I put a 8800GTX in my M9750

UPDATE:See new 3dmark06 scores!

UPDATE:I have been succsessfull in forceing the card to run at 3D settings by edditing the bios, I still have the post error message, but at least we are closer to a full proof of concept

Does it work? Yes and no. It does function, but the bios, either motherboard or GPU, is not happy, and is throttling the performance.

The setup, m9700i-R1 motherboard, M9750 labeled computer. Sbios revision W8350F03. 2.0GHZ T7200. 4 gigs corsair. The videocard, 8800m Clevo, G92M, bios revision 62.92.23.00.14. Gpu originaly packaged M57RU.

Results, there is an error message.
"ERROR: MXM Structure not found or invalid. Reflash MXM ROM or add MXM structure and associated callbacks to SBIOS! Performance will be limmited to blanced and post will be delayed 30 seconds."

Its not bluffing either, as seen in the pictures below. Although it is throttled to a horrible 275,301,550 , it is still slightly faster than the single 8700GT in benchmarks, and gaming. The tests are just a proof of concept. I've tried edditing the throttle speed with nibitor, but that resulted in a boot error after the windows start-up screen, it just started randomly drawing artifacts, kinda scarry.

Google comes up with garbage concerning this problem, just a bunch of unhappy apple lappy users.

I've also tried updating to the newest sli ready vbios, no dice, same error. I don't know what the latest m9750 sbios is, but I would apreciate it if someone could link it here for me to try.

I'm using the machine right now, and to no suprise, its completely stable. If I could fix the vbios or sbios problem, we could have another upgrade availible to the m9700/50 series.

The HE tab has nothing to do with the problem, its for optional dvi output. Please, no pointing to the MXMupgrade website, I've already contacted them, and they don't know what the issue is either.

If anyone has any experience with edditing the sbios, or vbios, I would like to hear from you, I would like to resolve this issue asap!











NEW PIC! 22DEC09


Update version 32.12.09

 

Man this is awesome. I bet a couple of us are going to look at this, such as Ichime and others into the m9750 business.

Goog going! Are you not worried about heating issues? did you put good AS5 paste on it?

 

Uhh ohh, I don't want any troll bait around, so I wont say if I used AS5 or OCZ diamond freeze or whatever.
Heat should not be an issue as the 8800mGTX is a 37 watt gpu, the 8700mGT is a 29 watt gpu. That is only 6 watts diffrence. A simple physical science comparrison would be a 10 watt lightbulb, and a 16 watt lightbulb, the heat diffrence is negligble.
Also, the Vbios can be eddited for fan speed paramaters, or nibitor is lying to me. I have some cool ideas for an extra stand alone gpu heatsink/fan solution if needed. I'm confident however, that any or all heat issues could be resolved with propper ventalation and a good zalman laptop cooler.
Thanks for the support!

Edit: I had to look around a bit more to confirm, but I thought I remembered the GO 7950GTX using more power than that, it does at 45watts.

After playing NFS prostreet and running rendering test in background for about two hours.

 

Sorry about the paste comment, it wasn't meant for any trolling at all...

So you think it is a simple vbios problem? i'm more worried about the m9750 motherboard end...

 

I knew that, was just throwing out the disclaimer lol.
I wish it was a vbios problem, I'm a bit more scared it might be a sbios (system bios) issue. I don't know what the card and the motherboard look for to make sure they will be happy togather. I don't know if the sbios has a list of cards, or a certain attribute it needs to operate normally, or if the vbios looks for something on the motherboards side for normal operation.

 

Actually it's 8 watts deifference, and it would be like a 10 watt bulb and a 12.75 watt. ;-)

 

I like you

I was going for watts=power=heat, but since I haven't usedthe math in years, I went the lazy way/incorrect way, but thanks, it still conveys my point.

I think the only heat issue that I may encounter would be the mosfets/diodes on the bottom of the board. The m57RU has a nice copper heat spreader on both sides of the card that use thermal pads to transfer the heat to them. I'll try to get some pics up. It will not fit because of the extra length and may not fit when trimmed due to hieght. I do belive that a large peice of thermal pad could be used to spread the heat out and make everything copecetic.

Update, I flashed to a 9800m GT bios, and it still has the same error, however, it does show that a 9800m will boot and the drivers work fine. I'll screen shot it tommaro if I bring m9750 back from work.

