Robbo

Haha, yes, don't compromise this time, wait till you get everything in place! Looking forward to hopefully a successful result, or at least offering a few lines of advice if you're having issues!

OK, excellent, sounds like you understand how it all fits together. And I understand what you were saying about the bent heat pipes on your previous heatsink & how that would create problems in everthing lining up properly. From what you've described I've got a feeling that this time around your installation will be pain free & plain sailing, you've got everything lined up & understood right as far as I can see. Let us know how the installation goes, it's always good to see a positive outcome after the issues you've had.

Haha, that's very funny, you certainly have a way with the emoticons! I'm glad you've got the Static Wristband & feel more confident with a second run through on the installation. The heatsink issue you bring up sounds a little like a red herring to me though (as in not the reason for you previous issues), you said yourself that you managed to get good temps with your re-paste on your previous heatsink. To me, all the heatsinks for the R3 are pretty much the same in terms of cooling capacity (3 heatpipes), and instead it comes down to thermal pad placement & corresponding GPU die contact to get good temperatures. Although having the the correct X-bracket is important too. My 560M X-bracket works well with the GK104 670MX, so that would work well with the GK104 780M too I think. If you're coming from 6990 AMD then you could do with the correct X-bracket for the 780M I think (I was sure you were on NVidia before the 780M though! Confused - I'll check my posts). Either way, you certainly sound like you're on the right path, especially now you'll have your replacement 780M! EDIT: Yep, you'd mentioned you were on the 6990 before (my mistake). The 680M heatsink that you've ordered should work well with the 780M (apart from maybe needing to move around the thermal padding). Which X-bracket are you going to use? (Your 6990 one, or have you ordered one? I think you should use an NVidia X-bracket for best results).

Hi, that's great news about you getting a free replacement for your 780M! Let us know how you get on with the replacement when it arrives, do you think you'll be more confident with the install the 2nd time around? About the brightness, I'm not sure what's causing that. You obviously know how to change the brightness level by using the hot keys Fn+F4, Fn+F5, and you can also change brightness in Windows. You could try changing the brightness in Windows by typing 'Windows Mobility Center' into the 'Search Programs & Files' field after clicking on the Start Button. Windows Mobility Center lets you change a load of other stuff too.

Hi, did you manage to get a replacement or a refund? - - - Updated - - - Sure it's possible, but bad things can happen, you just have to read the last few pages of this thread to realise. Have a google around & then see if it's worth the risk for you.

That will increase your voltage to 1.00V on your GPU for better overclocking, but higher temperatures. Don't know about secure boot.

Haha, well I was partially right about it being a potential RAM fault then! Have you got your old CPU you can stick in to test (one you know is working), then do Memtest86+ again & see if you get errors, that way you can narrow it down to CPU/RAM/or both?

Haha, I agree! (Although I don't ever need to game on battery). Battery tech is real slow in developing. I don't know much about it, but I have a feeling that it might just be a limited tech, in as much as perhaps they're already at the maximum that battery technology can deliver. (Maybe similar to how the current silicon chip technology is starting to reach its limits with regard to decreasing nm process size).

Hopefully it's just the memory, but if you've not had an error after over 8 hours of running Memtest86+, then I'm thinking it's probably not going to flag up any errors even if you run it for a whole 24hours. But, I guess it's worth just letting it run to be sure. Unfortunately, I don't have any other ideas bar all the things I've already mentioned in this thread.

I think you can safely use the 780M VBIOS listed on here. Check back through this thread, I'm sure it's been asked before, and google it too for other users with Alienware 18.

Is your system RAM ok? I damaged my system RAM once vacuuming my laptop (yes, I use cans of compressed air now!), and memtest86+ showed errors on the RAM immediately. I replaced the RAM and it stopped the blue screening. Maybe with all the work you've been doing on the system, maybe some static has got to the RAM. Memtest86+ can be run from a USB after POST without any influence from the Windows Operating System. (Memtest86+ website also has a USB installer to automate the creation of the bootable USB).

Oh well, don't feel too bad about it, it's a learning experience, if you get to install another card in your laptop in the future, or end up doing other DIY electronic stuff, then you will have learnt quite a bit & will be able to do it better next time. I'm not sure how Eurocom will approach your RMA. If there are obvious signs of damage to the card, those 1mm deep scratches that you said you caused during installation, then I do have a few doubts about whether they will send you a replacement free of charge; but...I could be wrong, afterall the customer is often right, that's just good business! I hope they send you a replacement. Do you think you'll be able to do a better job of the installation if they send you that replacement? What would you do differently second time around do you think?

