Acer MXM Models and Cards

I actually found an Acer 9650GS with DDR3 so the compatibility should be %100 (as there are 8920G shipped with this GPU)

My only issue now is wether to take the risk with 9600GT C1 revisions.

or plunge in for the 9650 (which would require a heatsink change also)

but cheers for the suggestion

 

Careful there - the 9650M GS is based on the G84/8600M GT core, and is an MXM-III card. It won't fit in your machine. That's why it was only found in the larger 8920G.
Blame Nvidia's wonky naming system.

 

its cool - my lappy is a 8920G.

im just not sure if I should go for the 9600GT as it is cooler.

I keep looking at the GPU-Z side by side....still cant make a decision

they are roughtly the same price.

 

OK people, hold on a second here I'm honestly not trying to advertise, but 150+ is just way too much for a 9600m gs or even gt.
Here is my listing for hp fx 770m cards. MXM II Nvidia HP Acer FX 770m 512mb DDR3 graphics card - eBay (item 320638410507 end time Feb-02-11 18:16:20 PST) The specs are identical to 9600m GT and they are ddr3. There is about a .01% chance they will be at all different from an Acer 9600m GT in terms of both performance and compatibility.

Also I can flash the VBIOS to whatever you want, although I've tried once and it didn't seem to do anything (which is very strange, I'll probably figure it out though).

Also, some of you may want to consider these cards, even better priced, from another seller: HP GRAPHIC CARDS ATI M86M V700 8530P 502337-001 - eBay (item 180499533236 end time Jan-21-11 12:02:39 PST)

They are 3650 equivalent, and I'm pretty sure they're ddr3
Compatibility is less certain but still very likely. I have one that does not work on an MSI gx630 but its never been released with ATI cards. When I get my Aspire 5720g going (I already have the motherboard ) I'll let everyone know the test results.

Yes... True, its all in the past now.
But the fact is that they were the only real midrange consumer brand to use it MXM. They've just made so many more MXM machines than any other brand.
I guess I find some cultural significance in that.

 

nice!

my only issue is there have been partial success with getting a 9600GT upgrade on the 8920G fo watever reason.

 

You should get one of those m86 v700 cards!! They are only 50$, and you can be the one to let everyone know they work.

I just looked up the VRAM chips on mine, they are GDDR3 rated for 900mhz!

Of course, I would try one of these http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330508559472&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT but thats me.

 

Well, I missed that completely. Sorry!
I'd still go for the 9600M GT; the 9650M GS is essentially the same as a 8700M GT, and the GDDR3 version of the 9600M GT should beat it.
EDIT: Then again, I keep forgetting about the problems the 9600M GT has with the xx20G series.

 

How does the 3650 ddr3 stand to the 9600m GT ddr3? i dont like the benchmarks lately on notebookcheck.

I think overclocked, it could be a lot better cause its 55nm and all...

 

@niffcreature

Not really HD3650 is a fair bit slower- if OCed it could be equal to not overclocked 9600M GT but nothing more.

 

Tried to do the mod on the motherboard today in preperation for the card arriving however my soldering iron is not up to the task. The joins are quite large and I think the board is dissapating the heat away too quickly.

I am going to see if my local repair shop (for all sorts of electronics) will do it for me.

 

okay so I finally got a 9600m GT and tried to boot, it comes up with the mxm structure error but then the laptop shuts down always on 24 seconds of the countdown remaining. i have 6530G btw

 

Ouch - sounds like the 9600M GT isn't compatible with the 6530G after all. That's the major problem with MXM upgrades, that no one really knows for certain what works in what until someone else tries it first.
That and I'm beginning to seriously question the accuracy of Acer's own service manuals.

 

Update:

Got the 460M GTX today. As far as I can tell with some basic measuring it should fit, I might need to file away some plastic on the memory slots but thats about it.

Now that I am pretty sure it fits I am going to go ahead with the motherboard mod.

 

I'm soooo looking forward

 

I'm seriously thinking about doing something similar... I've been inspired...
It looks a lot like there is space for MXM B in the MSI ge600.
this would be such an interesting trend, if enough people were doing it and stuff...

