Everex XT5000T Support thread

[rage27]

just baked a hp pavilion entertainment laptop, my friends machine it had the same signs of soldering damage as my everex, told him about baking he agreed to try it cause his was taking a long time to come on now i am on the net with it, and gues what his has geforce graphics too, geforce 6150, so this proves this problem is not just on our laptops but it could just be a gpu overheating issue.

 

[mugimba]

I am baking my friends also. It seems a logical fix, but I wonder how long it will last before the problems reapper. It is evidentally cold soldered joints caused by thermal cycling.

I am sure a lot of baked 'katrina car' everex's are headed to ebay....

 

[fxbrandon]

Thanks for the advice fx... I'll give the jump switches a shot. Below is where I got the gpu (facing up) advice, post 1636:



Just out of curiousity... what does the gpu up/down matter? I assume it has something to do w/proximity to the burners in the oven (the bottom burner works on bake, the top on "broil"???). Are we trying to keep the gpu away from the burner or close to it? Middle shelf? Top shelf? Bottom shelf? Turkey thermometer?

Wow i apologize for the confusion, but ya you were correct, now as i come to realize it, I baked mine with the GPU facing down thinking rage did the same, but obviously i have problems reading it looks like. Well this atleast proves it dosent matter what side its facing.

Ya the jump switches allow the hardware to reset config, worked for me.

Nope. Nothing. Dead. The front "sleep" light glows yellow/orangish, but that's about it. No fan noise, no hard drive spin. Nothing. It was previously "working" w/the towel trick method. Pretty sure I hooked everything up right, 'cause I tore this comp up about a 3/4 of a year ago and put it back together and everything worked fine, until...

I actually ran into similar problems when I took it apart earlier today, I attached some pics to try to help show. really weird but after i messed with these I got it to boot again, and has been working perfect since. The other thing it could be is if the Power button is not being pressed id try pressing the button without the plastic strip with the speaker mesh that covers the power strip.

 

[fxbrandon]

I am baking my friends also. It seems a logical fix, but I wonder how long it will last before the problems reapper. It is evidentally cold soldered joints caused by thermal cycling.

I am sure a lot of baked 'katrina car' everex's are headed to ebay....

Yeah hopefully she will stay alive for awhile, been a few weeks for me. I think you can only rebake it so much before stuff starts breaking. I ended up losing like half the screws too, overall the bake has been quite impressive.

 

[Meleniumshane90]

Can we refrain from posting the huge images - granted, I don't care so much myself being on a big monitor, but it gets annoying when it is even wider than that. If you're hosting through imageshack or another host, post a thumbnail (max width should be like 640-ish).

Either way, small linking to a larget image is a good choice for page continuity.

Also, to the guy who has the spare Everex parts, how much are you looking for on the parts. I could always use spares for this thing; CPU, Keboard, touchpad, screen, speakers, door covers (mine was lost in transit to Cal-E-Fornia) DVD drive, etc.

You can email me; [email protected]

 

[Epiik]

So have people been able to get Everex to fix the notebooks where the screen just stops working?

 

[jh1523]

Well mine died after 3 years, just last week. Blank screen, fan on high, nothing else. Don't really want to mess with the insides, bake stuff etc so I emailed Everex support. They now charge shipping both ways, plus a "diagnostic fee" of $65 before they even look at the laptop, plus whatever it costs to repair afterwards.

 

[mugimba]

Yes, I found that out also. Not really worth the $$$ to send it in imho, especially when you will get the mobo replaced with one with the same design flaw.

 

[jh1523]

They told me in the original email to contact the "service department", of which none is mentioned anywhere on their website. I also asked if they will waive the diagnostic charge if I tell them what is wrong and what needs to be replaced. They haven't replied.

 

[Meleniumshane90]

Good luck with that - hey, I'm looking to buy parts : )

If you read above, you will get the idea

 

[everexuser]

Hello, I'm a fellow Everex XT5000T user also, it's almost my third year and it died twice with the blank screen, one time in the beginning of this year but they were able to fix it for free. However it just happened again and I was wondering seeing as how they switched owners if I was still able to get this repaired for free? I'm really mad seeing as how I only use the laptop for about 3-5 hours a day at most and that even after the repair, it happened again. So any advice? Thanks in advance.

 

[CardiaK]

I feel like I'm the only guy who hasn't had his Everex blow up.

That said; any HD-intensive work I've done on it is excruciatingly slow.

I haven't defragged the HD yet; I guess I should, but I was thinking about upgrading the HD since there's supposedly a spare bay.

The OP in this massive thread mentions mounting brackets; to those who have already done it, do I need some hardware if I just buy a 2.5" HD off Newegg?

Also, any comments on a solid state drive for this?

I basically use the lappy for WoW on the road as well as blogging and some photoshop/video work.

 

[andy A]

No need for the HDD bracket, is nice to have but definitely not necessary.

 

[BMWfreak]

I feel like I'm the only guy who hasn't had his Everex blow up.

No you are not ! Mine is still going strong as well, never had a single issue !

No need for the HDD bracket, is nice to have but definitely not necessary.

+1 on that

 

[CardiaK]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Sorry for my laptop noobness, but what's the interface like? Is it just a normal SATA port? Like a cartridge slot instead of cables with connectors?

I haven't opened the thing up since the week I got it when I put another stick of RAM in it.

I was thinking about getting an SSD for it, (something like this) putting the OS and some other programs on it, and then reformatting the 100GB drive it came with to use just for media storage.

 

[RealMentalCase]

Anybody know what the max is for hard drive's is for the XT5300T
and as for CPU cooling what do you think about putting a inch diam hole
right over the CPU fan ?

 

[andy A]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Sorry for my laptop noobness, but what's the interface like? Is it just a normal SATA port? Like a cartridge slot instead of cables with connectors?

I haven't opened the thing up since the week I got it when I put another stick of RAM in it.

I was thinking about getting an SSD for it, (something like this) putting the OS and some other programs on it, and then reformatting the 100GB drive it came with to use just for media storage.