 

Not sure what to tell you. Some one that had that same system might be able to help.

 

maybe Ichime?

 

I'm still researching, guess there aren't that many 9750 enthusiasts anymore, three years kills a machine these days I guess lol. I may be able to get my 1sgt to let me try out his 9800gts, if it works I might just trade him, he'll have to cough up about $100 bucks for the performance though If it works, it will prove the HE tab is to blame, as the GTS doesn't require it to be used at all for sure.

 

I like your moxie gamerse! I really wish you luck!

As per the bioses, I posted this in the big 9750 driver sticky:
Yes, you do need that new bios. Here is the Vista bios 0C03. Here is the XP bios 0F04. I recommend that you use the XP bios first. It is said to work fine in Vista.

And I'm sure the HE tab does have something to do with the error you are having. any MXM format mismatch is going to send these machines for a loop! Still, keep us posted! There are still a few m9750 enthusiasts around here!

 

m9750 enthusiasts yes, m9750 enthusiasts with available 8800m GTX GPUs... less

 

Thanks and great job for taking the time to test this out. I've always had a feeling that an 8800M GTX would at least boot up inside an M9750.

As for the throttling issue, it's most likely the VBIOS (the BIOS in the GPU) causing the cards to downclock. Someone tried something similar with an Asus C90s and a 9600M GT (original card was an 8600M) and had the same issue (here's te link to his thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=316079 just go to step 4 to read about the specific issue)

Another issue could be the motherboard BIOS too not being able to recognize the card fully. If you're savvy enough and seeing as the M9750's BIOS is an AMI (American Megatrends) BIOS, you could get some tools to find and replace the modules in the BIOS that controls the GPU microcodes with that from a generation 1 M15x or M17x. But I would try flashing the GPU first with a different BIOS if you can find one.

Also, the HE tab doesn't really do much other than add more power to the card. Enough power is already added to the card with the first two panels and even the 4870s in the Asus W90 had their HE tabs sticking out.

 

Awesome link Ichime.

They guy is really into it. The home-made heat-sink info is nice to have, it would probably be useful to do the same for the 3870 or if someone ever tries a 4850 or 4870 into the m9750, after a couple of arrangements i believe .

Considering our case:

1) good info if we want to make a heat sink for the 8800m GTX in case of over heat

2) as for the bios:
a) you might want to try the same thing as he did, edit your own GPU-downloaded bios, leaving only the first speed as default and the other 3 equal to the fourth and see what happens..
b) ask the guy who made the bios tweak what he thinks, and about the risk of bricking your card

good luck on that try!

 

Attach a copy of the vbios to this thread and I'll have a look at it and see what I can do.

 

Thanks for the bios! everest says I'm running the newest XP bios revision, (OFO4) all four gigs of my memory are being recognized, and three gigs are availible, so i'm happy with it at the moment. Windows 7 is running great on it. I think I'll stick with the current bios unless evidence shows that I need to change it to make this card work. I would however like to fix this pesky BSOD caused by the one touch keys next to the power button.... The Cable might be bad, but thats for anthother thread, or I/M, wink wink nodd nodd hint hint.


"- The callback message is most often encountered when inserting cards with a vBios that request for the MXM software structure to be present on the mothersystem. Older systems, like the m9750, don't have this."
Kris Verbeeck
MXM Upgrade

He agrees with my HE optional theory, but also agrees that the bios could be monitoring that tab for power.

http://rapidshare.com/files/324038493/8800M_GTX.rar.html

I've tried all of these bioses, and none correct the balanced performance problem. Note that the sli bioses caused the winows boot screen to freeze and atrifact at login.

I'm running a 9800GT bios at the moment.

http://rapidshare.com/files/324041819/9800M_GT_STOCK.rom.html

I would like to use a 9800GT bios if possible, the drivers for it kick . I'm going to do some more reading, thanks for the help!

 

Tried using Nibitor to edit the 9800 bios in a simmilar fashion used on the 9600gt for the asus, no good. As soon as windows attempts to bring up the desktop, areo tries to switch on the balanced performance mode, this causes the screen to do funny things, it freezes at the windows logo, and starts randomlly drawing rectangular shapped artifacts. I tried upping the voltage to .95 3d, but it just made a diffrent messed up version as described above, then it went blank and didn't recover. I tried removing two of the modes, and the same thing happened. I'm going to work on it some more tommaro, its 12:30am here, i need some sleep.