If I do it, someone with an even smaller Acer laptop can have the 5730 MXM A card it comes with I have a feeling the 5650 and 5730 in mxm a is going to be as rare as the 4650 mxm 2.1

I just found another super weird MXM 2.1 card. New max upgrade for users who don't have ATI support! (maybe...)
Toshiba apparently makes just a few models that use standard MXM. So I just bought this toshiba card:
K000075930 KSKAA LS-5005P TOSHIBA 512MB VIDEO CARD MINT - eBay (item 250747011258 end time Jan-15-11 09:15:01 PST)
It seems like a 9600m GT, which even if it is, thats a good price.
BUT...
nVIDIA Graphic Card N10P-GE-A2 K000075450 LS-5005P 1GB - eBay (item 160521067842 end time Jan-13-11 18:16:30 PST)
THAT is a 1gb ddr3 gt 130m, 55nm, mxm 2.1 II no doubt. The only 55nm nvidia card that could ever work on an mxm 2.1 acer, unless im mistaken

 

I thought the N10P-GE was the GT240M core?

Also I think models like the 6935G took the new revision 9600M GT cards at 55nm.

As for my mod, I have found a shop with the equipment to do it, 35 pounds to unsolder the parts and wire them up. A soldering iron just does not cut it.

Should get the board back on Monday.

 

No, thats n10p-GS

But youre right, actually its the 230m core pretty much the same as 240m. wow so 48 shaders and 40nm will post test results with it in my 5720g once it arrives!

good luck on your mod BTW. I hope your repair shop does the job right.

 

The guy who was going to do it seemed really decent and interested in what I was doing. However there was a total prat there who said:

"You can't do that you will short the board"

The guy doing the mod said sure thats no problem and even said for the cost he would wire it up to. Then when I was saying what card I was using the prat said:

"Still wont be as fast as my alienware"

Then he claimed he had dual GT430Ms They don't even support SLI so he can't be too smart.

 

There's only one little problem with that Toshiba cards, they dont have bios chips onboard. Vga bios is combine with motherboard bios.

 

According to site below, the card from the second link you provided is GTS250M:

GTS 250M DDR3 1G N10P-GE-A2 Graphic Card for Acer Laptop - China N10p-Ge-A2 Graphic Card,Graphic Card,Gts 250m Card in Graphic Card

 

No that person is confused, n10e-ge is the 250M. Core is not big enough in the picture either.

 

I was thinking the same thing...

Luckily I have some soldering skills as well
Thats the problem with some HP cards as well. But for example the nvs 320m is identical (meaning exactly the same PCB) as the 8700m GT, except with ddr2 vram, and that BIOS chip missing. There is a place for it with solder tracks and everything.

I haven't tried it yet... I think I should probably get an EEPROM programming tool.

No, no it isn't that would be crazy. That link is obviously a completely different card...

 

I wonder if anyone can help....my daughters laptop (Acer 5520g) with a MXM-II nvidia 8400m card started having display problems...so I bought an nvidia 9300m GS card off ebay, installed it and it works, mostly. The only problem is that as it starts up (before the bios screen) it displays these ascii characters "ÿ¸BIT", with a 30 second countdown timer immediately following at the end. I retrieved the characters using NiBiTor v 3.5. The timer isn't interruptable and when finished counting down, it seems to boot normally. I've installed the latest system bios V1.33 - made no difference. I've had a look at the video bios using NiBiTor v 5.8 and it looks OK. So is it a system bios problem? Or a video bios problem? Or something else? I'm a bit reluctant to flash the video bios because the only one I have access to is what NiBiTor retrieves from the card and displays. Any help appreciated

 

I have upgraded my 8600M GS to 9650M GT (as in signature) and I did not have any similar issue, just swapped cards and it all worked fine...

From which vendor is that 9300M GS? Asus or other?

Cheers

 

As far as I can tell it's Nvidia made for Acer (bought 2nd hand from Ebay) - here's a picture of the item. The more I think about it the more I think it must be a problem with my Acer system bios not recognising a change between the nVidia 8000 series and 9000 series video bios. I had a quick check and those characters are present in the video bios at offset 208 whereas it should be looking at offset E8. But I'm guessing if that's correct then changing the system bios to fix this could be pretty trickey...although why a later generation card should work in yours is strange...
cheers

 

@timajk:

You got card from same seller as I got mine... At least feedback is good

 

Its only in and freaking booting

 

Yep and it was about $30 cheaper than I could get locally.
I figure the problem is a variant on the MXM structure problem others have had, but I haven't been able to find another vbios for the 9300m GS anywhere....so I'm going to try the fix here and also set the throttle on the clocks to something reasonable at the same time (and hopefully not brick my card!).

