Asus G50 - 260M Swap Procedure

Updated Procedure:

http://blog.san-dex.com/2010/07/asus-g50-nvidia-260m-swap-procedure.html

I have been reading posts and articles on this forums for a while now. Just though I would share some progress on my ASUS G50 Best Buy model.

Here is the list of upgrades:

X9100 Processor
8 GB of Corsair
2 x SDD Drives in Raid 0
260M 1GB Video Card Swap

I thought people may be interested in the video card swap since it isn't really documented anywhere.

First off, my friend had a G60 that got partially crushed. So he ended up giving me the laptop. Well as everyone knows ASUS mobile video cards have a different mounting pattern than most other manufacturers. So I was able to remove the 260M from the G60 and swap it across into my G50. Everything works great.

Here is the procedure I followed to remove the card.

- Remove back access plate
- Remove 6 Heatsink bolts for CPU and Northbridge
- Remove 2 Heatsink bolts for GPU
- Unplug the fan
- Now gently pull straight up and the whole cooler assembly will lift up and it can be removed from the laptop case.
- Remove 2 bolts holding GPU card in place
- Gently wiggle the card loose and remove it.

Here is the tricky part:
- Gently place the new video card into the slot
- It will not want to seat at first, I used the metal end of a multimeter probe to leverage the card into place. Do be GENTLE when you do this. Take your time and everything will work out.
- Now I cleaned off all the thermal tape that comes on the cooler stock, lapped the heatsinks and applied a new thermal compound.
- Now reinstall the cooler and button up the case.
- Install the driver of your choice
- Have a beer



http://san-dex.com
http://san-dex.blogspot.com

 

The 260M GTX is going to fry in that G51 chassis. Did you play any game or run stress test?

 

It's in the G50 chasis, but I've been playing CODMW2 for hours no problems yet. The air coming out of the fan duct is cooler than when I had the 9800m installed. I guess I'll find out.

 

what are your idle/max temps? check with HWmonitor and post results here.

 

This was just after playing COD for about 30 minutes

 

Idle seems fine, can u post the temps after a session of MW2 using the same program to monitor.
Do you have a cooler or any mods made?

 

I lapped the heatsinks and applied arctic silver. My laptop sits on a rack, instead of on a table, so more air can circulate. I will be cutting the hole out of the bottom of the access panel to improve airflow at some point.

I'd like to point out the G60 cooler is IDENTICAL to the G50 cooler, and can't find a reason we it should run any hotter in a G50.

I'm playing some MW2 now and I'll post the HWMonitor temps when I am finished.

 

I'd like to point out the G60 cooler is IDENTICAL to the G50 cooler,G50's fan has different spindle design, and it runs at slightly lower speeds which forces less air and therefore has less cooling capability. I agree as to the heatpipes, yes they are the same.

 

Interesting, never took a close look at the fan. I still have the G60 cooler, maybe I will swap that in if heat becomes an issue. Thanks for the heads up.

 

Yeh a swap could be a good idea, I would try that at least.

 

Four rounds of MW2 - I'll swap the G60 cooler and do another test.

 

105 is the slowdown threshold, so its definitely burning up in there. might want to consider a higher speed fan, or finding some way to boost the voltage to the current one.

 

Just for clarification, the receiving machine is a Best Buy edition G50Vt-X5 or G51 or other?

There's a lot that can fit under the G50 label.

 

Receiving machine was a G50Vt-X5 Best Buy Model

 

hmm, my G51 bone stock 260m GPU ran upper 90's, so you aren't that far off. Good luck!

 

He's pretty far off considering this is with replacement thermal paste.

 

Yeah I agree!
When I got my G60VX from BB first thing I did is swap out the CPU for a T9900,applied IC7D thermal paste on both the CPU and GPU and the highest temps I get for my GPU is 88 C, that's after hours of gaming.

 

What are the clocks on the card? Maybe underclocking it a little will solve his problem.

 

When you did the swap did windows find the card? I did the swap on a g50vt-x1 and everything seemed ok. It booted up fine but when windows found the driver it was for standard vga adapter and not for nvidia 260m gtx like I assumed it would. When i try and install drivers from nvidia it gives me an error stating that the program cannot find any drivers compatible with my hardware. I used cpuz and it also shows standard vga adapter and it has 1gb memory gddr3 256 bit bus and 65nm. Was there a special driver that you used or just the regular nvidia ones?

