nVIDIA 8800M GTX

Anytime Just trying to provide further clarification for everyone's concern on this issue.

 

And there we go. Justin, thanks for the clarification (and the correction to my speculations, although I suppose that I was at least partly correct in guessing that it was the result of a more-or-less unilateral decision on the part of NVidia, and also that Clevo may, in fact, have been blind-sided by this decision because, as I read both the version 2.1A specs and the version 2.1 specs (which I have since found a copy of), the MXM module appears to permit the vendor to choose either EDID or non-EDID, although non-EDID support requires that the system BIOS provide the VBIOS with a pointer to the EDID structure to be used with the non-EDID panel (this info is derived from the Software Specifications, version 2.1, released September of 2007 (document SP-03494-001_v1.0), available at: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_13291.html ). In particular, on page 47 of both the version 2.1 and version 2.1A electromechanical specs for MXM, the spec stats that support for the DDCC_CLK and DDCC_DAT signals (pins 220 and 222 on the pinout chart for both versions) is optional - meaning the vendor can choose whether or not to have the system board (as opposed to the graphic card itself, which must support those signals) support an EDID display panel.

Thus, since Nvidia's own specifications manual, as of November 20, 2007, stated that support for reading EDID from the display panel was optional in terms of system board support, I still believe that the 9261 f**k-up was largely if not wholly the fault of Nvidia and not that of Clevo.

However, I am still open to whomever else can add some real information here, whether it contradicts me or not.

Finally, Justin, thank you for the degree of participation and information you bring to this forum - if Sony or HP had someone as knowledgeable and as active involved in a forum like this, I would never have strayed (of course, if they were forward-thinking enough to have someone like that, there would be no reason to stray). When I finally scrape together enough pennies to get a new system, xoticpc will most likely be the first reseller I look to.

 

Justin,

These problems with the NP5791, do these apply to all of the machines or is it just the units that have not already shipped? I'm curious because I am considering buying one and I don't want to buy a machine that has problems and hardware issues when it's new. But I really want a machine with a 8800gtx.

 

Ok, I understand all this. But how is DELL stating that their XPS notebooks are upgradable to the new 8800M GTX without change of motherboards (just the cost of a new card)?

The new XPS came out more or less the same time has the Clevo motherboard revision supporting Quad Cores and 8700GT in SLI.

DELL must have been given info regarding these issues by NVIDIA while Clevo was kept outside of it if we believe on all that is being said on this thread. Humm ok!

As far I understand all that has been said is that Clevo built their modules to support LVDS and not EDID. And the motherboard chip supports only LVDS (could have supported both within the context of upgrdability). And now NVIDIA decided "I build the modules and they will use EDID". That maybe true, nevertheless very convinient from the point of view of new sales, a disaster from the point of view of brand trustiness for the current owner. Don't forget that we are talking about the survival of a system architecture for at least a video card generation without major changes on the system (that is upgradeability). A motherboard upgrade is not an system upgrade is a replacement, that is a major change.

If a new motherboard is required for the video card "upgrade", Clevo for me is just another laptop/brand like every other within this context (upgradability ... man no sir). I could understand a motherboard REPLACEMENT for Quads or Penryn (different architectures), but not a video card that is fundamentally the same as the 8700M GT in terms of its internal architecture ... sorry.

If motherboard REPLACEMENT is not necessary I will upgrade very soon. If it is, I will upgrade onlywhen a new motherboard out supporting Penryns and maybe the NVIDIA 9000Ms. Sorry by trusting the word of a brand I was expecting not to pay a $1000 just to have my system more or less up to date every 4 months (that would be a "rent"). That would be a system that costs me not $4000 plus some hundreds but $4000 + $1000*2 = $6.000 on the first year and $3000 ($1000 evry 4 months) every other year at the current street prices (upgradable bha). Considering that this model will be in for 3 years we have a total of $6.000 + $3.000*2 = $12.000, that would give an average of $4.000 every year (nice business you have there). That is like buying a brand new Clevo every year but having just one on your desk. That is what we are talking about irrespectively of technical justifications. Someone needs to get their act together regarding upgradeability.

This is so absurd that I still believe that this is not the case and that we will be able to upgrade our video cards without a major change in the system (the motherboard is not a component of the system is the mother of it, change the mother you have a different child, and not the same child but better).

Trance
PS: Someone may be thinking that well I'm not deducing the cost of sales of second hand components that are being replaced. Well let's say I get a $1000 for them every year (the very best effort), is still $3000 every year that to mantain the current upgradeability path ... someone is getting very gready. You would be better buying a new one (at least you could give computers to your boss, he/she might appreciate that).

