Swapping G50V's 9700M to G50VT's 9800GS or G51/60 260M

Hello everyone,

after browsing this forum for days, I've found a lot of very informative posts about the G50 series, and other cooling solutions, etc.

However, most of the threads about swapping a G50 series' GPU are for the G50VT's 9800M, which was swapped with a 260M.

I have found no clear answer on the G50V's 9700M and a possible swap. I know it's both MXM but "Asus shaped".

First of all I am not sure if the shape of the G50V's 9700M is the same as the G50VT's 9800M (found here : G50VT's 9800M) although it doesn't look too different but I'd need confirmation, and secondly I am not sure about the compatibility issues there could be.

One last thing, I don't consider the possible overheat issues yet, I know the G51's fan is faster than the G50V, but I also know the 9700M is already frying in that box, so I will either keep it and mod it (change thermal paste at least) or put a new one with... well, better thermal paste as well.

So basically, has anyone ever achieved to do this swap and to make it work, or has anyone got useful tips about this ?

 

Sorry I have to bump :S hoping someone has an answer, I know this was very discussed back in the day, but it seems the only conversation now is about the brand new G73

One more thing, since it's impossible do extract the vbios from the 9700M, because it's integrated in the main bios, how can I edit the vbios of the card differently ? Since NiBiTor won't work on the 213 bios from asus website most likely...
The goal of this being undervolting my gpu, not overclocking it (yet)

 

I can't answer your other questions, but I do know that the G50v has a different heat-sink than the G50vt and G51 series. If you were to install either the Geforce 9800M GS or the Geforce GTX 260M you'd have to order the correct G50vt/G51 heat-sink.

By-the-way I suggest you buy a ASUS Geforce GTX 260M instead of the Geforce 9800M GS, since if your attempt fails then you can at least resell the Geforce GTX 260M to any potential G50Vt owners out there looking for an upgrade as it has been proven successful in the past.

 

Sounds like a good start, and yes I could change the heatsink, both the CPU and GPU heat sinks are for sale on asusparts website so that shouldn't be too much of an issue.

The GTX 260M from a G51 or G60 is harder to find though, and I missed my chance to buy one on ebay a few days ago since I wasn't sure at all if it was going to work...

But if I could get my hands on one, I suppose the first step would be flashing the bios found there, but again I'm not really confident with this and haven't found any report of anyone trying this (or at least on the G50V, not talking about the VT edition )

 

Since noone seems concerned anymore with G50's issues (understandable, since it's all been debated over and over the past 2 years, and now you guys have the G73 to play with... and we all know there's lots to do with it !), what would happen if I flashed the G51 bios to my G50V, and it doesn't work anymore ? Do I have a chance to back up my old bios (without changing the chipset... )

 

You need to get a hold of those individuals on these forums who upgraded their G50Vt's to the GTX 260M. I believe the only difference between the G50v and G50Vt was the graphics, so I don't see why this upgrade wouldn't work. I have owned both the G50Vt and the G51J and I believe I have quality images of the GPU's, so once/if I find them I'll post them up for you.

By-the-way hers a ASUS Geforce GTX 260M I found on ebay:
Asus G51VX nVidia 1GB GTX 260M Video Card - eBay (item 370393116434 end time Jul-07-10 15:11:03 PDT)

UPDATE!: Hers a G50v disassembly guide by David:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/318551-asus-g50-notebook-disassembly-guide.html

 

Oh, nice, thanks for the link, pretty expensive though since I saw a non-working G51 go for about this price just last week (so I could've taken away both the Gforce GTX 260M and the thermal assembly from it !) but it's bookmarked anyways

I will try to get a hold of those individuals, but the thing is the G50VT's upgrade to the GTX260M did not require a bios update since the G50VT's bios didn't include the vbios in the first place, while the G50V's bios does include the 9700M's vbios... this is the only difference I believe too, but I don't know how big of an impact it has.

If only flashing the bios was not such a risky experience, I would play around with it, and try all I could, like extracting the vbios from the MB bios with MMtool is easy and I could swap it for a 260M's bios !

 

By-the-way both the Geforce 9800M GS (60 Watt) and GTX 260M (75 Watt) have a higher power consumption than the Geforce 9700M GT (45 Watt), so that might be an issue (maybe not, look at the power brick), but on the bright side both of those cards should actually run cooler than your Geforce 9700M GT (65 nm) since they run on a smaller 55 nm die.

Edit: On the ASUSparts website both the G50v and G50Vt share the same exact parts when it comes to power. Also you can find the G50Vt heatsink here:
http://www.asusparts.eu/index.php?cPath=67674_73347_73674_73713_73725

 

Ok I'll check on the power brick tonight but I know the one I have is a replacement one and it might be more powerful than the original one.
Does the ASUSparts website state if they also share the same MB, etc ?

