[NW] Upgrade the C90S to a 9600m GT 512mb DDR3

I think a bios for 9600 isnt good enough, isnt it like that that the lap will be able to handle your gpu correctly, but all other hardware what it is written for will not work? Im totally not an expert but that sounds logical to me.

A solution for this problem might be to make your own bios with settings for C90 hardware + settings for the difrent GPU

 

9800xpv,

I think this might be the problem! It makes sense if you think about it, I think the drivers are installing the card incorrectly. Here's a GPU-Z screenshot:



As you can see the card is indeed PCI-E 2.0. However, when I check my system devices it shows the card installed on this bus:



Can someone check there C90S real quick and see if the 8600m GT is installed on that "PCI Bus" as well? Shouldn't it be listed as "PCIE"?

 

I'm referring to the bios on the card itself. Standard MXM based cards are equipped with their own onboard video bios'. That's the bios I would be flashing if I go through with it. I am in no way capable of writing a new bios though, programming is above my head still.

 

Mine says "PCI bus 1, device 0, function 0" for 8600.

 

Unfortunately, I don't know much about PCIE.
I asked such a question on vip.asus.com/forum but I had no answer.

Sorry.
@+


Edit : I'll check my C90S when I am at home, latter.

 

The same thing as me then.. hmm...

 

If you do decide to flash the card, make sure you set the bios to boot to "removable devices" first. That way you can do a blind flash from a usb drive if the flash does not work and you dont get any video. Ive done it plenty of times.

 

You've had to blind flash the C90S? I thought if the video card didn't initialize the system wouldn't POST. If it will still post and all I have to do is blind flash it, I might feel a little better about flashing a different video bios.

 

hey i checked mine 8600GT and it says PCI bus 1, device 0 function 0 also.

 

Hey,

First of all... lots of rep to you for having the balls to try this. So here is the deal. First of all there should be no problems with the card being pci 2 vs pci 1. If there was then the card would not boot.

Here is a couple of things you should try.

Figure out who the real manufacturer is of your card and use their drivers only. I had the ddr3 version of the 8600m gt and the only drivers that worked sometimes were the stock drivers.

Here is something out else to try. Start up rivatuner and stay under the "Main" tab. There click on the first customize button and click on "Low-level system settings" tab. Click install if you havent already. Under Graphics processor configuration go from determined from bios to custom. Then click customize. Take a picture of that window and post it on here.

The next thing you should try is change the "look" of your video card. From my experiences with overclocking the ddr3 card I tried a lot different configurations. From what I see I think you have a driver problem. Back in the day when I tried to install new drivers my card would be stuck in 2d mode settings and refused to go to 3d settings. Would not overclock and when it did it would freeze. I noticed some people in the dell community had the same problems with their ddr2 cards. So here is what fixed it for them and worked for me on some versions of the drivers. First turn of the powermizer settings because in a lot of cases it does more bad then good. It can freeze the clocks in certain situations to be stuck in 2d mode. Under low-level system profiles go the pci device settings portion. Under graphics adapter identification click custom. Then select a different name for your video card. Try 8600 gt or 8600 gts or a 9600 level card.. if you can, your options will be different. What this does is makes your card look like a regular desktop card when you boot up next time in windows. It will ask you to install new drivers for it. So just try different versions. I would be surprised if this didn't fix it. There is no way this is a power problem because your video card uses a lot less power.This is a driver issue trust me. Just a matter of installing the card correctly

 

off wikipedia...

PCIe 2.0 is backward compatible with PCIe v1.x. Graphic cards and motherboards designed for v2.0 will be able to work with v1.1 and v1.0.

So that should not be the problem.

 

GREAT info! I'm on my way to work right now, but when I get home tonight I'll give these things a shot! I have complete faith that this card will work, it's just a matter or narrowing down this very annoying issue. What's worse is when I google things relating to the card not switching out of 2d mode I can almost never find any information.

Anyway, thanks again and I'll try these things out as soon as possible!

 

Klok makes a good point.

I was going to tell you to flash the card into a 8600M GT 512MB DDR2 but I felt it may cause a problem because yours is DDR3. I also thought it may cause problems as the 8600M is 80nm and the 9600M is 65nm...also i dont know if they shader, etc count is the same on both cards. It may cause more problems then solutions. It may work but it may turn your card into a 8600M GT DDR2 completely negating the benefit of having a 9600M. I hope Kloks rivatuner thing works cause that would be easy

 

That'd be a crazy thing to try period. The bios is not just clock speeds, but much much more. It's also a sure way to brick a card. We're not talking about old nvidia ti4400(4600) or ati 9800pro(xt) here.