 

Dell doesn't use MXM, so it isn't affected by the changes

 

Good for them! MXM means nothing as far as I'm concerned. It just doesn't deliver (it never had as I can read from posts of people with older models such as Gophn). In other words is a marketing gimmick if the worst comes through once again.

Trance
PS: By the way, being a "cutting edge" ODM doesn't execuse Clevo on this upgrade paths as I've heard this one before. I do believe that Clevo as far more control over the upgrade paths as the result of my calculations are very convenient (if the cost of upgrades are on average one brand new Clevo every ... should I spell it further?).

 

btw: you might want to forget about selling your parts
people who can use them in their own notebook either have them, or are not interested because they'll also want the 8800
selling might be an option in 2 to 3 years, to people who are out of warranty and don't want to/can't buy a new notebook just yet =)

 

Are you sure about that?

From what I've been able to piece together, the problem Clevo faces is that Nvidia decided to manufacture the 8800M MXM modules itself, leaving only minor customization to the vendors, and arbitrarily decided to not support any non-EDID displays (e.g., LVDS), despite the fact that the recently released (Nov. 2007) MXM specifications (version 2.1A) states that an MXM-compliant system board has the option of supporting either EDID or non-EDID displays.

With respect to Alienware, according to the Alienware support site, the displays for the Area 51 m9750 and the Aurora m9700 are LG Phillips LCDs, model LP171WX2 for the WXGA and model LP171WU1 for the WUXGA, see http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/...GV4dD1zcGVjaWZpY2F0aW9ucw**&p_li=&p_topview=1

On the LG Phillips website, I couldn't find any specs for the WXGA (model LP171WX2), but I did find the specs for the WUXGA (model LP171WU1). According to the LG Phillips specs, model LP171WU1 uses an LVDS interface, see http://www.lgphilips-lcd.com/homeContain/jsp/eng/prd/prd301_j_e.jsp?prd=LP171WU1

Accordingly, if you have an Alienware m9750 or m9700, with a WUXGA display, I believe, based on the inferences I'm drawing from what I've seen (and admitting that I am relatively ignorant in this area), that those systems will not be able to upgrade to the Nvidia GeForce 8800M, unless Nvidia has made a special sweet-heart deal with Dell to provide them with 8800M modules that do support LVDS while cutting out everyone else. Until I get better evidence that supports such a conclusion, I'm not willing to go that far; however, I have to say that, if the evidence points to it, I would not be overly suprised.

 

Yes, Dell does not and has never used MMX. Even the 8700 SLI in 1730 is a special board with both chips on the same PCB.

 

Fair enough. I suppose that my comments were founded on the implicit assumption that, with respect to the 8800M, Nvidia's decision to manufacture the basic videocard module itself extended to all implementations of the 8800M, and not just to the MXM-based implementations. If that is not the case, then, clearly, my comments are beside the point; on the other hand, if it is the case that even Dell (or its ODMs) received partly-finished modules from Nvidia that were already setup to only support EDID displays, then my comments still stand, even though the end-product that Dell uses is not an MXM-compliant video card - a card is only MXM-compliant if it meets all of the mandatory requirements of the "standard" and doesn't flout any of the mandatory prohibitions; thus, if Dell merely used a PCB that had dimensions that exceeded the maximum dimensions set forth in the MXM "standard" specifications, that would be enough to render it non-MXM, even though, other than PCB size, it was otherwise identical to the MXM-compliant cards.

Another immaterial noncompliance might be, e.g., the heatsink connections. So, the mere fact that Dell has never been MXM-compliant does not, by itself, answer the ultimate question, which is: was Dell permitted to use 8800M cards that supported LVDS even though no other ODM was permitted to do so? Unfortunately, on that I have not a shred of useful information.

 

it isn't that it isn't MXMcompliant
it simply isn't (wasn't?) MXM

 

I still think the whole thing about the D901C and the MXMIV format was touted as 'upgradeable' but I ask you if there is nothing to upgrade to (Certainly nothing to upgrade to without having to switch motherboards) then how is it 'upgradeable'?

 

shyster, what about the other clevo product that accept the 8800m card, even though it cannot support sleep mode if it does without a new mobo? it's the sager np5791 (or clevo 570u i think).

i would think that is lvds as well and that lvds is what may be causing the incompatibility issues with sleep modes and the 8800m cards.

