V1S Video Card Upgrade - Is It Possible?

I guess the title of this thread covers my question. I have a standard UK spec V1S-AK013 or at least I will have if I ever get it back from asus (8 weeks for warranty repair and waiting) anyway I was wondering as I no nothing on the subject can the video card be upgraded, if so what are the options available, how difficult would it be and anything else to consider like bios problems?

All input welcome.

Thanks

 

It's pretty impossible unless you have wonder hands with a soldering iron and coding the BIOs.

 

Even if it is removable and you don't need a soldering iron, the form factor, heatsink locations are usually custom-made for that particular type of laptop. So it's very unlikely any will fit. Even if it does you can run into BIOS problems, perhaps the cooling system not being able to dissipate all the heat etc.

I missed giving this answer. The question hasn't been asked lately.

This is the standard answer, of course... There is the unlikely event that everything will fit... including BIOS and TDP... but I don't remember any confirmed cases where a GPU upgrade worked. So probably the chances are slim to none.

 

Thanks for clearing that up for me guys.

 

It is possible...

If you get your hands on the 9500M from the Asus V1Sn. The V1Sn is exactly the same notebook except for the video card and processor. They also use the same Bios.

Upgrading could be done in less than three minutes (I did disassembling and reassembling of my V1S's video card in about that time).

Haha, and chosen this time you're wrong...
But as you said, it's the standard answer, right in almost every case. But not in this one...

However, I don't know how difficult it is to get this 9500M card fro Asus and the benefits in performance and quality are not that great.

 

Yeah, I actually thought about the V1Sn GPU as the one possible option

But before even considering it, I'd made double (triple, quadruple) sure that the GPU and heatsink have precisely the same layout; and that the BIOS really is the same. ASUS notebooks that are nearly the same on the outside can be very different on the inside (I know this first hand with two M6 variants that I took apart; one of them even has an extra cooler for the GPU! -- and totally different heatsink layout as a consequence).

As to benefits, I don't know. Perhaps a slight performance improvement. Nothing to waste your warranty on, I'm afraid.

 

Main problems:
- heatsink form factor (no standards on what can and can't be in that area, newer unit might need bigger heatsink),
- interface (the socket isn't standard, they said it is a "reverse" MXM on the older V1s, so not sure if they changed it),
- power (might draw more power than the socket can provide and crash the unit under load),
- can no longer use standard BIOS since the VBIOS is packaged with the main BIOS. Would need to split it and use a custom BIOS,
- destroys the warranty (using a part which is not specifically made for that unit).

I don't see them going out of their way to make it compatible. It would be nice to have a 9500GT on my V1J, but I wouldn't bother. If running my X1700 for basic 3D is any indication, I think I should've just stuck with integrated and just used my desktop to game. Dedicated GPUs devour battery life compared to Intel integrated, EVEN if you aren't using them in 3D mode.

IMO, not worth it. Get a desktop to game.

 

Feel free to try it, but unless you buy a V1Sn and take it apart and verify that the part number is *exactly* the same, you can't be certain. I admit there isn't as much of a change between V1J and V1S, but even the smallest revision number change can mean the difference between it working and not working.

Look at what happened with the V1S main batteries and the V1J modular batteries: they *looked* the same to everyone, but look at what happened...

 

In this case, all those problems are not present, because:
- mainboard and case are the same, so it should be the same heatsink (I'm not absolutely sure about this one)
- socket is the same, as it's the same mainboard
- 9500M draws noticeably less power
- Bios of V1S and V1Sn is the same, so no modification needed
- All parts of V1S besides the CPU (there's a seal on it) can be exchanged without warranty loss


There's a lot more difference between V1J and V1S than between V1Sn and V1S.

V1Sn and V1S are exactly the same laptop, except for video card and CPU.

So it should be no problem, it would not even void the warranty. But how get one and and are those slight benefits worth it? Decide yourself...

 

You will have to see if the bios is in the machine or it is in the card.
If it is a mxm type card, with the bios in the card it may.

 

Thanks for the info guys, you have been a great help. I'm tempted to give it a try but as some of you pointed out the hardest job is finding a source of parts - in the UK it's hard to find parts for older machines and near impossible for newer ones.

