Exostenza's guide to Flashing the 9800m GS to GTS and whole bunch of tips, tricks, suggestions and programs for your over clocking desires!
Whats going on here:
There has been a lengthy discussion on over clocking the 9800m GS card to the same speed as the 9800m GTS and I decided to compile some information for you guys so you don't have to go through 25+ pages of discussion. The 9800m GS is actually the old 9800m GTS as nVidia changed the schematics of the GTS to a 55nm process with 1GB of RAM and started to sell the old 65nm GTS with 512mb of RAM as the 9800m GS and because of this they were able to let the cards that would have normally not passed the GTS standard test go into laptops with a lower voltage and clock speeds. This means that for some of us the flash will work flawlessly as the card were manufactured to handle it and it will not work for some as they have not had to pass the same standards as they would have it it was going to be a GTS card. With that said the flash has done WONDERS for me and flashing my card has given me about 10-15 percent better frame rates in the games I play and I play a lot of games. With that said here is what I can tell you:
OLD AND NEW BIOS FOR THE 9800m GS TO 9800m GTS FLASH FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS IT:
Please remember if you think you are not capable of getting your bios and modding it on your own you probably shouldn't be downloading this and attempting a flash. I am providing this for archive purposes if anyone loses or corrupts a bios and needs it fresh. I retrieved this BIOS from my card and edited myself so it is 100 percent tested and working on my laptop.
http://files.filefront.com/13383060
I am providing an OVERVIEW of what I did - for the DEFINITIVE guide on how to flash your nVida bios which goes into MUCH greater detail on the subject of flashing the bios go here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=160237
Here is what I did and a few tips for the G50Vt-A1 Laptop and it worked for me, please read the above guide to thoroughly know how to flash your bios:
-make a bootable USB key (there are a bunch of programs to do this with I used one from HP) and put nvflash and both rom files on the root folder of the USB key
-you can retrieve your original bios from your card with nvflash and edit it with nibitor if you want or use the ones I provided
-make sure you have 182.05 DOX edition drivers CLEAN installed as they give the best OC stability and game performance reported
-to clean install a driver you uninstall the driver, reboot in safe mode and use driver sweeper, reboot again install the driver then reboot again
-boot up from the USB key and flash the new bios onto your 9800m gs
-run 3dmark maxed out a couple times through to test stability
-my card gets to 94C on maxed out 3dmark05 and 91C maxed out on 3dmark06, but I usually don't exceed 88C in a game; before the flashed I got the SAME temps so nothing to worry about (you can monitor your temps with GPUZ)
-if everything runs smoothly with no artifacts / crashing you are fine and happy gaming, if not reboot and flash the old bios rom back onto your card
-you CANNOT test this OC with software programs as the VOLTAGE is changed on the card to support the over clock
-remember this VOIDS your warranty if you cannot get the old bios back on before you send your laptop in for repairs in case anything goes wrong
-this flash has worked flawlessly for some of us and has not worked for others, but no one has killed their computer doing it so it should be a relatively safe processes
-from what I have read people with the G50Vt-A1/2 laptops have had better results than with the other model numbers as I think the quality of the parts are not as good in the G50Vt-X series
Programs to use:
DOX 182.05:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=23114
Driver Sweeper:
http://phyxion.net/Driver-Sweeper/View-category
GPUZ:
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1333/TechPowerUp_GPU-Z_v0.3.2.html
Hardware monitor:
http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php
3Dmark programs:
www.futuremark.com
HP Boot Utility:
http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197
NiBiToR:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Video-Tweak/NVIDIA-BIOS-Editor.shtml
nvflash:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Video-Tweak/nVFlash.shtml
If this helps you please give me some rep!
Updates
DOX Drivers:
If you are going to use DOX drivers and have a previous version on non-DOX drivers on your computer you WILL NOT GAIN the performance increase if you do not install it correctly using driver sweeper in safe mode after uninstalling the previous set then restarting and installing them. Many people do not do this and then complain that DOX doesn't give them better performance. The DOX drivers once installed correctly improve laptop gpu stability, performance and have many tweaks and bug fixes that the official drivers do not have; the 182.05 set also allow for better over clocking when compared against most other drivers which has been confirmed time and time again. The DOX drivers also raise your GPU max temperature as they are based on desktop drivers and if this is an issue for you do not use them. For reference purposes with the 182.05 DOX drivers I can get up to 93C in an intense gaming session and I am not worries; for the most part though I am around 78C in source games and can get to 88C in Unreal 3 engine games and rarely see anything over 88C unless I am specifically trying to stress my GPU.
Correct way to install DOX drivers (I talked to DOX myself):
If you have a previous version of nVidia drivers on your computer that are NOT DOX drivers follow this:
Uninstall your existing nVidia drivers and restart at the prompt -> go into safe mode and run driver sweeper to get rid of all the nVidia files that get left behind -> restart into Windows again and install the DOX drivers -> restart once more and you are good to go (note that physx is not inclused with the DOX drivers so you have to get them on your own and they are defaulted to Disbaled with the DOX drivers so if you want to use physx Enable them yourself).