The vBIOS is located on the GPU. Just read the 1st orginal post of this thread for instructions (that definitely works for Win7, not sure about Win8).

I know, I thought that was quite funny too! I guess that's predictive text for you, although it might have been a joke, especially if he's had bad experience with them! I've had good experience with upgrade donkey so far, where I got my GPU! Eeyore, Eeyore! (Sorry!)

Hey Link3rd, have you recovered & gathered yourself enough to try anything else on your notebook to get it working or have you thrown it out of the window yet just to save yourself the trauma of being able to fix it?!

Haha, well stop logging onto the forums then while you're at work! You can't solve it until you have your laptop in front of you! :-) Well, that area where you screw down the heatsink to the card is going to be more sensitive, you don't want to be leaning your body weight on the screws or anything! I screwed my heat sink down on the card using those pretty good quality screwdrivers I linked you, and did it as firmly as I could without the screw driver jumping out & without putting much pressure to the head of the screwdriver - just used my index finger to apply some gentle firm pressure to the top of the screwdriver while screwing down.

No idea really! Although, it's the sort of thing that makes me think of BIOS level setting issues - not sure why, how about re-flashing the system BIOS?

Ah, ok, so I can visualise the pins you're talking about. So the pins have cut a 1mm deep grove somewhere on the bottom surface of the card while you were installing it one time? 1mm is pretty deep, if that's cut through one of the circuits? I guess it depends where the 1mm deep groove is located, and if there are circuits in the area. EDIT: when screwing the card down to the motherboard, I don't think that's a particularly sensitive area, so the extra force you used would be OK I imagine, as long as the card was located into the slot properly as you were screwing it down. (Are you using some reasonable quality electronics type screwdrivers, because I've found using those that you don't need to press down as hard to screw it down firmly? These are the ones I use: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000NRU88E/ref=oh_details_o08_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I think that's a good point, but I'm thinking he should probably do that as a last resort because baking could be risky too. Do you think it could be the heatsink not sitting flat on all the VRAM chips?

Oh man, I'm really sorry to hear all of that! 70 degC at stock on Heaven Benchmark would have been OK I think, although you did find out the paste job was a bit of a mess from before and you got better temperatures by repasting. I'm really sorry to hear your card is glitching, I truly am, I know how much effort & resources can go into something like that. First thing I would say is don't do anymore work on it until you've kind of calmed down & got some sleep, because working on something detailed like that just doesn't really end well when you're knackered. After doing a quick google search on 'Green Lines' and 'GPU', it seems that there are quite a few references to potential GPU failure, specifically the RAM of the card. What does Device Manager in Windows say about your GPU, is it flagging up any faults there? I think you did the right thing by trying to re-seat the card a few times & to blow the air out of the PCI slot, and cleaning the contacts of the card. The green lines could point to RAM issues on the card, I'm wondering if one of your RAM chips on the card might be getting really hot after your repaste. Perhaps if the heatsink is not sitting flat on all the RAM chips, then one of them might be getting really hot & temporarily glitching as it gets hotter. There's always a risk of accidentally damaging hardware when you do these things yourself (& also if you let Dell Technicians do them it seems!), I'm pretty sure I fried my system RAM once by vacuum cleaning my laptop - STATIC! Always worth taking static precautions when doing electrical work on your laptop/PC, wearing a anti-static wrist strap or grounding yourself by touching some bare metal before touching internal components. Once again, really sorry to hear about your problems with the card, and let us know what you decide to do. EDIT: not sure what you mean by the scrapes on your card, I couldn't picture what you were describing - a photo? EDIT 2: wonder if it would be worth uinstalling NVidia video drivers & then doing a clean NVidia driver reinstall, just as a quick check that there are no software driver problems causing the issue - quick & easy to check. (Especially as you talk about having reinstalled the 6990M temporarily, so I'd check to make sure you've uninstalled your AMD graphics drivers too).

Did you run the 10 minute Heaven Benchmark test, this will show you if your temperatures are ok? Then you'll know if you've got a problem that needs addressing. Well it sounds like you took your time padding up the heatsink, and sounds like you did a good job with that. What a pain you had with the bent heat sink pipes too! When the whole heatsink & card assembly is installed are any of the parts under stress - like maybe you had to force it into place in your laptop to fit due to the bent pipes. If the heatsink is under stress (forced into place) when installed in the laptop is it possible that this stress might be causing a force on the card to lift the heatsink away from the GPU core? That may effect cooling. Is it worth reusing your X-bracket from your 460M? Is it possible that this matches with your heatsink better, I'm not sure if X-brackets are matched to particular GPUs or particular heatsink designs or both? Is it worth trying your old 460M heatsink? (I'm not sure there's a difference between M17xR3 heatsinks in terms of cooling capacity - mine has 3 heat pipes and that was installed on my 560M). Or maybe it's just not pasted up optimally? If you dissemble your heatsink from your chip you should see the paste evenly distributed over the whole of the GPU core. Also, if the layer of paste on the GPU looks quite thick when removing the heatsink, then it could prove that the heatsink is not sitting close enough to the GPU core (affected by X-bracket). But really, you don't need to do any of this stuff if your temps are ok when checked at 100% GPU usage for an extended period, so check with the Heaven Benchmark & post back with your temperatures, ran on a loop for at least 10 mins.

