Asus G50 - 260M Swap Procedure

Oh please, you sound as if I've wronged you so much by misunderstanding your google translate spewed incoherent posts.

1. Double posting is looked down upon, do you think posting 10 times in a row would be more welcomed and easier to understand?

2. Please keep in mind that I was not trained in deciphering italian grammar expressed through google-translated english, so pardon me if it took more than one glance to understand your posts.

3. You found the BIOS fix for fan problem? Care to share it for the rest of us? Or is your expertise too much for my puny little non-expert brain to handle?

 

Thanks for you info. However, I'm interested in swapping 9700 for gtx260. It isn't worth for swapping 9700 for 9800mgs (I think 9800m is somehow out of date, especially when gaming at 1920x1080 resolution).

By the way, you're the only one who can help me to confirm that 9700 can be swapped with 9800mgs. Thanks a lot!

 

Please, I still I do not assume responsabilty, I found a way. Now it's up to you.

@ Ncc1701k I have not offended you who misunderstand, I translate the English with difficulty with google, can you do yourself with the Italian???

However, when I wrote the post is the google translated, this is the error.

For me there are not problems.

For me, your tones are not suitable for this forum, from first time that you wrote to me.

And i posted 10 times in a row because my internet is slow for the pictures, you're too hasty.

 

I'm not fluent in Italian, that's why I don't post in Italian forums.

I applaud your effort for finding a way to swap 9700gt for the 260gtx, it is a splendid technical achievement that makes threads like this a valuable tool for end users. However, as an economics major, I'm obligated to point out that used G51vx on ebay is not that much more expensive than G50vm.
ASUS G51VX-RX05 Laptop Notebook Computer Works Great! - eBay (item 280546264169 end time Aug-08-10 17:45:36 PDT)
so for people who don't derive pleasure from dissecting away hardware parts, the cost of acquiring all the necessary parts to install a 260gtx might far exceed the price difference between the g50vm and g51vx. But again, this is just my opinion, if you have sentimental value for your g50vm or desire to conquer the impossible, rules of classical economics probably won't stand in your way. (I got my 260gtx for free btw )

Anyways, if you think my tone during the flame war is not suitable for this forum, neither would yours.
I'm out, peace.

 

.. Is it possible to swap a 360m from the Asus G51JX to the G50VT?

#1. I would need the VGA heatsink that comes with the G51JX and it would need to fit in a G50VT.
#2. Is the card of similar dimensions? Same MXM slot version#?

#3. Software/BIOS issues.

It is a 40nm chip, unlike the 260m and 9800gs which are 55nm chips. (I THINK!!)

 

Oh wait, it doesn't look like the 360m is any better than the 260m.

The 260m actually is 40nm just like the 360m. (I think)

Don't know of any performance difference.

 

The 260m is in fact more powerful than the 360m, but runs hotter. Asus had to downclock it to fit it within the thermal budget of the G50v/vt. You might look to a 460m instead.

The main hurdle at the moment for a 260m is fan control, there doesn't seem to be a way to get the fan to spin at anything other than full speed.

 

Hmm, 460m.... from the Asus G73?

Needs to be a reverse MXM card..I don't know anything about the G73

 

Actually upon closer inspection I think the 460m is a newer revision of the reverse MXM standard, so it physically won't even fit

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...-asus-g73-benchmark-thread-7.html#post5877362

 

Ahh. Yes perhaps the MXM versions are incompatible.

And also I am doubtful that the video card heatsink from the G73 would work in the G50/G51 laptops.. and very very doubtful that the 9800GS or 260m heatsink would work with the 460m! The holes would have to match up, GPU and the RAM sinks preferably as well.
Am hopeful though. But seriously doubtful.

 

I'm positive the card won't even fit electrically, which means we're looking at the 260m still.

I wish there were some way to modify fan speeds or something. Even if I had an external manual PWM controller for the fan I'd consider the 260m swap.

 

Yea ... I may do the 260m GTX swap a few years down the road if/when I find it dirt cheap but to me it really isn't much of a bump from the 9800gs.

Fan speed - We would prefer to have the fan speed be adjusted automatically .. so we could get a fan controller thing that is designed to fit in a 3.5 inch slot in a desktop and mod it to attach to the laptop somehow..

By a fan controller, I mean a fancy device that comes with at least 2 thermal sensors and one or more fan outputs... and the circuitry would have to run on 5V..
Then we could have the internal fan be controlled by this device somehow and put the thermal sensor on top of the CPU copper and the center of the GPU copper..

But I doubt we could find a 5V desktop computer fan controller.

