Raising Funds for Hardware Revolution's New Workstation PC
What is this about?
My current “workstation” from which I manage Hardware Revolution and write articles on, an HP tx1000 tablet laptop, has been plagued with problems for the last few months and could now fail at any time.
A design flaw causes this laptop to keep overheating and given some time, this excess heat breaks down the solder connections between the motherboard and the integrated video card, a Nvidia Geforce 6150Go, which is one of the many defective GPUs that Nvidia sold recently.
Unfortunately for me, I was not aware of these problems when I bought this used laptop last year and HP never issued a recall on the TX1000, despite literally hundreds of HP tx1000 owners complaining on HP support forums.
My failed attempts to fix it:
Despite all my attempts to fix the problem, such as modding the laptop cooling system, I couldn’t fix it, simply because at the root of the problems lie a mix of a failing GPU chip and a laptop that has a design flaw, as its cooling system can’t properly exhaust all the heat.
On a daily basis, for the last 3-4 months, I had to underclock and undervolt the CPU to 1.2GHz (From 2.3GHz originally) using RMClock and avoid CPU intensive tasks such as video converting or Flash content, to basically avoid heat from the CPU as much as possible.
In simple words, to keep this laptop in a working state, I had to cripple the CPU to about half its original speed.
In the last two months or so, if I fail to do that or just after 2-3 days of regular use, my laptop will either shutdown unexpectedly or simply refuse to boot.
What I have to do to keep it working:
To temporarily fix it and get it to boot, I have to turn it on (with no boot), wrap it in a thick blanket and leave it on for 45 minutes. All the heat that builds allows the solder that connects the GPU with the motherboard to flow and right after turning off the laptop, I have to press and hold hard the J,K and L keys (located above the GPU) for a minute.
After letting the laptop cool down for 15 minutes, I usually can turn it on and it will boot. Sometimes however, it won’t and I have to repeat that process again.
Needless to say, every time that I have to do this, I waste an hour (or two) of valuable time where I could have written content for Hardware Revolution. Also, eventually, with all heat that builds up during the “fixing” process, a part will most likely fail once and for all, leaving me with no computer to work on Hardware Revolution.
Everyday, I wonder if my laptop is going to last through the day, it’s really not what I would call a reliable computer at this point.
The Solution:
HP offers a motherboard for about $400 USD. However, according to the people who tried this, it doesn’t fix the problem, as the replacement motherboard plagued with the same defective GPU and only fails in the same way after a few months. So I’m not considering this option.
Instead, in April, I’ll build a new desktop Workstation PC from scratch, based on a mix of the $500 and $1000 Workstation Builds.
How can you help:
Starting today and until the end of March, I’ll be raising funds toward building this new Workstation in order to replace my failing laptop and to help me keep improving Hardware Revolution for you.
My goal is to raise $1000, which will cover the build, a monitor, shipping and taxes.
In return, I pledge to post a series in April where I’ll show first-time builders how to build a PC from scratch, with a step-by-step guide with many videos and pictures.
If this website helped you before, this is your chance to return the favor and help me this time.
Donate what you can (I suggest $5 to $20, but it’s up to you) via the ChipIn widget below (Which will track the donations), which will bring you to a secure Paypal page where you can donate.
Thank you very much for your support,
Mathieu
(If you don’t see the widget, you can donate by clicking the following link:)
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=MEKXWKCGJFVU6
Category: News
