*Official ASUS W90Vp Owners' Lounge*

Wow mine was not nearly that bad . Yours looks like it got attacked by sandpaper .

 

holy crap

 

Yeah quite shocking isn't it?

I may just go back in and lap them when I have some time to spare.

 

i wouldn't bother with lapping them..we went through this with the 3800 vga's/gateways/hp's/np9262 and it didn't make anything better..just a shinny heat sink that no one could see is all...but im not knocking you if you want to polish it....

 

i pondered the idea of doing it but in the end my CPU already runs very cool so was not to worried about it .But then again mine didnt look like someone got happy with a belt sander either .

 

yes..remember that robot computer builder guy with all that lapping of heat sinks and all these internal moods..but in the end...it still didn't help him. he still lost in the fx showdown

by the way, damn nice 1920x1080 run!

 

Ya i was not expecting that score . It was nice to finally see 3d06 running at native though, looked much better then i thought it would .

 

everything looks better in native...
best i could get i think was 15.8 at that res.

 

This morning I had the chance to finally try out HDMI from the W90 into my SHARP 52" LCD. The first thing I happened to run was the 3DM06 demo at 1920x1080. It looked fantastic on the big screen! Everyone in the house was in awe

 

Ok, here's a few photo's taken under the hood of my W90Vp-X1.
Enjoy













(More to follow tomorrow night)

 

very nice shots indeed!!

striker..can we get these on the front page sir, if you don't mind.

 

those pictures are serious. what kind of camera is that. .

question. what are you going to put on your gpu and cpu. what kind of paste?

 

Great pics.

 

Yep awesome pics for sure .

 

sounds good striker...

now we just need one good close up of the memory chips they used for the vga card...

 

new 1920x1080 run

 

I just got done taking apart my W90, I took out both video cards, removed the crossfire cable and reseated it, then put both cards back in.

After doing this I started vantage as the first loading screen is the easiest test for the problem I have and the problem was still there.

So I do not think it was a hardware connection issue and still think its a bad card in my case. I really do not like the way the crossfire cable connects though... wish it was like the desktop cards.

 

I used ccc to overclock the gpus, (on stock drivers), to 600/900 and setfsb to get the q9000 to 2.75.

On default 3dmark06 settings, I went from 11141 to 15002. I haven't registered 06 yet so I can't test at native resolutions.

As to my flickering issue; after trying Team Fortress 2 on windowed mode, I went back to full screen mode and the flickering went away. Odd, that. Still, I consider that a win.

No tearing or flickering with 3dmark.

I also had some tearing of the textures when moving through scenes. That was cured with v.sync.

Do we have a summary of what people are doing to overclock the gpu's successfully? New CCC or not...? 9.4 or what...?

I reckon we could use a thread like V's limit breaker guide where we can list what has worked what doesn't and how those results can be achieved. 549 pages and counting is getting a bit confusing to keep track of.

 

@JoeCanuck I will update the guide/package with new info & files after my RMA, I already flashed back to stock stuff since I am returning mine.

When I get the replacement I can start modding & testing things again.

 

Hey guys, I jst figured out a way to manipulate my works internet to work on my mac Lol. Anyways, I want to download the drivers for the 3870m, but on ATI site there is no mobility 3***?

Now, it wont let me access a lot of site that use p2p or w/e, but I can access some sites like this and 3dmark!

This means I can download 3dmark. Last night I was trying and it said it would take 12 days!!! hahaha im so happy!

 

I guess what Im trying to say is do I dl the hd?

 

Excellent. Setfsb really was a piece of cake and has worked like a charm. Thanks for that info.

I'm probably going to wait for some more results before I flash my gpus.

 

Yes SetFSB is the most important tool for me also the cpu power increase is huge on the q9000 but the newer drivers have not done much for me personally in my testing, though that can change down the road if there is a new game that has issues with older drivers.

 

I've only tried TF2...over the next days, I'll get some more games on there, and maybe some game benchmarks.

For the moment, I'm content with the stock drivers and CCC.

 

I just found the "catch 22" on the Seagate Disk Wizard aka the "free" version of Acronis.

Yes its free, yes it let me backup my computer last week before I was going to RMA it, but I ended up holding onto it for an extra week because I never found a good day to send it out and didnt have it fully ready.

Well I plan to try to send it out today when I get off work so I went to back it up again and use the incremental backup and guess what...

"This is not available go buy Acronis Home if you want to use it" is pretty much what it tells you... Sucks....

So while its nice and its free its NOT the same thing as the real deal, and I have seen the full real version for as little as $10 when its on sale.

