Asus G50 - 260M Swap Procedure

dmartineze,

That was my exact issue with the 260m. I had issues with the all the recent laptops2go.com modified drivers. I ended up going way back to 2010 with Dox's last release before he stopped making them. After cleaning the old official NVIDIA drivers from the machine in safe mode I was able to get it stable with Dox's driver. I'm not happy that it's so old, but it works so that's better than nothing. Let me know if it fixes your issue too.

You can download the drivers here:

Forceware 195.62 - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

 

Thank you for your quick response, I'm on the process of removing the drivers and I will install the one that you suggested, Hopefully, I will be able to provide a feedback very soon

 

If that doesn't work I have self-modded .inf files that I used to force the current nvidia drivers to work with my G50's device subsystem ID. None of the laptopvideo2go drivers were both stable and compatible with my machine.

 

I would love them if you don't mind sharing, or possibly a quick (if possible) explanation on how to modify them myself.

 

I can confirm that the DOX Forceware 195.62 works fine.

NOTE: WIth this drivers my computer was able to finish the process of update the score on the Windows Experience Index, if I do this with the laptopvideo2go my computer crashed all the time.

I still need to test with the games... but so far, it seems ok

EDIT; tested Crysis (Benchmark_GPU), it ran fine (I'm about to cry), ~30 FPS, High Settings and the GPU temp was around 85c. -- Note: before it always crashed

(

Would you mind sharing how we can do this?

 

I did it, I was able to install the NVIDIA driver on my computer.

Here is how I did the trick.

WARNING: I'm not an expert or claim to be, I did this by following a hunch and there is a high change that I did not correctly. So far my computer is working fine(it hasn't crash). It would be highly advisable that you consult with someone has more experience.

Steps...

The reason that you are unable to install the driver, it's because this line does not exist on the NVIDIA driver's INF files

PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_19A21043

Device Manager > Display Adapters > [NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 OR Standard Video Adaper]* > Details > Handware Ids

Which happen to be the Hardware ID of the video card. I decided to check each on the INF files and see if I get a match.

First, I checked for entire (well.. almost) string, there was no match

Code:

PS C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\285.62\WinVista_Win7_64\International\Display.Driver> grep -i "VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_19A21043" *

Then, I checked for "19A21043", I found several matches, and it seems that it belongs to "NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GT", but we don't have that card...

Code:

PS C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\285.62\WinVista_Win7_64\International\Display.Driver> grep -i "19A21043" *
ListDevices.txt:	DEV_064A&SUBSYS_19A21043 "NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GT"
nvam.inf:%NVIDIA_DEV.0618.05% = Section017, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_19A21043
nvam.inf:%NVIDIA_DEV.064A.01% = Section015, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_064A&SUBSYS_19A21043
nvam.inf:%NVIDIA_DEV.0618.05% = Section018, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_19A21043
nvam.inf:%NVIDIA_DEV.064A.01% = Section016, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_064A&SUBSYS_19A21043 

So, I decided to look for "260M" and I found several matches, but sadly none of those seems similar to the one that my computer reports .

Code:

PS C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\285.62\WinVista_Win7_64\International\Display.Driver> grep -i "260M" *
ListDevices.txt:	DEV_0618&SUBSYS_028E1025 "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M"
ListDevices.txt:	DEV_0618&SUBSYS_1A521043 "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M"
ListDevices.txt:	DEV_0618&SUBSYS_20281043 "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M "
ListDevices.txt:	DEV_0618&SUBSYS_202B1043 "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M  "
ListDevices.txt:	DEV_0618&SUBSYS_20331043 "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M   "
ListDevices.txt:	DEV_0618&SUBSYS_04811558 "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M"
ListDevices.txt:	DEV_0618&SUBSYS_08601558 "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M  "
ListDevices.txt:	DEV_0618&SUBSYS_09021558 "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M   "
...
...

I decided to a little test and modified nvam.inf and then ran the driver instatation to see if the my card was detected a compatible card.

Here are the changes.

Code:

FILE:  nvam.inf

[NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.0]
...
%NVIDIA_DEV.0618.04% = Section017, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_20331043
%NVIDIA_DEV.0618.05% = Section017, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_19A21043    <<< ADDED THIS LINE  
%NVIDIA_DEV.0628.01% = Section015, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0628&SUBSYS_19E21043
...

[NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.0]
...
%NVIDIA_DEV.0618.04% = Section018, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_20331043
%NVIDIA_DEV.0618.05% = Section018, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_19A21043    <<< ADDED THIS LINE  
%NVIDIA_DEV.0628.01% = Section016, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0628&SUBSYS_19E21043
...

