Acer 6920g. 9500m to 9600m gt swap

Howdy,

I managed to snag a minor graphics card upgrade for my laptop and installed it. I changed up my 9500m to a 9600m gt. Everything seems to be going great, just needed an HDTV to get it going For some reason it would only initially post video through the HDMI.

Anyway, my issue is, while the machine runs great in windows I can't for the life of me get it to display anything before that. Which includes the BIOS boot screen, the BIOS itself, the Boot Menu or even my Windows XP disc.

Like I said, games run great, windows runs great.

Just hoping you guys might have some pointers or ideas.

Cheers

 

Waitaminute...Justin, you realize what you've done?!
You've proven that the 9600M GT upgrade is not only possible on the 6920G, but DOABLE!
Not even the folks on the MXM-Upgrade.com forums could pull that off!
Insta-rep just for that, amigo!

So let's try to get your issue sorted out, because your post is a little confusing.
Are you able to see anything on the laptop monitor, or do you have to use HDMI?
Vista and games run OK, but anything before that isn't shown?
Download GPU-Z and post a screenshot here.
I'm interested to see if you've got GDDR3 memory (which should give you a sizable boost in performance) and an Acer VBIOS (which might fix the pre-Vista issue).

 

Next step is to get a 9700m or even a 9800m into a 6920G! =) Once that works I'm a happy man.

 

Unlike the 9600M GT, those are NOT possible. Different form factors (MXM III vs. MXM II) and far higher cooling and power requirements.
The best you could hope for would be an overclock from the stock clocks (500 core/1250 shader) to 9650M GT (550/1325) or 9700M GT (625/1550) speeds.
Outside of actually getting a 9650M GT card that's compatible, of course.

EDIT: Oh, and Justin? Could you please post a link to where you got the 9600M GT card?

 

Just yanked it out of an 8920G I had at work (all smashed up).

Wouldn't get too excited yet though, not getting to the BIOS is a major issue. At least for me anyway.

EDIT: Sorry for not being too clear. When I first put the card in nothing showed up at all. System was POSTing but nothing was showing up on the screen. So I plugged the lappie into an HDTV and managed to install the driver and everything was fine after that, everything shows on the laptop screen without needing the TV.

Only issue is that it doesn't show ANYTHING before the Windows log in screen, not even the green vista loading bar.

 

Sorry for the wait, heres the screeny, not sure what the VBIOS is >.<

 

Well I took a look for a vbios from Acer an was unable to find any. Is there any way to tailor one to do what I need it to do?

EDIT: Sorry for the bump

 

If you took that card out of an 8920G, then it already has an acer vbios. You don't have to worry about that. I would check the system bios and update it if a newer version is available from Acer. If you run CPU-Z, it will show you your bios version. Compare it against the latest one, available here, to see if yours is current.

CPU-Z is here.

 

Flashed up the BIOS, didn't seem to help. Still showing a black screen from bios to Windows loading screen then works fine.

 

Guess ill keep it as is, still having issues with not being able to see the BIOS on boot. Guess if I want to install XP then ill just borrow a friends HDTV

 

Sorry about not posting - I was away for a while on a trip.
SO:
1. This thing was in an 89 20G? I've never heard of one being sold with it!
2. About the whole no-BIOS thing - no clue about that, but it might preclude me from upgrading as I lack HDTV.
3. That being said, it's the right kind of 9600M GT card - GDDR3, Acer-made.
You lucked out BIG TIME, Justin. I need to find a broken Acer to cannibalize now...

Also, I noticed your GPU is running on PCI-E x1 instead of x16. Were you on Power Saver or something

 

Had it on High performance, but wasn't running anything major. Could be why.

With the card and the undervolt trick on the proc the lappie runs really really well lol. I'll try to get you the specific model number of the 8920G.

 

Awesome. People have been trying for MONTHS to shoehorn one of the 9600M GTs into the 5920G/6920G.

 

Yeah it was an 8930, was easy enough to do too. Didnt have to change over heatsinks or anything.

Still having the same problem though, and sorry for taking so long to get back to you.

