidia crap.

I will sell this laptop for whatever is worth, it will have the standard specs plus the extra 1 GB I added, if anyone is interested. You could try baking to see if it will come back. I do not have the time or the patience to deal with this $hit anymore, I put a lot of time and effort on this laptop to deal with it's various problems. I mean taking out the laptop MB and baking it, seriously? GIVE ME A BREAK!
 
I am sorry to hear of your dilema. I hear and feel your pain, as I am sure most other XT5000T owners do as well. I forced myself off the system in January of this year and went with a P-7805u. My XT5000T now is just a test bed and rarely used at all.

Now I normally upate my hardware frequently so this originally was not too much of an issue. The problem lies in I can't also do my norm and give the old tech to anyone. It is just a death waiting to happen.
 
I have two XT5000T laptops. Mine has been running fine; my wife's now has a problem.
The laptop turns on, but only a black screen is displayed. No Everex logo, no post.

Everything sounds fine, the fans spin up, hard drive turns on.

There were no video problems before. However, the laptop would occasionally lock up over the past month. Just last week the laptop display only shows black.

Is this a video chip failing?
I'm ready to sell my working laptop now on craigslist.
 
TANWare said:
I am sorry to hear of your dilema. I hear and feel your pain, as I am sure most other XT5000T owners do as well. I forced myself off the system in January of this year and went with a P-7805u. My XT5000T now is just a test bed and rarely used at all.

Now I normally upate my hardware frequently so this originally was not too much of an issue. The problem lies in I can't also do my norm and give the old tech to anyone. It is just a death waiting to happen.
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Thanks for the sympathy TANWare. I really appreciated your help earlier in the year when I had the issue with IRQ conflict for the XT5000T with the network card and the graphics card. Too bad the Everex had to die. My Dell Studio 17" 1735 seems like a pretty nice laptop especially since it has a ATI HD 3650, games run a lot smoother than the Go 7600 even after the GPU being down-clocked by DELL down to like 222 MHz for the Core and 247 for memory. And it runs a lot cooler.

The Core 2 Duo runs a lot cooler than the Turion X2 as low as 33-34C. I wasn't able to get a read on the ATI GPU temp. I downloaded the latest GPUZ and it only shows the core clock and the memory clock. No GPU temp, before on the Everex I used nVidia's System Monitor to monitor the GPU temp.

Any ideas on what program I could use to monitor the GPU temp? All the ones I tried doesn't show the GPU temp. Thanks.
 
J Macker said:
The laptop turns on, but only a black screen is displayed. No Everex logo, no post.
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Yep same thing with mines except I could see what seems like smoke or burn-in going through the screen. Definitely a video issue.

Here is post on Dell's website about the symptoms of defective nVidia GPUs. As you could tell from the posts below that ALOT of people with nVidia GPU's are having the same problems that me and you are having.

http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/...nvidia-gpu-update-for-dell-laptop-owners.aspx
 
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Funny thing on the Everex site I fought tooth and nail for people to recognize the GPU as the cause of the failure. This started a couple of years ago, at least two.
Tanware claimed that it was the WIFI card " no ands ifs or butts". You don't want to know Willie Wankers asinine statements. Two freaking years I fought with the village elders(idiots) and they never admitted the gpu was the problem.
I always thought one or both were Everex site operators payed to downplay the gpu flaw. Why else fight against all the evidence I, and a few others like Jasmine, researched and shared? Why claim any and every outrageous possibility other than the gpu?
The real bitch is if pressure had been applied way back then, while Dell and HP were admitting to the problem, we could have possibly gotten a recall on our laptops.
Call it a Pyrrhic victory.

PS
To the best of my recall the flaw was in the manufacturing of the gpu itself and not the cold soldering.
Sadly all those posts are now gone and mostly forgotten.
 
So I don't even feel like finding out what is wrong, time to move on, the XT5000T's are getting a little old now. I shut it down, drove 3 hours to see the client, booted it up, dead. Just a whir of a fan, a few blinking lights, and nothing happens on the screen, no sounds. If you need anything in particular, send an email to lugnutty@hotmail . com and I can send you a part, if anything on these are rare. It was a pretty awesome first laptop to have.
 
