U703 / U709 Rebuild

I am less than a week till I get out of the sand box here in Dubai and get back home to the USA. I have started looking again for parts I am going to need to get the U703 back together. I still need a couple of questions answered first.

On the swapping of the mother board to change the d900t to d900k will everything in the T chassis plug into the K motherboard?

What are you opinions on the Intel vs AMD board?

What is the best way to spot the authentic 11a and not the cheap knock off?

Just doing more research on this before I get home.

Hmm where to begin. The AMD version scores higher in every benchmark test I have seen comparing comparably equipped t and k systems. Inside with the exception of the motherboard everything is almost the same with the exception of the motherboard and heatsink. There is also an additional heat spreader on the k version that goes over the cpu socket once the cpu is installed. it is held in pace with 2 standoffs.

As far as ac adapters go the original ones are manufactured by li shin. They have a yellow warning sticker in the upper left corner and have horizontal ridges down the middle. Asking most sellers if the adapter they are selling is authentic or a cheap knockoff is usually enough to get an honest answer.


The top, larger adapter in the photo

The only person I would stay away from is z*tronics. I have heard multiple stories where they not only sent out defective motherboards they were physically damaged. I purchased what was suppose to be an authentic 11a adapter they sent me an 8a liteon (which is too underpowered to even work with the 6800) Had I not known better it could have easily started a fire. When I questioned them on it and asked them to return it for a refund I got no response. I ended up filing a paypal claim against z*tronics and they never responded to that either. Paypal gave me a full refund and then the guy contacted me back looking for his adapter. I stated that he was welcome to it back as I would not want an inferior quality underpowered ac adapter in my house which could easily start a fire. The sad part is I do not even think he realizes why it is unacceptable to use an ac adapter rated at 8a on a device that specifies it requires 9a or more.

He probably thought I was a nut but I don't give a shit. He used a photo of the oem 11a adapter and said that his adapter was an authentic oem part.

Got the charger ordered, it was advertized as li shin 11a so I will see how that works out when I get home. If I do the motherboard swap from T to K it looks like I will need all the "little" parts you mentioned so a whole parts machine would be best on that. I am going to try for one of the d99t alienware machines from best buy recyclers if I can get it around 80 ish and then go from there. Thanks again for your help East.

That top charger could give the brick for my x7200 a run for its money, though I suspect mine weighs a bit more -- "brick" is a very accurate term.

v5.2 (Poorly designed vrm setup combined with the fact it does not
support 6800 ultra+ video cards makes this board a waste of time) (This
board can also be identified by the absense of the black heatsink where
the video card seats.)
v5.3 (Not plauged with any problems I am aware
of. This board supports cards up to the 6800 ultra, Depending on the
problem its worth investing some time trying to fix it)
v5.4-v6.0 (I have never seen one. I believe these revision numbers were reserved for use by the d900k)
v6.1
(Can develop a problem where the promise raid controller is no longer
detected, I am not sure of the exact cause but when it is not detected
it does not appear to be receiving power)
v6.2 (I have one of these and have not found nor heard of one problem to date)

Been looking again over boards using your advice East. Here is a 5.5 board on a T model. So you can say you have seen one now, lol.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CLEVO-D900T-17-3-WXGA-Workstation-Laptop-Parts-Not-Working-AS-IS-/280749771296?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item415dfd8a20

That seller also has 5.3 revision board. Probably both have "problems" lol

Anyone know a source of the VRM chip, think I want to do a little playing, maybe find a newer model chip that will work.

I have no experience with 5.4-6.0. I always thought they were reserved for use in the d900k but apparently I stand corrected.

In a perfect world you would want to buy a 6.2s.

I have yet to figure out what the letter designates. It is either a sub revision with a minor change or it indicates the plant the motherboard was made in. I tend to think it designates a sub revision because I have boards that do not have any letter in the revision number.

Oh I almost forgot, You may want to watch these

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-2-Sager-Hypersonic-Gaming-Laptop-D9K-Parts-Webcam-Dual-Core-/220868768339?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item336ccdf253&autorefresh=true

One d900t and one d900k, maybe between both of these I can get something going, if I win it.

Did I not just say that?

Going on the memory slots one is indeed a t ask the k only has 2 slots.

I think that would be a good place to start for you as one is seemingly working. If you could get the other one going you could resell it and break even probably depending on what video card you included. Honestly I would keep the 7800 at this point though because they are only going to get harder (and more expensive) to find That is why In finally went for a 7950, I have always wanted one for these laptops ever since i had the 7950 quad in my desktop. That was so long ago it predates TNB.

I had been watching them for a couple of days, I totally missed your link, The hyperlinks for me have been blending in for me, lmao. Oh well.

I wonder if you will get an ac adapter with them. It does not state either way but if you did it would make the deal even better.

Well both of them are mine, Just have to see how it goes when they come in.

Of course, I tried to pay him with paypal and it keeps saying not available for this merchant. Waiting on a reply.