 

ok i have the results of 2 other people with their m9750. here are their screenshots. i hope this helps. let us know, shyster!

first picture as a link. i know this guy has 7950gtx sli with his setup.



second result below

 

if anyone with a sager np9260 can run the same test and post results it would really help! dl the small software here, its free.

http://www.entechtaiwan.com/lib/softmccs.shtm

 

From what I can find online, LPL0B0A is the code identifying LG Phillips LCD as the manufacturer of the display.

I haven't gotten any further in identifying the exact LG display; however, based on the discussion of an Area-51 m9750 posted August 24, 2007, at Anandtech here: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3070 , and given that the image you've posted appears to show a manufacture date of 2005 (the same as in the Anandtech article), and since the resolution is 1920x1200, it's probably LG model LP171WU1 (basic specs are available here: http://www.lgphilips-lcd.com/homeContain/jsp/eng/prd/prd301_j_e.jsp ).

That probably means that the display on the system you posted about is not an EDID system, because the LP171WU1 only has an LVDS interface, and also because the pic you posted shows that the display does not support DDC/CI - DDC is the basic VESA standard for allowing a display unit to send its ID data to the graphics adapter, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel ; however, that item may only mean that the display merely doesn't support the "/CI" part of DDC/CI - "CI" being "control interface," an addition to the basic DDC standard that allows the graphics card to control aspects of the monitor.

Of course, as another poster has pointed out, since Dell has never gone down the MXM route, it may be the case that Dell gets to use 8800M modules that aren't limited to only EDID-type displays, in which case none of this is particularly useful.

It might be useful if someone with some good social hacking skills called up one of the Dell/Alienware service reps or sales reps and tried to dig some tech specs out of them on the display that's going to be used in the new 8800M notebooks being released shortly. Since Dell has been at the forefront of creating the new DisplayPort interface standard, which was officially released a little while ago this year, it would not surpise me if Dell/Alienware has moved on to the next frontier and put DisplayPort interfaces in the new 8800M notebooks. The DisplayPort interface is, of course, supported by the current version 2.1A specs for the MXM pseudo-standard, which would mean that Dell wouldn't give a fig about the 8800M modules being limited to EDID as opposed to LVDS displays, because their new display interface would be supported in any event.

 

Again, keep it in perspective folks.

Just because you start with the highest technology and are left with nothing left to upgrade does not make the products you are refering to NOT UPGRADABLE. It's just not upgradable for you. =P

They offer you a path to upgrade with an estimated cost of $1000.00. If your notebook was like mine if not better you spent atleast 4 times that on the notebooke. Imagine paying $4000.00 everytime new technology is released. You want mainstream price, buy mainstream. Want extreme, pay extreme. Looks to be in-line to me.

Just my 2.5 cents.

In the words of Johnny Storm, "FLAME ON!"

 

11/30/2007 Upgrade Info

Upgrading Sager NP9260/1 (D901C) & NP5790/1 (M570RU) to new nVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX w/512MB

Due to specification changes out of Sager’s Control, the Sager NP9260/NP9261 will require a motherboard swap out to the updated Revision V6.x motherboard to correctly support the new nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB. The motherboard version number can be located on the bottom memory socket. The Sager NP5790/NP5791 has three different upgrade options available*.

For NP9260/NP9261/NP5790/NP5791 users wishing to purchase the nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB, Sager will perform the necessary motherboard swap out and install the card. Shipping and handling charges to and from Sager will be the responsibility of the customer. Sager will not be responsible for any case scratches or paint chipping that may occur during the modification. Please Contact the Sager Technical Support department for detailed information.

The upgrade/swap out kit will be available beginning Jan 15th, 2008. For Sager brand Clevo D901C/M570RU customers the swap out process will take 5 business days. Non-Sager branded Clevo D901C/M570RU units will require 10 to 15 business days. Rush service available call for details.

For Sager Branded Clevo D901C / M570RU customers, the nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB GPU and motherboard will receive a new 1 year warranty or the remaining extended warranty if longer than 1 year remaining; the rest of the unit warranty (or extended warranty if previously purchased by customer) remains as is.

Non Sager branded Clevo D901C / M570RU units will have 90 day warranty for all replaced parts. Sager is not responsible for the terms and conditions of any other warranties on Non-Sager Branded units, and you should review those terms to determine whether Sager service on such units will void other warranties.

For a limited time (Jan 15th, 2008 through June 30th 2008), Sager will offer the upgrade packages at a discounted rate.