 

So the 460m works?

 

Right guys, drivers installed and everything.

One problem, it's stuck at 2d/video clocks only.

Do you think my 120W power adaptor is not up to it?

I have tried clocking my CPU down to 1.6ghz at 1.05V so it should be using too much itself.

Is it worth getting a 150W adaptor or do I need even more?

EDIT: I've ordered a 150W adaptor. I want 2 around the house anyway so we will see how that goes.

 

Maybe post your vbios here:
NVIDIA Graphics Cards - NiBiTor Software Feedback - MVKTech Support Forums :: mvk.tech :: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 470 465 460 ATI Radeon HD 5970 5870 5850 5830 :: MVKTech :: On the Edge of Technology

Then once it's supported by nibitor, try editing the perf. table.

 

I can edit the performance table, just not the voltages

 

if you don't care about having your laptop locked at 3D clocks you can try this edit your 2D clocks to stay at 3D all the time that may works change purple and orange



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

So the clocks in domain 7?

But what about the voltage? Wont that stay down at 2d levels or is it automatic?

So I would change 810 to 1325 and 324 to 1250?

Well I tried updating the bios with the values you showed but it has bricked my card

So I need help people. If any of you know someone who can flash a bricked MXM-B card in europe let me know!

 

I managed to fix the 30 second startup delay, but nothing I do allows me to change the clock speeds. Any attempt to change them in the bios (or via the nvidia tuning tool on windows startup) gives me either a trashed display (and requires a reflash) or windows hangs. What level of system bios are you using? Mine is V1.33. And did your system ship originally with the 8600M card (mine was an 8400m). I wonder also do you have a copy of your vbios for the 9650M GT card - I'm thinking maybe the structure of my vbios is incompatible somehow with the system bios for my model 5520G.

 

Did you change the voltage for that power state too?

EG: 3d clocks 600/800 and 1.2v, emergency clocks 300/400 and 1.0v

You need to change the clocks and voltage.

 

Well - actually all I tried was to set the boot up clocks to the 3D level. Didn't change anything else. I've attached the current bios clock config.
Basically the card won't go beyond the thrtl / bootup clocks level no matter what I try.

 

You should not have changed that.

Just go tools > perf table entries > show entries

Then copy everything from the "extra" or "3d" entry into the throttle entry.

That will get you what you want.

 

Magic! Yep I found similar advice here and it worked a treat. I guess acer must be another vendor that have tried to lock their bios to their own cards. heh heh! Cheers

 

So yea,

I'm prepared to say the mxm2 HD4650 I bought off ipc.de isn't a workable upgrade for the Travelmate 7720G. Covered the bracket in kapton tape to make sure there isn't any shorting going on, got fujipoly thermal pads to make sure everything interfaces with the heatsink, etc, etc.

Tried a few things, but the computer just won't stay on and shuts down randomly, forget gaming. Sometimes it doesn't turn on. Moreover, furmark doesn't record/indicate the temperature, and sysmark won't complete any benching without a shutdown part way through.

Windows recognises the video card, installs drivers, etc. I can work for a bit in the computer, but it just shuts down without warning and restarts.

So yea, if anyone wants to buy an acer hd4650 mxm2 off me, send me a pm with your best offer. I think I'm going to be sticking it on ebay shortly to try and recoup some of my losses.

I can send along pictures to prove ownership, etc. Might try to see if the 3650 works, like perhaps I should have done all along, lol.

There you go. Something to add to the MXM guide.

 

Thats interesting, I will buy it from you if you don't get any higher offers. Its weird that your laptop boots OK but wont run the card? maybe its just the 3d clocks or something...
Maybe its the fact that it can't read the temps, it could be overheating but then I don't see why it would restart.

but yeah, I can buy it from you, I was almost going to say no cause all I have is a 7720g and 5720g but they are Aspire not Travelmate so thats pretty different

P. S. I have a 3650... but I don't know if it will work yet, I will get that going.

 

Hey Niffcreature,

Yea, it's odd. I'm guessing its a power problem because that's what I've encountered way back in the days of 300 watt power supplies and desktops when I got my first pci express card video card. Random shutdown and restart, fixed when the power supply got upgraded.

