[NW] Upgrade the C90S to a 9600M GT 512MB DDR3 [FIXED!]

So let me see you are sticking a conroe quad and a mxm III card it there?? How on earth did you get the card to fit? I guess with the angel marinov mod one might have a little more room maybe.

How dare thee try and threaten my current record most powerful C90!! I thought I was the craziest C90 owner here who is happy to spend $100s getting every ounce of performance haha I would love to see the C90's of 2015 they will most certainly have 8 core

 

Hey Atvaark,

I figure your in USA right? I'm about to make myself a full Angle kit but I'm in UK, If you can't find someone closer to home then let me know and I'll make you a set at the same time as mine. Right now I'm waiting for the unleashed website to come back online so I can get all the info required then I was going to order the materials.

In other news I baked my 8600 and its now working ok, when I first read that idea I thought it was half baked but turns out to be spot on.

I'm also chasing 4670's but the supplier says he's out of stock.

Later,
DieselMonkey

 

C'mmon Atvaark - tell us what your up to. Otherwise someone might do it first and the name atvaark wont go down in history

9800xpv - ive been researching this too. this would be too amazing for me as much of my work is memory intensive.

perhaps this is how we can make OUR names go down in history!!!???

 

i live in canada. tell me when you're starting the mod, i'll start saving some cash right away.

and no, i'm not sticking a MXM3 card in there. the idea didn't cross my mind.
yes, i am slapping a much stronger cpu in there, but the bios doesn't support it yet. looking for a way to inject the data for it into the bios, like what was done for the 7500. i also foresee a lot of heating problems once i actually get it to work too. besides...if you remember a while ago, i was due to receive a special cpu...

the second part is a gpu of course. the strongest MXM2 card available from nvidia that requires 23 watts of power.

 

been doing some more digging. Do you think this list is accurate. He has your card listed on there king.

 

We don't know the subvendor, it would be great info since we know MSI works but perhaps ACER don't... Anyway they were out of stock, do they have now?
Cheers...

 

Ah ok it this the Q7xxx chip you received? As for power supply I recommend the Targus 180W Universal Power Supply. I use it for my C90P and everything works perfectly. Considering I am powering a 35W GPU and a 95W CPU you should be fine with the Q7xxx chip and the GT130M or is it the GT240M?

 

@King,
are you able to boot on battery?

 

Yeah battery is not affected, except for further drainage thanks to the fans roaring away. I have now realised that actually it is only the 3 CPU fans that run at full speed now 100% of the time. The GPU fan spins up and down according to temp still.

 

Figure I would post in here as well.

For anyone waiting around for Angel's site to kick back up, I've created a torrent file with the design documents of the cpu and gpu heatsink(s).

Feel free to grab the docs, or just download and seed for the rest. Although my internet connection may be shotty at times, I'll be leaving it on for the next week at minimum. If nothing else this should be able to keep some load off Angel's site while he gets it back up and running xD

Get it while it's hot!
http://www.legittorrents.info/index...s&id=e30365f9d0f45b8f82ec8fcdf7aff00a611be5d2

+Thaipos

 

I wonder what I could do of a torrent file.

Just connect to “C90S Unleashed” and you take and dl all what you want.
You may even use a website copier to get all files on your pc.

I think you should get Angel Marinov's agreement before you send his own work all over torrents web.

@+

 

Uhh, not quite. I had the PDFs that he posted earlier in the thread from a few weeks back. Considering the forum is public, along with the rest of the internet that the torrents web uses, it's mostly free game. However, given the request from Angel, I see no issue in taking the torrent down, either.

 

it's the Q7500. a very limited edition in fact. nearly impossible to find since it was removed from the market pretty fast. but the specs on it...oh my...it will overclock so well...800MHz bus, 13x multi, 2.6Ghz, 65W TDP, heat threshold of 76 degrees. R0 stepping,2MB of cache though.but it's not recognized by the bios, so i need to inject it's info in it.

as for the gpu, of course, you guessed it. a 240m. i'm not sure if the video bios is complete. it does boot, i see the asus logo, and then black screen...i am able to enter the bios with no trouble too. there's just something preventing the machine from properly continuing to boot with the gpu. if i can just get it to give me way to flash it...

all in all, it's a big project.

 

I'm waiting the same processor...if you do the BIOS mod please upload.
Cheers
Ps - it isn't q7600??and as for the GPU, are you able to boot in DOS mode?