[Strings]
...
NVIDIA_DEV.0618.04 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M   "
NVIDIA_DEV.0618.05 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M    "     <<< ADDED THIS LINE   
NVIDIA_DEV.0628.01 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS"
...

And for those who understand diff...

Code:

PS C:\> .\Windows\Linux\diff.exe -crB nvam.inf  nvam_mod.inf
***
nvam.inf	Sat Oct 15 02:53:00 2011
---
nvam_mod.inf	Mon Dec 05 04:19:04 2011
***************
*** 437,442 ****
--- 437,443 ----
  %NVIDIA_DEV.0618.02% = Section013, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_20281043
  %NVIDIA_DEV.0618.03% = Section013, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_202B1043
  %NVIDIA_DEV.0618.04% = Section017, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_20331043
+ %NVIDIA_DEV.0618.05% = Section017, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_19A21043
  %NVIDIA_DEV.0628.01% = Section015, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0628&SUBSYS_19E21043
  %NVIDIA_DEV.0628.02% = Section015, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0628&SUBSYS_20041043
  %NVIDIA_DEV.0628.03% = Section013, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0628&SUBSYS_20121043
***************
*** 619,624 ****
--- 620,626 ----
  %NVIDIA_DEV.0618.02% = Section014, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_20281043
  %NVIDIA_DEV.0618.03% = Section014, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_202B1043
  %NVIDIA_DEV.0618.04% = Section018, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_20331043
+ %NVIDIA_DEV.0618.05% = Section018, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_19A21043
  %NVIDIA_DEV.0628.01% = Section016, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0628&SUBSYS_19E21043
  %NVIDIA_DEV.0628.02% = Section016, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0628&SUBSYS_20041043
  %NVIDIA_DEV.0628.03% = Section014, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0628&SUBSYS_20121043
***************
*** 7148,7153 ****
--- 7150,7156 ----
  NVIDIA_DEV.0618.02 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M "
  NVIDIA_DEV.0618.03 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M  "
  NVIDIA_DEV.0618.04 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M   "
+ NVIDIA_DEV.0618.05 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M    "
  NVIDIA_DEV.0628.01 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS"
  NVIDIA_DEV.0628.02 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS "
  NVIDIA_DEV.0628.03 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS  "

And then run the driver setup

Let me know if it works for you

 

Oh hey, that's very similar to what I did, except I found one of the GTX 260M entries and deleted the subsystem ID. So basically, I went through for example and changed

Code:

%NVIDIA_DEV.0618.04% = Section018, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_20331043

to

Code:

%NVIDIA_DEV.0618.04% = Section018, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618

This forces the driver to install on any system with a 260m, regardless of the manufacturer. Only edit one entry type consistently however. In my example above I only modified lines that started with %NVIDIA_DEV.0618.04%

 

Thank you both so much for the details. Everything seems to run great so far except my idle for the 260m is about 49-50 which seems a bit high. It's low 90s in games. From reading the rest of the thread it seems that's relatively normal. I haven't put the G60 fan in yet.. it's shipping from China so I'll be lucky if I have it by January.. but it might help. I never would have had a chance of doing this without this thread so thanks again everyone.

 

I have around the same. Could someone confirm what you should be the recommended temps when the card is idle and doing something?

BTW. Could someone link the G60 fan?, perhaps I need to buy that too...

 

I'd really not like to sift through a ton of forum posts, if anybody could please give me either the part number or an ebay item number or link to a G60 fan that fits without modification fan in a G50VT I would be in your debt. Thanks.

 

According to ebay is this one Asus G60V Laptop Heatsink & Cooling Fan 13N0-BBA0101 | eBay But something that I don't understand, it's mine look exactly the same. (which is the one that came with the laptop when I purchased)

I you check the Asus G50 NVIDIA 260M Swap Procedure, you should noticed that video card heatsink are not the same.

The funny thing is that several months ago, I purchased a heatsink replacement for my ASUS (from ASUS Store) because the fan was not working properly. When I got the part, the video card that they send me it was the one that appears "Asus G50 NVIDIA 260M Swap Procedure". I did not put to much attention and I decided to keep using the one that my my video card had installed -- there is no moving parts so why change it -- I just replaced the fan

 

I know where the loss of fan control and hdmi comes from. It's a bios issue. I tried splicing different parts of the g60 bios to my g50, but ended up bricking it the 5th time and I had to buy another motherboard. If I could find the tools to properly look at the bios modules, I may be able to make all our lives easier

 

eBay - Forcecon fan

This is supposed to be a significantly better fan that fits in the G50VT. It ships from China so it will be almost a month before it gets to you (if in the USA) so I haven't had a chance to confirm that it work but I'm really looking forward to it.