Sometimes it can boot into windows, sometimes (very infrequently) it doesn't. GPUz and hardware monitor read the video card temperature just fine, for whatever reason furmark can't. But furmark can read the temperature for the stock 2400xt card just fine. I'm not sure its the temperatures alone, I would associate that with a BSOD or lock-up under load. I'm not sure 3d clock speeds would be a problem in windows. Although, maybe I should try it one last time with Windows Aero turned off, but that seems silly since Windows Aero should not be a problem. I have it on right now with the stock video card, and it has no impact on anything.

It's just odd. It's not a BSOD, it's not a lock-up under load, it's just a random shut-down with restart and no error message pop up in windows 7 and no error log that I can find in windows event viewer.

So, short of other ideas, or advice someone who's made this combination work, I'm cutting my losses and moving on. I'll try a 3650 off ebay in the next while and see if that works.

But yea, thanks to everyone on this forum for all the info I've picked up on this whole laptop upgrading business!

 

@acerbhattac - What thermal interface are you using for the GPU core? If you are using thermal pads it definitely overheats. Thermal pads are OK for the GPU's RAM modules, but they are no go for HD46xx's core, since those GPUs run pretty hot. Try with some good thermal paste, like MX-2, or MX-4, it could do the trick for you. Don't give up that easily

 

Also what rating is your power brick since that's your PSU effectivly, do you have access to a power draw metre? The draw can get up to at max 10-20% more than the rating of the device (due to losses) but should be no more.

Also you can undervolt the HD4650 cards down to 1.0v at their stock frequency using bios editing, in fact the core will likely go up to 600mhz even at 1.0v.

 

Triturbo,

I'll give it another go with some thermal paste, but gapping will be an issue, I think. I was using the fujipoly pads on the core as well, didn't think it would be a problem and it would address the gapping that I believe occurs. I'll report back shortly on the results of pads on the memory, and paste on the gpu, but I'm not expecting any different. I ran it with thermal paste before I got the pads and shut downs would still occur. But I suppose I owe it to myself and everyone else to try one last time

Meaker,

I have the stock Acer power brick, didn't realise that was my power supply for all intents and purposes. The cord has a sticker saying 125V/7A, but the brick itself says output 19V_4A.

Any thoughts on how to undervolt? Should I be looking for flash the video card bios in DOS to undervolt?

Thanks for the encouragement, all. Fingers crossed.

 

Yes you use RBE (radeon bios editor) and change the 3d clocks/voltage. Save the file and use a USB boot disk to flash under DOS as the safest option.

19v at 4A is a 76W power brick, which IMO is a little low for you new machine. There are plenty of acer bricks at 90W and lots of 3rd party ones.

I myself used a 95W Ultra slim coolermaster PSU with USB charging port, a very nice piece of kit.

PICS!

Bluetooth module:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y143/Meaks/BTD.jpg

Mods with normal GFX card inserted:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y143/Meaks/Inside.jpg

And what it looks like with the card in, along side some of my other upgrades:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y143/Meaks/Outside.jpg

Notice the card is a bit too long but can sit down enough anyway (thanks to the caps and inductors being moved).

 

I'll give the mxm card another go later tonight. I think I have modified the 4650 bios. I basically dropped all the 1.1vs in the table to 1.0v. Is that right? I'll try flashing it later once I sort out a boot usb.

I guess I'm going to glop on the thermal paste on the gpu die to make sure it makes contact to the heat spreader and stick with the thermal pads on the ramm?

The power brick will take longer to sort out.

I'll report back. Hoping it works, but I'm not expecting it to.

Keep everyone posted.

 

If you go into RBE there is a clocks wizard where you can enter the 3d clocks/voltages and it will modify them, however if the video clocks need 1.1v then yeah they should probably go down to 1.0v too.

 

well, i gave the reinstall another go. still random shutdowns. going to try flashing the card over the weekend, fingers crossed that i don't brick it.

also going to look for some copper shims around town to see if i can get the stock temperature while idle down below 50 degrees c.

keep everyone posted.

 

I would hold the AC adapter in priority.
Older HP/compq adapters tend to be the same as Acers.