 

The 240M could be impossible to flash. Where did you get it from? I am pretty sure the 240M used in select asus laptops doesn't have a vbios chip as Ken at Gentech tried the 240M in the asus C90S a few months back. Then again I may be wrong with the version you have got. The CPU should be good to go though if you can inject the bios as you say. Best of luck with the upgrades. Should be awesome when finished.

 

the cpu is going to be a problem, since almost no bios has support for a cpu that was removed from the market...i'm still wondering how the heck i'll find the data to inject in the first place...

as for the gt240M, i can't reach dos. it allows me to enter the bios, but i can't boot from any source. the screen goes black. i got the card from a small computer shop nearby. they usually buy back broken machines and resell the parts or fix em when possible. the shop owner doesn't remember the brand of the laptop that had it, it was so damaged physically that he didn't bother to try anything to save it. he just took the ram, network card and gpu and threw the rest.

since the c90 can power on and get as far as the bios with the card, i imagine the problem lies with the c90 itself and not the gpu, right? if the screen was just black and there was still hdd activity, i'd be able to do a blind flash, but since all activity stops as soon as the bios launches the boot sequence, i'd imagine there's some sort of incompatibility going on here...
and btw, Ken didn't try the gt240 in a c90, he tried a c90's 8600m gt in a M60J. i think the problem is the bios trying to tell the card to switch to a certain voltage or frequency and it's unable to load it?

 

The GT240m would probably need a BIOS module to work...
The better choice still being that MSI 4670...

 

i've sent an email to nvidia, asking if there is a vbios on the gt240m made in mxm2 format. this should give us an answer pretty fast.

 

Hy. First of all thank you so very much NightWalker ! GREAT GREAT Job ! I bought my card from ebay whith a newer version of vga bios but the clocks where lower so i used yours. I had only one problem when running bios 2D memory from 100 (200 Mhz) at 200 (400Mhz) there all kind of lines on the display when windows started ( Windows 7 Professional ) i guess the colored lines where due to the instabil memory or something related to that. My other problem, laptop related is the fan always been in idle speed even when i'm gaming. I updated the laptops bios and firmwire with the special problem related bios and firm from msi forums but still the fan does not speed up. Now i just lowered the temp from 110*C to 95*C and will see if this works. My logic is that if the card sends the signal that is too hot the fan goes faster.
I'm good with electronics.
But what else could i do ?

My Laptop:

MSI EX720 upgraded to GX720 with the Nvidia Geforce 9600M GT card, CPU P8400 @ 2.26 Ghz , Bios and firm from the GX720

Now about the OVERCLOCKING...
My point of view is if you get the clocks higher you might just cross over the physical capabilities of the card and realy BURN it or lose stability.
Certainly this is only what i think.

Thank you.

 

Hi,

The fans are under control of CPU's t°C, not GPU.
The E6600 has a rather high t°C, so everything seems to work fine. But if you have a E7500 _ just as for myself_ fans doesn't work much, the C90S is very silent.
So if your CPU as a low temperature they won't spin up, even if GPU's t°C is too hot.
There's no mod bios nor windows patch to bypass this.

So please, you could have a look to :
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-reviews-owners-lounges/472325-c90s-unleashed-angel-marinov.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/3132524-post147.html + laptop cooler.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/350220-how-get-c90s-very-cool-my-efforts.html

Or read all the 102 pages of this thread, before this one. :laugh: :SLEEP:
You should do because some have made good job to cool the C90S :
http://forum.notebookreview.com/5588490-post669.html
need time to show all the mods, please have a look to this whole thread.

Feel free to ask any question,
and enjoy the C90S.

@+

 

Well as you are using an MSI, perhaps you would find more help in its owner lounge...
Anyway as 9800xpv said, the common is fan speed based on CPU temps. and nvdia cards are usually very hot. As we worked here, is very important an efficient heatsink, and a good thermal paste.
And for the clocks, obiously the more OC the more temps, you must find the balance between performance and temps. and remember nor all 9600m are the same (GT or GS) and subvendor class. You should test your own clocks step by step.
Perhaps you had lower clocks at stock because you have a 9600m GS? (I'm asking)
Good luck!

 

Atvaark
If its from the Asus M60J you are outta luck but if not then hopefully there is still a chance! From what I have read the GT240M is pretty much bang in between the 4650 and 4670 all GDDR3 performance wise so would be a nice card to have!

My next plan for my C90P is to find a cheap Blue-ray drive and maybe 8GB of ram at some point
Firstly though I need to gain control over these fans the noise is doing my head in; sure 28C idle and 56C peak temps under stress test is bonkers for a Q9650 in a 15.4" but the noise is bonkers too lol I can't really complain though as I now have the CPU clocked at 3.3ghz all the time via bios OC hehe as I know the fans can deal with the heat

 

Oups,
I read too fast and didn't see MSI. Sorry.