 

Your CPU temps look way too low when maxing for a T9900. I'm guessing your TJ Max is still set at 90C when they should be set at 105C in the hwmonitor.cfg file? i.e. your CPU temps are reporting 15C lower than they really are. I get about 60C max on the CPU (T9600) and yours is about 45C so my guess seems about right. But then again your ACPI temp is pretty low too so I dunno.

 

Question...how can I get a card like this out there? I'd certainly be interested in getting this upgrade...I already checked with MXM-upgrade and they said this is not an "MXM" card. So I am guessing this is some ASUS only thing? Or could they be wrong?

 

Very interesting.
Did it not require any sort of bios update for the 260M to work in place of 9800m?

I thought Vbios is part of the system bios.

 

The 260M in the asus g51 is a mxm card but it is flipped compared to normal mxm cards. The asus 9800m and the asus 260m are physically the same size so the swap is easy. So, the only way to get a 260m to work in the g50vt is to get one from a g51 or g60.

I did not have to update anything bios wise to run the 260M in mine. I did flash the bios of my 260M to run faster clocks but that was about it.



I am currently running a g50vt with a 260M in it with a g51 fan installed as well. I am running windows vista 64 with 4gbs of ram. The card is overclocked to 600/975/1525 so take that into account with the temps. As of right now my gpu is running at 97 F or 36 C at idle. While gaming it runs at 165 f or 73 C with all settings at high. My fans run at full speed all the time so I think that might help with the temps. I don't have any copper blocks on the heat sink yet or modded back plate to assist with cooling. I have mx-3 thermal paste on it as well.

 

Can you please give some more details on how you flashed the bios of 260M alone?

Which tool did you use to flash it?

I thought it was not possible to flash the Vbios alone.

 

You can find all information in thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=401345

 

Thanks.
It's bookmarked for future use.

 

Is I possible for One of you folks that have a 260m working in a G50vt to post your nVidia bios?

I just tried this upgrade, and have had the same results as jose. Its only detected as a default display adapter. The card is out of G60vx and it is in great order.

I think this incompatibility we are seeing is probably due to a bios device id or something that its looking for on boot and doesn't see.

anyway, You think you could use nvflash for a minute of your time and post up the bios that is working for you? That would be awesome if you could...



thanks in advance...

 

How is it possible that you get such temps with an OC 260M? My G51J with nvidia clocks (550/950/1375) is getting 85 C on the cooler while gaming, and I have used some copper blocks and modded backplate. I'm also getting 85 C without a cooler when on asus clocks (400/800/1200)

 

I Figured out how to get the video card to be recognized. I used a Driver from laptopvideo2go.com with a modded .inf file.

I also had to take the "shim" off of the 260m to make contact with the cooler. still not convinced its making full contact (haven't pulled the heatsink off again yet to see) but I'm reaching 95c in aion (in the abyss, bout 85c everywhere else) and 100 - 102c in furmark (1.8.2 which is supposed to be a lot harder on cards)

anyone have any experience with a cooling shim between the GPU and cooler? I'm trying to think about where I would get some pure enough copper material thin enough to make one...

As i type the GPU is idling at 54-55c. What's everyone else seeing with the 260m? I'd like to know how I'm comparing to notebooks that are "meant" to have this card in them.

MG

*edit* running 500core 799mem and 1250shader. Stock for the card. (out of a G60vx)

 

I just got my GTX 260M in the mail this afternoon (GOD I love eBay).

After a nice thin layer of AS5 (thanks a great deal on the write-up OP, though my heatsink took a whole different kind of motion to come loose from the GPU), I am seeing similar temps to my 9800M GS, with the exception of a -2 degree difference on the CPU, at idle: 42C idle (CPU idles at 37C now! ^_^). In furmark I hit 96C before quitting. My 9800M GS would stay completely stable at 108C (after a month or so the fan would get clogged and hit 110C and auto-downclock), but I decided that if it didn't go over 88C in 3DMark 06/GTA4/DiRT2/World in Conflict/Crysis benchmarks, then I wasn't going to bother letting it get stressed to the max.

