G50v-x1 GPU change out?

1080P is nice but you end up having to lower the resolution to either increase performance or even lower heat on games that can handle it but drive the 260M through the roof.

 

It already is driven through the roof lmao

 

Got my motherboard from the mail today, still waiting on my GPU and CPU heatsink/fan.

When I aquire all my parts, what is my biggest concern once I put everything in? Once I first start up my computer...

 

Some pictures

 

This is in reply to your PM as well as the thread.

Since your using a G51 motherboard everything should just work, assuming all things well. You can set up everything outside of the case but you will need one part from the G50 that pretty much means your taking it apart anyways, that would be the power switch which is a part of the upper case assembly.

If you feel uneasy you can use the old processor and if you have more ram that as well. The only two questions and i just realized its two is of course the monitor and keyboard working with the G51. I just remembered the G51's backlit keyboard had an extra cable, but i think in the end we found out the keyboard connector itself was compatible? Its been a long time.

I have to stop and rethink one other thing now, hate to throw this one at you, its about the top panel of the case... its different on the G51, just hoping the connector for the power and hotkeys hasnt changed. The good news either way is you CAN swap the top panel of the case for the G51 one and gain the ability to get the backlit keyboard. The bad news on that would be losing the OLED display completely instead of just having to mod it to work. This isnt a concern if the damn power button cable works fine, just crossed my mind now.

Thanks for being the G51 hybrid guinea pig.... not that were gonna do this twice lol.

Anyways yeah if u want you can take the screen off the G50 and take the top panel off and do a setup without further taking the G50 apart. You might need the optical drive in addition to the rest of the vitals you would need to run the pc. I was recently informed the G50 did actually fail to boot without an ODD but not sure if they issue is with the G51 or not, oh well 2 screws and u have ur drive lol.

OS WISE
The northbridge is the same on these boards so windows should boot just fine. Another thing that comes to mind, ur starting to hate me arent u lol. Is that the oem copy of windows that came with your G50 works of the SLIC in the bios, if its no good for this copy of windows it will want to activate...... It is possible to do an SLIC transplant in this case.

 

What if I don't use the g51 mobo?

 

Then you will need to talk to dtdood about that or find the thread on his swap. If the board works id probably use it assuming everything except the oled display works. I did a lookup it seems the SLIC table used on the G51 that came with 7 should be fine with Vista, not 100% though. Still only 90% sure I can make the oled work on the G51 board using usb. Have yet to look into it.

See in front of the card reader? There are 4 solder points on one side of the board and nothing on the backside. I believe it might be the internal usb port everyone talked about. I just havent tested it yet.

 

Hmm okay. Only reason I'm wondering is because you never know if the mobo is bad. He said it wasn't but...Still. When you look at the mobo picture, everything is there that is suppose to be....correct?

I'm just extremely concerned, this is my only computer, and if I can't get it to turn on after the swap, how can I contact this site to help haha!

 

Looks good, coulda swore the 51 didnt have the tuner port, but then again i recently found out there were definitly 2 different motherboards one that supports quads and one doesnt its not the bios.

Plastic baggies btw and I know this is how they sent it to you, not so good. They build up static very well. Not that I havent kept stuff in them and had them survive just saying.

The main advantage to the G51 board assuming your never gonna put a quad in it or its the version that doesnt support the quad. Is the native support for the GTX 260M as well as automatic fan control. Of course the disadvantage is if u wanna use SetFSB for overclocking the free one doesnt have the 51's PLL. You have the unocked chip sorta doesnt matter.

 

So as you are saying g51 board is just better in general to use. Also if it's core compatible, I don't care at this time haha. my CPU is excellent. SO MUCH BETTER than before. It's ridiculous I can't believe it!

As far as the disadvantages go, SetFSB, I don't think I've messed with it before. Only thing I've done is change the multiplyer on the throttlestop and thats it. If I can't OC, 3.06GHz runs my game no different than 3.6GHz.. At least I can't see the difference, I'm pretty sure my GPU is one hell of a bottleneck at this time.. Right? haha.! Thanks

 

You will still be able to use throttle stop. But yeah at this point with the ability to overclock is not your problem. The GPU is the main bottleneck on this dual core party wagon.

If the board works I would use it, I will investigate whether or not that one spot is a usb port later. I will also investigate wiring the oled straight to a usb port and see if it works.

EDIT - Fixed overclock sentence mistake.

