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    M860TU GPU Upgrade

    Discussion in 'Sager and Clevo' started by cHek, Apr 7, 2011.

  1. cHek

    cHek Notebook Enthusiast

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    So I did a fair amount of reading but it can get confusing. My 9800M GT died. Refluxed it and then it died again a few months later.

    It sounded like the best upgrade path was the FX 3700M

    Can someone confirm that this card will or won't work so I can bid?

    HP nVidia Quadro FX 3700M 1 GB Video Card NEW NB9E-GLM3 | eBay

    Thanks,
    Chek
     
    cHek, Apr 7, 2011
    #1
  2. niffcreature

    niffcreature ex computer dyke

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    You can bid.
    Or you can make them a lower offer on their cards priced at 205$.

    No one is stopping you. It will work 100%.
     
    niffcreature, Apr 8, 2011
    #2
  3. Support.3@XOTIC PC

    Support.3@XOTIC PC Company Representative

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    The FX 3700M should be fine on that model. I tried to find exact specs on Clevo and Sagers site but no luck. I was able to see quite a few other owners that have this gpu in their Sager 8660 (M860TU) to make 100% sure you might want to contact Clevo, but it appears the card will work so bid away!
     
    Support.3@XOTIC PC, Apr 8, 2011
    #3
  4. MrDJ

    MrDJ Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    mine died a few weeks back and thanks to kobalt im now running a new 260GTX which is slightly more powerfull.
    would be interesting to see the results in vantage and 3dmark06 with the 3700.
     
    MrDJ, Apr 8, 2011
    #4
  5. Support.3@XOTIC PC

    Support.3@XOTIC PC Company Representative

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    Before you decide to go with the 3700 keep in mind that is more for professional use, if you want a gaming card stick with the Geforce line instead of Quadro.
     
    Support.3@XOTIC PC, Apr 8, 2011
    #5
  6. cHek

    cHek Notebook Enthusiast

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    Well I bought it. Only thing I am worried about is if the heatsink will fit right. From the benchmarks and specs it seems like the Quadro could still play games. I will have to see. Might just be a Solidworks PC after the upgrade if it can't run Crysis.
     
    cHek, Apr 9, 2011
    #6
  7. Mr_Mysterious

    Mr_Mysterious Like...duuuuuude

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    Why's that?

    Mr. Mysterious
     
    Mr_Mysterious, Apr 9, 2011
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  8. niffcreature

    niffcreature ex computer dyke

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    Lenovo cards: flash to 9800m GTX vbios

    HP cards: flash to gtx 280m, 260m vbios

    ;)
     
    niffcreature, Apr 10, 2011
    #8
  9. link1313

    link1313 Notebook Virtuoso

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    oh look everyones 9800M GT cards are dying at the same time :)
     
    link1313, Apr 10, 2011
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  10. MrDJ

    MrDJ Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    certainly looks that way. ive pointed 4 people so far to the baking method thread this year on here as they were out of warranty.
    but as i took out the extra warranty i was covered so within 4 hours it was replaced.
    the amount of people that asked over the years was the extra warranty worth it, well hell yeh it was :)
     
    MrDJ, Apr 10, 2011
    #10
  11. Mr_Mysterious

    Mr_Mysterious Like...duuuuuude

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    Lol, I'm definitely paying extra to extend my warranty for my computer for as long as I can :D

    Mr. Mysterious
     
    Mr_Mysterious, Apr 10, 2011
    #11
  12. MrDJ

    MrDJ Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    when i bought mine it only came with 1 year but now they all come with 2 years warranty so an extra £70 for an extra year after spending almost £2000 on a laptop is well worth it.
    i can never understand why people always ask if its worth the little extra when it covers so many expensive parts.
     
    MrDJ, Apr 10, 2011
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  13. Eivind

    Eivind Notebook Evangelist

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    Makes me glad we have 5 years warranty in Norway :)
     
    Eivind, Apr 10, 2011
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  14. MrDJ

    MrDJ Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    no way, your lucky.
     