I have found this heatsink too. The G50VT's heatsink spins faster than the G50V's, right ? Wouldn't a G51J's heatsink be better though, since it's not exactly designed the same way ?

 

Wow couldn't be a better timing, I just started thinking about this this morning xD

Subscribed to your thread, I'm hoping for a GTX260m in my ol' G50v too, and just as a sidenote, has it been confirmed that it's impossible to fit it with a Q9000? Honestly the GPU is our bottleneck so I guess we should go from there first

Good luck Danteleet!

 

I think the Q9000 compatibility was a project but it seems to be abandonned now (see there). There's also a mine of information about the VGA swap on this thread (and I just realized I forgot to read the last pages of it !! So I'm off to read it asap

Anyways, I'm really happy with my X9100, so I'm not planning to upgrade it anytime soon, since the GPU is indeed more than obviously the bottleneck on this laptop ^^

EDIT : So after reading I realized this was actually a mine of information. Firstly, I will not try crossflashing a G51's bios since it's way too risky (unless maybe with a CMOS reset but I'm not sure either).
I have also learned that the GeForce GTX 260M from the G51VX uses it's own onboard vbios (chip), while the GeForce GTX 260M on the G51J uses the vbios inside the system bios (just like the 9700M does). So if I was going to swap to a 260M, I'd need to use one that comes from a G51J, so I cannot use the one you found on ebay cheeseman (sadly).
Thalanix also states here that the G50 bios has room for two vbios. I will try to obtain more information about this since, even if I could easily extract the 9700M module from the G50v's bios, I don't know which ones are the 2 rooms for a vbios ! I will try pming him.

Hopefully this goes somewhere. If after I cleared up all this, there's no GeForce GTX 260M available on ebay from a G51J, I will most likely purchase the 9800GS and try it on the G50V. According to the asus website, both G50V and G50VT have the exact same bios so I don't see how this could be an issue... but at this point, who knows ! And if the swap to a 9800GS works, maybe I'll keep looking on ebay for a compatible 260M... If not, I'll just flash it to GTS and rock with it

2nd Edit : Other thoughts : If the G50V and G50VT have the same bios, and if one could get a G51J's 260M, I see no reason why the swap wouldn't work the exact same way it worked for people who did this before with their G50VT : they didn't even needed a bios update. I would try that first if I can find a 260M....

 

Bump and another add :
Concerning what I said about the G51J and G51VX... I might have understood it backwards - Thalanix states 2 pages later that the G51J's 260M's bios is indeed part of the main system bios, but the the bios is "UEFI" and thus it might not be possible to extract the vbios out of it at all, preventing any hope of smashing it in the G50's bios.

So, obviously the only chance is with the G51VX's 260M and/or with the 9800GS from the G50VT...

 

becareful about the temps, the 9700m GT is made in 65nm but it has 128bit memory, and the 9800m GS and gtx 260m are made in 55nm but they are both 256bit. i would think the 9800m and gtx 260m would get hotter. but if it works it would make a nice upgrade.

 

I will purchase a whole new thermal assembly anyways when I try this upgrade, since my fan tends to be ticking a little when it spins at max speed.

 

i think it would be cheaper if you buy a referbished g51 and put your x9100 on it.

 

Agreed. You might even be able to snap up a used G60.

 

So, little update on this.

Yesterday evening I was about to pull the trigger and purchase this and this (which had -35%) right when someone called me and told me about that 820QM/HD 5870 laptop they're selling so... after some thinking, I exchanged my G50V + money with this !

Sorry for anyone who was interested in knowing more about the swap... You can however purchase what I was about to get, and see for yourself how it turns out ^^

 

I'm so disappointed to hear this 'cause I really want to make sure that GTX 260 will work on G50V.
One guy can upgrade his G50VT with GTX 260m without modify BIOS ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/5678456-post1.html), so I wonder if I can do the same thing with my G50 (I knew G50 and G50VT have the same bios). However, this one also made me confuse http://forum.notebookreview.com/5922121-post47.html
Does anyone have any idea?
Thanks

 

bump:bump:

 

I have said everything that you will be able to find in this thread. Either that, or the information is in one of the numerous links I posted. I highly doubt you will find more information about this, as I have spent numerous days reading and looking for this.

Your best bet now is to try it for yourself. Get a gpu I linked in my last post and install if. It shouldn't be necessary to modify your bios. If it doesn't work, you can try adding a module containing 260M vbios to your bios using MMtool. If you not sure how to do this, I can explain you. But like I said, the VX series 260M has it's bios on board, so it shouldn't need to have it on the G50's bios.

 

Hey guys....i have the swap the g50v with 9800m gs,now i swap the 9800m gs to 260m. the swap is possible with 9800m gs and 260m gtx.
the bios of g50v is SAME of g50vt.
This is the link with the my photo and guide for the swap.
Bye!!!!!
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/446885-asus-g50-260m-swap-procedure-7.html
p.s.

from page 7 to 10.
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