Hello everyone!

I recently took apart my computer to bake my mobo because of this recurring black screen issue everyone seems to be getting. About a month into it and the problem happened again. My roommate is trying to fix his red ring issue with his xbox and it gave me an idea.

I wrapped my computer completely with a towel and started my broken computer and left it alone for a good 2 hours. When I came back to it, the computer was turned off and I could smell that familiar smell when I put the mobo in the oven. When I turned on my everex, VOWALA! It started up like a charm =-D

If you are still having issues with your blank screen, I would suggest this method of re-soddering your computer by wrapping it in a towel and leaving it on!
 
I'm no expert on this but at the very least the model you linked to has a different interface connection than the one in the XT5000T. The link looks like standard SATA and the one in the laptop is some proprietary type, though it might be possible to find a replacement of the right type somewhere.
 
EvilWizardGlick said:
Funny thing on the Everex site I fought tooth and nail for people to recognize the GPU as the cause of the failure. This started a couple of years ago, at least two.
Tanware claimed that it was the WIFI card " no ands ifs or butts". You don't want to know Willie Wankers asinine statements. Two freaking years I fought with the village elders(idiots) and they never admitted the gpu was the problem.
I always thought one or both were Everex site operators payed to downplay the gpu flaw. Why else fight against all the evidence I, and a few others like Jasmine, researched and shared? Why claim any and every outrageous possibility other than the gpu?
The real bitch is if pressure had been applied way back then, while Dell and HP were admitting to the problem, we could have possibly gotten a recall on our laptops.
Call it a Pyrrhic victory.

PS
To the best of my recall the flaw was in the manufacturing of the gpu itself and not the cold soldering.
Sadly all those posts are now gone and mostly forgotten.
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I probably shouldn't be baited but for those that didn't frequent the Everex boards I'll bite. So to say this is my only responce is an understatement!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dude, at first there WAS a WiFi IRQ issue that was on running systems. When DEAD ones started appearing those who actually analyze systems wanted more proof than just speculation of other systems dieing as definative proof. We needed someone with these dead systems to troubleshoot them.

If you rememeber (I know yours is selective but try), while Everex was viable, they were repairing out of warenty machines for free. Once this started, and Everex was stating a graphic issue, no one then stated it wasn't!

There has not been a single mass manufacturer notebook/video card recall with this GPU issue.
 
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My Everex is still running fine - it sees lessthan 1hr of use per week however.

I picked up a Dell mini 10v, to Hackintosh, so if my Everex goes, I'll still have a back up laptop.

Anyone need another 1GB SODIMM? I already upgraded the Dell. :)
 
The fan on my Everex is so loud, I'm embarrassed to use it in the campus library. Should I bother trying to find a mod/upgrade for the fan, or just buy a new laptop?
 
Hey guys and girl(s), long time lurker, first time poster.
First of all I'd like to thank the regular posters for their hard work and info. With the help of the everex forum members and this one I have successfully solved or found work-arounds for many of the design issues that this laptop has. Your work and skills do not go unappreciated.
Having experienced the dreaded video lockup, I baked my mobo earlier this year. After reassembly my laptop wouldn't start and I gave it up as dead. Recently I've tried at assembling it again and got it working :D. Only to remember why I was so quick to give it up the first time, usb connections don't work. It didn't work before the bake either. Without usb I can't use any usb peripherals rendering the thing damn near useless for my purposes. The odd thing is that usb devices still get power but don't function in any os, linux or xp. I've tried plugging a usb adapter into the pcmcia slot with no success. I've also tried to find a mini pcie usb adapter with no success.
Let me know if you have something I should try, any help is appreciated.
 
fuertetwo, are you sure it's not a driver problem? have you tried a linux live disc just to see?

if it's not a driver issue and actually is a hardware problem, not sure what to tell you. It does have the ExpressCard54 slot (not PCMCIA) not sure if you knew that. if you did, sorry to state the obvious.

good luck with it.
 