 

Hey figured I'd reply here... As far as the mobo goes I really don't know if the screen connector will fit. I actually wouldn't recommend it but here's to audacity! I am assuming you have the following, correct me if I'm wrong:
-G51 mobo
-GTX260m
-Full G50v

Here's what you'll need to do:
1) See if you can match the screen connections (including backlight) to the G51 board. If this works then you can skip to step 3. Otherwise go to step 2

2) Remove the heatsink from the G51 board and attach it to the G50v board. You will have to use the G50v board unfortunately.

3) Disconnect anything you tested and install the board as you normally would. Ressemble the computer with care, applying paste when/where necessary.

4) Install the 260m and finish assembly.

5) Cross your fingers and apply power. Boot the computer from the hard drive. It may or may not find compatible drivers for the 260m but the motherboard should work fine. Restart to install any new drivers it may have installed.

6) Find video drivers from LaptopVideo2Go or elsewhere. If you are using the G50v board you may have trouble installing drivers. If nothing verifies as compatible then we will have to do some advanced tweaking for the drivers.

That's it. It's really a tedious process taking apart the laptop. I strongly suggest taking pictures or something along the way in case you forget where a part goes or what is connected where because it will happen. I forgot to reattach my touchpad once. Reassemble and disassemble with care as some components are not meant to withstand constant reassembly.

 

1. So all in all... in a perfect world Swap the g51 GPU backplate, put the 260m on, and the computer runs fine right? Perfect world... lol

2. Also.. If I put this in, and turn on and nothing happens, then what?

3. If I boot up, and drivers aren't compatible (step 5) Will it still turn on and be able to access this site?

Also... For the drivers, Do I look now for those, or after the 260m?

Note I don't have a copy of win7, I'm running vista

 

1. Yes

2. Redo what you did. Then if it still doesn't boot, undo it. If it boots, redo it again carefully. If it doesn't boot then, you did something really really bad.

3. The drivers won't be compatible and you'll have a generic VGA adapter (CPU-drawn) GUI until you install graphics drivers. If we were talking XP you might have some other problems.

Install drivers afterwards.

 

Thank you.. I am probably going to try this tonight. I have one other quick question..

I have the g50vt backplate, g51 GPU cooling heatsinks, and a g60 CPU cooling heatsink/fan. This should all just replace all my G50v Cooling...Correct?

 

Yes .

 

!!!!!!!!!! I was really hoping good on this, yet it seems to never come.

I installed everything accordingly, when I initially start up, all my lights come work on my OLED and keyboard area, you can hear the dvd drive and the high speed fan However, I have a complete black screen, I waited a couple minutes and rebooted it, same exact thing... I'm going to be so upset if the GPU is not working

Could it be a faulty GPU?

 

It might be, or it could be the G50v is not equipped for the 260m... I'm not sure.

 

Its pretty much time to try the G51 board out. Only other thing you can do is try and find someone who has a machine to test the card on but I would personally start trying the G51 board.

 

I suppose I'll start tearing it apart again and try to stick the g51 mobo in.. This involves a lot more work though.. Sigh

is there a thread on how to disassemble the mobo? The disassembly guide for the g50 doesn't show it.

Edit.. i just called my friends step dad and he said that the computer techs claimed the screen never worked on the old g60 they got the card from and they said it was a bad power supply, however they never tested the card to see if it worked... Does a bad gpu really cause the screen to not work at all?

 

Yes, it would do that. I tried an as-is GPU in my laptop in an attempt to do a 260m swap and it wouldn't POST. No backlight, no screen at all.

 

So what should I do with this GPU, try re-selling it on ebay? haha.

 

You could, yeah. Even as-is GPUs fetch like $50+ quite frequently.

 

Why? Why would anyone buy an as-is item, even though it does not work?

 

Because often GPUs can be reflowed in the oven and will re-sell for much more. And often as-is items work just fine.

 

Please, go on. I have no other hope besides to throw money at another GPU.

 

Lol you use a heat gun or an oven to get the solder hot enough to just melt and repair itself. Works if its the problem sometimes. Oven technique is bad because things like the capacitors dont take that kind of heat well. If thats what killed that card it will happen again i told u they get solder melting hot lol.

 

A chance I'm willing to take I suppose. Like I said, nothing is left except buying another card, right?

Also, I have yet to try the g51 mobo, however is it really worth the hastle after the information I have gained today from my friends step dad? Essentially, the card could have been bad for the get go.

 

While it sounds like the card there is still that big unknown with the g50v board. I would try it and I recently had the board out of myne. There are a couple of unknowns with that as well but i dont consider it hard just time consuming. Take the screen off as per the guide. Keyboard drives and cooler. remove the remaining screws and seperate the top and bottom cover a couple more screws in the mobo and its out.

