Acer 5935G Q9000 & FirePro M4000 upgrade

Hey I've got an Acer 5935G currently with P7550 and terribly slow for today - GT130M.
I wanted to upgrade it and bought C2Q Q9000 & M4000 FirePro.
When putting both of them or even one, the system won't post and laptop shuts down after few seconds.
Does that mean they're both faulty, or should I do something prior to installing those components? Am I doing something wrong?
I'm currently using unlocked bios from here:
https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-Fully-Unlocked-Acer-5935g-Nvidia-130-bios-clocked
The M4000 I bought looks exactly the same as this one (109-c42251-00a on PCB)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precis...-C42251-00A-/371398504429?hash=item5679136fed
Any ideas?

 

I hope you find some info on the upgrades you want to do.

Changing the two core cpu to one with four cores and a TDP that is 80% higher for ~69% more performance is not a good trade, imo. And more pointedly, the notebook itself may not support that extreme (for 2009) processor, either in the M/B, BIOS or power supply chain.

The T9950 was available for that notebook and should be compatible, but it only offers ~19% more performance for 40% more power.

It may be time to consider a newer platform? A SNB or IB platform would be a huge jump and you can still find them at reasonable prices.

Good luck.

 

I might try again with genuine 90W Acer power adapter which gonna arrive soon.
I've seen posts of people owning 5935g saying Q9000 and 9600M GT work fine on that laptop, also I saw 'ancient' posts of Meaker having no problems running X9100 and 7770M on the same laptop.
That's why I want to make sure if there's some specific version of BIOS needed to support the Q9000 and perhaps opinions of anyone who had similiar configuration running (any acer model of that years with mxm card).
Currently I've got the unlocked BIOS which is supossed to be the best one available. Don't know if it's worth trying latest Acer version.
Taking laptop apart is a huge pain especially since I had to change every single component (over 4 or 5 times since arrival of q9000 and firepro...) so I don't wanna do that unnescessarily.
Actually, T9900 was more expensive than Q9000 which I bought for 37$. M4000 costed around 60$. My 5935g is a temporary computer for 2 months, got it for around 130$ so it's worth it. For performance I've got a much faster desktop with haswell.

 

nskbt, any Core 2 quad won't work in Acer, including Q9000, no way around it - unless you got a special revision of 8930G. You need a dual-core, preferably T9900 or X9100. M4000 you got may be ROMless - check that - or DOA, it should work otherwise.

 

nskbt,

re-reading your last post just now I noticed that you'll have this computer for only 2 months? Is it really worth putting all this effort into it for such a short period, except for pure learning purposes?

What is the intended workload?

 

I believe it is a GPU with ROM as I did research before buying.
It's exactly the same as this one:

I think that's the rom chip on the right hand side, isn't it?
I might give a go for T9800, don't know what to do with Q9000 as it's worth more in UK than I paid for it (if i would have it checked and prooved it works). Might buy 8935g or 7738g since they had an option for q9000.
If it's a plug and play method for gpu, then it seems to be DOA, even thought Chineese were guaranteeing it works, but as I said, I've got yet to check it with new Acer 90W power brick.

Yes, why not? Got some spare time on weekends and laptops are not a mystery for me, never had one with swappable GPU and I'm intrigued For a 1/2 or 2/3 of price I have the same performance in games compared to used laptops with 740m/830m or so. My friend recently got an i5-4200m, 4gb and r7 m265 for 600$ which barely can run anything new like Witcher 3 or GTA 5 and costs a lot more.
I'd like to run Cod:MW2 on ultra details with 60fps and usually there are 5-8 clients of diablo 2 running which take 60-70% of current CPU's power. Also the system is not a snappy one even though it has 7200rpm momentus.

Thanks for responses guys.

 

/takes out a spell-book and summons triturbo, cdoublejj, Deks, propolkin - the usual bunch of Acer upgrade experts - to this thread.

p.s. any modern (Haswell+) notebook with i5 and up will run most games, even without dGPU. Your friend likely suffers from low amount of RAM and graphic driver problems.

 

RAM or weak CPU makes the game freeze every few seconds, but the fps are really low too 600 USD notebook doesn't have good enough GPU. 4200m is a really potent cpu for mobile computer. 4GB upgrade is very cheap, so that's not a problem, but R7 will hold down the rest in new games. He uses the most recent drivers from AMD, but no matter how good the drivers are, they won't make a weak card as R7 M265 a powerfull one.
I wanted to try out quad acer with M4000 and see if it comes close to that (230$~) in modern games, out of curiosity and for fun, or maybe even some profit But if bios unables use of quad cores I have to find a different base for experiments, either 8935G or 7738G which both natively support quads. Wonder if the card's doa, will report back when I get the 90W charger if anyone's interested in results.

 

I checked whether a Quad core would work in 5930G (my own laptop I have at the moment) with all other components intact, and, no go.
The PM45 Chipset is technically compatible with a Quad Core, but Intel was sneaky and made another PM45 chipset which had a revised cpu slot that was compatible with Quad Cores such as Q9100 and Q9000.
You seem to have the 5935G, so I wouldn't be familiar too much with it apart that it apparently has an MXM III slot.

Slot-wise, it likely doesn't have a compatible electrical output for a Quad core (if it was released around the same time like 5930G)... hence why it wouldn't post.

As for the GPU... could need a suitable ROM to post, but don't quote me on that.
Ideally, you could try testing the GPU in someone else's laptop to see whether it works and if it does, then you have to look into the ROM for the GPU or possibly a modified BIOS for your laptop?

