Laptop Dedicated soldered GPU disabling/removing - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / repair

author: combatplayer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2017, 08:58:00 pm
content: hello, i'm the owner of an ASUS k56cb laptop, though the dedicated nvidia 740m graphics processor is broken and creates visual artefacts or crashes when used.now, in software i can disable the use of it and rely on the intel HD graphics, but as i dont really use this laptop as a laptop anymore i would like to use something like this:http://www.banggood.com/Mini-PCI-E-Version-V8_0-EXP-GDC-Beast-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-p-1011222.htmlthe laptop has the needed plug and what not for it, however it seems that laptops with dedicated built in graphics often times refuse to accept dedicated graphics on the side as well. the bios on the k56cb is locked and i can not disable the gpu in software, i've looked for hacked bioses that could enable such actions but i haven't found any.now my question for you guys: is is possible to somehow cut traces or desolderer components physically from the board that would make the GPU invisible to the system, and would such an approach even work or would the system simply throw a fit? i'll attach some pictures of the motherboard from google, if you need closeups of areas i can take some myself. i've looked for a bios chip but i've only found one, presumably handling both CPU and GPU.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2017, 11:25:11 pm
content: It wouldn't surprise me if reflowing the solder on the GPU chip fixes the problem, some laptops are notorious for cracked BGA joints. As far as removing the IC, you can do that with a heat gun. Whether the system will work without it in place is anyone's guess.

author: combatplayer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 12:24:10 am
content: thanks for your reply. i've considered reflowing it, though i have minimal interest in recovering the 740m. it doesn't offer many more possibilities than the intel integrated graphics. i've also considered removing it, but i dont want to run a 50/50 chance of permanently killing the board, i was hoping someone would have some knowledge of how these systems work, maybe having an idea of what would happen if the chip was removed or something. alternatively, if there's an easy power delivery component i can remove to test that way, that'd do as well since that can be soldered back with relative ease. i mainly just want the thing to not interfere with the addition of a dedicated third party chip, capable of doing 1080p graphics unlike the 740m.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 01:07:42 am
content: Well if it's already junk, remove the chip and see what happens. A heat gun works well to remove BGA ICs, then follow up with some solder wick to clean up the pads and inspect closely for solder bridges.

author: Muxr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 03:28:08 am
content: A GPU will typically have multiple Vin pins to power all the compute units on it.However a laptop will typically have an SMC System Management Controller which is in charge of powering all the other components on startup either by setting an enable pin low or high. If you can isolate that pin you could cut its trace perhaps.

author: combatplayer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 10:19:26 am
content: i wouldn't call it junk, just less useful than could be. it works as it is, just with no note worthy acceleration on the video output. thanks for the tips though, if all else fails, i might give it a go before giving up completely.Muxr, do you know what that kind of circuit would look like or where on the board it would be located? my first assumption would be near the battery connector, but i dont know enough of these things to say if that's a good assumption.

author: cowana
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 11:48:57 am
content: My bet would be on this chip being the power management controller generating all the rails required for operation - that likely has an 'enable' pin for each rail.

author: combatplayer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 11:59:19 am
content: ah thank you, i'll have a look and see if i can find a schematic for that package and a pin that matches.

author: Rasz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 04:20:15 pm
content: 1 bios will most likely hang without GPU present, even if this platform has a provision for disabling gpu by jumper (unless you find and move jumpers)2 it IS junk, whats more it was junk brand new, $500 2 core fake i7 and 1300x700 screen3 gpu presence is not a factor, resource allocation is.your best bet is researching this particular junk laptop onhttps://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/forum/83-diy-e-gpu-projects/

author: combatplayer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 06:08:11 pm
content: i figured something like that might happen if i were to force it, which is why it's a last resort to force anything. also then your definition of junk vastly differs from mine. i'd never claim it to be a fast machine, hell, it struggles to keep up with a q6600 without any overclock. but it's more than plenty for school work as it was meant to do (as long as it's not media school, mind), and CPU wise also plenty for casual gaming which is what i would ideally like to repurpose it for. i will not be using the internal screen since it is extremely mediocre, even resolution aside. that's is why i mentioned 1080p previously as it will be used as a TV setup with gaming capabilities. not exactly high end, but strapping a 50$ gadget and some spare parts i've got laying around anyway on anold laptop for a previous generation console tier gaming experience with emulation and superior media capabilities sounds like a win to me.thank you a lot for that link there, i've somehow not managed to find that during my relatively extensive googling sessions. i've found my laptop on there and it seems that there are ways to get the whole thing working with various mods with the old GPU still present, especially if i dont intend to use the built in display.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 06:25:57 pm
content: To some people anything more than 6 months old that was not top of the line is antique junk, it's always been like that. To others, something that meets their needs is still good even if much newer/better stuff exists.When I was in college in the late 90s I used a Mac Plus for all of my homework, it was ancient even then. I made the deliberate choice to use that machine instead of the much newer PC I had because the Mac had a laser printer, which was kind of a big deal still back then, and more importantly because it had little in the way of games, no internet access or other stuff to distract me. Just a nice sharp little B&W screen, a good keyboard and Microsoft Office. It was old, someone else had cast it off as junk and given it to me but it turned out to be just the right tool for the job and perfectly met my needs at the time. At that time the internet was not what it is today, we still had all paper textbooks, assignments were turned in on paper, email was barely a thing, it was a different world. Anyway the point is that sometimes the most sensible path is to look at what's good enough rather than focusing on the best. It's a valuable concept in engineering.

