Possible cure for Faulty Video on IQ 771 or similar [ Edited ]

[Hiddenvision]

I am sure I posted this as a reply to another post but I cannot find it anymore.

Perhaps it was removed as being too helpful !!

Here it is again anyway..

Oh I should say that I do not work for or have any affiliation with HP or anyone else.
You do this on your own back and I take no responsibility for anything.!!

Not even my spelling...

Basically this machine had overheated and cooked something.
Graphics was patchy and BSOD on attempted restores.

During the process of taking it apart I discovered the reason for the overheating.

I should mention ( unlike the manufactures ) that computers need cooling.
They do this by blowing air around.
This tends to make your nice PC a bit of an expensive vacuum cleaner
On this unit the heatsink cooler veins had a blanket of dust so little or no air flow was going on.
Very poor design or poor user awareness, (not sure which).!

If you want to keep your electronics alive then feed 'em 'cool air'...

Anyway,, the cooler has to be removed to get the addon graphics card out so wait until you have it out to clean

things up ( clean the fan too )

So:

Make sure you have some of that gray heat transfer compound.

REMOVE THE POWER CABLE. (if you want)

Top panel off,

Remove CD,
Remove screws from CD tray
Remove screws from under front right connector flap,(these are under the sticker)
Do it slowly and carefully and the sticker can be reattached later.

Remove screw just behind the power supply (holding right side of front panel),
I think now the lower front panel will pop out. Held with 4 very strong clips.

There is a spacer that will now be loose from the lond CD screw, do not leave it to rattle around.

Remove the two graphics board screws,
You can leave the four clips attached to the complete heatsink for removal,
Remove four Main processor screws,
Remove 3 screws from Fan/heatsink screws,
Release the grip on the Main processor and heatsink ,(the cooling paste sets like putty)
Carefully lift up the cooler and graphics card to release correctly from socket.
Remove the card from the heatsink and stare at it for 10 mins.!

Now the interesting bit.
The LCD signal socket is connected to LVDS1, simply plug it into LVDS2 located to the left.
Leave the graphics card out, reattach the heatsink to the Main processor and connect the fan.
The machine should be bootable now even with no cd, without having to totally assemble.

Do not drop things and blow something else up.

If the machine boots then job done.
If not then something else is the problem today.
You can always try LVDS1 with no card but I think that fails (on  mine).

You can replace the graphics card I guess, don't loose the two screws

I do not know if the card is at fault or something else on the main board connected to it
but on this example the machine works far better without it.!!

Smooth recovery of Vista (less the wifi driver) and the machine works just fine.

I am not saying this will fix your overheated computer but it fixed mine.
Happy to do it to yours if needed.

Perhaps someone can advise on the down side of do this to one of these.
Should the small free standing ally heatsink be connected to the cooling copper ?
 

Hv.

[Hiddenvision]

Ahh I found the original post now, so no hp skulldugery after all, just my leaky brain cells.

Still, I hope it helps those that have since asked the same or simular question.

Hv.

[Octavean]

Interesting,…..

　

This is what I was theorizing in the “ HP Touchsmart IQ770 Black Screen" thread on the 5 th page (on 11-01-2010). As I said I have the HP Touchsmart IQ504 and noticed the two ports near the top of the motherboard “LVDS1” and “LVDS2” (I couldn’t recall the correct names but I was close though). On my system the first port LVDS1 is used but there was no MXM video card installed so I surmised that if I had a card I could install it with a cooler and switch the cable to LVDS2 in order to get past this “Blank screen of death” issue.

For those who actually have the MXM card and a motherboard with integrated video it makes sense that doing the opposite would work. I was just theorizing the process though and it looks as if you actually did it in practice.

For HP, it makes a lot of sense to construct systems with integrated video on the motherboard and an MXM expansion option. This way they have a baseline system that they can ship for a specific price and simply add more robust video easily via an MXM card for an increased price,….maybe even call the system an entirely different model.