Let me know if you have any questions when you get them

Currently I am fighting with the i222. There is one spot that just does not want to bond back together with the glue. I even tried giving it a key with some sandpaper. I will get it glued eventually.

Finally got the guy paid, just a waiting game now.

Take your time when you dissemble them and note the position of the thermal pads. It is extremely important that all of the thermal pads be clean, intact, and in the right place or you will quickly fry something. If the thermal pads look dirty they can be carefully cleaned with isopropyl alcohol.

Off of the top of my head there should be a minimum of 9 in the video card assembly. One large one between the heatsink and the motherboards vrm's and on the 6x series boards the cpu heatsink was redesigned (Material added) and it also contacts another chip with a thermal pad. Its extremely difficult to find the heatsink 6x uses. I got mine out of a parts machine with a 6.1n board with a failed raid controller. I do not like removing it for no reason but I can take a photo of it for you next time I pull it out.

I assume you are going to rebuild it with the K parts though as that is what I would do (And am going to do eventually I think)

If the K machine is in good shape and I can get enough parts off of the T machine to get the voodoo going I am going to leave the K together. I have a two inch by 4 or 5 inch thermal pad I got off of a fanless computer when we scrapped the old one at work that was on the rig floor (300mhz machine, industrial computers never have big processor) that I have saved for special projects.

I have 2 old systems in the basement that sound like that. One is a hp netserver E50 and the other a dell precision 610. Working on both is proprietary hell.

They both came in today. The T model is a 6.1 motherboard. I will post more when I get a chance to do more testing on them.

They Both boot and I can get into bios. I didn't put ram in the T model the first time and to see if it would beep and flash, nothing. Put ram into it, waited about 6 to 8 seconds and sager popped up on the screen. Both have 7800 video cards. Not sure what CPU yet, in either one. The K model will see the one harddrive I plugged into it. Overall it's looking good.

East I didn't run them long, the thermal paste on the T model, looks dried out. ( looked at it first because I didn't think it was going to boot, to see what GPU it had) Have you tried to swap the paste out for a thermal pad? Or is that a bad idea for this model? I have done it with other stuff I have worked on and it didn't seem to have a problem.

I like to run real gel on the cpu and gpu itself. The thermal pads are needed for other ic chips such as the video ram and voltage supply circuits as the case does not come close enough to the chips to use thermal gel. I have seen people on ebay selling copper shim kits to eliminate the need for the thermal pads although I have some doubts about that method. If you go that route I would be very careful and I would tack them in place with solder as if they shifted they could potentially short something out. You will also want to make sure the shims are the correct size as if they are not it will prevent other areas of the gpu heatsink from contacting correctly.

I have never had a problem gaming with one of these laptops with the thermal pads. Its only when you let dust build up in the fans (or were unlucky enough to have an earlier revision board) that you have problems.

Most of the time the thermal pads are intact and in good shape. Its when people have dissembled these laptops to "fix" them that they often get lost or damaged and require replacement.

From my experience these units do not beep when there is something wrong they just power on but don't post. caps nums and scrl lock will flash several times if the video card is not detected (not seated properly, missing or in some cases fried)

My x7200 still runs cool as a cucumber with nothing more than a passive xPad under it (which simply raises the unit slightly to increase airflow.) The only interesting thing that I noticed while playing The Witcher 2 is that if I left the game paused for more than a minute or two the temperatures would start to rise and the fans would kick up to maximum. Other than that, the layout and fans seem to do the job -- I need to keep your advice about fan cleaning at the front of my mind!

Iago when playing games on that laptop make sure you run your fans at full throttle. "...throttle up...."

on the NP9262 it was fn+f3(f1 or f2).

On the old d870's it was fn+f8-f12. I forget the exact key. Useually when I use one I just hit unmarked ones at random until the fans spin up

East wrote:On the old d870's it was fn+f8-f12. I forget the exact key. Useually when I use one I just hit unmarked ones at random until the fans spin up

And that, in a nutshell, is East's Guide to Women . . . .

http://www.ebay.com/itm/220871349849?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

I know this is ended, but they will be back up again. I have got two of these so far and I will be getting two more. This is a good deal If you have ever wanted a rugged laptop. Not as tough as a toughbook, but well made. It has a Pentium M 1.8 and from what I have seen can be upgraded, it has a socket. It also has ATI 9000 video card. Several other guys on the toughbook modding forum have got them too. All have worked well, boot from usb, have Bluetooth and gps unit installed in it. The caddy's are sold by the same people and are 25 dollars, and if you want a car dock, they have one for 18 bucks shipped with it is relisted here in couple more days. I have got about half battery life on both the units I have and everyone else seems to be getting the same. They are touchscreen units too. This is the best deal I have seen on this kind of setup in a while. Just wanted you guys in the loop on this. All you would have to dig up is a charger and ide harddrive.

Interesting. Maybe I will make one of those my next project. Right now I am still working on the i222. I think I managed to secure a screen, Only a couple of more hours will say for sure.