X1000 Forums

It has been more than a year since I replaced the video card and RAM stick and I have had zero problems. I stand by my original conclusion that the problem is poor electrical contact due to a warped card/connectors. If you can manage to 'unwarp' the connectors or put enough pressure on the video card to flatten it out, it will probably work again, but the pressure needed to do this may be more than the case and heatsink can apply. Only a new card will be totally flat again, and even then you may need to replace or re-bend (as I did) the sides of the female connectors on the MB to make good contact. If your system still works sometimes, do a thorough memory test before you assume its the video card.

I still have my original card which is visibly warped, but the chips on it are probably fine. If anyone wants it, $20 will save it from the trash.

As an update, I did get the 1GB stick and my x1000 is working fine.

I was just going to post that I had never heard the fan turn on - and it did!
Looking forward to when NHC has the cpu temp and fan control. That hmonitor
is too large an app to just give me two temp readings.

My x1000 fan only seems to run briefly on powerup. It has been this way since I purchased it two years ago. Since I have just replaced a video card, I am wondering what is normal, and at what temp should the fan turn on?

Dang - A3 it is. I guess I just spent a little extra for that PC2700 module. I based my purchase on that one post about memory but hey, I was in a hurry to get my machine back to a usable level of performance. 

If I replace my PC2100 memory in my x1000 with PC2700 should I expect to see a 166/133 -> 24% performance increase all else being equal?

If I mix two different speed sticks (1GB PC2700 slot1, 256MB PC2100 slot2) will each run at its max speed or will it all run at the slowest speed? 

I got my new card from laptoptek/ebay. It has the red glue and its working now.

I ended up re-using the old thermal pad with some added thermal paste, and just bent the heatsink slightly to insure contact. I was very careful and was confident I did everything correctly, but after re-assembly, my x1000 showed the exact same behavior - no bootup, no video. I took off the keyboard and switch cover so I could be sure the board and video cable connector were seated properly. After wiggling things around I managed to get the initial boot splash screen to show up, but I would get a crash-reboot during the OS boot (XP or Fedora). I then tried memtest86 on a CD and it found a bunch of memory errors. I swapped out memory cards until I could tell that one was definitely bad. This is puzzling since I tested the entire memory just a week ago. It seems very unlikely that I would have a bad video card and a bad memory stick at the same time. 

I have been using the laptop with only one 256MB card for a couple of days and it shows no problems (other than being slower).  I have ordered a single 1GB PC2700 card.  I wonder now if I needed to replace the video card at all. It sure behaved like a video problem, and the card was warped, but it now seems that a flakey memory can cause similar behavior.  I don't mind the extra $100 as long as the problem is fixed.

All those theories down the drain.
I replaced the video card but it behaves exactly the same. It seems to be locking up on boot - no control of wifi led or speaker led. I tried a linux boot CD which would normally generate lots of disk activity and it behaves the same - seems locked up. I plugged my HD into another machine and I can read the files OK. I didn't try booting though.

My x1000 video stopped working last night. It happened in minutes. The 67Y trick did nothing. I could bring it back for a little while by slapping my hand on the top of the case. A couple of times when I rebooted it seemed that it was running normally but just not showing video, but other times it seemed locked up - I couldn't turn the wireless led on or off for instance. I want to be sure I have the same problem and not a new one. How have others seen it behave with this condition? Can you tell if it is failing to boot or does it seem to be running normally?. By coincidence I had run an overnight RAM test just a few days ago, so I know those parts are OK.

On rare occasions I had seen the screen go blank and not recover until I had hit a few keys or rebooted but this had always seemed to happen when I had closed the lid and moved the laptop from one place to another. I had always thought it had something to do with the power management SW, and not HW.

After taking it apart and examining the video card carefully, it looks like it is severly warped. If you sight along the two white male mating connectors on the video card itself, you can see the board and connectors are bowed. Also looking at the two white female mating connectors on the MB shows the walls of these are bowed out very slightly. The connectors do not engage very much anyway and all of this bowing/warping is preventing good contact.

I do not think there is any direct failure because of heat - my thermal pad looks fine and my problems never seemed heat related.  I think the heat is warping things for sure, but lack of electrical contact  is why it fails.  Because of this I don't think shimming is going to work because the force required to unbow the board is too much for the HS and screws to hold without bending. My plan is to get a new graphics card and possibly improve the heat dissapation if I can. A copper or aluminum spacer to replace the pad is probably the way to go. I have also managed to unbow the walls of the female connectors by carefully squeezing them together with thumbnails.