Swap ATI Mobility Radeon HD3470 for a Nvidia Geforce 9600M GT

Hello all,

I have this old ASUS M70R laptop which graphic card, an Ati Radeon HD3470, failed.

I am wondering if I can replace it by a Nvidia Geforce 9600 GT used in the ASUS M70N.

I suppose that in the best scenario I will have to flash the BIOS with M70N 's.

Both card's are MXM II type and the main difference is the VRAM size 256MB against 1GB.

The reason for the swap is that I need to make the laptop back to work as it features some peripheral connections which are very usefull, even better if doing it improves the performance.

Thank for any tip on the subject.

 

If that 9600GT was used in same laptop, than it will work, I guess. As you mentioned, I think too, that you`ll have only to update you sBIOS with the version of M70N, that used this 9600GT or edit yours sBIOS. Is this card ROMless?

 

Most likely will not work and it isn't just because of the BIOS you have chipset that will not detect the Card. You can just swap ATI with Nvidia and expect them to work-I doubt Asus made such design upgrades in the works. Also is that part isn't listed as part of the upgrade from the Service Manual then it will not work. What you need to do is contact Asus.

 

Thank's for your reply, I have edit the original as I made a typo.

My laptop is an Assus M70R which originally have Ati Radeon Mobility HD3470

I would like to know the possibilities of swaping that card for the Gforce 9600M GT from a Asus M70N.

I believe the card can be considered to be ROMless under this circumstances (or not)

 

Could you please tell me I you think the chipset might not detect the card as both M70N and M70R have the same chipset?
At least Assus says so.

Boath cards are MXM II.

 

That`s not a rule of thumb. Maybe for ASUS laptops, I don`t know. But for my ACER FirePro M4000 was not listed too in service manual, as the X9100 too. And both work.

Why does the chipset could not detect the card? Isn`t that a restriction for the sBIOS? If the card is ROMless, than vBIOS has to be in sBIOS. If the card has the ROM chip, than it should work.

This laptop has PM45 chipset, I don`t see any restriction that will not allow to run the graphics card.

Antonio, do you have service manual from your laptop? And have you seen the graphics card (I mean on a photo or by disassembling the laptop)? Is it a standard shaped MXM-II card? As I know ASUS made lot of MXM-II and MXM-III cards, but many of them were with different design of PCB.

 

Thank's once more

I only found the disassembly chapter from the service manual.

I've just receive the answer from ASSUS support whereas they can't tell since, I quote, "no tests were done" that is they don't say it won't.

Furthermore ASSUS support stressed something I had already thought of regarding overheating issues due to power draw, resulting from the fact that the new board may have a major payload.

I believe there is a benchmark for that I will try to find it.

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-3470.9594.0.html

12W

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9650M-GT.10764.0.html

23W

It almost doubles consumption but I don't thing ASSUS made different motherboard and/or coolers for the M70VN so it all must be manage through BIOS ACPI or ASSUS equivalent.

Any tips will be much appreciated.

 

First of all you have to think about physical design of the PCB of your current card. If it is "standard" MXM-II than I still don`t see any restrictions that would not allow to run new card.

Than you should check the TDP (heat dissipation) for 3470 and 9600. For example, my old GT240M has 28W TDP and the cooling module was designed exactly for that card. Now I`m running M4000 that has max 33-38W TDP. And the cooling module still is capable of cooling it (max temperature under full load with furmark+aida64 - 70°C).

I`m not familiar with ASUS laptops, but in 65% cases of old laptops upgrades the theory and practice are the same.

In addition: as you mentioned, the heat dissipation is almost doubled. That means that in case with 9600GT ASUS could make a different cooling module.

 

Hello, for M70 you will need to find a specific 9600M \ 9650M board for ASUS, not a stand MXM II type PCB, for example:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/DDR2...T-9650MGT-for-ASUS-A8-A8S-A8SC/559904064.html

 

Motherboard, chipset and even cooler system are the same in M70VR and M70VN the only difference appears to be the graphics card and BIOS versions, but even the card socket is the same, MXM inverted so the GPU faces down. The form factor of both cards from ASSUS is alike but for instance ACER implements the very same ATI board only that GPU faces up, which reduces a lot the number of cards available.

 

Thanks for the remark.

It's a shame since if it wasn't for that it would be much more easy to find a card as there are a lot of ACER for sale with ATI HD3470 and I wouldn't even bother to go for the upgrade as long as had the problem solved.

 

So if your card don`t has specific PCB design and the same is for 9600 and its GPU is inverted on PCB, so you should be ok on trying to install and run it.

 

If I manage to find a board for a reasonable price I will give it a try and post the result here.

Thank's