Anyway, follow phoenon's advice.

@+

 

i got the ID string for the Q7500 successfully injected in the bios. the system now powers on, and loads windows, the temps are slightly above my E7500. now, time to test an overclock to 1066 FSB...

well, okay, i had someone do the bios injection process for me, so it's not right to take credit for that. but i did do the bios flash myself, yes i did!

still no word on nvidia concerning wether or not my gt240M has a vbios or not. and whether any other gt240M has one.

 

Hi King,

Blue-ray drive : have you read this thread, that could help you ?

8GB of ram : can the C90P really use 8Gb, there's no limit ?

Good luck to find a way to shut down your fans.
First, you should try this headset ?
Or this one ? lol :laugh:

@+

 

Could you please tell me where did you got the patch info injection? I have rigth now the Q7600, so probably the microcodes are in the same place.
Thank you and nice work

 

Excellent mate. Really excellent! Congratulations. Finally a fellow quad core C90 user OC that baby to the max and show us some benchmarks! Wprime and vantage scores would be awesome to know then we can compare Q7500 vs Q9650 and see what difference there really is! 1066mhz fsb should bring the core clock up to a whopping 3458mhz!! I can achieve a maximum of about 3300mhz at 1468fsb and even that is a tad unstable now and again as I get the odd crash. The machine locks up at 372mhz. I reckon you should be able to get to 3.8ghz before you might get limited by Voltage and or heat!

I assume you are booting on your GT130M presently and still waiting on a response from nvidia? I would not be surprised if they don't respond

@9800xpv yeah 8GB should be absolutely compatible in the C90P. It uses a P35 chipset which allows at least up to 8GB. Interestingly enough though this morning I realised my DRAM speed was faster than the fsb speed! I think the ratio was 5:6 at 366mhz fsb I was running 484mhz on my RAM! Now however that I have set it back to normal 333mhz fsb it is back to 1:1 ratio and the same speed therefore.. odd.

I did read up about those earphones in the past however unfortunely it won't make it any quieter for those around me lol which is my main problem. I couldn't give a damn about the noise personally What sane C90 user would haha after knowing the benefits.. Also thanks for the link to the blueray drive, it looks like a pretty nice, cheap drive but I am think I will continue to wait until a sub 100 pound Blue-ray drive comes out that can also write Blue-ray discs. I don't think Blue-ray will take off like dvd''s did so it is probably best to hold off until the drives become cheaper still and support full writing capability.

 

yes, i'm currently using my gt130m at the moment.

as for the microcode, i'd have to ask how my friend did it. he just asked me the detailed specs of the cpu and half an hour later he sent me the patched bios. i'm kind of useless on my own, but i'll ask him about the q7600 for you.

first overclock test, to raise the fsb back to 1066 resulted in a crash due to overheating. i think. the cpu hits 77 degrees and the computer shuts down. my offer for the Angel Marinov Mod still stands...although i'll need to wait until next paycheck. taxes were harsh on me this year. the machine is stable at 800Mhz fsb, but it feels overall slower than the e7500 for now. games run a tad slower too. video encoding became a tiny bit faster, probably due to the extra 2 cores. but no killer difference, not even a full 3 minute gap.

 

It shuts off at 77C? That is pretty low temp for that to happen. My Q9650 will downclock to idle clocks if it hits 80C but shutdown temp shouldn't happen till about 100C! You ought to also look into getting a better power supply as your 120W one might be strained too much causing the shutdown. I had the same problem with my stock 150W adaptor until I upgraded to 180W. I don't mind sending you my 150W power supply if you pay shipping.

What is your fan behaviour like? I can imagine not great based on the temps. My advice is to use RMclock and undervolt it. Even at 1066mhz fsb your will be able to bump the voltage down and still be stable and it will make a huge difference to your temps. Find an overclock you are happy with then take the voltage down one increment at a time, then test with Prime 95 (better than Othos for quads) on small ffts for 10 mins at least then if stable lower it again. I managed to reduce stock voltage from 1.15V at stock 3ghz down to 1.0375 100% stable and it knocks at least 10C off peak temps. One other thing does turbogear work with the quad? I found that using turbogear makes the fan speed more agressive. Before I installed the 4670 and got my fans running full speed as a result I found that at 5% OC using turbogear at 3.15ghz my processor ran cooler than at stock speed due to the more agressive fan behaviour.