Sata interface. Chipset supports SATA II so make sure the jumpers on the drive are set for SATA II if applicable. Basically remove HDD's bay cover, set your jumpers on the HDD and install the drive, replace HDD's bay cover.


The original Fuji HDD is only SATA I.

 

[evaderpunk]

Hello,

how do you replace XT5000t optic drive. I try looking for a repair guide but no luck with that. This laptop is unable to boot from usb so i cant use my extarnal dvd to install new OS.

Also, im not sure which type of optical drive should i buy, anyone compatible with the xt5000t.

Thanks,

 

[andy A]

Hello,

how do you replace XT5000t optic drive. I try looking for a repair guide but no luck with that. This laptop is unable to boot from usb so i cant use my extarnal dvd to install new OS.

Also, im not sure which type of optical drive should i buy, anyone compatible with the xt5000t.

Thanks,

If I remember correctly the case had to be opened to replace the optical drive, there is a single screw inside that is a hold down for the drive, once removed the drive slides out.

If you look at the picture posted below you can see the hold down bracket on the back of the optical drive, circled in red. The screw in the picture appears to be removed on his. Look to the far left, right next to the subwoofer. Might be able to get at the screw by just removing the keyboard.

Image courtesy of fxbrandon.

For USB booting make sure legacy mode for USB is enabled in the BIOS, and use the boot menu upon startup to choose which device to boot from.

The stock Optical drive is normally a Optiarc/Sony Nec AD-5530A , which is an IDE drive.

 

[andy A]

Anybody know what the max is for hard drive's is for the XT5300T
and as for CPU cooling what do you think about putting a inch diam hole
right over the CPU fan ?

I believe Tanware ran 2 320gb drives in raid on his so it will definitely accept up to a 320gb drive. I do not recall anyone trying anything larger.

On the hole right over the CPU fan, I would be careful. The best bet would be to find a 2nd panel, modify it and see how it affects temps, and keep your original virgin in case things do not work out.

 

[Unknown-One]

Hey guys - my everex xt5000t mobo, gfx card, or cpu died after 2 solid years of ownership. I have dismantled the computer so if you need any parts hit me up because I have them ALL.
including:
(1x) Stock 100GB HDD
(1x) 120GB 7200 RPM HDD
(2x) Sticks of 1GB DDR2 RAM (one stock and one aftermarket PNY)
(1x) Everex xt5000t battery (would make a great cheap backup battery)
(1x) Power Adapter
(1x) CDRW/DVD Drive (Stock)
(1x) Full Keyboard without any missing keys
(1x) Full laptop enclosure with everything intact including a WORKING Monitor.
-Thats right a full working screen - if any of you need to replace the screen on your computer i have it here at a far lower price than anyone.
-All Heatsinks
-All Fans
-Everything

Just trying to salvage some $ out of her to invest into a new macbook or toshiba. My loss is your gain.

for pictures or requests just email me at [email protected] and i will reply promptly..

How much are you looking to sell the screen for? I'm planning on attempting to install a touch overlay inside the panel casing (for Windows 7), but I would sure love a spare in case things don't go well.

 

[Unknown-One]

I'm happy to report another wifi card (besides the MSI one) that does not have the IRQ conflict issue the stock Atheros wifi card does. Better still, it supports A/B/G/N

The card is an Intel 4965AGN.

The MSI card uses the USB portion of the mini-PCIe slot to make absolutely sure it gets a different IRQ from the Atheros card; interestingly, this intel wifi card uses the PCIe portion of the slot, and still manages to get a different IRQ assigned to it than the Atheros card.

 

[fxbrandon]

Looks like Everex USA is no more.

http://www.everex.com/us/index.htm

 

[andy A]

Bummer, but with the way things are in today's economy, it doesn't take much for a company to bail. I had hoped they would at least get the old forums back up as there was a ton of good information for the 5000 & 5300 models on there.

 

[andy A]

I'm happy to report another wifi card (besides the MSI one) that does not have the IRQ conflict issue the stock Atheros wifi card does. Better still, it supports A/B/G/N

The card is an Intel 4965AGN.

The MSI card uses the USB portion of the mini-PCIe slot to make absolutely sure it gets a different IRQ from the Atheros card; interestingly, this intel wifi card uses the PCIe portion of the slot, and still manages to get a different IRQ assigned to it than the Atheros card.

Back on the old forums there were a number of us that tried the Intel 4965AGN card. Some had success, others, no. My experience with the 4965 was not successful, still had the lockup issues, and would also get restart issues(Black screen fan on full) with it. Both the Atheros and Intel card caused extremely long boot times (using XP Pro) for me, taking approx 15 scrolls at XP start. Almost like it was having a driver issue. Once I went with the MSI card all that changed. The lock ups stopped, no more black screen fan on full upon restart, and it reduced the number of scrolls to 4 upon XP start.

Usually the intel card had an IRQ of -5 which is really a pseudo IRQ as to where the MSI card took the IRQ issue out altogether by using the USB side of the PCI-e slot, as you mentioned in your post.

 

[Killswitch]

So now were can I get my drivers from?! I just reformatted to windows 7 and my sound is outta wack.

 

[TANWare]

So now were can I get my drivers from?! I just reformatted to windows 7 and my sound is outta wack.

Sorry not home but on a fresh install of Win7 RC these sound came right up without issue for me.........

 

[Berger]

I think mine just died. When I turn the power on, the fan turns on full blast (and stays on) but that's all. Screen is black, no LCD backlight, no beeps or anything.

I tried:

-both sticks of ram alone in each slot
-No hard drives
- Takeout battery for 15 minutes,
- different monitor
etc...

Any ideas, is this a dead motherboard/GPU? If so, is there any recourse (its out of warranty)?

 

[mugimba]

It is the mobo. Baking it does work - reconnects cold solder joints, but probably only for a limited time (see earlier posts). I would probably try parting it out on ebay at this point.

The everex era is coming to an end. They have closed up US operations.

 

[CommanderFrank]

That has me wondering what happens if mine dies and the 3 year service contract is in force....what would they replace the machine with and from where?