 

Man, this is way out of my league! Its really impressive work though. Keep it up

 

Yeah 4850's would be a nice try..since...AW's do offer it...anyone with M17's might let you try it at their own risk!

 

This is some awesome work, I am going to monitor this thread!

 

good luck on the next batch of tests.

NighWalker might take a look at your bioses, don't forget sending them to him.

cheers.

 

I tried updating the bios from the latest XP version I was running, to the Vista version. It made no change, its kinda a good thing since nothing got worse.

 

Pop open some bubbly, I fiddle with NiBitor untill my brain almost exploded, but i now have the card running at normal 3D settings. The error message is still there, and the card is stuck in a modified "balanced" mode.
The problem I had, was there was only two voltage settings for four performance modes. The modes are, (numbers in order as core/shader/memory), 2d 200/400/100, throttle 275/550/301, 3d 383/767/301 and extra 500/1250/799. I couldn't get it to clock any higher than throttle becuse they gave that mode bare minimum voltage, one mhz higher actually caused the driver to stop working and crash windows, after my custom voltage tables, all is well. Going to see If I can open it up and get a full 3dmark score. New screenshot to come soon!

 

sadly, tonight I won't be able to bring the card to full speed, I did get a full windows boot at "extra" speeds, and 3d mark did start. During the initial scene I was floored to see the FPS top 61 frames, it was starting to look like a solid 8k point or better run, but saddly when the gate opened to let out the troops, the driver crashed. I tried to run at lower resolutions, not much help, simmilar frame rate though... Will try to experiment more tommaro. All help is apreciated!

 

this is looking very good!

Have you done extensive bios tweaking or modified just a few settings?

If i had 300 bucks I would have got the one on ebay 2 days ago!

You do realize getting 3d timings is 3/4ths of the work right?

good luck!

 

I am intrigued by this even though I have Hd3870's working great in mine at present. The fact that the hd3870's work would lead me to believe that the problem you have is 100% vbios related. If you get the 8800GTX going properly it would provide an even better upgrade to the m9750 than the hd3870's do

Maybe Alienware werent talking rubbish when they said the M9750 would get an 8800GTX upgrade, they just couldnt be bothered to implement it.

 

Today's fun, I modded the entire bios with every availible NiBitor point and click option. To fix the driver failure, I used the 8800GTX performance code in the advanced settings, I don't know why it worked, but it did. After tweaking everything possible, (mind you I have no clue I'm doing) I came up with a bios that allows tech power up's gpu tool to "see" 2d and 3d settings, instead of a blank option bar. This wonderfull accidental fix has allowed me to downclock with GPU tool, more on that in a moment.
I do have a cooling issue, I.E. I don't have any more/new thermal pads to put on the back of the GPU where they should be. I belive the memory is getting warm, as I used some of the original pads from thw 8800m for my 8700gt (just as a testcard) while I was having MB boot problems. This means the diodes on the back of the memory (of the 8800m), as well as the memory itself (the backside, the tops have pads on them), is suffering. 3dmark06 will not run at full speed, more than 3-7 seconds, depending on ambient temp.
However, now that GPU tool works, i can downclock, I downclocked to ???mhz (I'll say 435 at the moment, because I left the screenshot on my thumbdrive at work) and 3dmark06ed 7,??? points. I'm going to pull the pads off my 8700GT and spread them on the back of the 8800m tonight, and try again, they won't be enough for the whole card, but something is better than nothing at this point. (remember, I'm in iraq, no computer stores over here) I also came up with a cooling mod that I'm still working on right now, more on that if it works lol.
I'll try to get the 9750 back togather tonight for some more test runs, I'll even extract the bios and post it if I get the chance. (you guessed it, my bios is on the thubdrive at work with the screenshot lol)

About that screenshot:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/fzji250ago2/9750m9800gt.ROM

This is the VBIOS I have thrown togather, I've managed to underclock with GPU tool and run 3dmark06 at core 490 shader 1100 and memmory 711. This netted 7938 3dmark06. Any attempt to push higher than that results in a driver crash. here is what happened according to GPUZ.

I think this problem is going to be a memmory timing or related issue.

I am excited about almost scoring in the 8,000 range with plenty of room for improvement, on a single card. I'm not ready to call this a success untill I get all these damn bugs worked out, and this thing is scoring closer to 9,500s.