    MrDJ, Apr 10, 2011
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  15. cHek

    cHek Notebook Enthusiast

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    Card worked great! Haven't run any benchmarks. Idle temp is around 35-40c goes up a little if I am on Mafia Wars or Cafe World. In StarCraft 2 I got it up to 70c. It ran it at 1920 with high res perfectly but I only tested it for 10 minutes. So far assuming the 3700 isn't going to crap out as fast as the 9800 I am very happy.
     
    cHek, Apr 19, 2011
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  16. A_Grounded_Pilot

    A_Grounded_Pilot Notebook Consultant

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    Hey mine too!!
     
    A_Grounded_Pilot, Apr 22, 2011
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  17. theriko

    theriko Ronin

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    Mines still going strong...Touch wood...

    (Yes I have an 8800M GTX, but it's the same card)
     
    theriko, Apr 22, 2011
    #17
  18. Lapatata

    Lapatata Notebook Enthusiast

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    I think i've ran in to the same issue with a burned out 9800gt. (2½ years running, suspicious!)
    My question is, what's to prefer, the ibm or the hp model? Seems there's quite a difference in price.
     
    Lapatata, Apr 22, 2011
    #18
  19. MrDJ

    MrDJ Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    find a 260GTX as they are better and cheaper.
     
    MrDJ, Apr 22, 2011
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  20. A_Grounded_Pilot

    A_Grounded_Pilot Notebook Consultant

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    Why better? Wouldn't a 3700 flashed with GTX 280 BIOS outperform a GTX 260?
     
    A_Grounded_Pilot, Apr 25, 2011
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  21. MrDJ

    MrDJ Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    no idea about the 3700.
    all i know is with the 260gtx i get over 1000 more in 3dmark06 compared to a 9800gt
     
    MrDJ, Apr 25, 2011
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  22. Kevin

    Kevin Egregious

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    The GTX 260M is not widely available or cheap, here in the US.
     
    Kevin, Apr 25, 2011
    #22
  23. niffcreature

    niffcreature ex computer dyke

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    Nope, not correct, vBIOS flashing has NOTHING to do with performance.

    Correction: a 3700m will outperform a gtx 260m (stock clocks).

    Overclocking is what you want to do for performance, vbios flashing is... what you do to annoy nvidia. really no point to it.
     
    niffcreature, Apr 25, 2011
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  24. A_Grounded_Pilot

    A_Grounded_Pilot Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks guys, esp. niffcreature. Based on your previous post in this thread, I thought flashing the 3700m with 280m vbios would net me something, but it sounds like keeping the stock vbios would be fine. I'm thinking the best thing I can do to keep my m860tu alive is just grab a 3700 off ebay for $150 and throw it in there, seeing as how I resurrected my 9800m GT once and it just died again a week later. The most intense thing I want to play is Arma 2, and I think I'll be processor bottlenecked anyways (p9500).
     
    A_Grounded_Pilot, Apr 25, 2011
    #24
  25. niffcreature

    niffcreature ex computer dyke

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    Yea, I thought it would be great too lol, turns out the Lenovo/ibm cards are much more powerful. And they can't be flashed to the 280m.

    The HP cards work better for HDMI and DVI. I was having some issues with the 9800m GTX vbios and stock Lenovo vBIOS with DVI and HDMI but the HP vBIOS seems to have resolved that.

    Also it may have made it run cooler? I'd have to do more testing to be sure...
     
    niffcreature, Apr 26, 2011
    #25
  26. A_Grounded_Pilot

    A_Grounded_Pilot Notebook Consultant

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    Do the Lenovo cards score better on benchmarks than the HP cards?

    I just can't figure out why one guy on ebay is selling HP FX 3700M's for $175 and another guy is selling HP and Lenovo cards for $294?
     