author: combatplayer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 07:34:25 pm
content: i'm admittedly largely in the first camp generally. but i with a pretty severe lack of money and a somewhat creative spirit, i also find great joy in utilizing old hardware, especially in ways they weren't really intended for. paired with the fact that modern CPUs has progressed at a snails pace lately means that even though i enjoy the feeling of having the latest and greatest, my technically aging although overclocked i7 3930k is still the fastest cpu owned by anyone i know personally, easily overpowered for 90% of tasks i need it to do. the i5 low end dual core cpu in that laptop is slow, but honestly the slowest component in that laptop and most of my friends computers are harddrives.it's a little sad how undervalued the low end hardware is these days. the sad little dual core low power chip in that school notebook, paired with a decent graphics processor (almost anything from the past 7 years will do) can run most games at some setting level. playing fallout 3 etc at 1080p 60 on the highest settings that you can do on PC for a total cost of maybe 50 bucks and some spare parts is awesome in my book. i dont have 1000 bucks to throw at a mid/low end gaming class laptop/desktop, but even if i did id likely go this path anyway, it's simply funnier to play with.

author: Rasz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 08:21:21 pm
content: Quote from: combatplayer on April 20, 2017, 06:08:11 pmno problem, techinferno istheplace to go for external laptop GPU support. I dont remember now, but its either run, or has a mod that was the first guy to experiment with them back in the days, he came up with chipset registry hacks to enable mapping GPUs on mcpie lines. viDock is famous for ripping off his software to make their products work.Quote from: james_s on April 20, 2017, 06:25:57 pmits not that, this is Asus bargain bin line laptop disguised to look like MacBook, meanwhile you get the _worst_ 1300x700 TN screen, laughable battery life and build quality resulting in tons of them showing up broken 1-2 years out of warranty. Asus, Acer, Msi are mostly low quality supermarket filler

author: combatplayer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 09:41:55 pm
content: Quotethen i agree more. but ive still got to admit that for the money it's hard to get anything better. the display is without any competition the worst i've seen ever, but it's plenty capable for school work, browsing and if you're not too picky a bit of games and movies. as for its performance, minus the harddrive, it's pretty alright. the build quality is a mixed basket, the gpu died or had solder issues, in either case, stopped working. however the exterior and its resistance to shocks and drops and what not is actually pretty impressive. me and my fiance has one of these each, and over the years i've managed to step on them closed with my full weight (90 odd kilos) and they didnt care, a lamp dropped on one at some point and it just got a dent in the aluminum, likewise they've been dropped, one of them on solid concrete from 1,5ish meters up and it was fine, minus a scrape in the paint. so, for the money i really cant complain, and while the gpu died in mine, it works fine in the other. internally there are a few design oddities, like the sub millimeter clearance for the fans intake and heat buildup in the harddrive and chipset (both get hotter than the cpu area under load), but again, price. also i have to admit, mine was under waranty when the gpu gave out, i just didnt considder it significant enough an issue to bother with an RMA as the 740m is barely useful and not essential.

author: senso
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 07:33:14 am
content: Easy, dont install any Nvidia driver.Then go to device manager, search for the generic display adapter with a yellow warning triangle over it, right click, disable, done, its dead.The 740m as some defect because I have seen hundreds of those GPU's dead, mostly in the K56CB, the most likely culprit is the crappy thin heatsink that clogs in a couple months, and people that NEVER clean their laptops, so, too much heat and it dies, reflowing them wont bring them to life in 80% of the cases, and when they come back, they work for a couple weeks and they are out again..For an eGPU solution, it will end way more expensive than you think it will, it gets cheaper to just buy a new laptop or build a desktop than to sink 500€ to have a mediocre performance, and if you plan on using the internal display count on loosing around 20% of your already bad performance because 1x PCIe is just too cramped to pump all that data back and forth.

author: combatplayer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 01:14:35 pm
content: the issue is that when i disabled it and uninstall it, windows promptly installed it again, even when i turn the "install drivers from windows update" off. but i found that turning the PCI bus it's on off killed it completely, and that doesn't get activated on restart either.and yeah i can see how egpu setups can be expensive if you dont have most of the material laying around. all i need to purchase is the dock, i have a power supply, cables, and graphics card laying around to use for it and i wont use the internal display, the thing is terrible and its only benefit is mobility, which i'll be taking away anyway.it's funny what you say with the gpu though, mine was never dusty or ran particularly hot (i monitored it actively, i know laptops and their drawbacks) but i guess it was hot enough for it to shit itself. and yeah, reflowing is way too much work to save that terrible little chip anyway,

author: Samogon
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 01:35:08 pm
content: Deleting device was mistake, leave it disabled. Senso gave you best advise possible, just take it

author: combatplayer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 01:38:54 pm
content: i appreciate the advice, but it also got re enabled even if i didn't uninstall it. disabling its pci bus removes it from the device manager out right and also lets me remove the ~1gb of useless crap it installed automatically.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 06:55:41 pm
content: I hate how Win10 does this, I have to use it at work and it feels so incredibly user hostile. It's a daily battle to keep my work laptop configured the way *I* want it.

author: combatplayer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 10:11:11 pm
content: yeah it's really quite annoying. i get how it can be useful and all, but make it an easy option to opt out of or something. (in a way that works...)