 

[mugimba]

If you are talking about the office max 3 year warranty, then they will give you an office max gift card for the purchase price of the everex when you bought it (since they probably can't fix it).

 

[Berger]

Thanks mugimba, I'm gonna try the baking thing.

Also, I've read here something about "jump switches" to fix the problem, but can't find out how to do this. Is there any info? I also read something about a 7600 bug, where you can reset the 'bios password' by shorting something, maybe this is the same thing?

 

[jasmineaura]

Superkdogg,

Never seen an OC solution.

EvilWizard is spreading his poisonous truth ... some XT5000T's are prematurely assuming room temperature. Could be video related but symptoms are lacking. Alive one day and dead the next.

Jasmine is performing an autopsy on her cadaver as we speak. We may have to call in CSI.

Well, I'm back... But I wouldn't really call it an "autopsy", but more like a "biopsy", and not a "cadaver", but more like a "veteran", since it wasn't really "dead", just an injured soldier

It's funny how depressed I got about it, after taking it COMPLETELY apart and doing various testing on the bare mobo (sometimes connected to the loose LCD), that I left it in pieces on my second desk for over 3 months collecting dust, waiting for a "I got it" moment of creativity to revive it as an excuse for laziness... What's really funny is my cat would sometimes jump up on the desk, scatter my carefully laid out screws (kind of like a map), kicking parts around, and even cat-walking over the bare motherboard a couple times... hahaha And believe it or not, it's back to life, more on that to follow in my next post

Now I finally have some very good excuses to join "HardForum" and post... Hope WillyWanker will not get vaguely-condescending and cynical on me again for being the only female XT-die-hard (that I knew of so far at least)

Greetings to all our fellow XT'er veterans, especially:

* Tanware - Big Fat Thank You for hosting up the mirror of the drivers, and the BIOS's up to the 1.1D which I never got to see on the Everex site before it went, as my XT was a sitting duck in my closet back then Truly a brave electronic-soul who never feared to push the XT far beyond it's limits, and had faith of putting in big bucks and scapegoating a lot to get the most out of the beast, and for consequently sparking the round of major upgrades that followed.. Hats off to you, Andy

* EvilWizardGlick - For the often inspiring, well-thought-out and well-versed posts. Also thank you for giving me faith back then in what I firmly believed in; the Nvidia GPU and the china-cheapo dye/soldering material being the primary culprit

* Syngensmyth - Mainly for remembering me, and for many giggles throughout your posts, as well as lots of useful rundowns and info, and for standing up to WillyWanker's obnoxiousness and ****-retentiveness often times (sorry Willy)

* WillyWanker - Despite being a hard-pain-in-the-rear sometimes, and despite often being too-chicken to poke around while encouraging others to do the scapegoating for ya, a lot of your posts were very helpful, very informative, and right on the mark Also, was quite interesting reading your posts on the ACPI/Fan 2-trigger points research and development, which I quickly found before reading your posts, from a simple `ls /proc/acpi/fan` in Linux... So big kudos to you too

* phatbx133 - Despite your really bad grammar, many of your posts were actually quite thorough and quite informative, with a humorous side-kick a lot of times

* B34ST1Y - For being one of the earliest courageous ones to rip the beast completely apart, and put it back together, and posting up pics of all of it (though I never really needed them) and helping out many others

* AndyA - For dedication to the team and followups, sumups, and helping many others

* nietsni - Great ideas, great pointers, great thoughts

I was one of the people, alongside EvilWizardGlick, who pointed early on to the GPU as the primary culprit.. Some, like WillyWanker, were skeptical and highly critical, perhaps it was wishful thinking, or fears of the arbitrary/abrupt apolcalypse to come, which several have witnessed and my (and EvilWizardGlick's) argument that many would follow later?
I knew it was the video, because at some point, I was able to get it to POST, although very few times, by simply applying pressure on the back panel (around where the vent lines are on top of the GPU) while holding the top firmly before (and during) power-on/boot..

I kind of resent the loss of all of my posts from the everexforum, a lot of which was linux-focused (specifically gentoo), and which I intended to use later for future reference, but oh well, c'est la vie..

Next, is how I revived the beast, after it taking a long nap (several months) in its targus "cave"

 

[jasmineaura]

First, I must say, I was laughing so hard reading about how people were cooking their entire motherboard in oven, some at ridiculous temperatures (above 400F), some for 15minutes, some for 1/2 hour, etc.. Sunny Side Up, Over Easy, Medium Rare, Flame Throwing, Fume Inhaling, etc.. just.. lmao

For all you desperate bakers, the original "baking" thread on hardforum was regarding baking dead Nvidia desktop video cards, not complete motherboards... Don't make your wife/gf/mom dump you for ruining her oven, man! So inconsiderate... Sheesh, men sometimes

So recently (about a month ago), I read about the "Towel-Trick"... I figured hey, what the heck, a little heat for a short period won't hurt, the thing hass been sitting in the closet for a long while anyway, and prospects of sending it in for replacement (from another continent) dealing with costs of repair/replacement, international shipping, customs, etc.. just made it quite undesirable, and later, far fetched, due to Everex bailing out...

So first time I did the "Towel-Trick" for about 5 minutes then removed towel and rebooted quickly did not cut it... I only did it for 5 minutes because I do not want to melt the CPU, or ruin some keyboard keys as well and need more parts later on...
And trust me, keys can die, on a brand spanking new keyboard from excessive CPU/heatsink heat... I've seen this before on an ancient Dell laptop - CPTc (with brand new keyboard to replace old keyboard that was missing some keys) which I had upgraded the CPU on from a Celeron 333 to a P-3 600 (MMC2 module), because someone did not pay heed to the danger and my advice to avoid blocking its back-vent/fan (blasted with special dell-fan-control tool) with pillows or bed sheets/covers

So having had some precautions in mind, I improvised the "towel-trick", which helped me get the laptop up and running several times every time it shot in the dark
But then I eventually wanted a more "permanent-like" fix, so here we go...


