280m mxm 2.1 SLI vbios/driver hack with no cable (Area 51 M17x dual GTX280M project thread)

i re ask the question

on mine it'S written 220W

 

Morning, mine says 240.

 

wow then you have a serious issue your bios seem to be limiting the consumsion for some reason

 

EDIT: stupid question, dont worry..

 

There are a number of threads about other notebooks that throttle down the CPU or GPU's due to a limit in the BIOS on total system power. This seems odd to me, but in the thread on the S-XPS 1645 notebook, they said that if you UNPLUG the AC adapter and run on battery, then the BIOS limit on power is lifted. The notebook would run at full clock speeds on battery, but not on AC power! If you see the same thing, it would seem that a BIOS limit on power might be the problem.

The m17x R1 (not the Area 51) is another system that had such BIOS power limit problem.

I don't know of any power bricks bigger than the 240W we already have.

 

Really, now that is interesting. I just got back from vacation so Ill be doing some experimenting tonight.

 

There maybe internal limits on the power draw, its not just what the brick can handle.

 

The m18x just came out with a 330w power supply for systems with the SLI option. I thought our power supply was huge but this one must be literally the size of a brick.

 

ya it's why i needed to know what was the rating of the brick to rule it out as a possible issue

 

Any luck?

Could try undervolting - downclocking the gpu's a little (And maybe the cpu aswell?)

Got a m17x barebone + fx 3700m coming my way, would be nice to run dual fx 3700m eventually!

 

Progress again, this is awesome, with stock clocks and voltage from the 9800m GT BIOS the cards ran great and achieved better performance than the "real" 9800m gt's. The stock 9800m GT BIOs voltage is at 1.0V the laptop underclocks at any clock speed above 533 with 1.0V. Ill try higher clocks and lower volts today. But as of now I have 2 GTX280m's running and performing btter than the 9800m GT's. SWEET!!! This was with the brick plugged in.

 

Congrats! That is REALLY cool.

It does sound like the motherboard bios is limiting total power consumption and overclocking the GPUs just pushes it over the limit. 533 is still faster than stock 9800GT and the increased number of cores and video RAM is going to give a good performance boost compared to stock.

You presumably need some system power margin for when the CPU fan is at full speed, hard disk busy, stuff plugged into USB's... Even if you did get the bigger power brick from the m18x, I doubt that the BIOS power limit would increase to 330 watts. That limit would probably be hard to change, but maybe the community of bios hackers could help. Also, on one of the other threads about BIOS power limitations, the app "Throttlestop" was apparently created in part to override the system imposed throttling of the CPU when total power consumption was too high on that laptop. I don't know if it would have any affect on GPU throttling. Of course, it is probably a bad idea to run for long at more than the 240 watts coming out of our power brick.

 

Awesome!

Could you please upload your 9800m sli bios? Hope it runs on the hp .10 fx 3700m i ordered, if it does i'll get a second 3700m!

Any benchmarks? Vantage gpu score would be very interresting!

 

Ill get the BIOS up for you gents, but Im not home right now, it wont be until next weekend that Ill have access.

The system is running great, in some games Im getting the same frame rates as before with the 9800m GT's however its with greater detail. I now get 30fps on cryisi at enthusiast level and 1280/780 res for example.

 

Sorry gents I was out for a bit. Who needs what?

 

I'd love the GPU bios (the original one that came with yr laptop)

and which bios version do you run?

 

Ive been lacking in helping, Im sorry. How do I upload files to here?

Right now both cards are running great, scored a 12,271 3D Mark 06. The cards are running at 1.0 Volts, 540/1400/875 clocks. Cards stay at 50c.

 

When you post, then click on "go advanced" and then you'll see the attachements options below the message box.

Have you underclocked your cards or do I remember the stock clocks wrong?

 

Hey usmc1488, it's me again, glad to hear things are working out well for you. My GTX 280m has been running good for me so far. I have a few questions about your setup, you said the temps stay at 50°c, much lower than what mine can get to when gaming even with my extra ps2 fan mod, tho the temps don't get any higher than 90°C for me. Was just wondering how your's manage to stay so low. Also the bios that you have flashed onto them, someone else asked about this too, did they get the gpu fans running correctly. I still got one of my 8600m GTs in the secondary slot just to keep the fans running for me, removing it make the primary fan on the GTX 280m not run, thanks!

 

Seems there is an incompatibility between the 280m pcb's and the m17x bios, temperature stays at 0 so the fans do not spin up. If you install a supported GPU the bios takes that temperature for both gfx cards so the 280m fan works!