 

I really don't know what to say here... it's either the card is incompatible with the G50v or the GPU is dead. Changing mobos won't do anything but let you check an external monitor to see if it works, unless the backlight connections for CCFL and LED are the same. The G51 is an LED backlit notebook and the G50v/vt are CCFL backlit notebooks.

 

Usually, to reflow a card, people use the oven. Solder melts at 190 or so, but paper doesn't burn until 300-ish. So remove all the plastic from the card and prop it up with tinfoil or something ... google "oven solder reflow" and you should get some tips.

 

Heh if they used solder with a melting point near 190 theyre gonna have an issue like they are gonna have another 8000 series on their hands. With core temps exceeding 212 its imaginable. Yeah its hard to say what they used i have seen solder for pc applications up to 260 but thats a bit steep. I should have said the oven method does give you greater temp control the heat gun can easily get it too hot and straight melt all the solder into a pool.

 

Hmm, torn between sides here I guess. I might as well try the g51 board, even though I won't have the OLED display? Not that important to me anyway TBH. I just want to know if my computer is compatible with the 260m.

 

I don't think you have understood me the last few times I've been trying to say this.

Differences between the G51 board and G50v board:
-No OLED connection (perhaps you can solder one on)
-9800m/260m heatsink
-NO BACKLIGHT CONNECTION FOR A CCFL BACKLIT SCREEN! unless the CCFL inverter and LED backlight connections are the same. I really really don't think they are.

 

As far as the inverter power connection versus whatever the led display uses. NORMALLY i believe the power board is responsible for this connection BUT on the G5x series the motherboard carries this duty and if it had to change there is little we can do about it. I dont see any reason why the LED panel couldnt be powered off the save DC line the inverter took in. But companies do that crap....

You will know pretty soon after taking this thing apart. I would just do it you wanted to in the first place. Go big or go home. Oh and dont forget i objected to this entire project from the start lol.

EDIT

Looking at the G50, DTDOOD is the power connector for the inverter on the right side hinge and the screen connector is on the left? If so the right side is not part of the mobo it does connect to it! So the G51 board might still accept this board and connector and match up.

 

Hmm I'm looking back on my pictures and it appears you might be right. I didn't know there was an external board for the G51, but if it exists then Eric will probably be able to do the swap.

This raises the more interesting question of retrofitting a G50v/G50vt with an LED backlit screen. I smell a new project approaching.

 

Yeah lol if you get the G51's board from the right corner you might be able to do an led screen swap. We will probably know for sure as soon as he double checks that this plugs into the G51 board just fine it should work vice versa.

If you need any of the shots I have let me know. The one for myne says G50V-1A on it btw.

 

Oh you two!! I'll try it this week hopefully lol. Than I can solve the mystery!

I got some pictures for anyone else looking to do this ...

 

10character

 

Sorry lol Thanks for trying

 

The GTX 260M is ridiculously hot. I bought a newegg special about 14 months ago where it was a G51vx-x3 (P8700 + GTX 260m) for $1100.. I bought the Rosewill RNC-700 cooler and that thing still overheated. I sent that unit back to Asus, they paid for shipping bothways, and they sent me back G51JX-X5 (720qm + gts 360m + 6 gig ddr3 1333). I also bought the G50V-X1 back in late August 2008 for freakin' $1400. What a waste, cuz I don't even use it anymore other than my sister using it for WOW.. I have to agree with most and say that as crappy as the 9700M GT is, I would look for a 9800M GT or GTS if compatible, because the 260M is a let down.

Dude, how did you manage to swap a X9100 in and P8400 out? Incredible.. How does the X9100 compare to a 720qm?

 

At 3.5GHz my E8335 (T9800) runs circles around a stock i7-720QM in single threaded performance and most games. For heavily threaded applications or multithreaded-cpu-intensive games like GTA4 the 720QM tends to be a bit faster.

 

I am trying to figure out what the incredible part is. You take offf the bottom panel. 6 screws and the cooler is off. Change cpu and youre done. Its a compatible cpu.

 

Same. It's like plugging in a cell phone. I mean, congrats if you have no hands, but otherwise ... *shrugs*

 

Is it really that simple? I have a G50V-X1 as well and if the X9100 is less than $200 I might be willing to do the same swap. Is there any bios adjustments?

 

It's usually just a little more than $200... about $250 for an E0 stepping.

But yes, if you have a screwdriver and a hand, you can change the CPU. No BIOS adjustments required.