My Basic Improvised GPU Rescue Method:

The Paper/Toothpick Trick

Preparation inside:
1. Open back panel, remove the three screws around fan to detach it, then remove the 4 screws around CPU that hold down the clamps - which in turn hold down the thermal copper pipe to loosen it.
2. Get a wooden toothpick (must be wood), and snap it in half. Take one half and splice it into two equal parts (should be roughly 3-4mm thick)
3. Remove the so-called "thermal pad" (bluish color, kind of looks like medical mesh tape) where the thermal/heat copper pipe sits on the GPU heatsink... It's not really a thermal pad as previously noted by nietsni, does not conduct heat at all, and doesn't do jack shmuck.. Proof to come!!!
Picture where the thermal pad is, linked from previous poster: Courtesy of ??
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a300/tb40nd/FST/xt5000t_mb.jpg
4. Insert the 2 spliced 1/2 pieces of the toothpick with a little space in between them underneath the place where the heat pipe rests on the side of the GPU heatsink.
5. Reattach 4 screws around CPU FIRMLY, make sure it holds down tightly onto the CPU's core.. If the 2 spliced toothpick pieces are too thick, splice one of them and reuse those for thinner gap.. The point is we want to keep a gap between the heat pipe coming from CPU, and the GPU heatsink, we don't want them touching at all, while still keeping it tightly clamped on the CPU core... Then reattach fan and put its 3 screws back on, and don't forget to plug its power back in!!! And finally close the backpanel, no need to put all the screws in again, just do the middle screw only, since we'll reopen it later to remove the toothpicks and improvise

Preparation Outside:
1. Cut out a piece of paper, the size of a square just enough to cover the ventilation lines/holes on the laptop's backpanel (which reside above the GPU heatsink, close to the memory slots), and tape it with 4 pieces of scotch tape
2. Get a large piece of kitchen paper towel, fold it up, and lay it right underneath the area where u taped the said paper in step #1 and rest the laptop on it (this helps keep heat in a little more concentrated in the GPU/Heatsink area)
3. Get a empty cigarette pack, with plastic sleeve off, and sit it in front of side vent... That should slow down the cooling quite a bit, but not dramatically, as to not ruin the CPU.. The whole point is, we want to build up heat inside, slowly, warming up the GPU, but without heating up the CPU too much..
4. Get a light notebook (paper notebook) large enough to cover the area along the left side of the keyboard's numpad (where the GPU sits underneath on the opposite side)
5. Turn the laptop on, keep it on for about 5 minutes if your ambient/room temperature is quite warm (better turn off any fans, A/C, etc.. while doing this).. If ambient temperature is below 30-35C, consider doing 10 minutes instead of 5 only..
6. Turn off laptop, then turn it back on.
7. If BIOS Posts and you get Video, you're set to go to the next level. DONT TURN OFF YOUR LAPTOP AT THIS POINT, CONTINUE BOOTING TO YOUR OS... If you still get no video, repeat step #5 and #6 in 5 or 10 minute increments, depending on your room temperature and how badly ruined your GPU's dye/solder material is.. If after repeating this several times you still get no video, discard the empty cigarette pack from step 3 and substitute with a rolled up towel by setting it against the side vent, but be careful not to leave it on too long like that or your risk melting your CPU, or worse, soldered-on mobo components..
8. Discard the empty cigarette pack from step 3, or move away the rolled up towel if you so chose in step #7 (#5 and #6 cycle)..

Assuming you now got video, don't get all excited, because most likely, if you shutdown or reboot, after your GPU cools a bit, it will again lose the micro-connections that have been re-established by the mild increase of heat and your video will not post again later...

Burn-in / In-House-bake:
1. Now that you're booted into your OS, and open up any RELIABLE ACPI-based thermal monitoring software to keep an eye on CPU and GPU temps... You're GPU should start off around the usual temperature range that we are all familiar with in the stock XT5000T, around 70C, or a little warmer depending on how much you needed to heat it up before it booted it (if you wait a while you should see it drop down to ~70C)... That goes to show that the thermal pad in place before (which we now substituted with spliced wooden toothpick to seperate the copper heat pipe from the GPU heatsink) wasn't doing any actual heat conduction, as the idle GPU temperature did not change much
2. Run any light demo 3d application, nothing very CPU intensive, JUST GPU/Graphics intensive... The point is, we want to heat up the GPU, but not the CPU too much..
I was running Linux, and so I ran 3 instances of `glx-gears` (a 3D/GL demo app) to work up the GPU and heat it up GRADUALLY (without overloading CPU), and using sensors-applet in Gnome for monitoring ACPI-temperature sensors
3. You will see a gradual increase in temperature, if you're idle temp started at or around 70C, up to 80s Celcius, within about 5-15 minutes... That's not enough yet... Keep a close eye, the temperature should continue to rise, one degree at a time, and the increase in temperature should get slower and slower, until it finally reaches close to 100C, do whatever you can (put a towel along left side of numapd if u have to, or thicker towel right underneath the GPU area below the backpanel) to keep the GPU heating up gradually, and let it take its sweeeeeet time to heat up, but make sure the area near the memory and the CPU and the side vent is not covered, either at the top or the bottom or the side, we don't want to overheat any other parts but the GPU!
4. If you finally get up to 96-100C, you're on your way.. It took me about 1 hour approximately till I hit 100C (running three instances of glxgears on gnome desktop on Ubuntu), then it fluctuated between 98-101C which is great... The Critical GPU temperature is actually 110C, which I couldn't even get up to, so that's okay
Now, try to keep that temperature range, 98-101, or the closest you can get to that range, for about 2 HOURS!!!, if you have a empty cardboard box, about same height as the height of the LCD, set it on a wide desk, preferably a desk that sits against a wall, and set your LCD up 90degrees (vertically), and FLIP the laptop over, resting the edge of the palm-rest area against the top of the empty box, and the top part of the LCD on the desk, while the backside of the LCD is resting close to the wall just for insurance in case u accidently hit it or it slips so it doesn't fall and shatter the LCD screen... Leave it in upside position for about 30-45 minutes, while occasionally glimpsing over the temperatures (yes, you have to flip your head to look upside down) to make sure it didn't drop significantly.. You could also lay a towel on the back of the laptop, maybe even let it hang down off the side against the side vent if you have to, to keep the GPU in that heat range or close to it... Then after 30-45 minutes, flip laptop over again to NORMAL position (resting the GPU vent area of back panel on towel again) and let it cook some more for about 1-2 hours more..
5. Finally, close down the 3d demo application(s) that you have been running to keep the GPU pushing heat.. Remove notebook (or towel) from above the numpad, and the towel from underneath the laptop, and remove the piece of paper you taped previously against the ventilation holes on the back panel above the GPU, and put something like a book or whatever along the back side of the laptop to keep it inclined with some breathing space underneath (i used four empty cigarette packs, one at each corner underneath the laptop, to give it room for air flow below it), and let the GPU cool off slowly until it reaches the idle temperature you noted from step #1 (~70C) and leave it at that for about 10 minutes or so
6. Shutdown your OS as you would normally shutdown cleanly, and leave the laptop off until its finally cool to the touch above the keyboard, below the laptop - against the backpanel, and on the side against the side vent... Say, 20-30 minutes...
7. Turn the laptop on again, and see if it now posts and if video turns on (after it has cooled off completely)... If it turned on, shut it off quickly.. If you still didn't get video, repeat the "preparation outside" section above, then once you got video on again, repeat this whole section all over again, increasing load, ventilation blocking (including the top side/numpad area on keyboard), and heating time..