It's a different card, that'd be like changing all the menu's in a Chinese restaurant to Itallian and wondering why your order was all messed up.

 

Yeah, they aren't the same chips so...

Nice guide by the way

 

I forgot they were different chipsets (G84, G96) so I take back my idea of flashing it to a 8600M.

 

ahh...
i flashed my drivers to run on my 8600m gt although it worked under 8600 gts. No preformance loss. I would suggest trying it... I know a bunch of people who flashed their 8400m gts to 8600 lines because those newer drivers would work only under that card.

Its worth a try trust me!

 

Okay, so yet another problem... surprised? I do not have the "low level system settings" tab available. I tried Rivatuner 2.08, 2.09, and 2.11. No luck with all of them. Grrrrrrrr

 

Are you sure you got 2.11 Night? I just checked my riva 2.11 and it was there (is a symbol of a videocard)
be sure to uninstall older versions completely...

 

I just uninstalled and reinstalled 2.11 and still no luck. I remember it was the same way with my 8600 as well.

EDIT:

According to RivaTuner's website this tab is only available in 2000/XP. I'll go see if it shows up under XP.

 

8600M GT and 8600GTS are both G84. The 8400/8600M GS are G86, which are G84 who saw half their shaders shut down.

 

Could be correct, I run XP Pro...
Suxes!

 

I just gave XP 32bit a shot as well and the "low level system settings" tab does not display on it either.

 

soo strange... Dont get it at all. Posting a screenshot prob wont help you much im afraid

 

I must be missing some detail that is blocking everything I try from working. But for the life of me, I just can't figure it out! Anyway, even with these very low clocks, I still achieve almost the same performance as my 8600m with much lower temps. I'll keep at it until I finally figure out whats wrong.

Feel free to keep suggesting things guys, even if you think it's stupid, or it's just a thought, suggest it! Everything is worth a shot to get this card upclocking like it should.

 

dont you have to enable power user mode to get that tab?

 

Already did, I also enabled it under "RivaTuner\Tab Order". I've contacted the creator of Nibitor to see what his opinion on using the Acer Bios is as well as this whole situation. Maybe he can spread some light on this issue, we shall see.

 

There is another possibility. Your card could acttually be running at the correct clocks. It may be that because of some unknown reason no software can read the correct clocks of the card. You did say you were getting good frame rates. If I were you I would do a fresh install of windows, install 3dmark06, install a driver that works with both 8600M and 9600m, run 3dmark06 with your 8600m installed, then swap the card out and run it with 9600m installed. If they are similar then there is a problem. If they 9600M score is a good bit higher then its running at the right clocks....pay special attention to the shader score also.

 

And how ironic that would be ? :>

 

I thought the same thing awhile ago. Unfortunately, the clocks are reading correctly. The performance, while still extremely good, is about 85-90% of the 8600M GT DDR2 card. I also tested this idea with 3dMark06 and the scores were down a decent bit. Also when running system information checks through RivaTuner, it shows me as running in "voltage level 2" or 275/300.

The magic numbers I just can't seem to break. Mavke, the creator of Nibitor, said he would compare my bios to the Acer bios in hex mode and report the results. Maybe that can shed some light. I'll keep at it.

 

Hey(this is just a suggestion to help) have you tried contacting other people who bought this mobile GPU from this seller and discussing with them if they are facing this same problem, THINK ABOUT IT they are the ones that will know best hope this helps.

 

Normal buyers dont do these kind of hardware modifications I'm afraid. They are most of the time in the situation: perfect card for perfect designed lappy or pc...

 

Well kudos on the 9600M GT, you've come a long way and I'm sure in the long run you'll get it worked out. I frankly don't have time to work on something like this (still have a 500GB HDD lying around that I bought about a month ago). Since I think you might already be outside of your warranty (time wise), I don't think it would hurt to call up an Asus tech and ask them for any suggestions. Some of them are quite open to chat, especially if you request not to be recorded.

*

 

Cool idea! If I need immediate help Ill give it a try

 

Try editing your bios to make it so that there is only 3 performance mode instead of 4 (this would make the "extra" profile greyed out) then change the clocks of the 3d performance mode to mirror that of the clocks of the "extra" profile as in 500/1250/800. Then use rivatuner to force 3d performance mode. Worth a try.

 

Once you figure this out, gotta get 4GB running. hehe.

Good luck though. Maybe in a year I can afford a 9600... and you'll have figured this out!