If anyone knows of a source of asus parts then please let us know, I guess if they are not in the UK is ok so long as they ship to UK.

I may give Asus UK a call and see how much cash they want for one.

As a seperate issue my V1S has an Intel T7500, what is the most powerful processor it will accept and would I be restricted to core 2 duo. I don't know what socket it has and what it can accomodate etc?

Just thinking for the future, I guess upgrading piece by piece along the way means I can go longer before I need to replace the notebook.

 

You can go longer, but you also need to consider the prices. E.g., a new CPU can be more than 300 EUR... add a new HDD for 100+ and maybe (unlikely) a new GPU and you're already nearing the price of a new laptop.

I know zercom.nl have ASUS parts (not very many though, I don't know whether they have GPUs at all, more like batteries, inverters etc), and probably they ship to UK. You can check their website.

The 7500 should be drop=in compatible with Penryns AFAI remember... so you should be able to upgrade to smth like 9500. But be aware you lose your warranty. I'm not sure about the performance increase. Probably it's not that spectacular.

 

I disagree with your first statement - ebay UK has been extremely useful for me to upgrade my laptops, but perhaps it's just your model that they lack.

I'd like to see how Asus UK deals with these special requests.

The T7500 uses Socket P, so in theory T7800 (2.6GHz) is your highest option in the series. There is also X9000 of Penryn XE, but I think you should check the chipset and BIOS compatibility first.

 

Pure conjecture. Of course you're not sure, you don't have one. You're assuming the refresh has identical parts. It's not always 100% the case.

Companies make board revision changes all the time. It's very well possible that the motherboard general design is the same but all V1Sn units work on the assumption they have the latest rev while the older V1S have an older rev that might not work the same way.

The issue is that they never expect you to change the GPU. They could've made any number of changes to pinout (they make those carrier boards with the GPUs) and can cause any number of problems.

And that makes all other units with the same processor socket the same?

Also conjecture. Even if they did do a die shrink, it wouldn't save much. But otherwise, the 9500M GS and the 8600M GT are the same class of GPU. They operate at the same speeds and have the same specs

http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_9500M.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8600M.html

Only if the motherboard is the same, which it might very well be not. And only if the VBIOS and the main BIOS are the same. The BIOS update can also contain other modules which might've been changed (ex: if they changed the JMicron controller for eSATA, or if the onboard flash is a different type or has a different identification for Vista for activation, or if they decided to implement a different type of BIOS).

The GPU and the CPU share the same heatsink. Removing the GPU would mean removing the CPU heatsink, thus voiding the warranty.

Flashing your BIOS with the wrong unit's BIOS deliberately also voids the warranty.

Also, I should point out that some people had flashed their V1Jp units with the V1J BIOS and vice versa and it doesn't play nice.

My point is that just because it looks the same doesn't mean it is. Very much just like how most of the desktop PC stuff is standard and you plug it in, many things on the laptops still aren't (the CBB thing that Intel put forth didn't really do much, it's just really HDD, memory, and CPU that you can really change).

If you haven't tried it yourself, if it doesn't say anywhere that it's compatible, and if it's almost 100% certain it will void the warranty and might not work, you should be more conservative in how you state it.

 

NO. I already removed my video card. It is possible without warranty loss because the heatsink is under the card, it doesn't have to be removed.

NO. I'm 100% sure about the mainboard and the socket.
The only thing that could have changed is the position of the graphics chip on the card and thus the heatsink. But there's no reason Asus would have done this.

BIOS of V1S and V1Sn are 100% identical, and so is the mainboard.

V1Sn (the version without Penryn) and V1S are exactly the same laptop except the video card. V1Sn has more battery runtime so the video card draws less power. Also, same clock rates and die shrink mean less power consumption.

Sorry my answer is pretty vehement, but I would not have stated anything I'm not sure about. You're assuming that I'm posting what I don't know, but this is not true. The only thing I'm not absolutely sure about (because I didn't care), and I said this before, is the position of the graphics chip. I don't know why Asus would change it but IF they did, it would require a change of the heatsink, too.
And IF they did not, which is certainly the case, it's compatible.

 

Just one question though, if the GPUs are different and the VBIOS is included in the BIOS, doesn't that by definition mean that the BIOSes are different? Unless there is some generic VBIOS that handles both cards, but that seems less likely.

