Thinkpads Forum

This report was done by a shop who was fortunate to have spotted the fake chip before installing...

http://uken.tv/index.php?option=com_con ... 75&lang=en

I'll post some pics of genuine 2010 chips for comparison when I get a chance since I now have some NVS140m and FX570m NOS boards.

As promised here are some pics of genuine NOS gpu chips.

2008 era chip on a T61 NVS140m board (note the solid nVidia logo)

http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/hh5 ... c4bf7f.jpg

2010 era chip on a T61p FX570m board (note the outlined nVidia logo used on newer chips)

http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/hh5 ... b3940e.jpg

Note the nice flat surfaces and sharp edges with no signs of polishing, however not all fake chips have obviously been polished. I've seen some verified fake chips that looked extremely accurate and I've seen some that were so poorly made that the paint used on the numbers transferred to the heatsink and peeled off the die. Real chips aren't painted, the numbers are etched into the die with lasers.


Please forgive the blurry lettering, this is due to very slight movement of the camera while the closeup photo was taken. I could have avoided some of this if I had used a flash, but it would make the numbers difficult to read because of the reflective surface. The logo sharp and clear to the naked eye and under magnification.


ps. sorry the images are too large to embed in the forum.

Crazy. It boggles my mind that after all the labor to forge chips, there is still profit to be made. I mean really, how many people are still trying to buy GPUs for laptops form that era? Enough, apparently!

bmwman91 wrote:Crazy. It boggles my mind that after all the labor to forge chips, there is still profit to be made. I mean really, how many people are still trying to buy GPUs for laptops form that era? Enough, apparently!

I agree completely, but there was some makeshift factory in Malaysia that was refurbing these boards and getting over $300 for them and they were selling pretty fast on ebay. He vanished pretty fast and naturally ebay would let them sell again under a new account since they only care about the profit. There is also a chinese seller going by the name "star trading". I contacted them about buying some wholesale and they claimed to have manufacture refurb boards, but when pressed for details they admitted they are 3rd party refurbs so I'm certain the chips are fake. They have good feedback, but as long as they give refunds for any that fail in 30days most people won't leave bad feedback and once the 30days is up, you can't leave feedback, so this is why ebay has become an ideal outlet for reflowed boards and fake gpu chips. I'd also say it would be impossible to prove to ebay that a gpu is fake, you'd need an expert's opinion and to be 100% certain you'd have to do a microscopic (destructive) analysis that could cost a lot of money and leave you unable to return the part, so Caveat Emptor is the only phrase that comes to mind.

So far the only way to get a good chip for one of these machines is an original 08/08 that still has original board, a verified refurb board that had gpu replaced (most do not), or an NOS board which are extremely rare, but I currently have a few.

I've also looked into getting boards re-chipped in China, they do them a lot there and some cities have several reballing shops in the same market place, but I think in that culture they accept that replacing a gpu is something that you do every year or two... I guess they don't understand that microprocessors shouldn't fail like this so they just keep doing them over and over. Labor is cheap there so I guess if it only cost $50 it would be cheaper to get a new fake chip every year or two, but I prefer a computer that I can rely on.

There are even shops that still do reflows and still claim this is a solder problem, and sadly you could find dozens of articles that claim this since the web is full of misinformation.


By the way, this isn't anything new, they have been rebadging electronics in China for decades and selling used chips as new. If it's a reliable chip this wouldn't be such a problem.

I wish I could live in China so I could get these refurbed boards for $50... Wouldn't mind if they died every two years under my personal use.

I think it's nuts that this is going on. I mean I know they make clones of laptops, heck some phones seem decent nowadays, very close to the original model specs. I wouldn't care for performance as long as I get the 'high' HD quality screen. I do understand that it is bad that they are taking profits from the big companies...

I just didn't know they were making boards for something that old.
Kind of makes sense why HOPE from 51nb made the T50 board, they might of made so many (I don't know if they had a reball service for the T4x) that a custom board was due.

Dude, still, nVIDIA is the one to blame ultimately for this matter.
If nVIDIA made enough replacement chips for their faulty chips, they won't fake it.
The thing is that a good improved chip cost ~60-90GBP even in China, which opens up the profitable opportunites of faking.


And, besides, NEVER EVER EVER get RAM/SSD/HDD/case & covers from China! About 30-99% of those are refurbished/faked.

BUT typically any chip/network adapter is okay. They can't fake those fortunately. Nvidia 8000 series is just an exception. The only thing you need to worry is some dishonest sellers sell ES versions as normal ones, or flash the Generic module with thinkpad specific firmware and sell it as thinkpads' (still works as fine, just make you feel really uncomfortable)