    A_Grounded_Pilot, Apr 26, 2011
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  27. Lapatata

    Lapatata Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'm still following this thread with great interest. I might be lucky and they'll upgrade to i7 and a newer card even though my warrenty has run out, the gfx failed while the comp was in repair for a broken powerjack. Heh.
    I'm still not sure wether to go for the Lenovo/ibm or the cheaper hp fx3700, if I get impatient and just orders my comp back from RMA to fix it myself. (They've had it for more than 6 months not counting the two times i got it back only to see a black screen after two hours. I even bought an Asus 1015pn netbook as a temp. replacement)

    On another note, the first time the gfx failed, the RMA guy told me it worked magically (is that even a word?) after taking the gfx out, trying another one in it, and putting the old 9800gt back in. The second time i got it back though, it died completely.


    Anyway, anyone got any advice about the lenovo vs. hp question? Btw, i use the comp for professional uses, so if it werent so expensive at the time i would have gone for the 3700fx anyway.
     
    Lapatata, May 11, 2011
    #27
  28. uracoin

    uracoin Notebook Geek

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    seems like im getting a fx3700 for my friend. i understood the best thing to do is to get a ibm card and flashing the hp vbios onto it?

    or would this be a ok choise?


    cgi.ebay.com/NVidia-FX-3700M-1GB-Clevo-D901C-Video-Graphic-Card-/150560626368?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item230e1cd6c0

    seems like the cheapest fx 3700 is 240$ tho:/
     
    uracoin, Jul 20, 2011
    #28
  29. uracoin

    uracoin Notebook Geek

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    can anyone direct me to the hp vbios for the fx 3700? cant seems to find it. also the colors are a bitt off, and thereis too much flimmering atm. will install driver to see if that is the issue
     
    uracoin, Aug 2, 2011
    #29
  30. cHek

    cHek Notebook Enthusiast

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    Just an update the card is still going strong. I have been addicted to Borderlands lately (everything video maxed). Got it up to 90c once but so far no trouble.

    I plan to get a desktop this year and hook it up to a new 4k TV if any come out so the old M860TU is near retirement only to come out when I am on vacation somewhere or I am having guests over and the TV is being used for something like a PPV but we still might need to look up something on the PC.
     
    cHek, Jan 21, 2012
    #30
  31. MrDJ

    MrDJ Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    great news. thanks for keeping us updated.
    its a shame more people dont report back after theve been helped on nbr.
     
    MrDJ, Jan 21, 2012
    #31
  32. Alienwarez

    Alienwarez Notebook Evangelist

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    I'm struggling to find a cheap replacement for my M570TU that fits into my laptop with no modifications. Don't want to go down the 9800M GT Route again after the cracking. Anyone have any cheap solutions so I can give my parents a working lappy? :) Cheers
     
    Alienwarez, Jan 21, 2012
    #32
  33. MrDJ

    MrDJ Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    MrDJ, Jan 21, 2012
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  34. gordan

    gordan Notebook Enthusiast

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    I recently did a GTX260M -> FX3700M upgrade on my M860TU. It works just fine, but there are a few caveats:
    1) You may do well to use a shim on the GPU to ensure proper thermal contact, my FX3700M was a little thinner than the GTX260M was.
    2) FX3700M is the same as a GXT280M (128 shaders), and it's TDP is 75W. This is a 10W increase on the 65W of the GTX260M

    In my tests I found that the stock clocks/voltages on the FX3700M are too much under full load. In a few minutes of OCCT-ing, the temperatures got to 97C and it started erroring all over the place. Use NiBiTor to edit the BIOS for more sensible clock speeds and voltages.

    Here is the article I wrote on the subject of upgrading an M860TU to a FX3700M GPU

    Bear in mind that Nvidia GPUs come pre-overclocked to within 1% of death at the factory. Especially in laptops it is worth checking your peak temperatures and editing the BIOS to downvolt and downclock the GPU until it is stable at sane temperatures under full OCCT load.
     
    gordan, Apr 10, 2013
    #34