Yes, I have tried a live disc and just recently reinstalled xp, same problem though. Thanks for correcting me, it was an expresscard 34 that I tried to install, which as far as I understand are compatible with 54 slots.
I also tried inserting an sd card with the same problem. At first xp tries to install the device and then it gives the error, 'usb device not recognized', same as the other ports.
Thanks for your suggestions graybandit.
 
Hello, I recall some of you guys on Everex forum. I have 4 Everex laptops, one XT5300T and one XT5000T and two NC versions. Well I bought the XT5000T from Ebay seller who could not repair the motherboard, actually thought would be easy to fix but not. Got with Everex via email and they were very helpful in providing info on the problem with the XTB70 ver0.3 motherboard.

Main issue was either the north bridge or Nvidia graphic IC (Geforce Go7600) per FIC who makes the MB. I had a friend who is the master in replacing these kinds of parts he said looked like the north bridge was overheated. Found it on Ebay for $25 after shipping and had the master replace it and boom the laptop posted. Was able to get Windows Vista x64 on and found the drivers online. Works great! Total cost was $165, not bad.

Did notice that FIC put blue tape between the IC and heatsink so when I had it repaired I removed the tape and put ceramic thermal compound instead, seem to work. Also put an Evercool Fairy on the grill to draw more air.

Last note is FIC offered to replace the MB at my cost of course at $250. Later!
 
Hello enieves137, I also recently experienced the black screen with the nvidia gpu(wont come up at all anymore). My questions are how did you contact FIC and can you provide contact info? Was that 250.00 installed or just the part? I appreciate any info you can provide. I am not in a position to replace the whole laptop right now and really need it to work. Many thanks!
 
enieves137 said:
Hello, I recall some of you guys on Everex forum. I have 4 Everex laptops, one XT5300T and one XT5000T and two NC versions. Well I bought the XT5000T from Ebay seller who could not repair the motherboard, actually thought would be easy to fix but not. Got with Everex via email and they were very helpful in providing info on the problem with the XTB70 ver0.3 motherboard.

Main issue was either the north bridge or Nvidia graphic IC (Geforce Go7600) per FIC who makes the MB. I had a friend who is the master in replacing these kinds of parts he said looked like the north bridge was overheated. Found it on Ebay for $25 after shipping and had the master replace it and boom the laptop posted. Was able to get Windows Vista x64 on and found the drivers online. Works great! Total cost was $165, not bad.

Did notice that FIC put blue tape between the IC and heatsink so when I had it repaired I removed the tape and put ceramic thermal compound instead, seem to work. Also put an Evercool Fairy on the grill to draw more air.

Last note is FIC offered to replace the MB at my cost of course at $250. Later!
Click to expand...

Hi, as I and WillyWanker had seen a while ago it can be either the GPU or northbridge and its integrated GPU. nVidia was very slick in not specifically stating it was the Northbridge but just a GPU issue.

The primary issue is even though the integrated GPU is not utlized it still is initialized. It has too do this as it is integrated to the northbridge. This is why the later bios just kept the fan on. This would by default help too cool the NB and the dedicated GPU delaying failure. A better TIM on the NB is a great idea too......

That Blue pad is actually a thermal pad. It is used as the contact point of the heatsink to chip has either low preasure or an actual gap. For that reaon normal TIMs are not good for the replacement. ICD is however very thick and usually makes for an excelent replacement material. This besides the fact of the high heat transfer qualities.
 
Hey Krymer68
If you like I can send an email to you just send one to me first to [email protected] and I will forward the email to you with the person I was in contact with at FIC. I would post it but didn't want the customer service person to get slammed with a bunch of emails. I would like to keep them on the good side just in case. Ebay seller who sold me the north bridge also sold the graphic IC. They sent it pretty quick and was impressed with there service, came from China in about 2 weeks.