Sager NP9260/NP9261 (Clevo D901C):
• Price good between Jan 15th’08 through June 30th’08
• New revision D06 (Ver. 6.x) motherboard
• 1x nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB Card
• Labor included
• $899.00 after instant $200.00 off for Sager Branded customers
• $1099.00 Non-Sager Branded systems

$745.00 for additional nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB Card (SLi Driver pending)


Sager NP5790/NP5791 (Clevo M570RU):

Option 1: Full swap out package
• Price good between Jan 15th’08 through June 30th’08
• New nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB
• New Motherboard
• Labor included
• $899.00 after instant $200.00 off for Sager Branded customers
• $1099.00 Non-Sager Branded systems

Option 2*: Send in to Sager for Motherboard Rework
• Available Jan 15th’08
• New nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB
• Sager will perform motherboard Rework needed
• $745.00 Sager Branded Systems FREE Labor Included
• $845.00 ($745.00 +$100.00 labor) for non Sager Branded systems

Option 3*: Pre-condition User self upgrade
• Available Jan 15th’08
• New nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB
• User understands that the system will have unable to wake from suspend to ram (S3) aka: Suspend / Sleep mode issues.
• $745.00





* NOTE: NP579x Option 2 & Option 3 may or may not be available depending on final testing results from Clevo.

 

Justin,

Are you at liberty to divulge any more details about the precise nature of the incompatibility caused by the "specification changes" you mention (which I assume is a reference to Nvidia's decision to hand out graphics modules with no non-EDID/LVDS support)?

Also, do you know (and can you divulge) whether or not this incompatibility relates only to 8800M cards that specifically conform to the MXM "standard," or is the incompatibility inherent in every 8800M (in other words, will this incompatibility also affect vendors - such as Dell - who supply 8800M cards that are proprietary as opposed to MXM-compliant).

 

Justin,

Have you been able to determine if this new motherboard will support the upcoming CPU's in Jan-Feb time frame?

 

Shyster1, I am not at liberty to share any more details other then what I have already provided, sorry.

kl5167, it's Justin
At this time it is unknown as final street dates and true street spec are still unclear. So far Intel has stated the P965 chipset will not be supported.

 

Justin,

Sorry about that its almost midnight here and I have been up since 0600. If they are saying its not supported then that would mean a complete rework of the motherboard. They can't seem to get their data sheets straight yet either. One says yes and the next they seem to skip over the topic. I guess the Q6700 will have to do for a year. Not that I am complaining it is enough for now. Thanks for the info! I will be inquiring about a few things in week or so.

 

M570RU (NP5791) has also EDID v 1.2
Manufacturer = LPLF600
product id = LPL LPLF600

Mr. Eurocom: do you have any prices set yet for the M570RU/NP5791)?

 

$899.00 is a good price for a new motherboard and 8800M GTX... especially for those that have been holding out since the 9260.

 

The price is not bad I do agree. It will be a hassle for me as I do not get back to the states again until May. I was hoping for another CPU upgrade out if this but it still isn't making me cry if I can't. This laptop is a beast and does its job extremely well as much as I want the 8800 today I don't really need them just yet. I think that most of the people that are upset bought their laptops about the same time as I did a little over a month ago or just did one upgrade and it is very frustrating to find out that A) something new just came out. and B) I can't use it with out replacing a major piece of the system. This is very unfortunate to have happen but it does. It also doesn't help that the expectation was that it would work when it came out. Hopefully some of this will fall into the hands at Nvidia and Clevo/Sager staff so that they can work better together in the future. Right now they have a monopoly on high performance laptops and they are doing are decent job of it. Otherwise we wouldn't all be buying them. Hopefully the standards will become standards and set more in stone than in mud like it has been for a while now. Then those of us that live with mobile computing as a part of our lives can have better paths to upgrade and more choice on what we want to use when we want or need to.

 

Ah well, more's the pity. Still, I must say that you have been very helpful nonetheless - I have yet to see anyone representing the supposedly "premium" systems (you know, the Clevos you pay 50% more for b/c some biggie's slapped their name on it) providing any sort of information whatsoever. The reputation you've earned on this forum is well-deserved.

 

Thank you for your kind words

 

That I don't know about yet (learning curve's pretty steep from where I'm sitting right now).

Also, and this goes as well for checking on the other Sagers and Alienwares, I've come across a few opaque references to a dll called ddc.dll; I cannot find any real info on it, but it seems to me that it would, naturally enough, be involved in reading EDID data from an EDID-compliant display, so those who are curious might do a system search to see if they have ddc.dll on their systems.

Lastly, in the Windows registry there is a key that keeps a copy of the EDID data for the display(s) that have been installed on the system. The key is under HKLM/SYSTEM/CURRENTCONTROLSET/DISPLAY - I'm not entirely sure whether or not this merely records the EDID from an EDID-compliant display, or whether it provides a software fix as well for displays that are non-EDID compliant. It would be useful for curious folks to check in their registrys to see if they have EDID info for their displays, and particularly if anyone as an entry such as "no EDID" or something of that nature.