If you have a previous version of DOX drivers on your computer and have installed the original DOX set with the above mentioned way or you have installed them with a fresh install of Windows all you have to do is uninstall the drivers like normal, restart and install the new ones; no driver sweeper required.
Testing your over clock and/or new driver set performance:
Very important to note if you are benchmarking with the 3dmark programs if you gain or lose a few points from driver to driver it has no actual bearing on your real game performance. I have had drivers where I lose over 200 points in 3dmark06 and see more stable average frame rates in the actual games I play. If you want to see what an over clock and/or a set of drivers actually does for you run in game benchmarks or do a controlled walk through where the same thing happens every time you play it in a game you play a lot. That will show you your actual performance gains and losses the 3dmark programs are made so you are able to reliably base your computer against another computer and has taken over to show specific gains or losses in gpu performance from over clocks and driver sets when it really should not be used.
Unreal Tournament 3, Company of Heroes, Half life 2, F.E.A.R. and Crysis have in game benchmarks as I am sure many other games do I just don't know about them. Also remember to turn off v-sync in the game when you benchmark or you will be capped at a certain frame rate which not help you see your performance gains/losses accurately.
Important note about benchmarking with 3DMark06:
Many people have laptops with screens that have a max resolution 1366*768 and think they are getting better 3Dmark06 scores than other people with similar setups, but the reality is that the default resolution is set to 1280*1024 so many people are not capable of running the program on its default setting on their laptop so please be aware if your max resolution on your laptop is 1366*768 you aren't actually getting better scores than everyone else with better resolution. Although since you are forced to run your games in a lower resolution you do see a performance increase over people playing with higher resolutions; although you will experience decreased visual quality because of it.
Monitoring Temperatures:
I have added Hardware Monitor to the list of programs as not only does it monitor the temp of your GPU, but it monitors everything else in your laptop if you are interested in your overall temperatures and it has a nice little feature where it shows you your max temps for everything so after coming out of a stress test it is really quick and simple to see what your max temps are. Although this is very convenient I still like to use GPUZ and have it create a text file of its information so I can see not only my max temps, but how long it took to get there and how long it stayed there for as usually the temperature will peak and then come down a bit and level off.
My temperatures:
Just an update on what I have found with my temperatures; in RTS games I usually don't even hit the 80s, in Source engine games I usually don't go above 88C. I have hit around 94C in Left 4 Dead for a bit of my gaming session, but it levelled off after about 10 or 15 minutes to around 88C. High 80s is what my card stays around in modern games with the graphics turned up, but I would like to note it is not uncommon to hit up to 94C for periods of very GPU intensive scenes. So far I have not had a crash, hiccup or artifact when I have stayed at the GTS speeds however when I try to push any bit of my card any higher I get problems. Some people may be worried about these temperatures, but I read that 110C is the thermal throttle temperature for this card which means that it will start to back down the card when it hits 110C. Therefor because of this information I know that not even 110C will harm the card so I am fine with my card being at 94C at times. I think the card will start to bubble and destroy itself somewhere around 120C. If the card was hitting 94C every time I play games and staying there I would reconsider this over clock, but because it rarely goes over 88C and in most cases with the games I play its much lower than that. Now one thing to remember is that no matter what the hotter something runs the shorter its lifespan is going to be, but this does not necessarily mean that these temps are going to kill the card any time soon. I have never had a computer part die on me if it was working well in the first place and I have over clocked everything I have gotten my hands on. For me the lifespan of this equipment if it is manufactured well should be over 20 years and if these temperatures shave off 5 years of that what do I care? Really though the choice is yours to do with your hardware what you think is ok and don't make the decision based on the fact that I said I am ok with these temperatures. I realize this part is a little scattered, but I hope it helps you guys figure out whats best for you and if your temperatures are alright.
About Over Clocking the GPU RAM
RAM on the GPU is always the first and mostly the only thing to go when over clocking a GPU as it usually has no temperature sensors (9800m GS doesn't) and its the shoddiest quality part as it doesn't need to be manufactured with such strict methods as the rest do to come out working properly. Due to this I highly suggest leaving the RAM on the 9800m GS where it stands as the GS and the GTS have the same RAM speeds. If you want to take it up do so knowing that I recommend against it! Especially considering most, if not all of us, are doing this in a smaller gaming laptop and are already making things very hot as it is.
HEAT UPDATE:
So I was playing L4D and I have never gotten over 93C on my card before on any of my games and for some reason it got over 100C and crashed my comp. I don't have a laptop cooler and it just went from relatively nice weather to ridiculously hot here so I am guessing if its going to be a hot summer you'll need a laptop cooler for this flash. As for now I flashed back to GS speeds because I don't have the time or the want to deal with it, but if I get enough time to sort it out I'll update this here. I did however have this flash running stable for a few months with no issues so if your ambient temperatures are decent or you have a laptop cooler it should be fine.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
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