Now that your laptop turned on from (literally) "cold-boot", your video's GPU is now "fixed" (the dye/soldering material inside the microchip/GPU have re-established connections), so we want to avoid heating it up again too much to avoid this from happening all over again... So quickly turn off laptop after it posts, and let it sit for 5 minutes before proceeding to next section...

Staying Alive; Tin- (Aluminum) Foil Hat:
1. Flip laptop over, unscrew the middle screw (assuming that's all you screwed in as recommended earlier), and remove backpanel
2. Get a piece of aluminum foil , about size of a 8.5x11 paper, and cut along the jagged edges neatly with sciscors, preferably parallel to the straight side (use a ruler to draw a parallel line along the side you want to cut if you need to)... We want to fold the aluminum foil to form a small rectangle, about the size of the so-called "thermal pad" that we removed earlier on (in the "Preparation inside" section above, step #3) to fit in its place.
3. Roll a pen over the folded aluminum foil continuously, until you get about 1 to 1.5mm thickness. If the rectangular shape gets considerably bigger than the piece of "thermal pad" you removed earlier, cut along one side of it to make it smaller, then roll a small piece of foil around it to keep it all together, and roll a pen over it again to make sure its completely compressed with virtually no gaps or air inside.
4. Place our little aluminum rectangular piece in place of the now removed and discarded thermal pad, where the heat pipe rests on the side of GPU sink.
5. Secure the 4 screws around the CPU firmly, making sure it holds down tightly against the CPU core.. Then finally replace fan and reattach the 3 screws around it, and reinstall the backpanel, and screw in all the backpanel's screws back on.. DO NOT LEAVE BACK PANEL OFF! the whole point of the passive cooling is the fan sucks air in from the ventilation holes above the GPU, which cools it off... Also, keep your laptop off the desk by mounting it as described above to keep it cooler, or using a cooling pad if you have access to one.. Never set it on your lap again, unless you really have to, but don't prolong it much

My Results:
(Running Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 default install)

Using latest 1.1D Bios:

Original Idle Temperatures:
CPU: 47-48C (Core1: 43-45C, Core2: 35-37C)
GPU: 67-70C <---
Note: with the bluish colored stock thermal pad, and with the spliced toothpick, not much of a difference in the temperatures range noticed

After the aluminum-foil Modification:
Folded & Compressed Aluminum-Foil Pad for connecting heatpipe to GPU heatsink
1.5cm x 0.75cm
1 - 1.5 mm thick

CPU: 47-51C (Core1: 46-48C, Core2: 37-40C)
GPU: 58-62C <----

After upgrading to custom-compiled and stripped down kernel 2.6.30 from Ubuntu
Kernel PPA (kernel compiled w/ powernow_k8 built as module instead of built-in
the kernel as in the default 2.6.28-13-generic kernel configuration bundled
with Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04, to allow for using linux-phc, more on that later)

CPU: 44-45C (Core1: 37-40C, Core2: 44-48C)
GPU: 58-59C

Laptop has been running solid for a week now, no video issues, put to the test by compiling several kernels at two threads on both cores and pushing it... And the GPU temperature now is much more stable, and correlates quite well to the temperature of the CPU, without the stark difference in temperature as before with the stock setup from Everex (due to the shitty thermal pad)...
Next I play with linux-phc (linux-phc.org) and provide instructions on how to undervolt (and enable p-state transitions, which are very very very useful) to make for better cooling, better stepping, less throttling, better power saving while maintaining full performance-on-demand potential, and to be able to push the CPU harder (perhaps to run kernel compiles at three threads on both cores)

Hope this helps anyone... Use at your own risk, and the usual disclaimers...
YMMV..

 

[TANWare]

Insted of alumium foil, use a good size drop of ICD TIM. I replaced that pad and the CPU grease with this and it works great. Nice write up, probably saved many an oven.............

My only thought/recomendation is to bring the temp down even slower. While the GPU may say about 100C the micro joints are way higher. This is because they heat up from the electrical current being transfered. What you are doing in essence is curring a cold solder joint(s).

So I would suggest with three sessions running of the 3d app is to close one down at a time in about a 2 minute interval then let it cool down naturally while running idle. This will alow the joints to cool to the chips temp slower lessening the risk of another cold joint.

Again though congrats on a more specific solution....................

 

[jasmineaura]

Insted of alumium foil, use a good size drop of ICD TIM. I replaced that pad and the CPU grease with this and it works great. Nice write up, probably saved many an oven.............

