Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
On question - my laptop already does the ASUS noise on startup - the quick little chime before Windows even boots while "ASUS" flashes on the screen. Also Windows automatically logs me on whenever I reboot, etc.
Do I have to mess with these? I've read in both tutorials that I should ensure both the "chime" and auto log-in are enabled, which is the case. I've got the driver from Laptop2go.com and the INF, just waiting for the card - anything else before I flash?
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Hi!
Firstly, I just downloaded that BIOS I put up earlier - it supports 9500M GS and 9650M GT. Also, I have confirmed the base BIOS is that of the M50SV (base bios file used was M50SVas210.rom).
I have checked again, and the 9650M GT bios is also modded for 'non-native panel support' which means it should work fine.
Having the chime is useful if you get a black screen (as chime = computer is actually booting up properly), and the auto windows login might be useful if you need to do key combos that only work once logged in to activate external monitor.
So, it sounds like you have everything set up as it should be, the next step would be to actually flash the BIOS now (if it complains, dont flash it, and *only* force the flash as per my tutorial if the only complaint is that you already have version 210 of the BIOS). If it says anything about checksum errors or anything else, post here.... don't flash
(this is highly unlikely).
The other thing you will need for the card swap is some thermal paste for the GPU (you get ok-ish thermal pads for the RAM chips, I would advise the super ones from MXM-Upgrade.com in the longer term, but I am still using the ok-ish ones myself).
So, let me know if you flash the BIOS - you need to flash it before the new card arrives, so might as well do it now - the aim is that you will notice no difference with the flash.
As per my tutorial... (1) ENSURE you have a 9500M GS currently or you will get an unrecoverable black screen (although it will work again once you get the new card installed) (2) If using WinFlash, have no other software running, have a clean boot of windows before the flash, let it stabilise for a minute or two before loading WinFlash, and if it complains saying it didn't flash properly, *do not* shut down or restart PC, keep the power lead plugged in, post here for help (3) It would be good to have an external monitor in case you get a black screen with the new card (as if you get a black screen you will probably get an external display which will help with troubleshooting.... I got a black screen on this laptop initially before I modded the vBIOS further).
Good luck
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Hey there
I'm new to the forum, actually, stumbled upon this post because, like Srblan, my graphics card, from my Asus M50SV, recently fried.
I've read the thread and you guys seem to know a lot about this, so I'd like to ask you a couple of questions, if you don't mind.
Do you think it'd be possible to replace my graphics card with a 260m, for instance, as they seem cheaper then the 9650m? and what would I have to do for that?
Also, probably noobish question, I looked arround, I couldn't really understand the difference between MXM II and the reverse MXM. If for instance I were willing to mod my case, would it be possible to fit a MXMII there? I ask this because MXM II cards are cheaper, and money is a problem for me atm :S
My laptop is an Asus M50SV, like Srblan
I really could use some help with this.
Thanks for your time! -
Hi!
First of all - congratulations on flashing the new BIOS (also.... glad it worked!!! )
Be careful when fitting the new card - I did read somewhere that AS5 conducts electricity, so make sure it is only on the top of the GPU - if you get some on the little resistors / capacitors around the GPU, just clean it off.. I did that twice, and no problems since I carefully / gently cleaned it all off.
About fitting the 260M - the card uses about 60W whereas the 9500 and 9650 use maybe 23-30 watts, so power is an issue. The main issue is that the card is still reverse MXM, but has 'protrusions' so that it may well not fit the laptop! On my laptop, the two types of 260M I have seen will either require a piece to be cut out of the case, or one of the memory connectors removed. I have no idea of it will work - but I bought one, and it is on the way to me.... so will see, eventually! (Will need to test it with the case removed, but cooling in place. Also, will need to make a custom heatsink as ensure the GPU is properly cooled, so may be many weeks before I get round to this!
You can't use standard MXM cards with ASUS reverse MXM - as the connector itself is reversed! You could plug a standard MXM card in backwards, but then the cooling solution / heatsink would be on the wrong side, and modifying this would easily negate any savings you made. More importantly, I bet the 'reverse' MXM isn't even truly reversed - it may well be that, if you put a normal MXM card in with custom cooling, it just won't work anyway! (One other difference - MXM cards have a BIOS, almost all ASUS ones dont).
Overall, I would recommend the 9650M as an upgrade from the 9500, with more VRAM, lower wattage (= less heat, longer life), and a guaranteed working upgrade! The 260M is going to be a real pain, and it may well not work (it could even fry my laptop due to the huge power drain...) :O -
Jommoner, thank you very much for your reply
I think I'll keep looking on ebay for one of those cards and order as soon as a good deal shows up! I have one worry though: my computer won't show any image at all, how do I flash the bios for the card to work?
