Area 51 m7700 Download Area - Page 10

Alright I disassembled that part of my 7700 tonight and believe I've found what you were talking about. Here's a photo for anybody else interested:



So all you do is dismount your video card from the heat spreader. The video card is encased within a metal enclosure as pictured above, it can be divided without tearing the orange pull which _is not a seal_. It's just to make it easy to detach your video card. You can remove it just by spreading the enclosure along it's divide with your fingers (if there's a sticker just pull it out of the way with your screw driver, you don't even need to break that either).

I've been monitoring my gpu temperature with GetThermal and it does seem to be running 10-15 degrees C cooler than before. My normal operating temperature was previously 76 and that's with the fans running at max and on a cooling bay, currently it's at 64. Just by putting my hand across the side vent I can tell that this machine is doing much better, I'm not certain it'll be able to handle games now but at least there is an improvement.

a small note for all
when you pres Fn+F2 the fans go to full speed
when you pres Fn+F2 again the fans STOPS
that mean even if your VGA is hot the fans will not work at all
that waht's causing he laptop to shutdown
i think this is a bios bug
but till now there is no solution for that
the only that i can get is if you pres the Fn+F2 to stop the fans you must make a system Restart ASAP before the system overheat

hi, i been using 'getthermal for a few months now and have complete control over my fans, seperately.

no problems now with overheating........

dave

I can tell you exactly what the problem is the Bios sucks!!! Ever since Bios 1.0.2 they have been total crap for the 7700m and the trip values are set entirely to high because all people did was bitch and complain about the fan noise being so loud because the computer was doing what it was supposed to which is keep the system cool. So this that point in time there has not been a suitable bios that cools adequately through trip value programmed into the Bios code and now the option is FULL TILT OR MELTDOWN and no new bios ever to be released because we are nonger important and they have our money so in short of getting a D900T mobo with maybe Falcon- Northwest Bios or just a straight up mobo you're stuck like the rest of us because mine as I said has never cooled adequately since 1.0.02 Bios and it took forever to get the F2 function that the SAGER BOY'S had for 3-4 months before us and at that point it was get thermal and thats it!!!!
ALIENWARE YOU SUCK ANYMORE!!!!

Xtia..where do you find the Intel Driver?Search,but only find newer one... Have you a direct link?

Hmm. try another one..
Intel® 915 Express Chipset Family 8.3.0.10136/4/2007 Desktop Chipset
Mobile Intel® 915 Express Chipset Family 8.3.0.10136/4/2007 Mobile Chipset

Both wouldnt install... can you tell me why?

When did it die? (And how long have you been a Hokie?)

@all.. does anybody try a different Driver vor the Intel Chipset???

Xtian- Sorry to hear about your 7700. I'm from the Roanoke Valley myself, but I'm going to school up in Michigan. Know a good number of Hokies myself.

Maybe a newer Driver is better. dont know..

New Audio Driver 1.69 available here:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...&GetDown=false

Audio driver 1.69 did not seem to work for me. Doesn't seem to cover the onboard audio (for Vista 32 bit at least).
Had to revert to 1.67. Perhaps this will be the last relevant vista driver for the 7700 on-board sound?
XTian, you can updated the first post in this thread to point to 1.67 for vista if you've the time. It works fine.

Check into Eurocom for performance machines.

Thanks everyone. New on board, but will contribute.

hello, i have an area 51 m7700 laptop specs are p4 3.2 , nvidia 6800 ultra, 1 gig 533. i noticed when i turn on my laptop the fans dont turn on. my computer gets overheated and turns off. Now i installed the bios thing for the Fn+F2 thing so i can turn on my fans manually and it works. but back then when the laptops fans worked normally the laptop took time to overheat and shutoff when i was playing games. but now that i installed the bios thing ,my laptop doesnt seem last that long on. seems to me that it overheats worster than wut it did without the bios update. and gaming seems to suck so bad.

ATTENTION TO ALL Area-51 7700 OWNERS WITH OVERHEATING ISSUES

If you:

- Have to use Fn+F2 to keep your computer from shutting down
- Have to use GetThermal to keep the fans working properly
- Are tired of babysitting your computer fans
- Generally hate your fans for being stupid and causing overheating issues.

This is the solution, it took me 4 months to reach.

Short answer: Get your heatsink replaced, the sensor on it (the little wire leading from the heatsink to the motherboard) is defective and is now malfunctioning. Replacing this part will restore your Alienware to its former glory as long as the repeated overheating has not caused permanent damage to your other components.

Long answer: Read On


The same thing happened to me. It took me 4 months, 2 motherboard replacements, 1 cpu replacement, 3 video card replacements, and 1 heatsink replacement to finally get the problem fixed.

First try cleaning out the fans, this is the general advice everyone gets.

Your problem is 99% likely to be with your heatsink temperature sensor, this is what the problem was with mine. I repeatedly told Alienware over the phone that all they needed to do was replace the heatsink to fix the issue, but they decided to fix it themselves and had to replace virtually every component a couple of times until they gave in and replaced the heat sink, solving the problem! Hey, it was free to me, no skin off my back.

The tiny little wire that leads from your heatsink into the motherboard is a sensor that tells the fans when to turn on. This is a single fault point in many Area 51 7700 models using the Pentium 4 (just like mine). Over time the wire becomes faulty, incorrectly measuring temperature and not properly activating the fans when they are needed.

So, clean out the fans, get the heatsink replaced, and apply some Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste (available at your local radio shack or online) to the video card and processor heat sinks.

Cleaning out the fans and getting the heatsink replaced will solve all your problems, but AS5 does lower the temps a little bit, helping out.

It took awhile, but now my 7700 runs just like it used to (very well, without having to babysit the fans)! FINALLY!