As for the thermal issues, with my modifications, the maximum temp was 77 degrees celcius, with no cooling pad. However, the room is a bit chilly at about 68*F or 20*C. AVG temps are around 53*C, but this is at max clock settings, 2d settings (which the card falls back on when the driver fails) are much cooler. I'll try to barrow a camera and show you guys some of the m57RU heat spreader modifications, to make it fit the m9750.

 

Well, I'm dead in the water at the moment. I can't seem to find a way to extract the arima sbois to have a look with an editor. I'm tired of rebooting every time the driver fails during 3dmark06,(read above error) and waiting 30 seconds with 26 beeps becuase of some stupid MXM B.S. If I can't get this resolved, when I say I, I mean anyone else with an Idea, becuase I'm fresh out, its game over. I'm almost ready to call this "myth busted". Will it work, yes, will it work well, not without cracking the super secret MXM post error message that no-one has any clue about.

 

you need to get ichime and zfactor in on this to help you

 

Ichme has posted his support earlier, thankyou for yours. I'm really getting in way over my head with this. I'm researching the hex code of the bios so I can "see" what it all means. There has to be a reason why this card upsets the ssystem, and my 8700GT does not, what is the diffrence? I'm almost certain their has to be something in the 8700m Vbios that tells the PCI express something that the 8800m is not giving it, or giving it incorectly. I'm such a lost cause....

 

I would agree that everything is pointing to a problem with communication between the VBIOS and system BIOS

At least that is what would make sense to me. And unless you have a spec sheet showing the full inntruction set of the GPU, reading the hex will only get you so far, that is coming from an Electrical Engineering degree. Without knowing what the bits mean, they wont tell you much

 

you are correct. more interesting data. I don't know how creddible the source is, but it sounds good lol.

http://hothardware.com/Articles/NVIDIAs-MXM-Graphics-Module/?page=2

 

I have had a class in processor design so I kind of understand how the assembly gets turned into bits and how the processor/cache/memory uses the data. Only one class though, I am electrical, not computer engineering haha

 

Just one question, you card is a 8800m GTX right? what are you doing with a 9800 GT bios?

 

The 8800m gtx and the 9800m gt are the exact same thing, only the name is different.

 

The 9800 series has better overclock abbillities, memory timing? driver? who knows? I thought there would also be a chance of increased stabillity.
Today ended badly, during a flash, my junk motherboard decided to forget where that pesky video card stays. Needless to say, my 8800 is bricked right now. nvflash appeared to completely flash, twice, but the time it took to flash was way to fast. There was nothing I could do. The bios was good, I check with my desktop. I tried flashing again before reseting, and it did the same wierd fast flash. The screen never went blank, it was still displaying. I just had to shrug it off and restart, no sceen, full windows boot.
I was headed towards an 8-9k 3dmark06 score. I had already scored a 7.9K relying on the GPU to scream at 490/715/1100. The max "extra" stock clock is 500/799/1250, the normal 3d is only 383/301/767. The stock and "balanced" clocks are both faster than a stock 8700gt. My highest 3dmark06 was better than sli 7950GTX, from a single card, imagine the sli possiblity.
The last 8800GTX bios I was working on actually switched between 2D and "balanced" performance as needed. I had the balanced portion set to a the 3d performance clock table, and 3d set to the "extra" table. It was doing good, but good is not great, I had to try to make it worth the 26 beeps on every start up. So I was about to make a small 17mhz gpu clock bump, and the motherboard crapped out. This is confirmed because nvflash no longer recognizes my 8700GT. Ohh well, maybe the replacement board will make it hear soon. Well, merry christmas, happy newyear, and to nvidia.... bahhumbug.....

 

I forgot to mention the temps, after installing the moddified heat spreader on the card, temps were great, epecially at normal 3d mode. Temps never exceded 86* after repeated 3dmark06 runs, and a couple hours of NFS pro street. Stab tests with gpu tool made temps slowly creep to 93*, but, it was a verry slow, long slope. The 8800m at .9V, with slower clock speeds, runs cooler, and with better performance than the stock 8700GT, verry impressive. If someone smarter than me would please help me get rid of the 26 beeps before post, it would be worth the 30 second delay.

 

Any updates mate?

 

How about posting this Bios again? the link is dead.