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?

Here Hoshie http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...12150&lang=eng

Hmm. try another one..
Intel® 915 Express Chipset Family 8.3.0.1013 6/4/2007 Desktop Chipset
Mobile Intel® 915 Express Chipset Family 8.3.0.1013 6/4/2007 Mobile Chipset

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

im not sure...i can't test it either because my 7700 is dead ( X_X )

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

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

@BFisch: My lappy died last February...i've been a hokie since 05
@Hoshie: Why do you want to try other drivers? are these giving you problems?

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.