Aspire 5920G, NV 8600M-GT 512 replacement

Hi,

can anyone point me as to where can I find the FRU part number of the nVidia 8600M-GT 512Mb and where from to order it?

The one in my Aspire 5920G is failing and I guess I'll need to replace it. The good thing is its an MXM-II, so its user replaceable. But I don't know what's the best place to order it from.

Found it one mxm-upgrade.com but it's a bit pricey over there. It is also listed under various sellers over at alibaba.com but I'm not sure how much can I trust some anonymous seller from China or wherever to actually send me the hardware once I have paid for it. Does anyone know about alibaba.com and is it trustworthy in general?

There seems to be a surge in availability of these nVidia cards, since they are failing massively due to GPU production process error over at nVidia, so I guess they are at least trying to provide replacement parts, nevermind who's gonna pay for them. My lappy's 6 months out of warranty so I'm out of luck, have to pay for it myself, but its better than having to buy a whole new laptop after only 18 months.

Does anyone know if any ATI MXM cards fit in this laptop? I'd rather go for ATI since nVidia is obviously not dependable, even though they say they've corrected the issue with the faulty GPUs in new cards.

Any 8600M-GT owners out there with the same expirience and advice?

Thanks.


P.S. I found the 5920G Service Manual, and interestingly enough the VGA adapter is mentioned only once in the whole manual, as to how to remove it. No word on FRU part numbers or anything else, even though all the other parts are listed down to the last screw.

 

Have you tried looking on eBay? There should be plenty of Radeon HD 3650 cards that will fit perfectly in your Acer.

 

Havent looked for ATIs, cause I'm not sure which one would fit. I found one guy that supplies 8600s though, but he seems to have ran out of 512MBs, only 256MBs now. And there's that one guy at mxm-upgrade which is the most expensive but he offers 1 year warranty. But for his price I can get 2 cards from Hong Kong, but without warranty. But somehow I think he gets his hw from the same place, only he charges that much more that he can afford to offer waranty if any of them fails within a year here and there. They're half the price over there.


Btw. how's that Samsung netbook treating you? Is it any good? I only saw it today on the net and liked how it looks, even the price is right. Only dont know about service support since Samsung is not exactly a well established laptop manufacturer. But over here where I live, all support is lousy, so I guess I shouldn't mind about that very much. After all it goes for the price of an average smartphone.

 

Get the 3650 as suggested, any mxm II with an acer bios should work.

 

or a 4650 if your lucky...

 

4650 requires modding to fit properly, so bad idea most likely.

 

then 9600M GT... which should work without modding...

 

Nope, sadly it can't run on 5920G HD4650 with a copper mod would be fine, otherwise HD3650 is the way to go

 

So you think getting the new 8600M-GT for a replacement is no way a good idea? Even though the faulty design has been dealt with. Is the 3650 better or worse than the 8600M-GT?

 

Who said that, nVIDIA No one can confirm it at 100% neither you'll know from which "batch" would be the GPU that you'll buy from eBay (or any other place). BTW I believe that the problem is fixed, but with the 9xxxM line

On par and runs slightly cooler, at least that's what I read

 

Yes, I should have added "allegedly dealt with"

The guy that sells them on alibaba.com says he sells them by the hundreds, I replied "that's because they are failing massively"

At least there are spare parts (for now). Nevermind that we (end users) have to pay for them, even though the nVidia's faulty design is not our fault

 

The HD3650 is WAY better, I get aroun 4700+ 3dmarks with a nice OC!.

 

I believe the HD 3650 is a little slower than the 8600M GT but barely. Still OCed the 8600M GT DDR3 usually has much more OCing headroom than the DDR3 3650 making the gap even bigger when you push the 2 cards. I get 5000 3dmark06 points with a 3.15ghz dual and 5350 with my quad with the 8600M GT 512mb DDR2 card so it looks like the DDR2 versions of both cards are quite similar.

 

According to notebookcheck, the 3650 is a little bit higher on the performance list. I wouldn't overclock the mobile GPU since it already gets very hot during gameplay as it is (95C).

 

So would a 9600m work with an aspire 5920? Also no matter what mxm card you get it needs to have an acer bios or am I just making things up? For example a 3650 from another acer would work but one from an asus wouldn't?

 

It's not "WAYY" better, as said before, the 8600M GT is much more flexible when overclocking, but at the risk of failing quickly due to heat or just higher frequency the VRAM is designed for. I overclocked my 570M which is the GDDR3 non-crippled 8600M GT, and i can get 6500 and over, i forget what clocks. The HD 3650 may have better VRAM as it is higher clocked, but that's about it, is the 3650 DDR2 or GDDR3?