Man, I really wish... It's very hard to even find generic ol' (white) thermal greese where I'm at (Egypt), and don't know exactly where to get such stuff here, I've asked around in few computer stores and electronic shops... I've had heck of a hard time last year just finding/getting a small pack of that generic white stuff, very very cheap (free).. I needed it for my old desktop PC before to slap on an Athlon 2800+ Barton core which its AS5-like thermal pad literally melted and oxidized from years of use and reuse...
Though we have "RadioShack" chains here in Egypt now, perhaps I can have some luck finding ICD TIM or even AS5 there?
But I really need this for the CPU (to replace the stock thermal pad), and perhaps even to put some between the GPU Core and the GPU heatsink after a little cleaning, if I can get my hands on some...
I do have a spare heatsink/fan that came bundled with a desktop Athlon, which I'm not using, and kept clean in plastic in its box, with the AS5-like thermal pad on the bottom side of it... Do you think it would be worthwhile scraping that stuff off carefully and reuse on the laptop's CPU and GPU after a little "padding/resurfacing/compressing" work with some clean mini-tools?

Anyways, my aluminum foil trick was merely a random thought, I did my research before doing that, and found, according to Wikipedia's page: Aluminum Foil

While many believe that the shiny side's reflective properties keep heat out when wrapped on the exterior and keep heat in when facing exterior, the actual difference is imperceptible without instrumentation [7]. The reflectivity of bright aluminium foil is 88% while dull embossed foil is about 80% [4].

So I rolled the foil with the bright side facing exterior hoping for that ~88% reflectivity of heat... Which is not at all bad...

But come to think of it, do I really need more than 80-88% heat reflectivity?

Do you really want 100% reflectivity of heat from the GPU heatsink, which runs much hotter at idle temp (and which has quite a bit higher temperature-tolerance) than the CPU?

I mean, the more reflectivity of heat from the GPU heatsink to CPU, the higher the chances you may push the CPU beyond its critical temperature under heavy-to-extreme load.

For instance, although my CPU runs at an a-OK idle temp - ~44-45C (as mentioned above) - with the out-of-the-box default vcore which I guess is 1.125v, if I really push it too hard, like say, running a full kernel compile with CONCURRENCY=3 (to run three make/gcc threads on both cores; n Cores + 1) easily brings the CPU up to the upper 90s Celcius, and often times easily hitting 100C and it often shuts down after about 1/2 hour to 1 hour depending on how far it keeps pushing 100C+
And this is why I really need linux-phc, although still got quite a way to go in terms of maturing, it's the only alternative of RMClock of windows for linux, but the upsides are that it's a bit lower level (LKM - Loadable Kernel Module) and much less resource demanding as you need not run its optional separate packaged graphical tool - phctool/phctool2 - at all, or optionally run it only once if you are not keen enough on doing stuff on the command line..

My only thought/recomendation is to bring the temp down even slower. While the GPU may say about 100C the micro joints are way higher. This is because they heat up from the electrical current being transfered. What you are doing in essence is curring a cold solder joint(s).

So I would suggest with three sessions running of the 3d app is to close one down at a time in about a 2 minute interval then let it cool down naturally while running idle. This will alow the joints to cool to the chips temp slower lessening the risk of another cold joint.

Again though congrats on a more specific solution....................

You're absolutely right... The key is to maintain the gradual and slow temperature rise (and same in reverse), rather than the spike changes in temperatures.. Having said that, it was a quite steep curve (if you graph time vs. GPU load) with the three glx-gears instances, took a LONG time to reach 90C and even longer to reach 100C..
Having said that, I wasn't actually only running Gnome desktop, there's a lot more bells and whistles coming into play here (that kept the idle temp around 70C), including Compiz (kind of like aero in windows-world), sensors-monitor applet, cpufrequency applet, CPU/MEM/HD load applets, wifi applet (Network Manager), etc.. So even after closing down the three glx-gears instances, the decline in temperature was also a quite steep curve over time..
Another thought I have had was to overclock the GPU temporarily while running this, as I was hoping of reaching a temperature that would be very very difficult to reach under full operation in normal modes (after the fix and taken precautions)... There's a nifty tool for linux called "nvclock", and it supposedly allows to overclock many nvidia cards/gpu's... However, it did complain to me that it's not possible to overclock on integrated laptop GPUs for some odd reason (I think it said usually they're locked), but asked me to add a "-f" option to force it - provided the usual disclaimed "If you really know what you're doing".. So I gave that a shot, and overclocked the GPU to 550Mhz while running, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference in temperature over the next, say 5 minutes, and Nvidia's proprietary "nvidia-settings" tool was still reporting 500mhz (from the table of freq steps, 200, 300, 400, 500), so I tried to go 600Mhz but then I locked up instantly Perhaps I was in a hurry to get this done, and didn't consider the fact that the frequency steps reported by the proprietary nvidia-settings tool is hardcoded in the app, so perhaps it wasn't actually reflecting the then-overclocked 550Mhz FSB... Oh well...

On a side note, after the aluminum fix, I upgraded to custom compiled and stripped-down (and I mean STRIPPED-down) 2.6.30 kernel (as mentioned in my previous post) to allow for compiling powernow_k8 as kernel module to in-turn give me the option of substituting for linux-phc, as I really need to undervolt the CPU from the darned stock 1.125v at 8x, and to allow for intermediate steps between 4x and 8x for smoother operation and more control and less likelihood of pushing max all the time the system needs to go over 800mhz..
After the upgrade, despite the fact I haven't even touched linux-phc yet nor done any undervolting from the stock vcores, I noticed my CPU dropped quite a few degrees in terms of idle temperature, and the idle temp fluctuating range is much narrower!
Went from 47-51C to 44-45C, although I noticed now that sometimes Core2 runs hotter than core1, which is kind of bizzare, 'cause I didn't see that before

2.6.28-13-generic stock ubuntu jaunty 9.04 installed kernel:
Core1: 46-48C, Core2: 37-40C

Custom compiled & stripped-down 2.6.30 kernel:
Core1: 37-40C, Core2: 44-48C

I also did upgrade my proprietary nvidia drivers as well, from the jaunty-bundled 180.x.x to 185.18.31 from Nvidia Vdpau PPA, and the GPU idle temperature seems to have also decreased (minimal difference though), and more importantly, the fluctuating idle temperature range is narrower too!
Went from 58-62C to 58-59C idle, and a lot of people reported "snappier" video-performance/response with that driver, which I have not really noticed as it was already running quite snappy before the driver update

Overall, I must say, I'm very happy with how far I got so far, and it could only get better I think with a little undervolting work in linux-phc..