The fans from the G50 and G60 look the same, but the G60 pulls more air because of the fin design I believe.

 

Unfortunately, I not an expert on modding the BIOS, therefore I cannot tell what tools would be good or not.

But I would like to ask you something, Could you confirm how you find our that the problem with the HDMI and fan control is related to the BIOS?

Please let me know as soon as you have the change to test the fan, I would like to know if there any improvement.

 

Got the fan in the mail today and swapped it out. Definitely an improvement, but I'm still hitting 100C during stress tests. The fan seems to have dropped temps about 5C overall. I'm trying copper blocks next to see how much they help.

 

So you can feel the Forecon fan blowing more air? It is definitely more powerful than the stock G50VT fan?

Is it louder? If so, how much louder?

It dropped right in? All three screw holes lined up perfectly?

Thanks for the info, I'm really interested in upgrading my fan.

 

I drilled holes in the fake vent/subwoofer under the laptop. Also, cleaning the heatsink fan of dust will dramatically drop your temps. I rarely hit over 90 nowadays. Also, I've repasted using MX-2

About the bios, you can tell using nvflash and device manager. Everytime you go to flash the bios, it gives you the reading of the 9700m gt that is onboard the regular G50V. It appears asus didn't build compatibility for the 260m into the G50v/vt bios. If there was a way to do it....

 

I know it's a late answer BUT: I had the same issue after my 9800GS`s chip lost contact with the PCB (needs reballing which is expensive that's what I've been told at the service)

the MPN of my 9800GS : NSZVG1000-A03
I found another card from a G50Vt-X1( same as mine) but had a different
MPN : 69N0BBV10b01-01 and the symptoms were the EXACT same.(lighted up 1 second then shut down whereas with my card it would light up all the leds but show nothing on screen same as it did with NO card at all)

So in 22 pages I havent seen anyone tackle this problem:
is ANY 260m compatible(of course reverse MXM from the laptops you already mentioned G51/60 which would physically allow it) with ANY G50V/Vt ? regardless of MPN or stuff like that? because to me it seemed that I could only use the same graphics card.

It would nice if the guys that managed the swap post their MPN of the 9800GS and that of the 260.

 

9800m GS: NSZVG1000-A03
260m: 60-NV3VG1000-D01

 

this problem is because vga was damaged..I found another gtx 260m and now everything is ok

 

that's a bit odd... so nobody had problems with the different versions of cards ? (meaning any version of 9800GS or 260m should fit in a G50 if the MXM was compatible and enough physical space)

 

the 9800m and the 260m have a little board in excess but it's normal...you must to cut the plastic board in your laptop case to fit this card... if u want I can send you photos of my job

 

well mrzenith that's what I am trying to find out: if the card was really broken or for some reason it was not compatible BIOS wise.

You see I had a broken card (the original 9800GS and with it the laptop would start whereas the other 9800 GS would make the laptop shut itself down after 1 sec and the guy insisted on giving it a try as he knew it was working a few months ago when he took it off the laptop) We also met face 2 face so I doubt he was trying a scam.

Of course its just 2 cases but I'm really curious how you found out that that 260m was in fact broken.

 

mmmmmmmm.........
Deceiving I think that the card is broken, sorry....in every case, also if vga is unsupported by the bios, the laptop would to start on!!!...also if u can't see anything! but os need to start! check another vga (I know, all that is more expensive...)

 

Hello people. I'd like if someone could help me out. Here's the situation. I have a Asus M50VN-AS134C laptop with C2D P8400 and 9650M GT GPU. As I would like to get some more oomph out of it, I found this topic and thought that is it possible to swap a GTX260M from a G5*/G60 lappy? I have read the topic through and came up with the result that it should not be a problem? Am I right? And also, does these things support quad cores?

Best regards
sankailija

 

If you mean changing the video card in your M50, forget it, it is soldered to the motherboard.

 

Yes, you can
and at this time I'm selling my laptop in parts.....if u neeed anything...

did you read my signature?

 

No, sorry...but X9100(extreme unlck. multiplier) dual is better in most cases because high freq.

 

Yes, I red your signature I am interested about your GTX 260 and C2D extreme. Let's have a negotiation about those bit later. And I live in Finland but that should not be a problem as UPS will deliver them here.

I also forgot to ask previously, has anyone solved the fan and/or HDMI audio problem?

 

Haha. Fail! Oh well, that's what you get for assuming the M50V was built like the N50V. Very impressed that the video card isn't soldered though.

 

in N50 is soldered in mobo?

 

I'm from Italy...
about hdmi audio I don't know...I haven't a full hd TV

 

Sorry, I did not know that. So you don't know about the audio but do you have the problem with fan running at full speed, and it's not controllable. I will send you PM some day this week to talk about the GPU and CPU.

