Guide on how to replace the graphics card in the Compal IFL90

Kris Verbeeck

Compal is one of the largest notebook manufacturers out there and yet few people have ever heard of them. The reason is simple, they mostly design and manufacture machines for the likes of Dell, HP, Compaq,... They do, however, have a lineup of billboard notebooks. Machines that serve as a demonstration of their capabilities, as a way to get their own name out. They are probably not moving large volumes there but these machines often end up in the lucrative, high margin boutique shop gaming bracket of the market. There they are often rebranded and renamed so that little of the Compal identity remains. So a Compal IFL90 will most likely end up as a "AwesomeMachines Destructor FX" or something along those lines.

With boutique stores as a main target, MXM enabled machines make a lot of sense. Easy to repair, easy to configure according to the customer's need and easy to follow the latest/greates in GPU county. As such, Compal has been offering MXM machines for a long time even though upgrading them has always been a bit of a hassle.

Recently, we shipped out a HD4650 to one of our customers. You can find his unabridged report below. You will find that he has had issues with his machine only using x1 PCIexpress instead of x16. While we assume this is a "bad luck" thing, mainly resulting from a PCIexpress v2.0 MXM card versus a v1.0 system, we can not guarantee you will not experience the same issue.

We will obviously monitor this amongst our customes.

Some good news too: since Jeff's article, the HD4650 was replaced by the HD4670!

Update: We recently tried a HD4670 in the IFL90 ourselves. First of all: this is not the easiest machine to take apart. Don't start unless you're pretty damn sure about yourself. It works nicely, including the external display. Under our supervision, we ran the machine @400MHz. Our costumer then ran it @675MHz, the max frequency it was designed for using this method. He hit 5100 in 3D06.

But... The PCI throttling issues occured, sometimes knocking back 3D06 performance back to 3ksomething.

 

Mobility Radeon 4650 MXM 2.1 type II in Compal FL90 - By Jeff


(notes: the Compal FL90 originally uses the 8600m GT in either 256mb or 512mb configurations. The vbios is not stored on the card, but integrated into the mainboard bios. Other Nvidia cards do not work in the FL90, but ATI cards can. No resources or attempts to modify FL90 bios concerning MXM card upgradeability can be found online).

The MXM module is not directly accessible unless the entire notebook is disassembled to the bare mainboard. The official disassembly guide must be followed.

If the Radeon card comes with spacers, the existing screw thread size is compatible. If the card does not come with spacers, the bracket on the original 8600m gt card must be removed and added to the back of the Radeon card. The bracket may be deformed when removing, because the adhesive is strong. If that is the case, the bracket must be hammered flat again.

(Note from MXM-Upgrade: our cards are deliverd with spacers)

The heatsink module requires modification by dremel. The areas circled in red had material removed by dremel. A protrusion on one corner will cause interference with the DC coil. This will prevent the heatsink from seating correctly. There are also protruded spacers on the 4 corners around the main square body.
These must be removed if the Radeon card has built in spacers. Also the holes must be widened if the spacers are wider in diameter. This is required to have the copper face come in contact with the gpu core. If this is done, the heatsink protrusions for the memory chips can come in direct contact with the memory on the north face of the card. With thermal paste instead of a thermal pad, heat transfer will be better.
It is worth noting the memory chips of the original 8600m gt do not have the same positioning as on Radeon cards. Thus, these protrusions from the heatsink will not cover the entire memory, but only about 60% of the chips. I added 1mm thick copper shims in between to make up for this. I have thermal
paste in between the copper shim and heatsink, with a drop of super glue on corners to maintain permanent attachment. After this modification, about 85% of the memory chip surface will come in contact with the heatsink. The last 15% (one corner per memory chip) had a thermal pad in between the heatsink and memory. Of course, this extra work is not required. A thermal pad can simply be used in between the memory and heatsink.

(Note from MXM-Upgrade: upon simple request, we can add 1mm thick heatpads for the memory chips.)

If the Radeon card uses the original 8600m gt bracket and the corner spacers are not dremelled off the heatsink, the memory will not be able to make direct contact with the heatsink. Thus, only thermal pads will be required to be in between.
Memory chips on the bottom side of the card do not have any heatsink to contact with. Instead, there is electrically insulative sheet between the motherboard and the Radeon card. The manufacturer had placed thermal pads in between the insulative sheet and memory chips.
I used IC diamond 7 thermal paste, which is supposedly one of the best. Used a flashlight to ensure that the heatsink was making direct contact with the GPU core. Notebook booted up fine and installed Catalyst 10.3 mobility drivers. Temperatures were 50C idle, 80C full load. The FL90 heatsink is pretty weak, so those modifications were very helpful in making temps manageable.


3Dmark 06 results were roughly 4500 pts with default benchmark settings. But noticed the PCI-E link drops to x1 from x16. The performance in games that are rely more on adequate PCI-E bandwith was not very good. The estimated performance drop was 35-40% between x16 and x1. For example in oblivion, my FPS was 22. At x1, it was 15 at the same camera position loading the same savegame.
This will always happen. When playing a 3d intensive game or app, it will happen almost immediately. Some games will not force this until a few minutes. Even idling in Windows, it will eventually drop to x1. I used different monitoring software such as Everest and results were the same.

Tested:
windows xp 32 bit & windows 7 64 bit environment
Win 7 WDM drivers, Catalyst 8 series, 9.3, 9.12, 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5
Changed Bios of mainboard to five different older versions (w/ older vbios)
Cleared CMOS of mainboard by shorting battery connection
Taped certain pins on card that, according to Nvidia MXM spec sheet), are related to PCI-E throttling, PCI-E link width, or power & temperature sensors
None of these worked. Ultimately it seems to be an issue between the mainboard bios throttling the PCI-E link width (due to the integrated vbios) or possibly incompatibility between pci-e v1.1 and pci-e v2. However, another FL90 user has reported full success. He has shared the vbios from his card with me and it is exactly the same as the one on this card. I flashed the card with several different vbios for Radeon 4650, but they didn't change. I reflashed to the original vbios. The only difference is his FL90 came with the 512mb version, mine came with 256mb version of 8600m gt.
It is also worth noting the mainboard bios reports 256mb of ram, even with the 1gb Radeon card. Thus, the mainboard reports the vram size of the integrated vbios. On a 512mb FL90, the bios will always report 512mb. After changing to Mobility 3650 256mb ddr3 card, the PCI-E stays at x16. The card bios has HP as the vendor. The issue could be tied to the amount of vram. Since windows, apps, and ati drivers see the full 1gb of vram, possibly when pushing large amounts of data through the PCI-E bus, the integrated vbios may force throttling to x1 if the amount vastly exceeds 256mb.
Another FL90 user did not mention any PCI-E throttling issue when upgrading his to a 512mb ddr3 4670. The original card was 256mb 8600m.
For other FL90 users, the ATI 4650 / 4670 are the fastest upgrade options available. But I only suggest attempting that if they have the 512mb 8600m version. Otherwise, they should stick to the 3650 256mb ddr3 version.

You can find ATI drivers here. For Vista, you may want to try this method instead.

Your purchase includes the actual card, premium thermal paste and a one year warranty. Inside the EU tax union, VAT is included so there are no additional import duties or fees to be payed. Shipping is also included worldwide through registered postal services. Should you prefer DHL shipping, please contact us for a dedicated quote.

The below links may only be used for the Compal IFL90. If it is used for any other platform, we reserve the right to refuse returns or warranty.