Acer 8920g and nVidia 9650m gt DDR2

Hi im new here and kind of new to laptop upgrades/downgrades, i found other similar issues but they seem to pertain to the DDR3 version of this card, sorry if it has been posted and i missed it.

i have searched around the net for about 4 hours to find any answers, so if anyone can help it would be very much appreciated.

The only problem i seem to be having is drivers the card shows up/works fine with no drivers installed (standard VGA adapter) but with no direct 3D etc
as i said its an acer laptop 8920g and I'm trying to install a 9650m gt ddr2, i managed to install a driver but there was lines and flickering on the screen
and after about 2 mins the screen went black and have to restart. so i uninstalled them and is now back to standard driver.

Its vista 32bit OS (my sisters laptop, not my OS choice lol)

 

Try with laptopvideo2go drivers.

 

Thanks for the reply, i tried laptopvideo2go, but the driver i tried gave me the weird lines and blank screen.
there are a few drivers on there thought so i don't know if it was the right one or if it was the ddr3 one?

 

Sounds like the card is damaged.

 

well the card works with the standard vga vista drivers, no problems with lines etc

 

Does it display on an external monitor with the same blank screen/lines with the drivers?

 

Weirdly... no no lines or anything on either the monitor or the laptop screen, i even ran furmark and still nothing... when i unplugged the monitor, it went back to the lines etc after about a min 30.
I had gpuz running and i did notice that the core clock and the voltage gradually declined after running furmark and as soon as it hit 168mhz core clock the lines etc started.... is there a way to stop the gpu going so low?
I know this laptop bios is not made for this card but presuambly that seems to be the only thing keeping it running smoothly.

 

Just saying it "works with the default vista drivers" is irrelevant. The GPU is soldered onto the MXM board with many hundreds of tiny solder balls. When you have the default drivers only a few of those solder connections are actually operating and so it functions perfectly. Once you put the drivers on it starts using more of those connections to drive things like Windows Aero, if some of those are dodgy you'll start getting lines/artifacts. Equally it uses different solder connections for the internal and external display - it might be perfect on one but have problems on another.
The card has some dodgy solder balls attaching the GPU to it and will need to be reballed, or the slot on the laptop is going faulty.

 

ok no, maybe i didn't explain it to well, after i had the external monitor running i unplugged it then i ran furmark and gpuz, it was working fine no problems.
The problems only started when it was sitting idle, that is when i noticed the core and the voltages being under-clocked by "powermizer" and so i started furmark again and the problems stopped.
The card does work it was a brand new card. the reason i know it works is because when i installed the older drivers (181.72) everything works fine at idle and with furmark running.
Apparently there is something that has changed in the later drivers?
Between the newest drivers and the older ones the only visual difference i could see was in gpuz the voltages don't show up with the older drivers installed.
Like i said i haven't messed with laptop gfx a lot, although it seems as though the newer drivers could be dropping the voltages too low, idk but its working without fault with the older drivers.

Simon, thanks for the standard 'its an nVidia card it must be the soldering on the GPU chip' response, real helpful.

 

Did you perform clean install of Nvidia drivers? i.e. killing configuration files
Is your laptop's BIOS latest?

Yes, there is, but you'd better try other options first.

 

Yeah bios is up to date and i cleaned the old drivers out. i did find this site which confirms what i thought.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/418051/geforce-9650m-gt-asus-driver-solution-tested-making-drivers-above-182-67-work-in-asus-notebooks-/

 

At least it's not hardware failure. Well, you can always sell/return? your 9650M GT and go for GT240M, or, if you're feeling adventurous, for HD 4670M, both mxm-ii versions. First usually costs ~ the same on the secondary market and is way faster, second is more expensive and rare, runs hotter but is the best you can get.

 

yeah, probably but its working, thats all my sister wants. Yeah if it was my laptop i would upgrade to a better one but mine doesn't have upgradable gfx.

Thanks for the help though.

 

@PoisenedShroomz: hi there, where did u purchase the nvidia 9650 graphic card? I have been searching everywhere for a replacement for my Acer 8920 G. I have 1Gb version part no VG.8Es06.001 mxm ii.

Your help will be greatly appreciated!

 

some of the acer models have problems with 9650, also why did you buy a 9650 when you can get a gt240 which is faster?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/For-Acer-As...676?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item4d14b02fc4

 

Hey Pwarrior, sorry for taking so long to reply but i just found one on Ebay. I found some drivers online and some slight modification it works perfectly.... well no complaints so far lol.