 

Finding an mxm-a laptop would be a difficulty (currently in UK, I live in Poland) so I guess I'll just get a different laptop.
Laptop bios is a modified 'full unlock' version atm.
GPU ROM is for GPU only, it's not integrated or connected to mobo BIOS afaik, I'm at least 95% sure about that. Safest bet would be to check it in Dell M4700 which this card was used in originally, but that creates big costs...
Got to wait for better charger and then get a q9000 compatbile notebook to check it. If GPU won't work then I'll return the card giving a DOA case as a reason.

 

Great answer and I was just curious...

As Starlight5 pointed out, 4GB RAM is very low in a modern computer. What O/S is running? Was it a clean install or a clone, or worse; the original the computer came with?

I have upgraded a few systems to Windows 10 and using the Chris PC Win Experience (the old WEI) index tool it indicated a jump in the graphics performance (both desktop and gaming indexes). I'm sure it's just a reporting glitch, but is something to consider testing.

Getting an SSD for this temporary system would be a good learning tool (but buy one worth keeping and using in your better systems), along with a clean install of a new O/S and current drivers.

The Seagate Momentus drives have all the spec's, but they were not stellar real world performers ime. Compared to an SSD, any 7200RPM feels broken, so, if you can, you should do this in the name of continual learning.

Hope you sort out the issues you're having with the processor and gpu.

Take care.

 

nskbt, for reference, my T734 with the very same 4200M runs GTA V... without any dGPUs. I paid $600 for it, shipping included. =\ AFAIK Broadwells, even U, run GTA V on par or slightly better. While upgrading is certainly fun for some of us, it doesn't mean you have to stick with older machine, which is getting less and less future-proof every month.

 

@tilleroftheearth - 8.1 64 clean OEM as I advised him, no OS Lenovo G series (don't remember exactly) - that's friend's new laptop.
GTA 5 runs ok but 4GB is not enough.
Witcher 3 on lowest details freezes (only 4gb ram) and has low fps (15-10fps drops when loading bigger cities). There's no way to improve other than buying a different laptop.

Yup, gta 5 runs ok on his pc but additional 4GB won't hurt. Witcher 3 needs meatier GPU anyway.

I know I don't have to keep acer 5935g, doing it simply because of curiosity and for fun, or perhaps as a 'educational' item as someone mentioned. I've got enough spare parts to build a powerful desktop, but don't want to invest for a 1 or 1,5 months of use.
I had i7-4820k with 16GB, 7870 tahiti LE, Samsung 840 Evo as OS + few games, and it ran Witcher 3 on Uber details @ 30fps on 22" 1680x1050, currently got i3-4130 with 8GB and same card and it runs almost the same so I'm fine in terms of performance That's my desktop in Poland. 5935g is temporary, hunting for 8935g or 8940g as they have dual HDD, full HD screen as standard and native quad support. When modified with q9000, m4000, their value can get as high as 500-600$ USD (150-200$ USD profit) from what I've seen. Wanted to check maximum upgrades of 5935g, hence that thread

 

I got a qx9300 working on a vaio fw that had no support for quad cores whatsoever, by cutting 5 pins underneath the processor that were not used by quads, but are voltage lines for dual cores. You can find the pins in the thinkpad/frankenpad quad core mod.

 

pchatzop, could you please provide more details?

 

Actually I had a Q9200 @ 3ghz and an M4000 in a 7738G along with a 90hz 1080p 90% gamut display and 8GB of low latency ram and a 256GB SSD.

It was a fun project.

 

Those are the pins. You can insulate them, or break them with a pair of pliers. They are completely unnecessary for the operation of a core 2 quad. In fact i am typing this from the very vaio i performed this mod.

 

pchaztop, is this mod applicable only on select machines, or generally any PM45/GM45 notebook?

 

It performed it on my pm45 vaio, and the processor works perfectly. I also updated the 1067a cpu microcode by modding the bios, but that was not needed(processor still works after motherboard swap). This mod was first performed on pm965 thinkpads, with a bsel mod to force the fsb to 200 mhz, and making them work with quad cores. PM45 already runs at 1066mhz so this mod should be enough to get the processor to boot, if there are no power issues. The real problem though is to make the computer recognise all 4 cores, at which part i really lucked out and the vaio recognised all 4 cores without any issues. It is quite simple really, the only thing needed is to be careful not to bend or break other pins. The quads work fine even with these pins removed, and even on laptops that were originally meant to support quads(not breaking native support).

 

Ok, an update from me.
Thanks for all the responses, but I just gave up on that laptop.
Got a 90W Delta charger and it changed nothing in both cases (M4000 or Q9000). What it changed though is the battery capacity status - it usually died at around 20-30% and now it drains till the end, which wasn't the case with replacement 65W brick.
Don't want to try that pin mod because of lack of proper tools (too lazy to buy ) and I simply want to return it along with the M4000 untouched, that laptop is not worth it anyway. Wasted enough time on it already (asembled & disasembled 6 or 7 times, even changed the thermal pads).
Going to buy T9800 for 30~ GBP this time from 'Murica and won't even bother changing the gpu in this one I think. I've put the Acer on Gumtree anyway.

T9800 @ 2.93GHz should be noticeably faster compared to P7550 & Q9000 I guess.

M4000 seems to be DOA as some guys got it working on the very same laptop model, mine wouldn't even POST as the laptop shutted down after 3 seconds.

 

Hi all
I recentlly change my video card for a AMD FirePro M4000 on a 7738G with a Extreme Quad 9200 SSD120 and 4g i wait my 2x4G module
But i lost my sound what can i do to enable the chipset in BIOS.
Thanks by advance.