I see you had some issues with the pasting of the CPU, did you check what your CPU temperatures are in the BIOS, maybe they're sky high & it's causing issues? Is the fan cable plugged into the motherboard properly (perhaps you had to disconnect it to replace the CPU, and it's not reseated properly) - don't know if that could cause blue screens if the fan cable was not fully seated home - intermittent connection? I also see that you replaced the screen some time ago. What happens if the connection is intermittently dodgy from your replaced screen to the motherboard - would that cause Blue Screens if the connection was intermittent? I'm not an expert on this stuff, but those were the two things that came to mind after reading your post (quite possibly some long shots!). (Haha, sorry for my apparent liking of the word intermittent!)

Haha, 1600x900 with a 780M, that will be some awesome framerates you'll see! That's because 1920x1080 screen has 1.4 times more pixels that need rendering in comparison to the 1600x900 screen - your games will fly! I'm pleased I have the lower res screen, for the same reason (even if the quality is not as good as the 1080 screen). Yes, if your temperatures are really high during the heaven benchmark (at stock settings), then it could well indicate that the pasting & padding of the heatsink may need to be improved. It's important to get the heatsink padded up accurately so that the heatsink is able to sit nice & flat on the GPU core (making good & full contact with it). This was the hardest & most time consuming part of the process for me, to make sure all the pads on the heat sink were in the right place with the right height so that they make contact with all the chips on the card, while still allowing the heatsink to sit flat against the actual GPU core. I think that's the most crucial part of the installation process, alongside making sure that the GPU core is pasted up properly. I used AS5, and the spread method on the GPU core. Did you have the 460M/560M installed before? If so, that's the same heatsink as mine, so I should think that the X-bracket from your 460M/560M combined with your 460M/560M heatsink should work fine for the 780M (after moving the pads around, and adding/subtracting in some areas). I think that because I have the same heatsink & X-bracket, and my GPU core is GK104, which is the same physical chip as the 780M chip, so the physical parameters of the chip should be the same as your 780M in terms of contact height etc. (It's important to use the correct X-bracket, because the height of the posts are different, which helps determine the contact point of the heatsink to the GPU core. (So, I think you'd be OK in terms of that coming from a 460M, based on my experience with that particular setup).

Maybe there's a dodgy physical connection associated with slot 2 & 4. You could try blowing any dust out from the slots using a can of compressed air, get any dirt off the contacts on the sticks of RAM, try replacing the RAM in slots 2 & 4 making sure they're slotting properly into place. Can't think of anything else you could try.

Here's a good quality link for download of Heaven Benchmark: Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 Windows Download I ran it at Quality Ultra, Tessellation Maximum, no Anti-aliasing, resolution set to my native screen size (yours probably 1920x1080). Well, my temperatures should be a bit lower than yours because your 780M has a higher TDP (Watts) than my 670MX, at least when comparing stock settings - your card consumes a lot more Watts/more power. If you've got a Watt Meter you could plug it into your electical outlet so you could measure your overall system Watt consumption and compare that to mine to get a better comparison, although your CPU would use more power too, but it would give you an idea. As I mentioned in one of my posts a few days ago, the quality of the paste job on the GPU can make a big difference, if not done right then you can see large increases in temperature. If yours is getting really hot, then that could be the cause; I know j95 has showed you the c-clip mod, but it's probably easier & safer to make sure you've got a good basic paste job first, at which point you may not even need the c-clip mod which carries those extra risks. EDIT: I don't think Hitman Absolution is a particularly good benchmark for testing max GPU temperature, because when I've run the Hitman Benchmark GPU usage never remained stable at 100%, there's quite a bit of CPU or platform limited behaviour in that one so GPU is not always at 100% usage, whereas the Heaven Benchmark keeps your GPU at 100% constant GPU usage (resulting in near worst case temperature scenarios while gaming). What's the maximum temperature you get during a 10 minute Heaven Benchmark run? (You can just let that benchmark run on a loop forever until you click on the Quit button, so useful for stability testing).