Also, I found a very cheap 9300M online, reverse-MXM. I'm not gonna buy this one, but one of those would fit right? I just want a working laptop, no gaming performance needed ^^
Again, thanks a lot!
And I'll get off your back ^^ -
Newbleeto : if you can't get a display, you won't be able to flash the BIOS
so you would need to get a new card of the same type as you originally had (or borrow one etc).
Are you saying the computer won't actually boot up? No display at all? (Are you sure it is the graphics card, and not the motherboard etc?)
I just found out that, in Europe, some Asus parts stores sell the 9650M GT cheaper than we are getting them on ebay, and they have a warranty! (on the other hand, someone seems to have had a faulty one recently and is sending them back). Therefore, my advice would be to phone the Asus service centre in your country and see how much a replacement VGA card is - there is no other option I would say (unless you try the oven trick with your old card, to get enough life into it to let you get some kind of working display, so you can then get a cheap replacement card:
Laptop Repair Help Fixing Compaq Presario V6000 laptop motherboard with no video issue (for a whole motherboard, but the idea is the same)
srblan - I would advise just keeping it as a backup to be honest, but let me know if you are getting rid, as I would be interested in the card - to mess around with (try the oven trick etc!)
Let me know how the next stage goes, once the new card arrives!
Also Simon Rules! How to Fix a Laptop (or, how to not fix a laptop but then fix it for real after you break it) -
I sent the laptop for repair and they told be it was the graphics card, so that's why I'm betting on that. I got it back today, so I'll try that trick you mentioned. You've been more then helpful man, thanks a lot
Gl with the new card srblan
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srblan : about the screen : if you the Windows / OS is actually saying '50%' only, then it is just windows being stupid....
If the screen says '100%' but you see it is much dimmer, and 'feels' like 50%, then it might be the backlight / backlight inverter, which can be replaced if necessary.
My A8JS had a dim screen, but I replaced the screen with a spare 1280x800 screen + backlight I had (lower res as it was 1440x900, but much brighter, so suits me fine)
Newbleeto : Be cautious of fumes when trying the trick, and when you take the card out, take it out gently, so that components don't fall off or move! Never tried that trick myself but know someone with two broken Macbooks, and I also have a faulty 7800GTX desktop card which I will try it on (very, very bad display corruption, can only work as a framebuffer, any 2D acceleration = instant crash!). If you can get any kind of life from your card, then you can flash my BIOS which will let you get a 9650M GT installed
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I tried reflowing my graphics card with a heat gun (googled arround, it's the same as the oven trick) and it failed miserably. It's even deader now then it was before, cuz before with the gfx in you'd hear the bios initial sound, now I won't even get that. Only if I take it out
Now my only option is buying a 9500M GS or selling the laptop for parts, since I can't flash
Just thought you guys might wanna know
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When you tried the heat gun - did it 'blow' any of the tiny surface mount resistors around? I know that is one of the things that happened to one of the people in the links I posted; sorry it didn't work out
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srblan : that sounds odd!
About the fan issue.... I will look into that soon; it didn't happen on my laptop, so is a little confusing. It will be something to do with the way the BIOS controls the fan, but I will look into this as soon as I can.
About the red dots : it sounds like they are not from the graphics card then - if they are still there after the upgrade!
Some things I would try:
(1) If you plug into an external monitor, are they there too?
(2) If you take a screenshot that has red dots, and save it, then open it, are the red dots sometimes missing from that screenshot?
(3) Do the red dots only appear in certain areas (certain colours only, such as black areas / lines, for example?)
(4) When you have the dots during web browsing, do they 'shimmer' and change position spontaneously, or just sit there?
(5) Can you get a youtube video or a photo of the problem at all?
If you are running windows, if you get an Ubuntu Live CD downloaded and burnt (or use a USB stick as a live CD) from Ubuntu homepage | Ubuntu, do you also get the strange effects? (If you have space and install Ubuntu on a 6-10GB partition, it will be very helpful in troubleshooting your system further!
Will check back soon!
PS Gustavvson - DONT try anything from this thread if you are under warranty! Phone ASUS and send the computer back / get them to fix it! They will fix it under the 2 year warranty
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Interesting!
I once had something similiar on an old IBM Thinkpad laptop (secondhand, cheap, from ebay). On that laptop, it had a red 'fuzz' which wasn't the graphics card; it turned out to be something to do with the screen (or connections between the graphics card and the screen), and in this case, it 'switched on and off' when gentle pressure was applied on one specific part of the edge of the screen (or, was it opening / closing the screen - can't remember exactly).