 

with this card my fan is perfectly working on pwm mode

 

mrzenith, I added you to my contacts in MSN so we can talk about those parts.

 

ok, laterjames or joonas?

 

Joonas, thats my first name

 

Is it possible to put a GTX 560m instead of gtx 260 in my g50v ?

 

hello everyone. I have an upgraded g50vt (cpu, ssd) that's had its 9800m gs overclocked its whole life. I recently have moved to a new place have been gaming like usual but have had temps up at 100-101 instead of 95-96 as before. I fear I may have damaged my card, the ram specifically. It is now very unstable, seems to run okay in safe mode, but will either bsod or restart driver in any other graphical mode. I suspect it isnt ddriver related since I've had it crash in linux as well. Sometimes crashing before windows is fully loaded with graphical artifacts appearing right before. If the machine is completely cooled I can boot up and run a game for maybe 10 sec before crash of some sort. If I get bsod, some nv driver(kernel??? ) is always cited.

So. I have 2 questions:
1) is my diagnoses correct in assuming that the card is damaged?? the core seems fine but a section of vram has gone bad.

2) anyone have a swapped out and working 9800m gs they want to sell???

thanks

 

little further info:
core temp can be low as 50c when crash occurs, but if I touch the copper cooling pipes on the card immediately after they are VERY hot. Much hotter than the cpu ones.
I ran this vram testing program called. memtestg80 and had 500,000 errors in just 3 runs of 128mb.

BUT the laptop does have times when its stable if gpu is not 'pushed' and clockrates are set below reference.

 

look at the link in my sig to see if you can do anything i have done to my g51j. I am pretty sure they are the same chassis. There are several easy ways to get those temps to drop 20-40C

PM: if you respond. I wont be looking at this again.

 

Ok, sorry for spamming this thread.

I looked around for a 260m or 9800m but cant find any that will fit in my g50vt. I am now considering a 360m. It looks like this will fit, but maybe somebody has more insight?

more specifically a 360m from a G60J

 

as far as i know the asus laptops used reversed mxm boards up til the 260/360 and the 260 is faster from what i have heard but uses more power so more heat. I think those cards will work but i am not sure if the vBIOS will work. I know the 260m in the g51j has no vBIOS flash so it is embedded into the BIOS so i dont know if you can just switch them like that since everything is in the BIOS. I would try to find someone with more info on this. I know very little about vBIOS/BIOS...i tend to not read up on those topics unless i have to

 

alright. So 360m could be a bit tricky since less peopls have done and will probably rrequire chasis modifications.
There are a few places that sell 260m at rip off prices, which I may have to deal with.
so heres another question :
the part number 60NV3VG1000D01 refers strickly to the 260m for 15"ers? I don't want to order one and be stuck with the 17" model.

 

not a clue...if its a ripe off price dont bother...new intel HD 4000 is nearly as fast as our gpus lol. so you might just want to buy a new laptop. You can get a meh laptop for 400 bucks...only problem is you get crappy res screen. If you end up getting a new laptop sell yours for parts on ebay. I'll buy your cooling assembly off you....if yours is the 720qm one..forgot if you said what model laptop you have

 

I ended up buying an as-is G51 and taking out its GPU and fans (the 17 blade one), then reselling the rest of it for a little less. Cost about $50 perhaps all total, well worth it. Maybe you can try something similar?

The 360m runs much cooler and is a bit slower, but I don't think anyone here has actually done that swap before.

 

i ahven't even seen any lol

looked through this whole thing
g51 | eBay

and this
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=g51j&_sacat=0&_odkw=g51&_osacat=0

everyone is trying to get 500-1300 bucks for a laptop that is not worth more than 400 lol

you would figure you would be able to find a cooling assembly but i guess i am wrong lol

 

1 question before everything, is the G50V using MXMIII structure (ASUS version of course)? If yes then it might be possible, first thing to do is you will have to insert a GTX 560M's vbios extracted from a G53SX into the G50V BIOS using MMTool, and 2nd thing to do is you need to find an ASUS GTX 560M pulled from a G53SX, other subvendors won't work. There's a problem with this method tho, fan usually goes on full blast as the EC can't recongnize the temp reported by the unsupported cards. Please take note that the 192bit version of the GTX 560M 3GB is soldered onto G74SX's motherboard, so your best bet here is to find a GTX 560M 128bit 2GB pulled from a G53SX.

 

asus used reversed boards in the 260m so nothing will fit above a 260m or 360m so the 560 will not work. Asus finally went away from their proprietary boards after the 360m

 

So the best bet for the G50v users stops at 360M I guess