Question about 7970M upgrade for P150hm

Hi guys,

The 6990m in my p150hm laptop died a while ago. I've already posted some threads about it on here and received a lot of helpful replies.

I cannot get the 6990m repaired anymore so I have to get a new graphics card. The problem is that the laptop doesn't work at all without it so I have to get a graphics card that would work out of the box.

I was thinking of getting the 7970m but then I read how the seller on ebay says that I "must upgrade the laptop to bios 14 and ec 12 before installing it".

Well, I can't really do that so my question is that should I just go for a new 6990m or is there a way around it for the 7970m?

I've read about the blind flashing method as well. Is that what the seller means?

Please reply, all help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

Well buying another 6990M is just a bad idea, period. The BIOS and EC update is to make sure your machine will accept the new card. I dono what Sager changed in those updates, can't find a changelog, maybe they don have anything to do with the 7970M compatibility. You can't blind flash anything if the machine doesn't even boot from incompatibility. Talk to your reseller to see if they can help, I know mythlogic offers the service for installing the card.

 

You can try baking your 6990M in the oven at 200C for ~8mins to bring it temporarily back to life (detailed guides available on NBR forum). If this works, put the card back in the laptop, upgrade the BIOS and voila! You are ready for a GPU upgrade.

 

I bought the card directly from Sager. I gave the card to someone so they could get it repaired, but I can't get it back now so I have to find another way.

Can you please tell me what exactly a blind flash does? Does it update the EC and BIOS?

Also, why wouldn't my machine boot up if I use the 7970m with it? I may be wrong, but I've read on here that it does boot up but it shows a black screen.

Thanks for the replies!

 

A blind flash is basically like a normal flash but when the screen is not working, you enter in the commands at the right point and trust it is doing what it should.

 

Thanks for the reply. What exactly does flashing do? Does it update the bios and ec? Can someone please also answer my other questions?

Thanks!

 

Yes a blind flash is done when the boot screen appears blank yet the windows bootup sound occurs and everything is working normally. It is done to flash the vbios of the gpu to get it work with the screen.
The EC is part of the motherboard. We are not touching the motherboard bios and ec we are dealing directly with the gpu bios.

I would try salvaging the card with a bake and if that does not work then see that you buy a clevo 7970m v1.2G with the rjtech or eurocomm vbios flashed onto it. Ask the seller to do this for you. If he/she cannot, then blind flash with the very wonderful jaybee thread here on Sager/clevo will help you.
The 680m also needs a specific vbios flashed for it to work with the HM series. Fortunately for me this was done by my seller here on notebookreview classifieds.
Both the 680m and 7970m are built on 28nm fabric compared to the 40nm of 6990m. This will result in a huge drastic temperature drop.

Good luck

 

Thanks a lot for replying!

Edit: Sorry, I misread your post. I understand that flashing the card updates the card's bios and not the laptop's bios. What I need to know is if my laptop, with its stock bios and ec, will even boot up at all with a new unmodified 7970m because the seller on ebay says I must update the bios and ec of the laptop before installing the 7970m.

 

Yes you will need the latest EC and bios for your motherboard.

 

What will happen if I don't have the latest bios and ec but still install the 7970m? Will the laptop boot up at all?

Thanks.

 

You are risking a lot of money and wasted time, up to you to decide if you wanna take the risk.

 

It's simple and easy enough to update so it's not worth the risk.