Introduction
I've always had a bit of a love and hate relationship with Clevo. On the one hand they make some of the most powerfull notebooks on the planet, making no or very little compromises, on the other hand they've always refused to use the MXM formfactor. The reason why was never really clear. They have used modular designs for a long time now and have touted their upgradeability when they could. One would have thought they would have added to the buzz by making it comply with the only standard out there, but they didn't. I really can't count the times when I had to explain to people that yes, the card is modular and yes you can replace it but no it is not MXM..
First sightings
When I visited CEBIT earlier this year I off course visisted the Clevo boot. Picture my surprise when I noticed this..
 |
 |
I asked some questiond and I was told that "Yes, these were MXM notebooks" and "No, they are not compatible with other MXM slots or cards". That made very little sense to me. What's the point of an MXM slot if the hardware can not be used with any other MXM hardware? So I dismissed this as a solo play of Clevo to promote their modular design and surf on the MXM buzzwave.
First pictures
The next surprise was a review from Justin from XoticPC. On notebookreview.com, he reviewed the Sager NP9260 (Clevo D900C) (in much detail, I might add) and these pictures popped up..
 |
 |
Apart from being highly impressed by this massively powerfull notebook, I was also stunned by the appearance of what seemed to be a MXM graphics card. One thing seemed off, though. I couldn't place the tab in the down right corned. Further inspection and some research told me this complied to the MXM Type "HE" specification. This was the first time I ever saw one.
Thanks!
I contacted Justin from XoticPC and he was kind enough to sell me one of those monstercards, allowing me to check for compatibility. Not exactly cheap before customs and even less so after import duties and taxes, I was still pretty psyched when this thing popped up on the doorstep.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Probably never saw so much copper in one place... Pretty impressive. And easy to dissasemble.
Problems
Well, I never expected this would be easy, so it didn't come as a surprise. And it's not like I never had to work the heasink before.
 |
 |
It would have been cool if this would have been the only problem. It would also have been cool if I would have though this through a bit more before I bought the card. Everytime I sell a card, I spend a lot of time to check if there is enough room availabe, if there are no physical restraints etc etc...
 |
At this point, I put everything aside. I knew what I had to, but it is not something you do on a whim. So I slept it over. And then I took the Dremel again. The HE tab is not really needed. It is used to allow the connection to the battery to carry more current, without it the card should work just fine, certainly for desktop applications. So..
 |
Next surprise
After this, the card entered the connector without any problems. But it still wasn't level..
 |
 |
Turns out the card is longer than it is supposed to be. Just to be sure, I issolated the components that now touch the MXM card and installed the card again. Because the card is not level as it is supposed to be I stacked two memory heatpads to cover the difference. Again, this is not a solution that has even a remote chance of keeping the card cool when gaming but for a desktop test it should be enough.
 |
After all this, I was ready for the supreme moment. I would be booting the fastest 15.4" notebook on the planet. Yay!
Not.
Pretty lights came on, the notebook started spinning and... Nothing. It just kep constantly rebooting.
Conclusion
There is a number of things I need to do before I can draw a final conclusion. By cutting of a piece of the card, a rough edge may cause two planes of this 10 layer card to be shorted. This would explain the notebook rebooting, but I haven't been able to find any trace of a short with a 4 x microscope.
I will also solder two wires on the removed battery tab. Even though the same signal should available on other pins of the card, there is a remote chance they kept it separated on the card, per example to feed two different power rails and converters.
The least I can say right now is that this is not exactly a plug and play MXM card that you can easily swap with existing Type III cards. Even if it wasn't for the connector that is in the way of the HE tab then the card is considerably longer than Type III or Type HE. In a notebook, where space is at a premium, this is very important.
As for the compatibility report: final judgement hasn't been passed, but it doesn't look good.
Update (4 august 2007): From time to time we forward some information or an article to the nice folks over at nVidia. When we forwarded this one we first got a rather evasive answer wich was followed up by a more to the point one. "Type IV" seems to be backed by nVidia after all. They have been working on it with their partners but were hesitant to release it in the open because it wasn't final yet. Now it's out, and as far as we know mxm-upgrade.com is the first to get the word out. I haven't seen any official spec yet, so I can only rely on what I've seen: Type IV is a longer Type HE. We have no idea whether there are other changes. One thing that's been nagging: where is the SLI link? Maybe that's part of the "Type IV" spec? And maybe this is why the card wouldn't boot?