Already done: Bottom Panel modded for extra ventilation to CPU/GPU
Next step: Copper Shims on CPU, GPU, and NB.

 

Skip the shim on the CPU. It already makes full contact.

 

So you guys achieve to swap the 9800GS with a GTX 260M pretty easily it seems, even without any kind of bios update.
I suppose GTX 260M has it's own vbios then, but what about the 9800GS, did it have it's own vbios as well or was it part of the main motherboard bios ?

If the answer is 9800GS doesn't have it's own vbios, then it's similar to a 9700GT from a G50V model, and the swap should be doable. If not, I guess I can just suck it up...
(Easy way to see if the gpu has it's own vbios is trying to extract if with GPU-Z : it's impossible to do with the 9700GT)

EDIT : Well it was easy to find that the 9800GS has it's own bios, so I suppose indeed I can just suck it up unless I have enough balls to flash my bios to a G50VT's or G51's bios, but I'm truely clueless regarding what this would result into...

 

How about swapping 9700m gt on G50V for Gtx 260m on G51/G60 ???
Anyone done this before ?

 

bump:
Help, pls !

 

bump: bump:

 

I have a G50 with a 9700 that I am going to try to do that with. I will let you know how it works out.

 

Yeah, I'm looking for your result. Thanks

 

The 9700 is a completely different card compared to the 260 or the 9800. The 260 will not work in the g50's, I have tried. I am currently using my g50vt with the 9800 swapped for a 260.

I was originally trying to swap the 9700 card into a g51 because the 9800 card was failing but it didn't work so I was left with a g51 that has a failing gpu. I did play around with the cards and found that the 260 and the 9800 are interchangeable but the 9700 isn't with either card.

 

Thanks for the info. Now I am all depressed. Is there any other card I can upgrade in my G50 Then?

 

Thanks for your info. However, how about 9800 for G50V in replace of 9700. ? I knew that both G50V and G50VT use the same bios.

 

Why? I mean, not any more than it did in the g51vx chassis ... okay, a little (due to turboboost) but more likely it'll just underclock the core i7/i5 rather than have it get any hotter...

 

The 9800 and 9700 are physically different cards, they are not swappable. I have yet to find any card that will work in the g50.

I am currently running the 260 in mine overclocked and I have yet to see over 195 with it stressed, I do have a NZXT cooler though.

 

Updated: Had to get cooling under control.

New cooling setup, stock X9100's, stock 260M, 8GB, RAID0 in a G50VT chasis

I pulled the bottom cover and made a custom cooler. These are my temps after running render cuda particles for an hour at full load (CPU and GPU). GPU was 60C and CPU was 53C. Idles 39C GPU and 30C CPU

 

I'm running the DOX 185's

 

can you tell me the specifications of the ram that u installed

 

Anybody had their HDMI sound output not working after the mod? I installed the lastest driver from laptopvideotogo with modded inf, and now the HDMI audio output is no longer an option under "sounds".

 

Can any of you guys tell me if your gtx 260m is making FULL contact with the cooler and if its the same as the one pictured in my thread here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/500276-overheating-damage-concerns.html#post6476194 ?

Thanks, I'm having extremely high temps because the heatsink wont make contact with the gpu die.

any thoughts guys?

 

nice, post +1 rep

 

Make sure you save all the blue thermal pads, they'll help bridge the gap between gpu and the cooler. Clean off any old thermal paste, and slap on some arctic 5. Also check to make sure the screw holes are perfectly lined up so that the gpu is securely in place.
My max temp after swap has been around 102 (89 with 9800m), so I donno how you are hitting 150C and still have a working gpu afterwards.

 

Can you guys look here then? http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/500578-g50vt-vga-heatsink-vs-g51.html I purchased some copper shims from ebay and they should be here around monday.

@ncc1701k: Did you have to purchase said shims? and is your GTX the same as mine? (has the metal box surrounding it?)

no matter what I do i cant make contact without something else being there, hence why I bought the shims.

I was just curious how some of you got away without having to do this (unless everyone has to )