How To: Install a M570TU GPU into a D901C (please help!)

Hey all, Dondadah88 and myself recently purchased 9800m GTXs that were pulled from M570TUs for use in our D901Cs. He hasn't gotten his card yet, but i got mine a few days ago and while installing ran into a fairly large problem. The holes on the M570TU cards that would be used to mount onto the D901C heatsink are NOT THREADED. The GPU Heatsink on a M570TU is like a case, so you just apply the thermal padding put it into the copper case and screw shut. However, with the D901C you must screw the heatsink onto the card itself. On the card I pulled out of the D901C you could tell the holes were modified to accept screws and thus be attached to the D901C heatsink.

I would post pictures for everyone, but due to me being in Iraq I don't have access to a computer that i can upload to.

I was told that there is some kind of guide in this, the clevo, forum to remedy our problem. But there are over 400 pages and it's gonna take a while to look through them. Does anyone know of a fix, or know where this guide is?

Thanks for any help.

 

I may be in the same boat as you so I'll help with the research.

Some threads I found, that could help (have not read them yet, but please go for it and post what you find!)

http://www.xoticpc.com/8800m-installation-guide-sager-notebook-np579x-a-41.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=342446

That second post is pretty much the situation explained, but in reverse, as he is going from a 8800GTX from a D901C into the M570TU. The little screw swellings are what you need to obtain I think?

 

I'm assuming your talking about the d901c picture below having the threaded and the gpu from the m570tu not having them. Only way your going to get them is to purchase them from a reseller if they even sell it. Also I believe you will need a plate that goes on the back of the gpu.

 

i'll have to look into it more.

 

OK, i got a little light on the situation...

NOTE: These are not the specific cards we're working with, but everything looks exactly the same. These are for demonstration purposes only.

The card in the file titled M570RU looks just like the card i pulled out of the M570TU. Notice the four big holes around the actual chip.

The file titled D901C 8800M GTX Front is identical to the card in my D901C. Notice the smaller, threaded four holes surrounding this chip. This is what needs to be done to the 9800M GTXs that came from the M570TU in order to mount it to the D901C heatsink.

I'm not positive yet, but i think if we peel off the silver heat sheet on the cards in our D901Cs we will se something similar to one in the file titled D901C 8700M GT Back.

We see in the file titled "metal plate removed" that it is possible to remove the plate.

So the question remaining is, how do we remove the plates from our D901C cards and how can we mount the plates on our new M570TU cards for proper heatsink attachment?

 

Beersentes I have no clue why you just copy and pasted all that information from a previous post about putting a gpu into a m570Ru? Actually I don't even understand why you made this thread, all you should have to do is take everything off your 8800m gtx and put it on the 9800m gtx.

 

really and truely, i'm looking and i don't see it. it seems like it will fit. i will enlargen them. maybe because i haven't pulled out my gpu yet.


so basically though you are trying to see if you can pull off the metal part off the 9800m gtx and use the 8800m one on it?

 

All 8800M GTX 9800M GTX use the same PCB P398, so physical ther are the same. And it´s very easy to remove the metal part.

 

Why I copied and pasted the information from a previous post into this one: It's a summary. If you notice, there are still some pertinent questions I have before I go ripping apart a $3000 piece of equipment, since i've never done it before. I'm sure that anone interested in helping solve the problem would much rather read a summary and look at a few pictures than read an entire 8 page thread to gather the same information.

Why I created this thread, and what it has solved:
Once again, a $3000 piece of equipment that I do not want to ruin. Secondly, if I never would have created this thread Walshman could not have bestowed his links that have given me so much insight into the problem. So by creating this thread I not only gained much needed knowledge about a problem I needed help solving, but I also found ANOTHER person (Walshman) who may potentially have the same problem Dondadah88 and myself are having right now. Networking and information sharring.

@Dondaddah-You will definetly understand the problem when you get your 9800 in the mail. I'm still not 100% on this, but i'm going to try it tonight. I'll just peel the metal sheet off my 8800m gtx and attempt to remove the adapter piece. IF i can remove that, i'll try to attach it to the 9800. Hope it works

From reading that other post though, it does seem as if the adapter piece is difficult to remove. I believe one person was saying he used force and almost broke his card, while another one said he took it to his knowledgable friend who was able to take it off. I wish someone knew for sure how to do this before I go ripping sh*t apart.

