Uniwill MXM Options

Uniwill has been one of the major adaptors of the MXM formfactor. For some reason, they abandoned it after the P53 series but they still have one of the largest installed bases as far as MXM is concerned. Because, as always with MXM, things are not always as easy as they seem we will try to summarize available information and guide you through potential upgrades and replacements in this article. Please note that, again as always, we do not take responsibility for any action you may wish to undertake, inspired by this article or not. While we have done our very best to cross check information and be as thorough as possible we can not vouch for correctness or completeness. Any and all action you undertake, based on the below information or not, is on your own responsability. We are not liable for any damage, including but not limited to damage to your notebook, loss of data, injury,...

The below links may only be used for the notebooks to which they point in the table on this page. If used for any other platform, we reserve the right to refuse returns or warranty.

The scenarios refered to in the table are explained in detail below it. Cards are always delivered with appropriate threaded spacers if applicable.

	HD3650	HD4570	HD4650	Notes
Amilo m1437	150€ Scenario 2	110€ Scenario 2	200€ Scenario 2	HD3650 cards While the HD3650 is a powerfull upgrade, there are two things you need to know. The computer system will often blue screen during the final stage of the shutdown procedure. It seems to be at a point where there are no further actions remaining but actually cutting the power and as such there are no negative effectst to this. A bit more annoying is the startup issue. Some notebooks suffer from it, others do not and it is not possible to predict the behaviour. If you are unlucky, you will need to go through a few startup attempts..
Amilo m1439
Amilo m3438
Amilo m4438
Amilo Pi1536	Not an option.	110€ Scenario 1	200€ Scenario 1	HD4570 cards To get these to work, we had to reinstal XP because of a resource conflict. Off course, our machine is a bit specific as it has seen more types of cards than most hotelbeds have seen different nationalities but just in case: keep in mind you might be required to do the same..
Amilo Pi1537
Amilo Pi1556
Amilo Pi1557
Amilo Xi1526
Amilo Xi1546
Amilo Xi1547
Amilo Xi1554
Amilo m1450	Not an option.	Not yet an option	Not yet an option	We do not offer a direct buy option unless we're sure the card will work. As we haven't tried these yet, we're still looking for a good Beta-tester!
Amilo m1451
Amilo a1667	Closed	Closed	Closed	We've tried them all, they do not work. In addition, at least one test platform was damaged during the attempts. Case closed.
Amilo a3667
Alienware m5500	Not an option	Not yet an option	Not yet an option	We do not offer a direct buy option unless we're sure the card will work. As we haven't tried these yet, we're still looking for a good Beta-tester!
Alienware m5700	150€ Scenario 2	110€ Scenario 2	200€ Scenario2	HD3650 cards While the HD3650 is a powerfull upgrade, there are two things you need to know. The computer system will often blue screen during the final stage of the shutdown procedure. It seems to be at a point where there are no further actions remaining but actually cutting the power and as such there are no negative effectst to this. A bit more annoying is the startup issue. Some notebooks suffer from it, others do not and it is not possible to predict the behaviour. If you are unlucky, you will need to go through a few startup attempts..
Alienware m5550	Not an option.	110€ Scenario 1	200€ Scenario 1	HD4570 cards To get these to work, we had to reinstal XP because of a resource conflict. Off course, our machine is a bit specific as it has seen more types of cards than most hotelbeds have seen different nationalities but just in case: keep in mind you might be required to do the same.. In addition, keep in mind this card can not be used together with vBios 2.07, you need to revert back to 2.06 if you have it. We can supply the required files if needed. This effectively means you can not opperate 4GB of system memory.
Alienware m5750
Alienware m5790

Tube of AS5 - 8€

The prices listed above include a fresh heatpad for your GPU core, threaded spacers(if applicable), and one year warranty. Prices also include shipping to the US, Canada an EU. Contact us for other destinations.

Questions? Something not clear? Need an excuse to convince your better half to buy this card? Prefer a bank transfer..

Scenario 1: Simple installation

Tools required:

You just have to remove a single backpanel. Before you do that, remove the battery as a precaution. After that, you can lift the panel with your nail. Notice that there's one screw that is longer. Make absolutely sure you place it back in the correct hole, labeled K/B, when closing your notebook again. Failing to do so will destroy your brand new card

When the panel is removed, you'll have to remove all screws indicated with the yellow circles. Make sure not too touch parts of the motherboard, as ESD cán kill your notebook. Make sure to discharge yourself every now and then on a well grounded item (water pipes,...) If you have a stone floor, another option is to work barefoot and keep your feet on the floor.This will allow you to carefully remove the heatsink assembly. Make sure to disconnect the fan plug first. Once again, your nail is the primary tool for this job. I took the time and opportunity to apply AS5 on the CPU, but that is obviously optional. AS5 can also be ordered from MXM Upgrade.

Amilo m 3438 with nVidia 6800 (heatpads not original)

Amilo m 1437 with ATI x700

The heatpads that were on the memory chips will either stick to the card or the heatsink. You should be able to remove them. As these are not so critical, some tears or degradation is perfectly acceptable.

