What killed my laptop's dGPU?

[qqewqads213]

I had a Lenovo Z51-70 80K600VWIN of which discrete GPU (AMD R9 m375 4GB GDDR3 75W TDP) died.

 

 The time it died I had AMD Crimson 16.11 and Windows 10 1607 14393. The dGPU ran pretty hot because of the poor cooling solution by the OEM. It had two thin and wide copper heat pipes that were attached to both CPU & GPU and exhausted with a 45mm fan I believe.

 So my question is, could W10 14393 or AMD Crimson 16.11 somehow have killed the GPU?

 

 Note: Laptop BSOD'ed or crashed whenever dGPU was enabled in the BIOS and ran fine off the iGPU (when the dGPU was disabled). The dGPU is confirmed dead. Combinations between various OS'es and video drivers did not work, what did work was reflow the GPU by heating the board in oven. dGPU worked for a week, died again. I bothered not to do that again and finally sold the laptop.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Heat.

[Electronics Wizardy]

The software didn't kill it. Stuff just dies somethinges, rma i1.

[Bananasplit_00]

age, wear and heat probably all played a part of its death. software dosent tend to kill hardware

[qqewqads213]

It was just over a year old when the GPU died and was out of the warranty period. Is it common for laptop dGPUs to die like this?

[Nena Trinity]

4 hours ago, TheCyberDevil said:

It was just over a year old when the GPU died and was out of the warranty period. Is it common for laptop dGPUs to die like this?

Nah it was bad luck, tough it was probably heat...

[qqewqads213]

Here is an image of the heatpipes running over the CPU (Ci5-5200U 15W TDP) and the GPU (R9 m375 75W TDP) attached to a small fan & radiator that sit near a vent on the body of the laptop. I really hope the crappy cooling solution is the cause of death of the R9 m375. It was a great chip, could play games medium-high 1366x768. Had so much fun while it lasted.

[giff battle pass]

sry for the "necro" but i think i have same issue as you, and yes my GPU died after 1 year of usage just after my warranty expired

[mr badger]

Well, I have the same model and amd graphic chipset died recently, couple months after I ran out of warranty. I'ii never again buy anything from Lenovo, it died because of that poor cooling design (why not use 2 separate coolers instead of 1?) . I wander if they did that on purpose. My only option (because I can't find replacement for it) is to try heating that chipset and if it works try to mod cooling so it will last i little bit longer. I know it is temporary and it may not last very long, but worth a try? It is dead anyway...

[Tech-WonDo]

I honestly saw this post in 2017 but didn't bother to make an account and respond. However, I understood that it's a problem with the Power Limit from AMD's Side

They were competing against the GT 840M / 940M from Nvidia's side that draws only 45W which is suitable for the lenovo's laptop cooling system to last 3-5 years and more.

but AMD's GPU Technology at the time was so bad that they opened the Power Draw to 75W for that R9 M375 to get higher performance than the GT 840M, which is actually the same draw of the much more powerful and much better cooled desktop card back then, the GTX 750Ti / GTX 1050Ti

so It's AMD's fault sacrificing the lifespan of the card from the consumer's money (not theirs) because they wanted to be competitive even though they didn't have the rights or the tech to be competitive in the first place.

so they have simply have created a "Kamikaze" GPU to win the War against Nvidia...

[Zodiark1593]

9 hours ago, Tech-WonDo said:

I honestly saw this post in 2017 but didn't bother to make an account and respond. However, I understood that it's a problem with the Power Limit from AMD's Side

They were competing against the GT 840M / 940M from Nvidia's side that draws only 45W which is suitable for the lenovo's laptop cooling system to last 3-5 years and more.

but AMD's GPU Technology at the time was so bad that they opened the Power Draw to 75W for that R9 M375 to get higher performance than the GT 840M, which is actually the same draw of the much more powerful and much better cooled desktop card back then, the GTX 750Ti / GTX 1050Ti

so It's AMD's fault sacrificing the lifespan of the card from the consumer's money (not theirs) because they wanted to be competitive even though they didn't have the rights or the tech to be competitive in the first place.

so they have simply have created a "Kamikaze" GPU to win the War against Nvidia...

This is an ancient thread for starters. And OEMs do bear some responsibility for selecting the components (GPU included) and cooling. If the OEM cannot adequately cool the GPU within the given constraints, it should not have been used. 

[Tridefender]

On 2/10/2017 at 8:30 AM, qqewqads213 said:

It was just over a year old when the GPU died and was out of the warranty period. Is it common for laptop dGPUs to die like this?

Yes and no, they use low temperature solder and applied fixing glue to the chip, however because of heat and material shifts, the GPU chip comes off it's solder. It's like a semi plugged GPU, obviously it causes problems.

 

Either ask a professional to take off the chip, reapply good high temperature solder, or buy a new one