Thanks TANware for the info on the blue tape kind of figured but never ran across thermal conductive tape. Should have taken a pic of what I did but the Nivida graphic IC was separate from the north bridge, you are right they are connected on the PCB, right next to each other. Good thing is Nvidia stamps the part number on the IC so easy to read, not to hard to figure out. I had the same symptom as Krymer68 black screen, no boot.
 
enieves137 said:
Thanks TANware for the info on the blue tape kind of figured but never ran across thermal conductive tape. Should have taken a pic of what I did but the Nivida graphic IC was separate from the north bridge, you are right they are connected on the PCB, right next to each other. Good thing is Nvidia stamps the part number on the IC so easy to read, not to hard to figure out. I had the same symptom as Krymer68 black screen, no boot.
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Welcome, I found ICD on the CPU, Northbridge and the heat pipe land on the GPU's heatsink makes for a great overall thermal solution. Be sure to fully remove the original pads from the heat pipe over the CPU and the pads on the northbridge and heatsink land. The material Everex used is really horrible at heat transfer. Also remember, for what it is worth, I run a TL64 and my system is still alive..........
 
Can anyone help me out with drivers for the XT5000T for Windows XP 32 bit

I need audio and something to clear up the "coprocessor" yellow dot I have as well.

I have everything else straight.

Everex site is down (or is it gone?)

Thanks in advance.

Greg
 
I had helped a friend bake his laptop and it just died again. Has anyone successful double baked an everex?

I will probably try it next weekend.

The battery is also pretty worn out. How hard is it to replace cells in a li-ion? I have heard if not done properly it can cause fires.

It may be time to put the lappy to rest.
 
Hello Killswitch. I did try the bake method. It worked for almost 2 weeks and went back to it's old habits. Fan running full speed, black screen, a few lights and nothing else. I thought it had saved me initially, but it wasnt meant to be. I retried the bake, but it didnt revive it.

Hey enieves137. I hope you got my email last night. I appreciate the contact info for FIC support.
 
Thanks for the feedback krymer. I was wondering if it was working for other everex's. Mine has been going fine for a while now and if it happens again ill just do the towel trick again.

And Mug, i'd suggest the towel trick as well just to see what happens!
 
mugimba said:
I had helped a friend bake his laptop and it just died again. Has anyone successful double baked an everex?

I will probably try it next weekend.

The battery is also pretty worn out. How hard is it to replace cells in a li-ion? I have heard if not done properly it can cause fires.

It may be time to put the lappy to rest.
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I was just searching for a battery for my XT5300 and came across this: http://www.batteryrebuild.com/laptops/Everex/?gclid=CM2Cwtziup0CFR4UagodMyD4jQ

Thoughts? Seems like a good way to go, but I have no idea if the company is reputable.
 
Anybody know what the latest supported video driver is for the XT5000T? The 190 series from LaptopVideo2Go just causes a BSoD. The 179.48's work for sure.

It's a bit of a pain in the ass booting into safe mode, rolling back, and trying driver-after-driver...
 
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andy A said:
http://www.pcambrosia.com/xt5000t/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Courtesy of Tanware.
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Yeah, I saw the writing on the wall when they had all those server issues with the files. I don't think it was even a week later Everex took down the board and then the files. I am glad I was able to grab the page and files to host them. I am sure there are alot of other Everex model owners out that are now SOL.

That page and the files still get, albeit minor, traffic so I'll be keeping it a while. I don't get here as much as I'd like anymore but then the comunity isn't as large as it once was either......
 
Here are my 2 cents on the XT5000T problem.

Let's review facts.

1.Laptops are consistently dying in the same manner (no video, fan on high, no HDD activity, system completely unresponsive).

2. Can be brought back sometimes, temporarily, by methods that involve heating the motherboard as a whole or parts of it.

3. There is at least one report of Everex/FIC confirming that the problem lies in the north bridge chip (SPP-100-N-A2). The same report goes on to say that replacing the chip on the motherboard fixed the problem. (thanks for the prompt reply and info, Ed!)