 

Oh man thanks Justin for the price post now I know how much I need to save up the the NVIDIA 8800M GTX SLI. Is anyone going to go for the SLI on the Jan 15h I know I am.

 

I'm using Vista Ultimate
in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControleSet/Enum/Display/LPLF600/5&741171f&0&UID272\Device Parameters\
I find the following key:
EDID REG_BINARY 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 32 0c 00 f6 00 00 00 ............
(some damn ass long code which mentions "PhilipsLCD" and "P171WU3-TLA2" which are probably manufacturer and product code or something)
that's all

 

Justin,

I live in Europe and do not like the idea to miss my NP and pay shipping costs twice and all that... but then I do not have to explain that do I?

I am used to upgrading my Sagers, so what would be your offer to just send me these boards with instructions?

 

is that price with us getting our motherboard and video card back? or will they keep the motherboard and video card? (question probably more for justin)

if that price is with us getting the motherboard and video card sent back to us, is Xotic interested in purchasing those from users? i would definitely be interested if Xotic would buy the motherboard and video card back at a decent price to make the upgrade chaper.

fact of the matter is i just spent $2,200 and i don't want to drop another $900 just to upgrade - but if the price came down significantly with the purchase of my old motherboard and video card it may be worth it...

 

Xotic might buy it back, you'll need to check with Justin. PcMicroworks will buy them back, unsure at this point @ what price point. I plan on upgrading I'll post when I find out.

 

he said that you will get your board and videocard back.

 

Hi, wu jen if they buy back the motherboard with the 8700 SLI that would be grate and maybe they can even give us a better deal. Hi, Justin can you check on that for us if you guys take buy back and maybe you guys can give us a better deal.

 

That sounds good at this point. Maybe I can use it for something else here.

 

and i just saw this Nvidia said in Feb next year they will anounce the Geforce 9x Series.

so does this mean another Mobo swap after that?

 

more important question: will Xoticpc (and others) provide again a cheap upgrade path
for those who have the 8800M AND for those who decided to skip the 8800M?

 

Oh crap what should I do I really want one with the 8800M SLI but crap and next year with the 9x series what should I do oh man that man I will be spending a lot of money. Will this system be able to support the new 9x series with a new motherboard swap this kinda sucks.t

 

Dude, the 9XXX series will show up for desktop first, expect the mobile counterparts next year at Xmas, MAYBE since it took a LOT of time even for the 8th M series to be released ( a year after 8th desktop series showed up)
You`ll be fine, a 8800M GTX will cut through games like through cheese. An SLI setup with 2 of those GPUs will cut through games like through melted chocolate
yes, I`m hungry...

 

The only problem I see with waiting for the 9xxx series is that it might not yet be in a mobile platform at the same level. Besides there will be either a new motherboard or a new line of computers to support the new processor around late 3rd quarter. Staying on top is an expensive habit.

 

I am going to sell my 5791 and buy a car. If they keep up with that BS upgradeability thing, I`m gonna go avada kevadra on their policy...
The main reason for which I chose the 5791 was mobility and upgradeability. So much for the latter(last + for the 5791), already is screeching, since the battery barely makes it to 2 hours...

 

Yeah right and then overclock your car! Be sure to buy one with the right engine because upgrading...

 

Da police won't let me, anymore :wink:

 

Hell yeah, that`s an idea...OC`ing my car(d)
Much good that would do, a 7950GTX is 1/2 of the 8800M GTX ...which still doesn`t compare to the desktop version.
Do you guys know that the desktop 8600GTS is actually as strong as the mobile 7950GTX? O_O

 

Doesn't matter all that much if you don't have a desktop to put one in

 

Actually, I do...I have 2 desktops and2 laptops. What the heck I`m doing with`em, I don`t know.
Still all of them are not worth a supersystem wih 8800GTX SLI and quad core

Furthermore, my sager 5791 is worth more than 50 % of the total computer stuff I have

 

It is too early to tell. It is impossible to know whether a particular laptop motherboard will support a video card that doesn't even exist yet.

 

Well, I might actually be in luck.

As some of you might know, I can return my M570RU for dead pixel warranty. And here's what I was hoping for:

I am able to get the 8800M GTX version for approximately 200-250 euros (300-375 US dollars).

It's still a lot of money, but do you think this is a fair price?

 

Sounds like a great deal to me. They are basicly just charging you for the new video card. Have they told you what happens with the old video card? Is it returned to you so you can sell it? You may be able to get some of that expense back that way.