 

Thanks for the reassurance kaltmond, i'll try it out tonight and leave detailed notes tomorrow.

 

My little collection

8800M GTX -> 9800M GTX -> Quadro FX 3700M

 

It shouldn't be too hard to remove the backplate; it's just tedious and time consuming. If you have a heat gun or a hairdryer, it will make the process a little smoother.

 

Yes,

It's good that you posted because I will potentially be in the same boat when I go looking to upgrade to the 9800M GTX in my D901C.
Thanks for doing the research and keep us informed of how it turns out (hopefully successfully )

 

Had to pry it open with a flathead screw. The backplate has some sort of strong adhesive that causes it to stick to the back of my 9800m GTS strongly.

 

I found that the most adhesives (even the strong ones) are easy to remove if you heat up the area around it using a heat gun or a hairdryer.... comes off like butter.

 

ok and then we can place ours on it????

 

That's what it sounds like Dondadah. I was going to try last night, but ran into some occupational setbacks. I'm gonna be out of contact for a few days, but I should be able to let everyone know how it went on friday. Thanks for help all.

 

OK, i just got done changing everything over. It all seemed to go very well. The base plate on the back of the 8800 was a little tough to get off at first but with some patients and some pressure it finally popped off. I then re-applied the base plate and the alluminum sheath to the 9800m GTX, re-applied some thermal compound and attached the heatsink. Popped the heatsink back in the case, attached the fan, cleaned up my mess, flipped the thing over, hit the start button and.....nothing. NO POST. the blue light glows around the power button, the HDD light turns on, the power light turns from orange to green, and then the caps lock, num lock, and scroll lock lights start flashing and everything turns back off.

Anyone care to help me out a bit....this is my first time doing anything like this.

O yea, before i started the "change my GPU process" I popped in an SSD. I don't think that could be causing my issue but i had to mention it.

Please help!

 

make sure you have the latest BIOS update in your system as well

and then remove all non-essential components for the POST:
- battery (use AC)
- HDD(s)
- Wifi card
- TV Tuner
- Optical Drive

 

I did buy the system before the 9800's came out...that could be it.

If that were the problem..would i be seeing the things i'm seeing now? Would the system not POST, if the BIOS were outdated and i was trying to use the new GPU i meen.

Could you point me in the right direction to download the latest version....and perhaps a guide to doing it? i've never updated BIOS as well

 

I was following this thread under the assumption that you have already updated the system BIOS prior to installing my card, haha.

 

Well.... at least you're honest.

First you want to check the current BIOS version in your notebook.

Press F2 when turning on the system to see.

If you bought it from Sager or a Sager reseller, email them and they will send you an ISO of the latest BIOS for that system.

You can just burn the ISO image onto a blank CD and let it autoboot from the CD to update the firmware for you automatically.

 

ahhhh, damn. lol

Sounds easy enough. yea, I really just starting getting into computers a little while ago. I am learning quite fast, but the only problem is when you get too advanced too quickly you never learn the basic stuff.

And now that i think about it, that easy a pretty basic step isn't it!

Well, i imagine that if i didn't have too much trouble going through all the work of installing a 9800M GTX from a M570TU into my D901C then it should be too much of a hassel to switch them back and update the BIOS.

Thanks and bump for the very timely and useful help

 

OK, i put everything back the way it originally was and now there is a new problem! I press the power button, the blue light comes on around it, the green power light comes on, the HDD light flashes, the HDD light goes off, and then nothing....everything stays just like that. No BIOS loading screen, screen doesn't flicker, it doesn't turn back off, nothing.

This is really starting to get frustrating. I gotta run though, i'm moving to a different base tomorrow and i gotta go pack. I'll be back in ~24 hours or so.

 

ok so it won't fit with the heatsink it comes with correct?

 

Correct.

Everything seems to work fine now with my Sager. I still don't have the 9800 in because i'm still waiting on the updated BIOS revision from SAGER, but here are the steps i followed so far.

Here is what to do:

1. Update you BIOS to support the 9800m GTX, lol

2. Remove the GPU fan.

3. Remove the card w/heatsink from your D901C

4. Remove the heatsink from atop the card (will have to apply pressure to break the adhesive holding them together.)

5. Carefully! remove the alluminum sheath from your old card (use a haridryer or similar source of heat to soften up the adhesive first)

6. Remove the silver backplate from the back of the old card by applying pressure to the four threaded screwholes on the front of the card (once again use a heatsource to soften up the adhesive) You will have to use some force here.