So in such a case, its basically a system that has redundant video sub-systems. If one fails, use the other. The integrated video on the motherboard wont be as robust as the add in MXM card but its better then no video at all. Plus you don’t have to buy a part to repair it, you simply remove a defect part,…like a bad RAM stick that takes down a system.

[Hiddenvision]

If HP had the forsight then this problem would never happen.

Poor cooling is the main cause for damage.

A simple flow meter and temperature system would detect most problems efore they caused damage.

As far as the extra video socket, I have a feeling that they (HP)  just took what Asus had and did not actually have the board produced to spec.

I would even take the gamble and say that HP do not even concider this a solution, or they would have been telling people.

I must say for a large company like HP they take responcibilty for their actions very poorly.

But I do not know where the root cause is to be honest.

It could be that the Nvidia video cards are the problem or perhaps something totaly different

If everyone was honest about problems then problems would be solved

Hv..

[Octavean]

Well generally speaking it might not be in the best interest of ASUS to have a tailor-made motherboard for any one PC manufacturer unless perhaps they are the number one distributor or number two. Not too sure, I wouldn’t be surprised either way though.

As for HP considering this a fix, well it really isn’t since it doesn’t maintain the value or performance level of the original purchase and technically is something of a downgrade to maintain functionality.

[Hiddenvision]

Not sure if simply installing the addon graphics board will solve a machine with onboard graphics problems.

The 772 unit I have has a good working MXM board, but the onboard chip has lost focus on it's true purpose.

This is making the machine fail POST, I suspect that the MB still uses resources from both chipsets if availabe.

Hv.

[Octavean]

I agree.

Right now I have no definitive answers so if I were to approach a DIY repair option I would want definitive answers before spending money one it.  However, HP wants $350 USD to repair my Touchsmart IQ504 which includes S&H and I guess that’s not too bad. I’ve been able to find replacement motherboards (IMISR-CF Eve) online but not from sources I would want to use. I also found one on e-bay going for ~$75 USD which has since been sold.

Anyway, I think I might have a test to see if a motherboard replacement will fix the problem. I think I have a Compaq / HP laptop that uses the same type of LVDS display panel port. So I may be able to connect the Touchsmart IQ504 LVDS1 cable to the laptop motherboard LVDS video out port. If that works and the laptop displays on the Touchsmart screen then it’s a fair bet that a motherboard replacement may work. That test could go both ways though, I could try using the laptop’s LCD display on the Touchsmart IMISR-CF motherboard‘s LVDS1 port.

However, if that does indeed work (Laptop displays on Touchsmart screen), I could also in theory use a more up to date motherboard then the Pegatron (ASUS?) IMISR-CF (Core 2 Duo Intel GM965 chipset) such as the  Pegatron IMPIP-M5 which supports the Core i5 / Core i7 (Intel HM57 chipset) and is used in the Touchsmart 600 series. This could cause its own set of problems though since the power adapter may have different specs and the LVDS1 / LVDS2 ports seem to have a different physical connector.

[deijr1238]

Why is it necessary to take the graphics card off of the board? You can easily switch the wire over to LVDS2. I switched my cable over from LVDS1 to LVDS2, but no change occured.

Also, I'm don't think it would make a difference, but I don't have a Hard Drive for my computer. But I should still get something to appear on the screen, regardless of whether or not there is a HDD, right?

[Hiddenvision]

Removing or not removing..??

Well I don't know why I type things some times.

It may be that removng the card worked for me and as such thought

it was better to tell people how it worked and not how it fails.!

After all, we can all fail in our own time and do not need further help for that hey..

Try the process again but removing the card and let us know how you got on.

Yes the machine will boot to Bios and then advise no disk or OS.

With a bootable CD in the drive you can test more.

What does the fan do when you first power on?

Does the machine turn itself on when you connect the power cable?

Hv.

[deijr1238]

Yup, I agree. No need to tell us what failed, lol.

I will remove the graphics card, and get back to you. The fans start spinning when the computer is powered on. Also, the computer does power itself on as soon as the cord is connected. After the computer runs for approx. 15seconds, you can hear sounds from the speakers if you touch the screen.