USMC said that he had seen a m17x with working fancontrol and a 280m. If i have any succes with the 280m coming my way i'll let you know! it's a clevo/sager 280m, any idea who made yours?

 

I think mine is a clevo too

 

Im not sure what "Stock" clocks are for the GTX280, Ive found that the best combination with no down volting or clocking for my cards to be 540/1400/875 at 1.0v. These were the highest clocks I could get with out the cards down clocking. 12xxx 3d mark an the 2006 addition, over 1000 on
my stock 9800m gt set up. Again the cards are running 9800m gt BIOs that restore the lost SLI function.

Ive forced my fans on by removing the yellow and blue pins from the harness. I couldnt get the fans on, however others have. With both fans running at 100% even under heavy game the max ive seen is 58C.

Here are ALL the BIOS that Ive flashed succesfully, note only the 9800m BIOS ran correctly and is what Im running currently.

 

Thanks for the bios files but seems only the gtx 280m gives me 3dclocks/high memory clocks.

Was tempted to try SLI but 2x280m is a bit expensive for me

With a single fx 3700M @ 585/1450/1000 1.05v ( No throtteling)

3dmark 2006
5.4k sm2
5.3k sm3
2.5kish cpuscore (3ghz)

11.4K in total


Vantage

5.5K gpu score.


I did the same thing for the fancontrol but its not great. Asked netroller.3d for some help, he is quite certain he knows the problem. Hope he can fix it!


And USMC, any chance you have a spare battery cover? Last item i need to make my laptop 100% complete but can't seem to fine one online.

 

Let me know if you get the fans going, Ill check for the battery cover. If you are running one single GTX280 than you should be able to go to higher clocks.

 

I'm running a single fx 3700M flashed to 280m, was hoping to get the 9800m gt bios working so i could get a second one and run SLI but that wont be happening.

Same chip but still 65nm while the 260/280m are 55nm so cooler and overclock better.

I might swap a real 280m in but that depends on OC.

Only problem with this laptop is the cpu now, x7900@3ghz isn't fast enough for BC2 and no possibility to upgrade to a quad. And a x9000 250$ is a bit too much

 

Small update

Tried a real 280m from a sager m570tu in my m17x, no fancontrol, no hdmi.

Exactly the same as the fx 3700M (same bios even).

 

Well the clocks that I spoke of in an earlier post seem to be perfect!!! Been playing Fall Out New Vegas, The new Star Wars, and the new Duke Nukem with frame rates between 45-55 FPS. All games accept NV are played with native res and all setting maxed. Looks like ive made the old Area 51 M17x relevant for a bit longer!!

PS 2 9800m gt's and a Area 51 M17x bare bones are for sale!

 

HDMI works! Im thinking that running 9800m BIOs is the trick to making a GTX 280m work in an Area 51 M17x, right now Im getting comparable performance as Dellware M17x (CPU is the bottle neck). Fans are restored too, but I rather run 100% all the time as these cards are hot. Avg temps after about 2hrs of gaming are 60 for master 50 for slave. And again for all of you who didnt read the entire thread, im getting SLI to boot!

 

WOw u got HDMI working? i might have to try those BIOS out for myself, that was one thing i did not like about upgrading was no longer having the ability to use an external tv when needed.

 

Yes sir works great! No sound on my Phillips, Sound on my Sony. The Read Me Doc on all Nvidia drives past like 200.xx say that HDMI sound out doesnt work with some TV's, mentions my Phillips specifically.

 

So i went and flashed the bios u provided. I tested running some games and they now have noticeable performance increases versus the GTX 280m bios! Another thing i noticed is the card hasn't gone over 62°C when gaming, with the GTX 280m bios it was getting close to 90°C, quite a find you got there hah.

 

What clocks are you running? Remember Im running two cards, my system is about maxed out ay 540/1375/840. Most stable with max performance. CPU proving to be a bottle neck.

 

Ok so i ran into a few problems right now. currently my clocks are running at 500 core / 1242 shader / 741 memory. Anything that i have tried over that, which i was able to run prior to the vbios flash, eventually causes the display driver to crash and not be able to recover till a reboot. I was thinking this could be cause a lack of voltage but you have it set to use 1volt too right?

The other issue, I don't know if you have this, but if i try to add a clone display or extended display, the display driver will continuously crash till i manage to switch it back to single display.