 

I just got myself an upgrade too... from 3800+ 3DMark 06 points to 4800+... by overclocking.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=9646357

Speeds are 660 MHz to mGPU and 500 MHz to memory, from 475 and 400.
The driver used is 185.20, who's also reviewed in my comparison.

 

No worries and no hurries. Until I have the scratch to test anything out myself, this is good enough. Solid proof.
Actually, I was wondering if you could run some benchmarks, like 3DMark06.
See if you're hitting the 5Ks or so that a GDDR3 9600M GT should be able to pull off.

@CQSTELUSH: haet. I still haven't even gotten past the 4K barrier yet. Then again, I'm only doing shader-only overclocks...I like my WHQL drivers too much, and weird things happen when I try to change.

 

I can do that, but with some errors. Artifact errors in ATiTool testing ground.

 

Has anyone actually managed to do something like this with the 5920G? Also some benchmarks would be nice to see if the card is working properly (the PCIe x1 thing)

 

I guess there is no hope for us, mate. There is 6920G with 9600M GT, but there is no such 5920G Thats why I'm waiting my 3650 512 DDR3. I hope that it would run I hope that it would come soon, because I have a trip on 21st, and I'll kill myself if it's not here, because my trip is for a month

 

krusha, what driver are you on that lets you OC? 185.20, like CQSTELUSH?
And CQ, I was asking if Justin had any benchmarks above 5 thou.

 

Those scores are with 180.84 Dox's modified drivers, but i can overclock with any driver using RivaTuner, AtiTool doesnt work for me (except as a artifact tester ). A bit more offtopic i just installed Windows 7 and 185.20 and benchmarked Left 4 Dead and compared to Vista and 180.84 Dox's drivers i got around 10-20% lower fps but also my temperature decreased for about 5C. 3DMark score will probably go higher with these drivers but i dont care about that. Maybe i am gonna delete W7, install XP and see if i will get performance increase. Oh and why the hell does my HDD get 2.9 score in W7 and around 5 in Vista (not sure dont remember)?

BTW you probably know, but anyway there is a command in Rivatuner that would allow you to overclock the shaders above 1425, you are not stable higher than that or?

 

Acshully, I'm using nTune, and it lets me scoot aaaaall the way up to 1900 MHz on the shaders (4x the core speed).
I think I'm going to start nudging my shaders up some more in the near future to try and pop that 4K mark, at the very least.

 

Do you think this locked core/memory clock you have is Bios or vBios related? If you want i can download my vBios with GPU-Z and send it to you

Edit: Here is a chart with FPS in L4D



This is at 1280x800 everything at Highest possible settings except 2xAA and 4xAF and disabled multicore and vsync. Or with pure numbers from 15/50/30.063 to 25/83/50.423 (min/max/avg)

 

Probably VBIOS, but I hesitate to even touch that for fear of outright bricking my system.
I'll stick with whatever OC I can manage on what I've got now.

 

Well it should't be that much of a risk since its the same card and the same brand. But anyway what's your version? Mine is 60.84.62.00.40

 

Mine is 60.84.69.00.36.
Did your 5920G come with the 9500M GS, or is that an upgrade?

 

yeah it came with the 9500M GS. I bought it in end of june and i think it was made may 2008. The configuration is 5920G-934G25Mi

 

Huh, whaddayaknow?
Now if only the 6920G was sold with some 9600M GTs at the end of its life...

I might just bounce over to 181.20 or 185.20 and see if my overclocking's unlocked by those.
And HOPEFULLY I can still use my external hard drive to restore if things go kapoop.

 

Well its not that hard, it actually says in the sticker on the back

I have tried them both and they are fine. With 185.20 i get the around the same performance as Dox's 180.84 in left 4 dead

 

hi guys,
ok, (due to a mega mix up in the post room here) i have finally got the card, advert said it has an acer bios, no packaging, only a sticker VG.9PG06.001, hopefully that is a 9600GT can i tell if it has DDR3?
so any help at all appreciated, can you tell me what exactly do i need before i get out the crow-bar and monkey-wrench? i have the service manual but it doesnt actually mention the graphics module
also, recommended drivers for xp32-gaming and xista 64 whql?

