*Official ASUS W90Vp Owners' Lounge*

theres nothing different in the bios etc etc
ati does NOT support third party mobile cards directly.
each oem builds their own board, with their own sysid/devid etc
what you are saying about the bios being incorrect string etc is not correct. the string is what asus requested and got approved for, therefore is correct.
the correct "chipset name" for the ASUS SPECIFIC CARDS are M9x.


if you add the correct strings and config section any drivers work provided they support the gpu revision (RV770 i believe for the asus cards).

so, if you want to install the ati drivers you need to mod:
\Driver\Packages\Drivers\Display\LH6A_INF
c7_xxxxx.inf & .msi
ch_xxxxx.inf & .msi

\driver\config
chipset.msi
mmtableXXXX.msi
security.dat (change to 0/1none)

as apposed to doing it the hard way (decrypt/decompress)
you can just grab a hex editor for the most part and change the id string to 945a etc.

anyway

the currect discussion of bios etc..... it does not matter what the device id or name is. you can edit the bios and change the name string to omfgbbq and the asus drivers will STILL install. there is zero namechecks when installing drivers for any device, there is only an ID string check (the hwid etc, in our case 0x945a:02e).
now if you want to be able to install the generic ati drivers, you would need to change your hwid string to one that is native supported in the driver package(s) without the need to mod the drivers.

my point is, we are modding the drivers to recognize the custom string id for a CUSTOM VIDEO CARD. ati did not make it, therefore it IS third party, even if it follows ati design perfectly, it is still not made by ati, and IS a thirdparty, and MUST be given a custom id string.

now to add to the confusion, it IS a mobile gpu. and is therefore given the mobile M prefix to the "gpu version" which is M9X.

basicly there is:
dev/HW/ unique id string: 945a
gpu revision [actual]: rv770
gpu version [actual name]: M98( the drivers call it M9x to support the m96 but thats another story)

you can certainly get yourself a bios editor and change the id strings etc to the generic ati ones and bypass all of the required editing and just install away, but because it IS a custom card it may not work as well.

also please do note, desktop gpus and notebook gpus are treated different by OEMS and manu's and ati/nvidia etc
desktop gpu's are not require to have unique id stings etc and ARE supported by ati.

(edit)CUSTOM third party (end edit)mobile gpus are NOT supported by ati [YET]

 

Since it seems you have a very good understanding of how it all works mrzzz, do you think you could mod the latest 9.3 drivers to work on the 4870s in the W90 ?.

 

im in the process of modding the vista 64 9.3's, but i dont have much time, as im a little busy enjoying 9.3s on xp 64 hehe and im off to head to work.

in a day or two ill post a full guide as well as pre-modd pack
as well as screenshot of omfgbbq driver set for s and giggles

 

Very cool man, im sure this community here will appreciate it greatly as it seems your the only one thus far who has a real understanding of it all.

 

i didn't hear of to many people having xp problems..more vista problems than anything...but there are over 3500 post in this thread....lol

 

heres a quick screenie hope i did it right, only have mspain installed haha

 

that's the one...

 

im about 60% done, just wanna test with some games etc to make sure theres no odd bugs or w/e should be tues/weds.... and yes, im really not wanting to goto work ahha still not dressed and gotta be there in 20

 

as for bios strings and inf strings.
im sure that maybe correct in theory, but as for matching the drivers in question..it's not. else they would work with out having to change anything or mod anything. they would work right from the install from beginning to end. your modding strings now to make it work, correct? (this is what i mean by matching the bios or vice versa) it's a means to get them to work is all. we looked at several strings and not all of them match and some have different strings for the same laptop. so we know something is up. that was stated in the beginning.

understand completely about this:
basicly there is:
dev/HW/ unique id string: 945a
gpu revision [actual]: rv770
gpu version [actual name]: M98( the drivers call it M9x to support the m96 but thats another story)

you can certainly get yourself a bios editor and change the id strings etc to the generic ati ones and bypass all of the required editing and just install away, but because it IS a custom card it may not work as well.

also please do note, desktop gpus and notebook gpus are treated different by OEMS and manu's and ati/nvidia etc
desktop gpu's are not require to have unique id stings etc and ARE supported by ati.

(edit)CUSTOM third party (end edit)mobile gpus are NOT supported by ati [YET]
im just not an expert ati driver modder....yet. now i can mod any nvidia driver.

 

oh you did eh? let's heat your findings/argument.

 

i dont understand what you are saying is not correct.
in general mobile gpus are not supported by chip oem (ati or nvdia)
the reason they dont install is the hardware id is not found in the drivers.

if uu edit hyour vvga bios to match a supported id string they will install. or u can mod the drivers and add custom strings to add support for a unsupported card. im typing from my phone so plz forgive lol

 

Mrzzz cant wait to see your working 9.3 drivers! If you want to teach me your method of modding them I can handle doing all the future drivers.