 

I've been looking into a few PWM setups and so far this solution with a microcontroller is the best I've seen so far:
PWM Fan Controller - Alan Parekh’s Electronic Projects

I would need to adjust the microcontroller's input voltage values to compensate for the internal temperature (it's optimized for a hard drive, which runs from 30C to 50C, and I need to run from about 50C to 105C and measure the heatsink temp, not the gpu temp), attach the temp sensor to the heatsink somewhere, and then wire it to the correct fan terminals. It doesn't seem terribly difficult but fitting everything inside the computer would be a problem. It's the most compact solution I know of.

 

That sound like a fun project! PIC chips are fun.

Yea it isn't like we could have a break board duct/k taped to the lid.
We would need to make a little PCB, some way to secure the chip, ADC and it's connections. Then a DAC for the fan power or something like that.

Our Asus laptop has 2 separate heatsinks. The GPU and the CPU +NB, which is the one that has the fan. The GPU sink lies in front of the fan. It gets whatever cool air is left over after the CPU and Northbridge heatsink has been cooled.

 

I've only heard about the wonders of PIC chips, and color me as an inadequate EE but I've never programmed one (strangely though I've programmed an ARM chip) and I don't have the hardware to do so. But a PCB is something I can solder onto.

Yeah unfortunately after an upgrade, my CPU now gets comparably hot, and the northbridge gets even hotter under an FSB OC (90+C). So both heatsinks are pretty warm for me. I've opened my laptop plenty of times to the point where some of the plastic parts are snapped! :X I've replaced a lot of things on this computer. The poor machine just keeps going. I love Asus.

 

90 C on the CPU!? Even hotter on the NB? That sounds opposite how it should be.
If that is the case, then the air coming out of the fan vent must be hot. I know your fan is running @ 100% because of the motherboard not detecting the temp of the GPU (you are running a 260m GTX right? Your sig. doesn't show that) . I am thinking that there is a contact problem between the heatsinks and the chips.

If your temps are that bad then you probably want to keep the fan @ 100%!

 

It's the northbridge that heats up to 90C+ on stock cooling when OC'd +20%. I have an external cooler that keeps it down in the 70s though. The CPU gets to the mid-80's at these speeds (3.518 GHz). I'm running an undervolted 9800m GS at GTS speeds at the moment, and don't have a 260m to try.

 

Hey all,

I was wondering if anyone solved the problem of the fans running on high all the time.


I got a 260m but haven't installed it yet. I'm preparing a PWM circuit using 555 timers at the moment, and will splice it into the fan cabling to manually control the fan speed. I'll have to get creative on where to place a potentiometer. I'll be getting 4.6V out of a 5V supply at the end of it... can anyone take a stab at what that'll do to the RPMs/cooling?

 

where can i buy gtx260m for my g50 i was looking ebay and couldn't find it

 

You'll have to wait til one appears on eBay or grab a G51/G60 series and swap the GPU.

 

the g71 and the g72 also have a 260 gtx

you can actually find broken laptops on ebay for less than the card goes for

 

The G71/G72 GTX 260m won't fit in a G50/G60 series chassis. They're shaped differently.

 

oh wow i didnt know that thanks.

 

Hey guys need some help--I got the 260m installed, and I can't seem to get any recent drivers to work for me. What drivers are you guys using?

EDIT: I'm working with a modded INF from laptopvideo2go on a 263 series driver and it looks ok so far.

 

Well after a long set of trials and errors I finally have both the screen brightness working and the rest of the display driver working--almost. It seems to crash a lot for no apparent reason, not in-game but when doing mundane things like scrolling down in Firefox. Anyone else have this problem?

Better yet, could anyone tell me what Forceware they find most stable?

I tried to build a PWM fan controller but ended up with a potentiometer and a switch in parallel to control the fan speed manually. Works great!

EDIT: Nevermind, I fixed it by flashing it with +0.05V.

 

Hi guys!
@Antonio..
I need your help!
I modded the bios of my Asus M50Vn to accept new Nvidia 9700m gt card....YOUR CARD!!! THE CARD THAT YOU SOLD THROUGH EBAY!!!
It's incredible, I found you!...
My problem is similar because I modded the M50VAS.212 original bios by adding 9700m vga rom module. I extracted the rom from G50V bios...
But my problem is the fan!!! When I press the power button, tha fan start at full speed and never autoregulate her speed!!!
I hope that anyone can help me, please!!
P.S. I'm also from Italy

 

Just wondering.. how did you go about lapping the heatsinks?

 

I didn't? I just stuck the thing in after hitting the heatsinks with OCZ freeze. Temps are great compared to the stock G50vt heatsinks (4 more fan blades).

 

ok.. btw is this the card you have? if not will it work in a g50vt-x5?
1gb MXM VIDEO CARD G92-751-B1 GTX 260M CUBA ASUS - eBay (item 250721784144 end time Nov-11-10 05:39:20 PST)

Oh no srsly?!?!? I just spent $200 for one on ebay!
:cry: he said it would work=http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/530964-asus-g50-nvidia-260m-where-buy.html
.... nuts I saved up like 2 months for that...