 

I cant help you about the installing part, but to check it should be really simple. First on the chip it should say if it is a 9600M GT or not, and also type the part number of the memory chips in google and see what pops out. I have never upgraded a VGA on a laptop therefore i cant help you with that.

 

thanks krusha03, but if it said 9600m gt on the chip i would not be asking as i said, there is a sticker with VG.9PG06.001, the chip says G96-600-A1 but nothing on google
memory says (magnifying glass need here) Qimonda HYB18H512321BF-10 which is DDR3 qimonda
so still looking for help

 

Hi, I've also bought a 9600m GT to replace my 9500m GS in my Acer 6920g.
The card i bought has an ES (Enginering Sample) vBiOS. When i try to start my 6920g with it, i first get a message about "Enginering sample not for production use" or something like that, then it continues to boot, i can see everything, the green vista loading bar, the login screen etc., but its running in a lower resolution (1024 x 640, i think). However, the problem is that after about 30 seconds it shuts itself down. I've tried rebooting it but then it takes even shorter time before it shuts down again. Is this a thermal issue??
The card feels pretty hot when its only been active for under a minute. I think i've installed the card correctly. I don't think it could have anything to do with the vBiOS, coz it boots longer the first time, then it goes fewer seconds till it shut down the second time. But should i try flashing with a acer 9600m gt bios?, cause i have one ready. But im afraid if i flash it, it will shut down while im doing it and i will be left with a dead card <
What should i do??

 

@gazzacbr: No clue -Acer uses VG.9PG06.00x for a few cards - 006 for the 9600M GT among them.

 

I would guess it is. Try to start some temperature monitoring tool in those 30s like Hardware Monitor and see what are your GPU/CPU temperatures just in case you haven’t installed something properly.

 

But i can't even get into windows It shuts down when right after i've logged in so i can't start any programs
Is there any way to check temperatures before booting into windows?

I think it can be something wrong with the ES vBIOS, maybe it has wrong boot clocks or something, but im afraid if i flash it, it shuts down during the flashing process . if i would flash the vBIOS with NVFLASH what is the command for backup of original bios(ES) + flashing the acer 9600m gt bios?(i know its something with -4 -5 -6 or something but i cant remember )

 

As far as I know there is no bootable temperature monitor program, so I don’t think there is another way. I was under the impression that you had 30s time in windows. Is there any difference in the time before it shuts down if you boot for example in safe mode, just stay in the bios and load windows normally?

I wouldn't flash the bios before you figure out the problem, but anyway as far as I remember the command is: nvflash -b filename
There should be a readme file that has all the commands, check it out just to be sure

 

Did you try to boot into safe mode? Maybe it will more stable there or at least stable enough for flashing.

 

I got it working!!!! :yes: (well, kind of)

I had just mounted the heatsink wrong + pasted a heatsticker on the thing in the middle so it didnt get cooled down

Im running with the Engineering Sample vBIOS as the Acer one didnt work so i had to blind-flash it back again, and i had to do it in less than a minute if else it shutted down

So i got windows to boot and it was running with standard windows VGA driver @ 1024x640. It started searching for drivers but it didnt find any. I got a driver disc with my 9600m gt so i checked the drivers on the disc but there was only vista 64 bit and xp 32 bit drivers on the disc, and i have vista 32 bit
I checked trough the folder i use to store downloaded LV2GO drivers, tried 169.04 didnt work, unsupported hardware, and the next driver i tried was 174.74 and it worked!

I rebooted and now it was running at native resolution. I started gpu-z to check temps but there wasnt any tab for temperature any longer
screens:



I've also tried other temperature monitoring programs but none of them works

It always runs at 500 core, 450 memory. Here's the worst part: everytime i start a game, the laptop shuts down. This happens at once when i start the game so i know it's not a temperature issue. Its more likely the card that cant switch into 3D or Extra mode, OR maybe it cannot run anything in fullscreen or something coz Photoshop CS4 runs fine and it utilizes the GPU, but i havent tried running any game in windowed mode coz i dont want to reboot again, but i''ll try it later if nothing else works. Here's a screeny of the 9600M GT ES vBIOS:



It has very high boot clocks and double the memory speed (supposed to be 800 mhz) Should i try flashing a modified ES vBIOS with the original clocks? And what can i do to get the temperature monitoring to work??