Two more screws keep the MXM on the motherboard. Remove them and then take out the original card. Click the new card in place. Place the recovered heatpads on the memory chips. You will have received two fresh heatpads which should be used on the GPU die. The yellow one is an intermediate solution which you should use until you are 100% sure you have everything right. At that time, the pad should be replaced with the gray one which will offer better thermal performance.

This is the perfect time to clean out your notebook. Dust buildup on fan, radiator and grill will reduce thermal performance by quite a bit. Best way to do this is to use a can of compressed air but there are other, old fashion ways to blow out he grill...

All the cards we currently sell have correct mounting provisions. On the CPU side, you may wish to apply a fresh layer of thermal paste. If needed, we can sell a tube to you when you place your order.

So all that you have to do now is to close the notebook again. Keep in mind that some screws are longer than others. If you mix them up, you risk destroying your brand new card.

Most likely, upon booting your notebook, Windows will be asking for a new set of drivers. You can find them here for ATI and here for nVidia cards. The ATI installation is pretty straightforward, the nVidia drivers require a tad more attention (see below). Both sites have done wonders for mobile drivers and the amount of data served is mind-boggling for a non-commercial activity. So, if you can, donate something to those sites and help them to continue their invaluable service. Donate for laptopvideo2go here and for the Omega drivers right here.

The HD3650 is not supported through Omega drivers. An alternative way of getting and installing suitable drivers can be found here. This method is also suitable for Vista drivers.

For the nVidia drivers you will need to download both the actual driver and a modified .inf file

After downloading the driver, extract it and copy the other file you just downloaded in that folder. After this, just run the setup file and you'll be good to go!

Scenario 2: The heatsink modification

While the mechanical outlines and many other parameters of MXM cards have been fixed, the height of components on the board and their positions tend to differ. This is most obvious when switching between Types, but even when sticking to a certain size differences may occur. Most often, this is related to the power circuit, more precisely the switcher coil.

These coils may interfere with "plate" style heatsink in some Amilo's.

If this is the case, the interfering material on the heatsink must be removed.

Enter the Dremel. Actually, there are more ways to do this but this is the most subtle and "cleanest" solution. Basically, this can be done with a variety of power tools. You can even cut off a piece of the heatsink altogether. It just doesn't look as good. Don't do this close to your notebook. Aluminum particles and electronics don't play nice. For the same reason, remove the heatpads from the heatsink (unless you appreciate fireworks and the sweet smell of grilled silicium).

Once you're done, your heatsink could look like this... (more pictures to be added) Try the card on again for size and repeat until all spacers make contact with the heatsink. Once this job is done, you can proceed with scenario 1 but here it is even more important to use the yellow heatpad for first trials. If the heatsink doesn't fit 100% yet, at least you will have another shot and you will not have destroyed the good gray pad. When, after testing, you remove the yellow pad for installation of the gray pad you should see that the GPU core made a "print" on the yellow pad.

Scenario 3: The fan doesn't react!

Most Unwill notebooks have one single fan for both the GPU and CPU cooling. Both have a heatpipe and both heatpipes are connected to the radiator. The radiator is blown through by the fan. In a normal situation, the fan will react to both CPU and GPU temperature. Different temperature thresholds will result in different fan levels. This is actually a constant tradeoff between noise and heat. ODM's are know to make the wrong choose here, resulting in overheating notebooks even when they have fan-power to spare..

Unfortunately, things may even get worse when tossing in a new card. If the system bios is not capable of retrieving temperature information from the new card it may simply not react to GPU temperature. This is not really a problem for the low end cards (the fan will react to the CPU and that's good enough). Midrange cards will normally be a bit hotter during regular desktop activities but should be cooled sufficiently while gaming (when the CPU is also pushed). High range cards will overheat quickly without proper fan support.

Unfortunately, we do not have the 'weight' to ask major manufacturers to revise the system bios on a product they do not even sell anymore. And so we are on our own on this one. Best we came up with so far is a script for NHC (Notebook Hardware Control). So first task: download NHC. After installation, download our modified ACPI files. Lookup the directory of NHC under the program files. There should be a directory "ACPI" there. Extract the files there, overwrite whatever the PC asks to overwrite. If you now restart you will note the the ACPI tab is now available. Please note we currently do not have a ACPI file for all notebooks.

You should enable only one setting of the fan. For high-power cards, setting the fan to full speed is absolutely mandatory. For non-intensive desktop tasks, setting the fan to a lower speed is ok. For mid-range cards, NHC is an optional.

The script doesn't really solve the root problem but rather finds a way around it. It writes a fake CPU temperature back to the system which then assumes the CPU to be very hot. To cool it down again, it will rev up the fan, automatically also cooling the GPU. Unfortunately, this also means that you loose the ability to read the 'correct' CPU temperature. You will only see the fake temperature (or an average between the fake and real temperature).