So just to recoupe, IIRC, some have claimed 0.688 - 0.712 @ 4x and 0.900-0.950 @ 8x on the stock Turion TL-50 ran quite stable?
I completely agree with your prior remarks (after re-reading through the entire thread last night) to move a step-up from the lowest stable vcore just to be on the safe-side. If I am not mistake, you said that you were quite content with your settings at 0.750v @ 4x and 1.000 @ 8x? Correct?

Thanks & Cheers

Edit:
My GPU is idling at even lower temperature now that I removed the battery after charging it up to 80% to store it for a week or two
A/C Plugged in, running idle (w/ stock vcore):
GPU: 55-57C
CPU: 43C
Core1: 36C , Core2: 43C

 

[jasmineaura]

Some final notes/thoughts I forgot to add, generally about cooling, and no more lengthy posts, I promise (yeah right)

I have been running rock solid overall for over a week now (knock on wood), and completely operating on wireless for my laptop internet needs (too lazy to tap into my wired-LAN on it), and despite the long distance and weak signal (due to the 3 to 4 thick cement walls the wifi has to go through), I have not experienced any frequent drop outs or wifi card lockups since the fixes described above, though I have tried using it on XP much yet (dual-booted w/ ubuntu)..

I have a theory, that the wifi lockups were mainly caused by the poor design of passive cooling and the poorly-thought-out ventilation, and the stock configuration's running the GPU at idle temperature of 70C+, think about it..
The GPU and CPU and heat pipe running along one side of the Wifi card, and right next to it are the memory chips, which do tend to get pretty hot, as there's not even any passive cooling over them either, since what little ventilation holes are only located above the GPU, and I don't think such minipci-e wifi cards where designed to tolerate that much ambient heat or heat spots... If you look at any major laptop manufacturers, even dell from hell, you'll often find those buit-in wifi pci-e cards on the complete opposite side of the mobo, far from the CPU & RAM & GPU heat...

@ TANWare, I did read about your idea of removing the grid on the opposite side of the ventilation holes on the plastic backpanel over the GPU, I've actually considered it, but!!! Dusty environment!!! Dust + Heat = Undesireable..

I've actually been looking into some ideas, mainly one that was proposed previously by nietsni, but with some minor improvisions:

Proposed Improved Back-Panel Design:

1. Get a 1/10" thick aluminum or stainless cut out and designed as the shape and dimensions of the backpanel (though probably will be quite a pain to make the bend/dip at the top part of it though, and also keeping the three little taps/hinges on the left side)

2. Draw a square/rectangle along the bottom right corner of the newly designed aluminum/stainless back panel, exactly over the GPU... The square/rectangle may need to be a bit bigger than the dimensions of the virtual box around the ventilation holes on the stock plastic back panel to allow for easier (and more) air flow..

3. Cut out that whole square, yes, completely cut it out..

4. Get a small piece of light-weight metal screen like the ones used on window filters, preferably with a fairly loose mesh, such as the one in this pic:

The point is we want something to allow for maximized air flow in and over the GPU, without letting too much dust in or any visible flying particles from getting sucked inside, while still leaving it easy to clean or blow inside-out with a compressed air can, regularly..

5. Cut the metal screen at slightly larger dimension than the square we cut out in steps #2 & #3 so we can use it on top of it, and solder the edges well over the hole, preferably on the outer side of what would be our new backpanel..


Static Electricity or Electrical Sparks considerations:

Either:
1. Make a small wire connection (perhaps soldered) between a "ground" connection on the motherboard (perhaps one of the 3 FAN pins is a ground) and the topmost-leftmost screw/nut mount is - where the topmost-leftmost screw goes in the metal back panel, replacing the black-finished screw with a bare electrically conductive one the same size.

Or
2. Cut out pieces of anti-static film or electrically unconductive material to put around the areas where the the backpanel comes in contact with the screw/nut holes/mounts on the motherboard, and where it touches the topside of the CPU pad, and make sure no other parts of the metal backpanel comes in contact with the motherboard or GPU heatsink, etc..

What are your thoughts, hard-XT'ers?

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

WOW, I can't believe this thread is still going 2 years later . I need to get back here more often, LOL.

On a pretty cool note, I think I told you all a zillion or so pages ago that I gave my XT5000T to my ex GF shortly after I got it. Well, recently she brought it back to me with a stuffed hard drive, so I made her get a USB and dump everything to that. I wiped the drive, installed Win7 RC1 onto the sucker, downloaded all the windows updates (had a few driver updates, mostly nvidia related) and it ran just great with a couple of caveats.

Caveats (don't you just love that word?):

1. DON'T use the nvidia drivers from nvidia's site. For some reason, doing so causes the GPU to throw a "resetting" error from time to time with no rhyme or reason. Screen goes black for about 10 seconds, then returns and delivers the popup. Drivers (also provided by nvidia, so don't panic about performance) from Windows Update work *great*.

2. Set your Power Options to High Performance mode. For some reason, the power saving features of 7 aren't well supported (or something) and cause the system to periodically lock up as Windows tries to throttle PCI devices (including the GPU, which may relate to Caveat #1, though I didn't have enough time to validate that idea). If you set it to high performance mode, these errors disappear.

The good news is that she says aside from stuffing the hard drive full of her crap, she's never had an issue with the XT5000t. And for some reason I almost miss the sucker, even though it's a monstrous size it is still an impressive piece of, as our British friends say, "kit".