 

About the drivers try Nvidia official 179.28 or 185 or Dox's 18x modified drivers. The one you are using is kinda old. Maybe then the temperature sensor will work. Also try HWMonitor for temperature reading.

About the clocks I have no idea. I didn't even know there is something called Extra clock????

And btw according the GPU-Z screenshot you already have Acer v-bios and you have the same problem as the creator of this thread your PCI-E is running at x1

 

Not even sure if that causes a problem - there's been no benchmarks to show that GPU-Z is misreading or other goofiness.

 

I wasn’t implying that is causing his problems, just an additional issue which happens to be the same as the creator of this thread. As you already said, unfortunately we don’t have any benchmarks to see if this have any performance impact or it’s GPU-Z error (which I don’t believe)

 

hats off to you justin6920g, i really hope you get this sorted. i have (i think) a 9600m gt in the drawer and i can hear it saying "fit me, fit me"
but still too scared to take apart my 3 month old lappy, but one day soon.......

 

When i try to download the 179.28 Official NVIDIA drivers i just get a "File not found" error.
I've tried the latest 181.22 DOX drivers released yesterday. When i installed these the screen resolution changed to the resolution below 800x600(i don't remember what it's called, 640x400 or something). When i rebooted the resolution was still the same and i got a message about "Nvidia card doesn't get enough power, reduced to still be used safely" or something (Im just translating roughly from norwegian), Then it shutted down. I had to reinstall the old drivers in safemode.

But I think i know why i can't see temperatures: the temperatures tab in Nibitor (when i've opened my 9600M GT Engineering Sample vBIOS) is empty, and i can't set the critical temperature etc. And there's no VID voltage set for extra mode, so i can try experimenting with changing the VIDs.

The ES vBIOS also shows that it's a g94 board, which explains why i can't flash the acer 9600m gt Acer vBIOS, coz that is for g96. "TheAlien" over at the LaptopVideo2go forum @ my Upgrade Acer 6920g 9500M GS to 9600M GT thread, Also have a g94 ES BIOS and he's able to run games and check temperatures, so he's gonna upload his vBIOS so i can try with that.

 

Sorry guys I have been moving. I switched back to the 9500GS, the issue where I could not see the BIOS was driving me insane.

Anyway, installing the card was insanely easy.

Pop open the bottom cover, the card has the copper pipe with a small square heatsink. Pop off the U shaped metal piece, unscrew the card, lift the heatsink, do NOT remove the heatsink (THIS IS THE ONLY PART YOU NEED TO BE CAREFUL ON) lift the card a tad to clear it from the screw holes and just wiggle it out gently.

And just do the reverse to put the card in, some of the screws are annoyingly small so keep track of em.

You will need an HDMI cable or HDMI to DVI adapter to plug it into a TV/monitor or you will be screwed, you won't get any signal at all.

You will need to hunt around for the drivers, I think I just used the ones for the 8930G.


Sorry for the lack of benchies, I did notice some significant difference in game performance, however.

On a side note, that looks to be the right S/N for the card, Gazzacbr. Good luck!

 

cheers justin6920g, may give that a go this weekend.
when you say 'insanely easy' do you mean that i do not have to remove the cpu and do not need to put paste on anything? also 'hunt around for drivers' which ones? the nvidia drivers i have now are for that card also or something else?

 

Gazza, you won't need to remove the CPU, but since the cooling system for the CPU & GPU is one piece, you'll need to remove the whole thing.
Thermal paste...might need a refresh on the CPU die and the GPU core.

 

Ill take pictures and post em up, you don't need to remove anything.

I found the drivers off of acers euro ftp. The 9PG drivers not the 8PG

 

Where did you buy yours from? I've found one here http://www.mk-electronic.com/shop/d...D&WTID=44&WREC=147473070&WKEY=65534=147473070 It says it's an ACER product as well. Thinking about getting one.

 

got 9600m working on my 6920, posted in
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=252269&page=49

(maybe mods can move?)