 

Sanding the heatsink wont help because the thermal paste transfers the heat and that is most assuridly smooth My W90 is in the mail on its way over to me now, should be up to 2 weeks! BTW I can post up photos of the inside when I get it as I am installing a 120GB Vertex and 500GB 7200rpm HDD (I have a Nikon D90) and any other photos people would like me to take. Mine will be apart regularly to keep it as dust free as possible!

 

Ya i just do full backups of my C: drive since its partitioned to 50gigs then Validate,delete old ,rinse repeat .Ive been doing that so long its just second nature for me . i know people like to do incremental backups as well so that $10 dollar option would be a real bargain . I usually keep atleast one of the old ones around just incase.

 

1. Camera used is my trusty old Canon Rebel XT DSLR.
Probably should have used my add-on flash.. but these will do.

2. I applied Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste to the CPU/GPU dies.

I tried getting a good shot of the video memory, but they are using an ink colour on the modules that very closely matches the module colour. Even by eye it's very hard to read. (Sneaky tactic IMO)


Anyway, I'll post more pictures later tonight after I get back from work.

Cheers.

 

Haha, after 2-hour boring time, experiencing several seemly messing up, I finally manage to install 9.4 driver as well as new CCC. I forgot the damn Vista 64 forbids unsigned drivers as default at first, wasting much time. :-(

 

Here ya go John

 

Just get as close as you can, (macro lens if you have it) and send me the picture, I can enhance it with photoshop to bring out more difference than the eye can see.

I have a XTi at work with a 28-50mm Macro lens that would have been great for this but I was too busy to bother last night when I had it apart.

 

Heya ViciousXUSMC,

I am trying to figure out what I am doing wrong here, when I use your guide to flash my GPU's the name does not change like you mention it should, but the ati winflash program does say it is flashing the units. Also the CRC checksum does change on the slave card like it should. Any insight here for me ?

 

One of the GPUs will still be called M98 ? is that what your asking even after flashing it . Also just install the 9.4s after you have flashed , if they stick and you dont end up with a Code43 error on GPU2 in the device manager then your golden.

 

scores with 9.4, the CPU is kinda weak.

 

Well, before flashing the cards are named:

ATI Mobility Raedon HD 4870 X2
ATI Mobility Raedon HD 4870 X2

After Flashing

ATI Mobility Raedon HD 4870 X2
ATI Mobility Raedon HD 4870 X2

Although useing the winflash utility I see the chacksums are the same (Master) on both cards. Also when I then go to load the 9.4 drivers I get the error that:

4870M could not be found

 

The drivers are what change the card "name" not the bios flash, but after flashing and a reboot you will see the master bios checksum on both cards.

This confirms it flashed.

From there you have to install the drivers with the modified .inf files.

By the way just got back from Fedex, cost me $13 to send her back because i had to get this big box as I did not trust sending it on the box it came in.

Let the countdown begin to see how long I get a new one back and lets hope that the 2nd one is in perfect condition.

So I am computerless for awhile, I'll be on my EEE 1000H at work instead of the W90 witch really limits what I can do (no photoshop or video encoding for sure)

 

OK....I am still not sure when I go to install the drivers it says can not find 4870M though ?

 

You have to install the driver .exe

then copy over the modified .inf files to allow the drivers to isntall

Then go to the device manager and update the drivers on the cards manually via the have disk method.

Its broke down about as simple as I can make it in the limit breaker guide.

 

Heres a great little app to play around with i came across when i got my machine but i forgot to post . This will let you force crossfire on games that may not natively support it .

http://epichardware.com/index.php?topic=12.0

 

It sounds fascinating.

 

Im still waiting on mine

 

what is yalls highest 3dmark 06 at 1280x1024? im debateing here thanks

btw i know its here but good GOD 276 pages is a bit extreme

 

17,048 at 1280 for me and ken from gentech was like 17,240 or there about. My highest 1920 run was this morning.

 

i'm looking for my 3dmark06 key. And i'm downloading it 47% right now.

 

with or with out OC?

 

that's overclocked. i think. i am having a problem saying that openal isn't installed but i did.

 

you must all teach me the way of benchrunning


it sounds fun

 

[email protected] and GPU at 600/900 which aint much of an overclock at all.

 

OK I seem to have gotten the flashing and drivers in the overdrive kit installed, I am now showing:

4870X2M
4970X2M

and driver versions: 8.6.00 3/16/2009 on both cards

Is this what I should be at now or should I get the 9.4 drivers, If I should get the 9.4, where would I get them, someone have a link ?