As for the processor feeling slower I believe your CPU has only 2mb lvl2 cache right vs the 3mb on the E7500. I read that 2mb could cripple the CPU in certain tasks. To put in perspective just how stingy intel have been with your processor they gave the Q9650 12mb cache. Unbelievable that they cut the cache size down so much for their basic quad.

 

remember that i am using a c90S and not a c90P. i'm much more limited than you are in about every way possible. it's a miracle even to have managed to get that far with it.i already have a 180W power supply and yeah. the fans don't spin that much. and turbogear fails to work. i wish i'd knew exactly what in turbogear sends the fans flying like that...it can't be just the overclock, since playing around with better tools for the job keeps the fans lethargic...maybe i should just find a Q6600 instead. turbogear will work perfectly with it, no?

so who can reverse engineer turbogear? i think the fan solution might be in there. it'd be fun to have the button work for changing fan speeds at the very least.

 

Ah ok. I didn't realise you already had a 180W power supply
Tis true I would also love to get a software option to control the fans. Turbogear obviously somehow change the dsdt registry etc but I for one have not the first clue about coding and software engineering. Perhaps your friend would be able to take a look at it?

 

Q6600 is 105w TDP, in theory it would work with the 180w power suply, but I wouldn't try without Angel's ASME mod... It would be a thermal nightmare. You wont be able to reach that E7500 clocks, and I don't think it perform much for gaming, but for multithreading...
Good luck

 

There is also a newer G0 stepping Q6600 which is 95W tdp but I thought I was blocked in the bios. Still I am sure one could inject it into the bios. The cooling in the C90 can handle 95W tdp quads I am proof of it I reckon you would be able to almost reach E7500 clocks. Basically you would be able to clock it as much as a E6600 before the fsb limitation comes in.

Actually it has been shown that for most games especially newer ones a lower clocked quad will still match a higher clocked duo and often even outperform it. The Q9000 2ghz quad for example can perform as well in crysis as a 3ghz dual it has been shown in this very forum.

 

yeah. i didn't see the 105w tdp one, i only saw the 95w version. i didn't expect the q7500 to be so weak... seems like the cache is really affecting it a lot. and also, the q6600 has 8 megs or cache, doesn't it? the E7500 has 3. it should still compensate. especially since i plan to keep the turbogear on overclock most of the time, meaning that like the E7500, i'd be at 2.93 Ghz with memory clocks boosted to their original 667Mhz. since with the E7500, the memory's stuck at 533Mhz...

well, in the meantime, the Q7500 is going back in it's box. i suppose i'll just stick it in a freenas machine.

 

Depending on how much your C90 allows on turbogear 2.93ghz might well be attainable! I wasn't able to reach 2.93ghz with my E6600 in my C90S but then again other people were able to reach 3ghz stable. If you are able to reach 3ghz stable then you will basically be running at Q9650 speeds. The only differences being cache size 8mb vs 12mb and the architure 65nm conroe vs 45nm penryn and the extra heat that the older architecture will bring. Still it would be very powerful. The Q6850 is afterall a factory OC Q6600 so stock volts will take you there. Question is whether the motherboard will

Not sure whether this helps a bit but I was able to push my old E6600 to 3.15ghz in the C90P before the voltage became a limitation. So there is hope in getting 3ghz on the quad yet

 

Well I just dumped all Asus P5-Series Bios Patches and my Q7600 is not working, but as I have blackscreen I think it's not a bios cpu injection problem asked Atvaark and he told me his Q7500 shows an error message (as logical) before inject the codes...(by now I think I would be able to use any usable 775)

Anyway I'm very disappointed with the Atvaark tests, I really thought we could reach ~3,8Ghz with it. And there is not a secret that this processor at stock is very week...

By the way I replaced the boot logo, by one custom with "republic of gamers" logo...lol
The credits are for bret was here an his post G50V/VT Custom BIOS v.1.0...



cheers

 

as nice as that background is, how much bigger is it than the original background? it seems like there's plenty of space available in the bios after all...maybe, just maybe i can ask around how i could put in the gt240M's video bios...i would laugh if it worked...

 

The Bios still being 1Mb since this image in jpg, the asus logo is animated bmp (xbmp I think), there would be space for a new module but don't think the whole VBIOS, perhaps is a module what is needed??
I really hope you make work that card and a highend quad...

 

if i end up getting a score within 500 of king's c90P, i'll be more than happy.
the c90s really did get the shaft when i look at the differences with the c90p...especially since the c90p costed the exact same thing as the c90s when it came out...not even 2 weeks after i bought the c90S...