 

Try 500/1250/799 at 1.V thats the stock setting. AS far as the display, Im stumped, I can run mine with a clone display, extended, or as the main display. What display driver are you using? Did you perform a complete wipe?

 

Should i still be using the GTX 280m drivers or the 9800m GT drivers, i still have the GTX 280m installed,by your next reply I'll let you know how the clocks work out.

 

The GTX 280m and 9800m GT drivers are the same, NVIDIA just released a new driver, I believe its 275 something. Im running tha with the 9800m gt VBIOS.

 

I have the 275.33 drivers installed, and i tried to re-installing them but still no work, quite strange. The clocks have been running great, not one crash from that so far.

 

Try using the ini file from laptop2go.

 

A little update, and Ill continue with updates once in a while so those following can see how its doing with modern games. Been playing the new DUke Nukem and Need For Speed Shift II with great results. Avg about 48 fps on both games with setting maxed and 2xAA. I think these cards will help keep the old Area 51 M17x alive and kicking until the next 18x refresh.

Ordered a 18x power brick in hopes that ill be able to up my clocks past 550/850/1400.

I just had a thought. Im only running 3 Gigs of ram as Im on 32bit vista. Could that be limiting my clocks?

 

Most likely not limiting your clocks, but if you went to 4GB RAM and 64-bit Win7, I think you might get better performance.

 

I have a question, if I want to use single 280M GTX, will I still need to flash the bios

Refer to my original thread

 

No it'll work, but Im not sure if the HDMI will, never tried.

 

hey USMC, are you able to install the newer nVidia drivers and still get SLi working?

 

Wdmalik, the card would work without flashing the bios, however gpu fans might not work with the 280m as they do not detect it. We have had these issues on the 280m bios. Flashing the bios will allow the fans to use the temperature from the 280m to adjust their speed correctly.

Edit: As for the HDMI, I can't give any word on that. My area-51, which has a single GTX280m flashed to the 9800m bios, spazzes out when i try to add any second monitor, haven't been able to figure out the issue.

 

Yes, I just installed the new 280.xx driver on my GTX280m's running 9800m bios, and SLI still works. I just purchased Need For Speed Shift 2 and wow these cards kick but!!! Im getting upwards of 40fps on max res and high settings with no AA. The lowest FPS I see has been 26FPS when there are alot of cars and scenery in view. Highest temps Ive seen are 60 for master and 52 for slave. The old girl is doing great, plays the new duke nukem maxed out too!!!!!

The rest of the old girls specs: 4 gig ram and the 2.5 CPU.

 

PS
Again I can play my games on my 46" Sony as my HDI works on my SLI set up!

 

Interesting find, I re flashed the BIOs, I increased my voltage to 1.05v on the gtx280 cards. Increased the clocks to 600, 1450, and 875. Damn good performance!

 

I adjusted the voltage to 1.05 and viola higher clocks! Im currently rocking 585, 1500, 950. The HAWXII benchmark that I had been using doesn't like overclock cards and crashes. Real games like the new need for speed shift II love it!!! 35 FPS all the time with jumps to 50FPS. Duke nukem maxed out is a breeze. Going to purchase Crysis II this weekend. Ill report back. Im using EGA afterburner to adjust clock speeds, and nbitor to modify the BIOs so I can get 1.05V.

 

Well Im calling this long grand experiment a success. With 1.05v 600/1500/900 clocks the old girl is a beast. Ive down clocked it to 570/1400/855 to make it game all day stable. Been playing Need for speed Shift II maxed out. Avg FPS of 35. And yes it plays Crysis II, all day long! With all settings on ultra, no V sync, and shadows on their lowest settings I get 25 FPS constant with max of about 50FPS. Ive dropped Crysis II down to 1680 and get an avg of 35 FPS. No need for a M18X yet! And temps, hah max temp of 69 on the master and 55 on the slave.

I cant go higher than 600 on both cards, the computer instantly goes to 2D clocks, if someone knew how to mod my BIOS to alow such or has ideas, this thing would be a super beast!

 

Alright, so it's been a long time and I was just looking around in forums and I came to this idea of Windows Aero causing display drivers crashes when trying to dual monitor, and if you recall (or scroll up a bit) I was having an issue when I try to extend my display my screen goes black and the display driver loop crashes. Well I tried disabling Windows Aero before attempting to extend the display, my cursor became invisible, but it worked without any driver crashes. I currently don't have any HDMI cables to test if the extended display actually works but it's a step closer.