4. Jasmine directed me towards the "halogen lamp" and the "heat gun" videos that seem to provide a solution (? how permanent) to a similar problem occuring in other laptops by heating the graphics chip to higher temperatures (actually in the "heat gun" video it isn't clear which chip is being heated).

Let me draw a conclusion from all the above. If I were to believe FIC (and I have no reason not to) that it's not the graphic chip but the north bridge that's the problem, then all the people attempting repairs of the motherboard (apart from the replaced chip event) have been focusing on the wrong part. Yes, heating in the oven works but only for a limited time because a high enough temperature isn't reached (plus it may damage other stuff on the mobo). Yes, the toothpick/paper method works because it generates some heat in the general area where heat needs applied - but again likely not high enough. Yes, the halogen lamp trick may work for a while because it can reach higher temps - but again they have been heating the wrong area if it was, as stated, the "graphic chip".

See pictures:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a300/tb40nd/FST/xt5000t_mb.jpg
http://80.120.231.222//Webshop/show_product.php?products_id=8170#screens
http://80.120.231.222//Webshop/images/MB_Fujitsu-Siemens_Amilio_Pa_1538_front.jpg

The graphic chip is the large one towards the back of the motherboard. The smaller one that stands between it and the CPU socket is the northbridge.

I think heat should be applied to the northbridge, not the graphic chip.

Previous heating procedures may have worked because some heat would get to the northbridge too. But it was either applied too far, not enough of it or both.

I will attempt to revive my XT5000T by applying heat to the northbridge by the halogen lamp method. I have a small projector that has a 150W halogen lamp, and I can get easily a 250W lamp that fits it if needed. I will make a cardboard/alufoil shield with an opening for the northbridge and try to apply heat through that for various amounts of time, on the side opposite the chip, first with the 150W lamp and if that doesn't work with a 250W. I'll try to take pictures of the procedure as well.

However this will have to wait a little bit since in the meantime I have revived the laptop with the towel method :D. Been running fine for a couple days now. But I know sooner or later it'll fail again - and when that happens, I'll be prepared. I won't attempt the procedure until the laptop dies again.

(edit) I only wish I had one of those fancy infrared thermometers that can read temps from a distance. I do have a kitchen digital thermometer, but it's slow, imprecise and has an awkward shape (fork) so it'll be hard to take any accurate readings at all.

(edit 2) I can also try the heat gun method on the northbridge since it just now occured to me that I actually have a butane-powered heat gun :)
 
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I found this also:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Reflow-Xbox-360/

Got some nice pointers from it. The griddle at 400F underneath sounds like a great idea. Screwing the board to it by multiple screws with 1/4 in spacers sounds good too. Heatgun with shaped nozzle (should be moldable from aluminum foil I guess - aluminum melting point is 660C/1220F so that shouldn't be a problem). And I'll get an infrared thermometer from Home Depot to control the reflow profile.

Wish me luck. :)

And if everything else fails... Guess I could live with plucking about $200 for a hot air rework station and accessories.
 
Just want to say that there is a "point of no return" heating the motherboard or the north bridge. You have solder balls that connect to copper pads under the IC on the PCB. Heating the part can flow the solder connections 360–420 °F, it depends on the solder composition, new RoHS complaint standard temps are much higher temps since should be lead free solder. PCB layers and pad delamination can occur if overheated, at that point you can't do any with the motherboard, even if your replace the northbridge with a new part it probably won't work.

http://solder.net/technical/bga1.asp
 
I plan on monitoring the temps with the IR thermometer, and not go over 235-240 C on the part. Should be enough to reflow without damaging stuff. Also the thermal profile and such, no more than 1-2 C per minute etc.

I was hoping that the parts on ebay had leaded solder, but they don't as it was confirmed to me by the seller. Bummer. That would be the backup plan for me.

But in the meantime the one-toweled laptop lives on. I know to be patient though. ;) It still doesn't recognize anything I put in the mini-PCIE slot (see back on page 90 or so), which points again to a problem with the northbridge.
 
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