 

Hey,

I am finally going to upgrade to a 9600M GT (95€ from ebay ). Is the 120 w PSU really necessary with an E6600? If so, this one should be sufficient right? ...or has someone a PSU laying around which he does not need (and lives in Europe)?

 

Hi,

I think you must get a 120W psu.
Please, read this post from NightWalker : http://forum.notebookreview.com/4114174-post46.html

ASUSparts Europe sells such psu : http://www.asusparts.eu/index.php?cPath=163571_67674_70812_70813_70847_70874
About 58EUR + shipping.

According Angel Marinov you can also use a TOSHIBA psu : http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...shed-angel-marinov.html#Chapter_12_Section_09

Enjoy the C90S.
@+

 

Respect for the solution!
Great respect! Great job!
I have an Amilo XI1546 notebook with MXM-3 VGA slot. I bought for it a 9700M GT 512DDR3 MXM-III VGA, but I had a BIOS warning "ERROR MXM STRUKTURE",
and 30sec countdown. I've done the BIOS rewrite detailed here/Nightwalker/, but when I got the clockrate at the normal factory defaults/575/1450/800/, Win7 freezes during boot process. When I got the clockrates half of the factory defaults (memory,400Mhz), Win7 got no problems. Why is this?Is 120W charger!
I need 150W? Do you know a solution?
Thank you for your help!
Great respect!

 

It seems a power problem.
There would be nice if you could test a more powerful PS.
Cheers

 

Thanks for the advice, you may have a point.
I'll try and let you know how it worked out.
Thanks again!

 

If anybody does upgrade to a ati 46xx card expect all fans to jump to max speed. I got so annoyed by it lol that I have disabled 2 of the CPU fans now! It still is able to the cool the Q9650 like a champ tho. But still too noisy

If you can get to within 500 points of my score I would be mighty impressive Atvaark

@Maurizio2k7 I have a 150W PS lying about I don't need. Got it stock with my C90P but now have got 180W one so don't need it. It will work gauranteed and you will have all the power you will need for any future upgrades. I am in the UK but you would have to pay for shipping.

 

King.... whatever happened to first dibs.

 

Ah sorry Seany. Didn't realise you were still looking to get an adaptor. I kinda got distracted myself lol. Busy times

If you still interested I will look into shipping pronto, I doubt it will cost much more than a fiver with tracking and insurance, although it has some weight to it. Should be able to post it on Monday if ya let me know your address via PM.

 

Firstly I think you are wrong about the factory defaults I am pretty sure stock is 625/1550/800 so you ought to up your clocks to those to get normal 9700M GT performance. Secondly what CPU do you have? 120W ought to be enough if it is quite a power saving CPU but 150W won't hurt. Perhaps ask around on the amilo section of the forum for other owners of the same machine for further advice.

Also are you certain your machine has a fully unlocked mxm slot. The C90 for example is compatible with any mxm 2.1 card (probably even III if there was enough room) so long as the vbios is unlocked on the card in question. Another thing to check is if your card has an unlocked vbios. If it doesn't it won't work properly in your machine.

 

Thanks for the advices.
The reason why I wrote these settings as default factory settings, is because when I saved the vbios
of the 9700M GT with Nibitor, it displayed these. Yeah, I know that these don't exactly match with the originals, but
I don't know why? The card has Acer bios.
In XI1546, the 9600M GT works perfectly, after overwriting the vbios with the Nightwalker method. So I think the
machine can accept the MXM card.
The machine has T7200 intel processor.
Moreover, I think of the power problem because it happens that Win7 loads, and when I run the 3DMark06 test, the
machine simply goes off. That's why I think of the power problem.
The 9600M GT eats 22W, the 9700M GT 45W.
I read the Amilo topic too, but there they also manipulate with the Nightwalker method, and as of now, nobody tried
to put 9700M GT into the XI1546.
Therefore I thought to turn to you, because you know this better.
Soon I'll try with 150W and write how it worked out!
Thanks for the help!

 

No problem. Somehow I still think you ought to be fine with 120W. I run a 95W Q9650 lol and a 35W ati 4670 card and 150W became a constraint. 180W handles the machine fine now even with both OCed. Your processor eats much less power while your GPU only eats a bit more than mine. Anyways let us know how it goes with the bigger power supply. Also download RMclock and undervolt your CPU to the lowest stable voltage. It will help you majorly and will probably allow you to run the card without problems on the 120W brick, as well as reduce your overall temps not just CPU.

As far as MXM III cards though nothing beats the ATI mobility 3870 512mb GDDR3 card. Best price/performance and will blow the 9700M GT out of the water. If you find one sell your 9700M GT and get one of those.