I have done a lot of bios editing in the past but prefer not to go that route on my new machine

 

that is exactly what i said. lol. but with different words

 

when im finished modding and im sure its correct ill be posting a tutorial aswell as modded drivers, if theres a demand ill continue to release modded drivers was thinking about just writing sometthing like mobility modder but since its msi files it would be alot harder thn simple getstring commands i dont know muh about mobmodder program bt i dont think it would support the needed methods as it seems to just used txt replace commands and not actually patching anything bleh would be a pain to do lol

 

slightly ot but does anbody know if decompiling/decoding msi would be considered illegal?(onmymobile and the edit post crashs opera beta 9.3)

 

hmm.. I'd like to see them install properly. I've modded plenty of drivers for the 3870s, but these don't seem to function for me when modding...and I understand your explanation, but seriously.. shouldn't need to jump thru that many hoops. Oh! You know what? one sec! Someone, PLEASE try these..one sec and I'll edit with a download.

 

Hmm.. wait, lemme check something.

forget it.. not gonna work. was thinking bout using the .inf from OCZ's support site - it supports the M98 but wrong ID obviusly.. someone may be able to add the line:


"ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870" = ati2mtag_M9X, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_945A&SUBSYS_027E1043

It may work.. then again, maybe not. just an idea. Anyhow.. good luck Mrz with the mods. I look forward to you resolving the issue. I still think it's a bigger issue than we think it is, but a resolution would be nice.

 

Guys, I really dont want to be a nag, but where can i find the Asus W90Vp-A1 or X1 in South Korea? or does anyone know when it will be released in South Korea? I cant even find an American site that has these notebooks in stock! I really want one!!!!! I know the A1 is supposed to be released end March, but hey, its almost APRIL! and not even NewEgg has the X1 in stock. Dit Asus recall these notebooks or whats going on?

 

If you mean MSI as in the installer you can just download ORCA and edit the installer how ever you like, though not sure that will help with what your after.

 

Firebird34 and I already tried that, I re-wrote the .inf using M9x just as it was implemented in ASUS's drivers. Code 43.

 

I'm not sure about the dates for Asia, but these laptops are being bought like they're the cure for all that is mobile gaming. The A1s are at Xotic PC and are waiting to ship, but you won't get one now, they're all pre-ordered and on their way to owners, as for the X1s, you'll just have to wait until the next shipment. I'm thinking it will be early April, probably around the 5th.

There are no recalls or anything like that, although you'll be getting the newest batch, which is good, because the first batch of X1s was a bit troublesome for a few people.

Happy hunting!

Edit: Also, this thread has gone over my head with all of this graphics card modding business. I guess I'll rely on the brainacs to learn what I'm doing for these driver updates, because I am pretty confused.

 

Xotic got them in?? Cool

I assume mine is in also but Sunday is not a business or shipping day so hopefully I see it sent out first thing Tomorrow.

I am thinking of doing Windows 7 testing again for the review, if I find a build to download & install easy and I find the time I will do it for sure.

So here is a question for everybody, does anybody know of a good program to build those flash based bar graphs?

Something like what you see in this review: http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=711&pageid=10

I can build simple ones in excel but they do not do any of that flas animation stuff and not sure if it does background image overlay.

 

if you use that bar graph for vantage and 3dmark, make sure it's for the 2.0/3.0/cpu. allot of people just put the score which in reality...means nothing.
i know aeris used to use something like that. she may know where.
julian-nold in the msi section is using bar graphs as well.

 

Yeah the total score for any 3dmark is not a very good idea of what is going on.

dual 4870's on a 2ghz quad is going to have a massive cpu bottleneck giving lower scores than what people expect.

My dual 4850's are bottlenecked by my 3.6ghz quad on my desktop.

Vantage should be hard enough on the gpu so that there is no bottleneck though, and thats why people should be starting to move away from 06 and into Vantage for anything high end and newer laptops, 06 is too easy to render now making it a cpu benchmark more than anything.

 

vantage is pretty much right on the money
you can run in 1 core mode up to like 4 core mode and your gpu scores stays virtually the same

 

He tried it using the M98 drivers on ocz's website?

 

I don't understand...mrzzzz modified the HW ID in the bios without breaking the card support from the system???

Also,anyone tried to open the bios and see if it is possible to increase the voltage in order to OC it very well ??
Thx

 

OCZ's website uses M9x as the base profile for these mobility 4870's. I added the 4870's string into the .inf and re-built an M9x profile. It's using the exact same profile and settings as R7x anyway but for accuracy's sake I renamed it M9x. They installed, but got Code 43 on second card with 9.2's.

For kicks he even installed an .inf with the 945A (Or whatever the code string is) on an R7x profile, and it worked just as well as M9x, but still with Code 43. Functionally M98 = RV770, they're interchangeable in the drivers as long as you have the correct Device ID.

 

Right.. But you notice that desktops are also having problems with crossfire and code 43? Been like that since late 8 series I believe. In particular, the x58 mobos and Asus. Any relevance to these problems? And isn't the x38 desktop also having similar problems with the 4k series?

 

im not getting a code 43 (code 43 is a bad driver for device), but the second card just disappears. no longer listed anywhere >.<

 

It started being prominent with the 9.1's. 8.12's were the last version that worked for most of the people you see with Code 43 problems. I don't think it's a coincidence that the version Asus is using in the W90 is 8.12.