7. Now set all those parts aside and remove the new card from it's heatsink. (just remove all the screws and be carefull when prying apart the two sides of the heatsink to reveal the card.)

8. Place the silver backplate from the old card in the exact same place on the new card (you can use adhesive but i'm not sure what type as i didn't)

9. Replace the alluminum sheath on the new card atop of the silver backplate.

10. Don't forget to apply the thermal pads and thermal compounds in the same places they originally were (i used arctic clean and arctic silver 5 and gained a 3-5 degrees celcius reduction!)

11. Replace the D901C heatsink to your new card

12. Pop everything back in and update drivers, ect.

I wish i could post pictures, but once again my current employment situation has taken me away from any normal means of internet connectivity, sorry

Good Luck!

 

All done in 12 easy steps, boys and girls.

 

OK, so what happened in the end?
Have you been able to install a 9800M GTX into D901C without having a 8800M GTX to rip off? How about the heatsink and fan for 9800M GTX/D901C?

What is the best price for a 9800M GTX with heatsink, fan and SLI bridge/cable?
I have sent an email to RJTech and Kobalt for a quote and they did not answer.

I am thinking to return my system if there is no easy way to upgrade to SLI.

One other possibility would be to buy a used M570TU with 9800M GTX, rip off the 9800MGTX, replace it with a 260M GTX/280M GTX, resell it and finally install the 9800M GTX into D901C. If only that would work...

 

my card is being shupped out on thursday. the sli cable is 45 drom eurucom. the heatsink is 60 and the fan is 35. theis is what I get from them. they also claimed the fame comes with the heatsink. I am ordering the heatsink tomorrow. and the fan and the sli cable on thursday if my phone doesn't break......

I wll keep you posted on what's going on.

 

Could you please confirm that your card is coming from M571TU? I am not sure if this is the same as M570ETU; do you know if it accepts an upgrade to 280M GTX?
Also, are all the 9800M GTX cards usable in a SLI setup?

I am following an eBay auction that will end up in 10 minutes, therefore I need to know if I can trigger on it:
http://cgi.ebay.de/17-WUXGA-CLEVO-M571TU-4GB-DDR3-9800M-GTX-1GB_W0QQitemZ300330730323QQcmdZViewItemQQptZDE_Technik_Computer_Peripherieger%C3%A4te_Notebooks?hash=item45ed1b4353&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12|66%3A2|39%3A1|72%3A1229|293%3A1|294%3A50

Thanks.

 

sorry for taking so long. I think the bid ended. I believe they use the same one and it will work with each.mines does come with a sli connector. but there are two different cards. I know the toshiba comes with a eerom where you can't flash the bios and the sager one are unlocked.

 

I was short of 25 euros at the auction because I wasn't very determined, yet.
When you say Sager, do you mean any Clevo based laptop? Just to make sure that Toshiba is not using Clevo barebones, which may complicate things a bit.

Also, is the SLI connector some sort of outlet where you can plug the SLI cable?

 

I'm pretty sure the EEPROM isn't preventing the Toshiba GPU's from being flashed. The nvFlash developers just haven't received any info about the cards from Toshiba users, thus nvFlash doesn't have support for the EEPROM in Toshiba 9800M GTX's.

I'm sure you were following "that" thread, dondadah88. Toshiba hard locked the BIOS itself. There's nothing Toshiba users can do about it.

Anyway, how's the project coming along, dondadah88?

 

clevo make laptops and sager slaps there name on it. it's just like the arima/flextronics w840di. they made the laptop and ocz put there name on it. so did alienware and called it the m17.

but gpu's are alittle different. nvidia/ati make the cores and sell them to companies and they make up the rest of the card(if i am wrong correct me). for example ati's 4850 from the msi gt725/asus w90/alienware m17 have almost the same specs but they have different specs, bios, etc
w90 4870(really 4850) 550/850 512mb vram
gt725 4850 500/850 1gb vram
m17 4850???/??? 1gb vram

it's the same thing for the toshiba 9800m gtx and the clevo 9800m gtx.

the sli/crossfire connector is a cord that connects the two-three gpu's to talk each other to perform what is called sli/crossfire. as for as i know all the clevo 9800m gtx has a sli port so you don't need to worry about that.

so if they were to send the bios to them, they would be able to make the flash work???????

i did follow the thread but when it didn't work i just thought it was the same problem i had here
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=363888

so far, i am waiting for the gpu to come in. it is suppose to be shipped out thursday and then i has to get all the parts. when it comes, and i order all the parts i will report how it goes.