 

Oh no! I'm sorry! If you look closely at the physical shape of the cards the G7x versions have an extension that won't fit with the heatsinks of the G50 series! See if you can cancel or return, it won't fit!! I too looked at the same card!

If it's too late to cancel and you have the card maybe you can see about doing some crazy stuff to make it fit physically. Electrically it should be fine but you will probably need a dremel and some heatpipe modifications.

 

Thought you couldn't get a new graphics card in a laptop..

 

In general you can't with ASUS machines, obviously there are a few exceptions... this and the C90S come to mind.

 

How do you know if you can or not?

 

Basically, you can't, unless you happen to have a system that can fit a card physically into the same kind of slot and it fits in the chassis with the heatsink and everything, and you can find a better card from an ASUS that is one or two model generations newer but still uses the same connector. The cards aren't sold separately unless it's from a parted out machine.

 

True... I might just turn around and sell it.... not real good with a dremel but I might give that a try

 

Best of luck, timinator. Keep us posted!

@Fuzzy: AllUrGroceries hit this pretty well. Usually it's higher end machines (with dedicated cards) that have semi-interchangeable graphics. Asus uses their own interface so you can't pull a card from an Alienware/Dell for example and stick it into the Asus. You'd need to part it from a compatible Asus machine. It's really model-dependent.
Also, I say semi-interchangeable because not everything works. My fan control is all messed up so I had to make my own manual fan controller.

 

ok its not going to work.... it just wont fit and the heatsink wont fit either

 

So does anyone know where you can get the 260Gtxm as mentioned in these posts? I cant seem to find a place on the net or ebay for that matter that is selling those GPUs

I've got the best buy g50-vt and think I'd like to try the same as some of you have done.

thanks,

Wingcmdr77

 

actually there is not seller that has this card...usually it is found on ebay
I've found only one seller that has gtx 260m for G50/51/M50 laptop...
but it's too expensive and I'm not sure of his reliability..
link : Wholesale Asus G60VX G60 M50V G50V GTX 260M 1Gb DDR3 MXM VGA card

 

I ended up getting an entire as-is G51vx with a faulty LCD screen and keyboard. The external video out was advertised as working, which meant the GPU was functional. Came with heatsinks and everything. Afterwards I sold it for $50 less than I bought it for, minus a hard drive and with G50vt heatsinks. It was a little more expensive but definitely easier than trying to find just the 260m card by itself. Plus, I got a fan upgrade. I wouldnt pay more than $225 for the 260m, nor more than $300 for an as-is laptop with a functional video card.

 

Do you know what models of Asus typically have the 260GTXm?
Might make my search on Ebay a little easier.

thanks again!

 

G51vx/G60vx have 260m cards that fit in the G50vt. A card from a G71 will NOT work!

 

Hi, i've been looking at this thread for a while now and i would like to know if this card would fit in the asus G50vt-X1 model from best buy, since it's from a g60vx and is it a good price?

Asus G60VX-RBBX05 video card | eBay

 

yes, this card fit in g50 laptop...
this is very strange because the price is very low!!!!!
if this card really work, this is a true bargain!!!!

 

Yeah it should fit and that's an amazing price. If you can confirm it's in working condition definitely get it, or someone else will.

 

Hi!
I installed GTX 260m in my Asus M50Vn(very similar to G50) but when I press power button my laptop NOT START! It show for 1second power led but not start anything...and I must to put off battery and power cable to try start again...

My configurations :

1) cpu T9550 - vga 9650m GT : ok
2) cpu T9550 - vga 9700m GT : ok (but modded bios by adding 9700m vbios and fan always @100%)
3) cpu T9550 - vga 9800m GS : ok (original bios, pwm fan ok)
4) cpu X9100 - vga 9800m GS : ok
5) cpu X9100 - vga GTX 260m : pc not boot!

now I'm in 4)......

the card would be perfectly working, anyone can help me? I'm very sad!
sorry for my imperfect english...
Francesco

 

have you tried to boot without any cards inside at all? mine would at least show a gray screen and stay powered on, although it wont even boot into bios or anything.
another thing you may want to try is try to flash the G50 bios into your m50, and see what happens.

 

Without any card screen show gray but system IS ON! ok....
but if I mount 260m system not start......only for 1 sec. and then all put off..(symilar protection status and for another attemp I must to put off power cable and/or put off battery).
To flash with G50 bios I think thath it's a suicide :S ...I'm afraid :S

...wath I can doooooo?!?!?!?!
..please...:'(

 

Are you sure your power supply can handle a 260m? Maybe it's drawing too much power on startup? I'm not sure. But if you have a 90W adapter maybe try a 120W adapter instead?

 

I've a 90W powr supply...
mmmmmm.....
Can I try with a 120W?...and battery? what will appen?