Nobody really uses X38 boards anymore (At least in the enthusiast community), most people Crossfiring 4870's are on P45, X48, or X58 boards. It's very possible Asus is having problems not just confined to the W90.

 

pretty much hit a wall. cannot find any info on a problem code (2b) =-/
code 43 stems from the drivers not knowing how to "use" the 2nd gpu.
it sees its crossfire from reading the bios, but it does not know how to use it through the chipset (x38) and fails to install/setup/config the drivers properly

this is likely because of asus's changing the design of the boards & possibly the chipset (x38) or perhaps just the cards still being in the infancy stage and ati is fixing chipset's etc as they go, breaking some in the process, and fixing them in the next revision.

if you really want to use the 9.3's, use xp64. im not able to get past 2b (im not about to start asm debugging and code patching with ati drivers lol )

hopefully somebody else will be able to figure it out =-/

 

I know this is noob, but does the Asus W90Vp's have a single ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4870 X2, or does it have two ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4870's?

Just for interest sake, cause a single 4870X2 would prob use less power and if I remember correctly, it gives better performance than two 4870's. I dont know, just curious.

 

Two separate 4870s in CrossfireX.

 

Im still wondering if anyone has used Win7 with the ATIs?

 

Somebody earlier on ran Windows 7 and had the same problems.

 

Ive been wondering the same as well, but i havent read anything yet that says anyone has . To date it seems many of people with the X38 chipset and ATI cards be it ATI,Asus or other brands have had no luck getting anything past 8.12 installed in crossfire from everything ive seen . The problems seem to stem from SP1 in vista or atleast thats what i gathered from all the info i have found . This also explains why theres no problems installing it on say XP64, so it must have been some hot fix M$ put in SP1 that killed the compatibility . I would try both Win7 and the SP2 beta and maybe someone will have luck getting it to work that way . Its crazy to think that you buy this machine and are forced to use one set of drivers . If all the people in the desktop world have had 0 success, then that does not bode well for W90 owners at all , Jbrightbill might be very right as to why Asus chose those drivers as nothing past that can work .

 

it's been a problem.. ongoing problem.. Kinda dumb if you ask me, don't release a freaking product if it doesn't work PROPERLY with anything other than factory drivers. Kinda like Mcdonalds offering only mustard to go with their Fries.. sure, the fries are great! But, ketchup compliments them much better.. (poor analogy, but you get the point)

 

Lol@the mustard and fries . Im sure this can be resolved somehow and in sometime but heck half or all the fun of these machines is the drivers (for some atleast) and with out that i would be devastated to say the least . Maybe someone will figure it out, but if say Asus cant or cant squeeze ATI enough or M$ to do it then who can ? If these desktop guys have been dealing with this for months and months that is crazy and i found posts that were dated very recently of people still forced to use old drivers because no one will do anything about it .Crazy stuff i tell ya

 

i would put my money on the chipset (intel)
anybody try a newer or older driver?

all u need to do is change some info in the .inf and change 4800 series to just pci/ven_1002shiftand7dev_mhja

and it will install using have disk method

im at work and on my phone but i wish i could do it lol

 

And the Asus again drops to my short list of laptops lol . . .

 

soeey my phones keyboard sucks haha. i meant _945a instead of mhja
also ill get win7 installed this week unless somebody has it already and can post the versioon of the chipset drivers (x3)

 

edit key dont work on myphone c
the 9.3 and 9.2 full install and driver only al work under xp 32 and 64. im using chipset drivers from intels website. need o try doing that on vista, and try manually replacing some dll's.

ii have some more config combing to seach through ( aroound 200 mbs worth of code when decompressed) but im stuck on the 27 error code that nobody i know of knows anything about. even the people here at work have never heard of such thing
anybody have vista 32 installed? please send me a pm if u do as id like to try modding the 32bit drivers. same for win7

 

umm.. mrzzz, you're getting way to deep bud

ATI drivers are SOOOO easy to mod. You're just thinking it over way too much.

 

then wheres your working vista 9.3s
at this point its safe to say the drivers are successfully modded. however the drivers are not compatable with the chipset driver or os specific. now we just need to find out what.
i have moded 9.3 and the installer works flawlessly etc however the problem is with another part of the system. ill be installing win7 on my day off and testing the chipset drivers/comparing tomarrow and will let you folks know what i find.

and im not too deep, its kinda what i do for a living and i love puzzles lol

 

heh easy for you to say E

 

so at the moment I simply cant get this awesome notebook (Asus W90)? Not anywhere?

 

Wait for the W90VP-A1. FARRR better

 

You can get it, but you have to either pre-order from Xotic for the A1, or be the first one to refresh, see it in stock, and purchase it on Newegg. Your chances of getting the A1 are better, it just depends on what you want. Newegg runs out by the end of the day it comes in stock, so you might want to practice .

 

Its not that they are hard to mod, its that Asus has something out of the normal preventing it from working.

Just like we never really got the G50V overclocked but were able to do it on the G50VT, just one small difference made a change.