 

Even if Toshiba sent him an unrestricted BIOS, he wouldn't be able to access the current BIOS on his 9800M GTX.

Haha, I wasn't talking about that thread. I was talking about the one in the Hardware forum.

 

Does anyone know if M570RU Extreme Edition supports 9800M GTX? There is somebody that claims that it works with both 8800M GTX and 9800M GTX.
If it does support it, does that mean that it has a MXM 2.1-III slot. e.g. it can be upgraded to a 260/280M GTX card?
He did post a GPU-Z snapshot with the 9800M GTX with 15.07.2008 date (which is the launch date of the card).
The laptop was sold by a German Clevo reseller, but Eurocom does not show 9800M GTX for M570RU - Divine model.

 

Reseller or on ebay?

 

The M570RU only officially supports up to the 9800M GT, who was it who said they had the GTX working (please post link)?

The 260/280M GTX will fit in the slot fine (it has MXM 2.1-IV slot) but afaik no one has tested the bios support yet...You're welcome to be the first to try...

 

It is on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.de/Clevo-M570RU-X90...A%2BUA%2BIEW%2BFICS%2BUFI&otn=14&po=LVI&ps=54

It says (in German) that you can choose to buy it with 9800M GTX or 8800M GTX, 120 euros extra for 9800M GTX.
I don't know what to say, I was interested by that laptop only for the 9800M GTX anyway.

How about the 260M GTX SLI in Clevo D901C? Is it the same issue with unsupported vBIOS? I think that I have seen a signature of D901C with 260's SLI some time ago. However, when I tried to search it recently I couldn't find it anymore.

 

Yeah, same issue, fits in slot, noone has tested bios compatibility yet.

 

How about flashing the 9800M GTX BIOS to a 260M GTX card? If this is possible, then I guess that you end up with a faster 9800M GTX or one that could potentially be a better and safer overclocker.

 

Why would you want to flash a 9800M GTX BIOS on a GTX 260M when you can just overclock on the same BIOS.

 

the quadro cards work just fine in the D901C. the 280m is pretty much the same so can u put two 280m's in the D901C and flash them with the quadro bios and they should work, right? or will that mess up the SLI capabilities.

 

The GTX 280M's do not have SLi sockets.

 

so how do they work in that 18.4' clevo?

 

The D901C uses MXM 2.1 slots. The M980NU uses MXM 3.0 slots. The GTX 280M's for MXM 3.0 have SLi sockets. The GTX 280M's for MXM 2.1 slots do not.

 

The MXM 2.1 Quadro FX 3700 does not have a SLi socket either.

 

I was told that nobody knows if you can have 260M GTX in SLI in D901C because of possible BIOS incompatibility issues.

Flashing the 9800M GTX BIOS to a dual 260m GTX SLI in D901C would probably take care of the BIOS incompatibility and you will end up with a card that has native clocks of 550/1375/950 instead of 500/1250/800.

Even if flashing the 260M GTX with the 9800M GTX bios would downclock it to the native 9800M GTX (I don't know this, just assuming the worst), overclocking it back to the native 260M GTX specs would not put any strain on the 260-9800M GTX card. Then some more if you want.

It would also resolve the upgrade of a D901C with a single 9800M GTX to a SLI setup, since 260's are more readily available and at a more reasonable price (dual 260's may be found under 700-800$, I think).

The real problem seems to be that the 260M GTX and 280M GTX slot 2.1 do not have a SLI connector?

This seems to be a setback from the 9800M GTX, which appears that it has the SLI connector regardless of the form factor it is sold on (e.g. D901C or M570TU).

 

Ah, I see your point. However, all of this would be negated as the MXM 2.1 GTX 260M does not have a SLi socket. This leaves the two 9800M GTX's as the best solution for the D901C.

 

Ok, that seems to be it. However, I do understand that you could possibly put 2 x 280M GTX's (slot 2.1) in D901C but without SLI? That may not help game-wise but you would still end up with an up-to-date high end multi-GPU system for say CUDA parallel programming.

Hopefully they will either release some future MXM 2.1 slot cards with SLI (fat chance though) or they will just enable games or GPGPU applications that are optimized for multi-GPU systems that are not necessarily in a SLI setup :-[