[SOLVED] i think i may have fried my (laptop) GPU... did I? and If i did is there anything i can do to help myself

Oct 17, 2022
3
0
20
i have an acer aspire 7 a715 75g with core i5 9300h 8gb ddr4 and 1650ti

one day i decided to open it up and replace thermal paste, i saw that it used thermal putty for the GPU VRAM chips, i didnt have any thermal putty nor pads. i didnt expect to see anything other than thermal paste in there -stupid of me. i decided to just use a huge blob of thermal paste on the VRAM chips and be done with it.

as time went on i was getting worse and worse performance -i thought it was because of the thermal paste on the VRAM chips, and couldnt get my hands on any thermal putty or pads to replace it -because circumstances. then i read this old thread online that told some guy to just use some aluminium foil instead of thermal paste. i thought it was brilliant and that it could solve my overheating problems

when i opened it up, the problem was that i just hadnt used enough thermal paste on the CPU and GPU die last time. yet i cut up some foil and decided to do it -1st mistake. they were smaller than the vram chips thermselves -the thing is i made them a tad bit thick... by filling the folds with thermal paste... and then i put it in there and screwed the heatsink in place. i remember the copper plate looking kinda kinda bent... i shouldve at least stopped there -2nd mistake. but i decided that it wouldnt be a big deal and went on to turn the laptop on

it turned on, and i even logged on, everything was looking fine. i opened discord, and after a couple seconds the pc froze, only my cursor was moving, and after a few seconds even my cursor froze. then i got a BSOD saying video_tdr_failiure. i held the powerbutton for 10 seconds to do a hard shut down. then closed my eyes and turned it on again. there was no post. the fans started spinning really fast and i hard-turned it off again.

and then i turned it on again. i logged on this time too. and i noticed one thing -there was no GPU 1 (1650ti) in the task manager. i checked device manager and it said "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)". i reopened the laptop, got rid of those aluminium bits, repasted once more and tried it again and still no dgpu. i tried reinstalling drivers and in the "checking system compatibility" screen the driver installer would give me a pass and let me install the driver. i tried reinstalling it with DDU, and the device manager said the GPU had no problems this time, but nvidia control panel wont launch -and when i restarted device manager showed code 43 error again.

did i just fry the GPU? or the VRAM modules? the GPU shows up in HWiNFO64, but "video memory" says "unknown". i dont want to give up all hope that i completely fried it -since it at least shows up in device manager -maybe it got locked out or something... if i did only fry the VRAM module is there anywhere i can get only the one VRAM chip that fried replaced? i dont wanna spend a lot of money on replacing the entire motherboard. is there anything more i can try out to fix it?

some pictures that might help: View: https://imgur.com/a/sBuPXgS


right now i am able to use the laptop with the igpu for basic tasks, but i would love to be able to play games again.
 
Last edited:
Solution
oct 22: i opened up the pc today and the GPU just popped up. it's been running well since. i dont know what happened. there was a comment on reddit that told me to mount new windows. i was about to do it sometime later but it started working out of nowhere.

the reddit comment: View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Laptop/comments/y6fxns/comment/issbdbw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

maybe reinstalling windows wouldve fixed it as well...

(i marked this as the best solution to turn the tag into [solved])

Fatblabs

Commendable
Jun 29, 2021
302
14
1,695
i have an acer aspire 7 a715 75g with core i5 9300h 8gb ddr4 and 1650ti

one day i decided to open it up and replace thermal paste, i saw that it used thermal putty for the GPU VRAM chips, i didnt have any thermal putty nor pads. i didnt expect to see anything other than thermal paste in there -stupid of me. i decided to just use a huge blob of thermal paste on the VRAM chips and be done with it.

as time went on i was getting worse and worse performance -i thought it was because of the thermal paste on the VRAM chips, and couldnt get my hands on any thermal putty or pads to replace it -because circumstances. then i read this old thread online that told some guy to just use some aluminium foil instead of thermal paste. i thought it was brilliant and that it could solve my overheating problems

when i opened it up, the problem was that i just hadnt used enough thermal paste on the CPU and GPU die last time. yet i cut up some foil and decided to do it -1st mistake. they were smaller than the vram chips thermselves -the thing is i made them a tad bit thick... by filling the folds with thermal paste... and then i put it in there and screwed the heatsink in place. i remember the copper plate looking kinda kinda bent... i shouldve at least stopped there -2nd mistake. but i decided that it wouldnt be a big deal and went on to turn the laptop on

it turned on, and i even logged on, everything was looking fine. i opened discord, and after a couple seconds the pc froze, only my cursor was moving, and after a few seconds even my cursor froze. then i got a BSOD saying video_tdr_failiure. i held the powerbutton for 10 seconds to do a hard shut down. then closed my eyes and turned it on again. there was no post. the fans started spinning really fast and i hard-turned it off again.

and then i turned it on again. i logged on this time too. and i noticed one thing -there was no GPU 1 (1650ti) in the task manager. i checked device manager and it said "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)". i reopened the laptop, got rid of those aluminium bits, repasted once more and tried it again and still no dgpu. i tried reinstalling drivers and in the "checking system compatibility" screen the driver installer would give me a pass and let me install the driver. i tried reinstalling it with DDU, and the device manager said the GPU had no problems this time, but nvidia control panel wont launch -and when i restarted device manager showed code 43 error again.

did i just fry the GPU? or the VRAM modules? the GPU shows up in HWiNFO64, but "video memory" says "unknown". i dont want to give up all hope that i completely fried it -since it at least shows up in device manager -maybe it got locked out or something... if i did only fry the VRAM module is there anywhere i can get only the one VRAM chip that fried replaced? i dont wanna spend a lot of money on replacing the entire motherboard. is there anything more i can try out to fix it?

some pictures that might help: View: https://imgur.com/a/sBuPXgS


right now i am able to use the laptop with the igpu for basic tasks, but i would love to be able to play games again.
Putty? Are you sure it's putty? or thermal pads
 
it still works. is there no way i can get a cheap-er repair than replacing the entire mobo somewhere?
No, you would need the replacement parts, the right equipment and the relevant expertise to repair it. The only realistic option for repair is getting the main board replaced which will probably cost half the price of the laptop. At that point it's probably better investing in a new machine.
 
Oct 17, 2022
3
0
20
oct 22: i opened up the pc today and the GPU just popped up. it's been running well since. i dont know what happened. there was a comment on reddit that told me to mount new windows. i was about to do it sometime later but it started working out of nowhere.

the reddit comment: View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Laptop/comments/y6fxns/comment/issbdbw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

maybe reinstalling windows wouldve fixed it as well...

(i marked this as the best solution to turn the tag into [solved])
 
Solution