 

Why should the VBIOS be completely included in the BIOS?
Why should the BIOS not be able to handle two or more different cards?

The BIOS are fully identical.

 

I don't know that the VBIOS is completely included in the BIOS In fact I have no idea how these things are implemented (never needed to look into it...) But that's the impression I got from posts above, I don't remember now exactly which, that the VBIOS is included in the BIOS with these laptops.

And there is indeed no really strong reason for which a generic VBIOS could not handle two different cards, especially if they were similar in specs (power requirements etc.) (That doesn't mean I confirm that the BIOSes are identical because I simply don't know)

I'm just interested in these hardware aspects to I'm (maybe overly) inquisitive

 

Most of the ASUS laptops have a combined BIOS and VBIOS. This is why you cannot take a firmware from another model of the same line (ex: A8 series) and cross-flash the BIOS, esp. if they have different types of video cards. There are *some* cases where it will work (ie: W3A and Z63A are identical since Z63A was just the Built on ASUS version), but in most cases it doesn't. Some ASUS models even tell you the version of the VBIOS in the main BIOS screen and when you flash the BIOS you might notice the long version numbers change sometimes.

Without getting a BIOS dump of the V1Sn, we couldn't possibly be certain if it was the same or not.

There's no point in even trying to discuss this further, since until someone has a V1Sn graphic card in hand and wants to try it (and void their warranty), it's all moot anyway. Maybe it really is 100% the same and maybe it might work, but manufacturing always changes and is always introducing newer revisions here and there for improvement of the product. Sometimes these revision changes are done to add compatibility with newer types of hardware, very much like when the Core 2 Duo desktops came out (many desktop motherboards had the inherent capability of working with them, but needed a newer voltage regulator, so people were running around asking to see the raw board revision before they bought the board to be sure it would work with the C2Ds).

My concern here is that if say all the original V1S boards were a v1 board and the newer V1Sn boards are v1.2 or v2 and had some sort of change which was needed to work with the newer card, you'd be stuck up a creek with a card that doesn't work with your laptop, or even worse, a non-functional unit (remember that this is a proprietary unit, it is not expected to be used with anything else but what it was designed for and probably has no internal built-in safety mechanisms against plugging in the wrong plug into the wrong slot).

Changing the video card WILL void the warranty. The only things which ASUS has officially stated that you can change in their laptops are the hard disk and the RAM. Anything else and you're on your own (that includes CPUs, WiFi cards, and any other misc. modules) and may void your warranty at their discretion.

In any case, it's inconceivable why someone would try so hard to change something like that when a) the difference isn't really that much, b) it involves a fair bit of risk, and c) it's almost certainly going to void the warranty when the unit should still be well inside of the warranty (V1S came out < 1 year ago, units are 2-3 yr global).

 

Well I think discussion was more academical, along the lines "is it or isn't it possible", rather than "let's try to do it"

 

nike it ( just do it dude ) no pain no gain btw

 

I'll say it one more time: They ARE identical.

The newest V1S Bios was made to support Penryn and 9500M in order to sell the V1S parts as V1Sn with new processor and video card. The full changelog says this (don't ask me where I found this, but the short changelog on their download site also mentions Penryn support).

I don't know about US laws but I think it's similar to ours: You are allowed to change anything and everything without warranty loss as long as you don't break a seal.
So upgrading the video card does NOT void any warranty, at least here in germany.

 

Heh, no wonder you're so adventurous. It makes it easier to be innovative, I suppose.

That wouldn't fly in North America. That would fall under the clause of unauthorized modification. Working in the industry for so long, I wouldn't dare suggest that to a customer unless I had it in writing from ASUS.

Yes, the V1S had a BIOS update at 3.01 for Penryn processors, but until they post the V1Sn BIOS on the support site, you can't really do a compare (and when you do, it will probably be different).

 

that's right...
I just wonder why those warranty seals (there's one on the processor) are English, thought this means it's the same law in the US. Because, if this is different in the US, why do they need any warranty seal?!

V1Sn is already available here... Same Bios, drivers etc. except for VGA drivers (of course...).

Look at the name of the V1S/V1Sn Bios file: V1S n301AS