If the dots were on the screenshot, but then vanished, it *must* mean that the dots were not there on the graphics card memory, but were appearing on the screen *after* the signal leaves the card (it could be two faulty GPU cores but it would be very unlikely for both to have the exact same fault, almost impossible to be honest). It is much more likely to be, for example, the LCD's own internal circuitry that has been damaged somehow. (If you are in Europe, you might be able to get a screen on 14-day money back from the ASUS store in your country!)
The next test I would do is as follows:
When the red dots appear again, do the following:
(1) On Windows, try moving a screen around and around... Do the dots stay in the same place on the screen, or do they stay in the same place on the window? (If they stay in the same place on the screen, they will leave a 'trace' on the moving window, making it less and less readable as the display gets more corrupted)
(2) If using Ubuntu, set it to medium quality settings (under settings / appearance / visual effects from the top bar on the screen). See if there is any difference between medium quality and 'basic' quality (no acceleration). If there is no difference, it reduces the chance that the problem is the GPU.
(3) Save a screenshot, confirm that it has the 'red dots', then check later when the red dots are gone!
(4) Zoom into a screenshot you just made, zooming in on one of the red dots till that single pixel is the size of the whole screen, and take a digital camera photo of what you can see, and post it here!
(5) You could also try making a 'deep black' (RGB 0,0,0) bmp file using paint or GIMP (downloadable for free for Windows or Ubuntu), and see what happens with that when you have the red dots. You could try other colours too e.g. RGB 10,10,10 which is very dark grey. If it is only on 0,0,0, it suggests some kind of fault with the screen (or circuitry between screen and graphics card).
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About the fan issue - I will look into it further. Will be difficult to fix without having an M50S with 9650M GT to hand, but I will try to learn more about the BIOS (e.g. how does the M50S bios read the GPU temperature, and what is different between the 9650M and 9500M vBIOSes?). My guess is that it is reading the GPU as being very hot all the time (or, maybe it is switching the fan to full, as it can't read the GPU, so assumes the 'worst' to protect your system.
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Finally... It might be possible in the future to upgrade Asus M50 (and A8JS) laptops to an ATI HD4650 (I think that is the one - the one with 320 cores rather than 32 cores of the 9650M). I will be doing this in the next 2-3 months - there is an ASUS laptop with this particular card on the ASUS Reverse MXM 2.1 form factor. Watch this space!
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I was going to ask whether there was a difference between the TV and the laptop screen..... If it is appearing on the screen, but not the monitor, then the issue is not the GPU, and shouldn't be the GPU card (since it has been replaced!)
It is 'something' going wrong between the output of the GPU card, and the display on the LCD screen. Most likely it is the cable or the screen itself; the inverter cable itself won't be the problem (if it is a seperate cable) since the inverter just gives power to the backlight. However, if there is one big cable for signal + inverter, it could be that cable! (the signal part of the cable). Otherwise, it is probably a problem with the LCD screen's internal control circuitry (requiring a replacement LCD screen to rectify).
I say 'probably' as it is not my area of expertise; this post agrees with my view, but then someone posts about inverters at the end...
Red lines/dots on screen - Toshiba M60 ... Hello all,I have a going on 3 year old M60 which has been nothing less than stellar in terms of performance and r ...
However, the description of what an inverter actually does:
What Is an LCD Inverter? | eHow.com
agrees with what I say (the inverter just gives high voltage power for the cold cathode backlight, so, if it fails, the backlight flickers or goes dimmer or completely switches off). On my A8JS, the inverter has a different cable to the LCD screen itself, and doesn't connect to the screen, just the CCFL backlight.
Here, someone has a similiar problem, and report that Dell tech support decided to replace the screen first, and then later the video card if it isn't the screen:
I have red spots and wavy lines on my laptop monitor. Then come and go when i move the monitor. help? - Yahoo! Answers
So, it might be difficult to track down what is wrong. If you could get hold of components for testing without having to buy each one, it would be good!
I would try : (1) Inverter (if it is cheap) (2) Screen
And before this, when the red dots appear, I would see any difference ocurs with *gently* opening / closing (not fully, so computer doesn't shut down) the screen, or gently applying pressure to the outer edge of the screen (the frame around the screen, or flexing the screen carefully! (If so, it is likely that the screen is faulty, although if it only happens on opening and closing, it could be a cable).
Good luck; will check back soon!
Asus M50S Graphics Card problem?
Discussion in 'Asus' started by srblan, Sep 29, 2010.