Glad to see you're all loving on it still. I wish I could sift through all the posts since the last time I was here, but evidently that would take months

 

[EvilWizardGlick]

Thank you Jasmine. It was a long uphill battle but finally the GPU issue is recognized.
Even with all your fine work we still do not know exactly what needs replaced/re-soldered. Back in the original Everex site the fellow in Thailand claimed a repair shop replaced his GPU. Maybe they just re-soldered it.I know there were solder issues with a variety of electronics from roughly the same time period.
I've seen the baking idea. Has anyone tried a hair dryer? Maybe a heat gun? You can probably rent a heat gun. A heat gun has the advantage of localizing the heat unlike baking. There are also those small butane torches for even more precise heat application.
I still think small aluminum or copper fins along the heat pipe will help disperse heat better. Most hobby stores sell small sheets of metal.
Instead of wire mesh try the carbon filter black mesh used in aquariums.

It probably filters finer than the metal mesh would.And no static or conductive problems.
For more cooling try those tiny aquarium pumps. Or the even larger ones. No real help when on battery mode, maybe there are battery operated pumps like the battery operated fans. The pump would allow for airflow to specific spots. One could probably rig copper tubing, small, to the plastic tubing from the pump. The copper tubing would not melt in the Everex. Then it is only a small hole to allow access for the tubing.Snip off the small end of an old radio antenna for the tube. It should not matter what type of tube it is as long as it adapts to the plastic tubing you need attached to the pump.
I found this
http://www.tradekey.com/product_view/id/887999.htm

The USB mini aquarium measures 180 x 140 x 55 mm and is controlled almost entirely from your computer while it is hooked up to your USB port. The USB supplies power to the tank&#8217;s LED lights, the water heater, and the oxygen pump. It&#8217;s all controlled with a program that looks just like the fish tank itself. A camera inside the tank displays what&#8217;s going on inside the virtual fish tank on your computer, so you never even have to look at the real fish if you like to neglect animals.
But wait, there&#8217;s more. It&#8217;s also a room humidifier and a night light. It&#8217;s available in red, blue, silver or gold and costs about $35 in China.

USB airpump solves the problem.
For real Geek stuff visit some Steampunk sites. It's likely their approach would allow for simpler modifications to the Everex.
The video out plug is it just s-video or component?
Our rarely used Everex is still running. But I know it to be a ticking time bomb.

 

[jasmineaura]

Back in the original Everex site the fellow in Thailand claimed a repair shop replaced his GPU. Maybe they just re-soldered it.I know there were solder issues with a variety of electronics from roughly the same time period.

I highly doubt they replaced it, simply because you would need the same exact GPU chip, same exact specifications, from an identical motherboard.

The problem is not something that could be soldered at an electronics guru shop, I don't think... From what I recall, it is the low quality cheapo dye/solder material inside the GPU, a microchip..

I've seen the baking idea. Has anyone tried a hair dryer? Maybe a heat gun? You can probably rent a heat gun. A heat gun has the advantage of localizing the heat unlike baking. There are also those small butane torches for even more precise heat application.

Are you serious? lol...

I thought previously about the hair/blow-dryer, but I think it would be blowing electrical sparks and static electricity left and right, would probably destroy the entire board beyond possible repair... No?
I know it is strongly advised to avoid getting electric vaccum near electronics/ICs, big NO..

Heat gun.. hmmm..
Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_gun says:
They are also used in electronics to desolder circuit board components. They typically output air at temperatures ranging from 100-550°C (200-1000°F) with some hotter models running around 760°C (1400°F).


Desolder? i want to solder not desolder

Also, dont know if the board/components around the GPU would handle collateral exposure to 100C externally...

I still think small aluminum or copper fins along the heat pipe will help disperse heat better. Most hobby stores sell small sheets of metal.

Disperse heat better, to where? It's a very tight closed environment, with very small room for passive cooling in the stock setup (the ventilation holes directly above the GPU are too small, too few), and the copper pipe already transfers heat out and away towards the heatsink on the side vent which can get too hot to the touch under extended heavy load...

Dispersing heat inside that tight area, imho, is highly undesirable... Copper conducts heat much better than air, you don't want to decrease the efficiency of the stock copper heat pipe/heatsink and fan blowing out on it by dissipating more ambient heat from it...
If for anything, I'd go with a thermal insulator around the copper pipe on its route from the GPU to the CPU, and on its route from the CPU to the side-vent-heatsink. The result would be less hot air inside (at the cost of hotter heatsink, more fan work), reducing likelihood of overheating the GPU, overheating (and possibly locking up) the wifi pci-e card, memory, etc..

Instead of wire mesh try the carbon filter black mesh used in aquariums.

It probably filters finer than the metal mesh would.And no static or conductive problems.

I see a few big drawbacks to that...

1. That is some very very narrow filtration, mainly designed for water or as a disposable screen for air-filters... It would almost completely block the air coming in... We are unable to push the Fan to its maximum speed (that it starts up at when u first turn on the machine before the BIOS posts) to suck out more air and to cause a faster stream of air flow from over the GPU out through the sidevent. People already have been ripping out the filter grid on the stock back panel to allow for better airflow...

2. The Carbon your talking about is like a sponge. Once it is full/blocked, it is no longer of any use and has to be discarded, unless you want to clean it with an oxidizer like Ozone or Chlorine..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon

The different forms or allotropes of carbon (see below) include the hardest naturally occurring substance, diamond, and also one of the softest known substances, graphite.

Graphite is a conductor of electricity.
Some forms of graphite are used for thermal insulation (i.e. firebreaks and heat shields)

So I really don't know about the heat/electrical conductivity properties of the spongy type of carbon you're talking about..

In any case, I do NOT at all intend to make the loose mesh metal screen touch the GPU heatsink, not even close... I would probably prefer soldering it on the outside of the squarish-hole above the GPU in the metal (aluminum or stainless) back-panel plate..

The video out plug is it just s-video or component?

Video: 1 DVI-I output port, 1 S-Video output port