-Towels

 

This might be a stupid question, but before you took the 8600M GT out of the computer did you un-install the 8600M GT drivers then install the 9600M GT and then Install the 9600M GT Drivers?

 

Hey guys sorry for my delay in response. I tried a fresh install of Vista (as well as XP awhile ago) and tried about 12 different drivers including ones specifically for JUST this card. No luck. I have also previous tried to change all the profiles to read 500/1250/800 as well as changing them to just 3 profiles. Still no luck.

I have not given up (I never will lol) but I have tried everything at this point and I'm just trying to build up enough courage to flash the card with the Acer 9600M GT bios. There is about a 50% chance it will brick my card, so I'm still considering ANYTHING else to try.

I'm also going to be purchasing a 180W AC adapter and the "Kill-A-Watt" power monitor mentioned before so I can view my power usage and rule that out as a problem. Suggestions are still greatly appreciated.

 

try overclock it via bios...

you are using the low power setting probably. Try overclock the low power setting via bios to normal clocks and see if that works

 

Hey klok99ah,

I've tried this before. I changed the clocks in Nibitor so that they read like this:

Extra: 500/1250/800
3D: 500/1250/800
Thrtl: 500/1250/800
2D: 500/1250/800

I flashed the card with these settings and it results in nothing but garbage being displayed after the Vista boot screen. I then tried to change the clocks to:

Extra: 300/550/325
3D: 300/550/325
Thrtl: 300/550/325
2D: 300/550/325

This results in the display blinking and then eventually BSOD listing "nvlddmkm.sys" as the problem. Since it lists the display driver as the cause of the BSOD I'm not completely ruling out the drivers as the problem. However, like I've said before I've tried DOZENS of drivers and ones listed as compatible with ONLY this card. It's all very weird.

 

Have you tried running it with lover voltages?

 

A wild idea that may not even be possible.

Does any ASUS model have a 9600m GT 512mb DDR3? If so, then maybe one of the owners could help you and rip the VBIOS off that card. Then, you could try writing the BIOS to your card. Maybe there are some ASUS-specific hooks that enable the ASUS to work properly with the card.

Of course, this may come with even > 50% chance of bricking the card. Or, those hooks may be there, but may require newer hardware than the C90 has.

Or...
or...

there are just too many unknowns in this situation. Unless an ASUS engineer or designer of these models is around to help you, I'm afraid it's difficult to make progress...

 

I don't know... since you changed the clocks for those profiles, did you consider changing the voltage as well? since "extra" works on a higher voltage... maybe insufficient voltage is the culprit.

 

Maybe you should indeed call Asus.

Be like, I'm trying to do what you promised, and epically failed to do.

Help me out so we can restore some faith in the brand!

Never know... may work.

-Towels

 

I agree WarTowels...

Just do it... and if they let you down... ask for higher tech support... keep going up keep asking for the superior and don't back down.

 

I wish I could be of help here - I had plans to upgrade my Acer to a 9600M GT (or those mystical 9650M GTs I heard about) at some point in the future.
I've still got a hunch that it's the whole PCI-Express 1.0/2.0 difference that's an issue - it's basically halving the intended bandwidth to and from the card (since the 9600M GT only seems to be installed in systems with the PM45 or M780 chipset).

 

It could be.. Anything is a possibility at this point, it just seems like it wouldn't work at all if that was the case. I'm going to slowly increase the voltage and clock rates one step at a time and see what my results are when I get my next day off.

 

Well, color me corrected.
In the documents I've recently regarding the GM45 chipset, they only have input for a PCI Express 1.1 16x input for a switchable graphics card.
And since I can't find any proof to the contrary for the PM45 chipset, I can only assume that it uses PCI-E 1.1 and not 2.0.
Which means my key theory of why the performance slag is nulled.
(I will state, however, that the AMD M780 chipset DOES use PCI-E 2.0)

 

UPDATE:

I have finally been able to break my 275/300 barrier!!! I can now run at 279/300!! LMAO

All joking aside, this is sorta helpful because it IS progress lol. I've locked the voltage at 1.16 for all profiles and I am slowly increasing EACH clock separately. I hope this lets me figure out which clock is causing the problems.

I've got to get ready for work soon but like I said, give me some time and I'll have this sucker going full blast soon.

EDIT:

Profiles locked at 1.16V:

279/304: Successful
275/319: Successful
275/356: Successful
301/300: BSOD
275/500: Garbage/BSOD

Profiles locked at 1.05V:

275/356: Successful

 

Try the new BIOS 1002, curious.