Brainer Posted December 31, 2009 Report Share Posted December 31, 2009 (edited) I've seen in some very hidden forums that some people have managed to upgrade their Alienware m5500i-r3 or Uniwell p531a from the 8600m gt using the 2.06 bios, to a 9600m gt and even a HD4650. I know their MXM-II types but not sure if their compatible. Anyone have any verification of 9600m gt or hd4650 working. If so anyone know where the bios and drivers are located to upgrade if needed. Any major mods needed?. I know the 9600m gt needed a crazy heatsink redo in a c90. Edited December 31, 2009 by Brainer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quipster Posted December 31, 2009 Report Share Posted December 31, 2009 (edited) I've seen in some very hidden forums that some people have managed to upgrade their Alienware m5500i-r3 or Uniwell p531a from the 8600m gt using the 2.06 bios, to a 9600m gt and even a HD4650. I know their MXM-II types but not sure if their compatible. Anyone have any verification of 9600m gt or hd4650 working. If so anyone know where the bios and drivers are located to upgrade if needed. Any major mods needed?. I know the 9600m gt needed a crazy heatsink redo in a c90. 9600M should be compatible and work, as long as it has the Acer Bios on it (talking about 9600M GT, dunno about 4650). But those cards have an inconvenient downside, too. You will have a 30 sec. Boot countdown complaining about invalid MXM structure, and reduced performance to low 3D Mode. The performance problem can be overcome easily with a Bios mod with NiBiTor and a reflash of the modified Bios (see Nightwalker's guide for the C90 / Step 4 here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=316079 ), even without losing powermizer functionality. The 30 secs. startup delay will remain, though. The 9500M GS is known NOT to cause this problem, since it is just a derivative of the 8600M GT (also Bioswise it seems), but it features significantly reduced performance, cause of it's G-DDR2 as opposed to G-DDR3 in the 9600M GT (about 20% slower). The 9600M GS on the other hand will (bioswise) behave exactly like the 9600M GT, but it also features GDDR2 only. On another note the 9600m GS performs pretty much like the 9500M GS, it may run slightly cooler though. So the choice is up to you. Can you live with a 30 secs. delay, then shoot for the 9600M GT. Can't tell you anything about 4650, since I haven't yet seen one and they seem to be a very rare bird, but 3650 Mobility is an easy swap for your machine, too. The 3650 is not known to cause any bios problems apart from some weird cold booting problem on some machines. As far as the heatsink is concerned you might have to do a little dremmeling/milling , and might want to replace the thermal pad with a cooper shim, but nothing difficult and undoable. I assume you still have the 7600 go in your laptop, is this correct? Edited December 31, 2009 by quipster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brainer Posted December 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2009 "I assume you still have the 7600 go in your laptop, is this correct?" No i have the have the 8600m gt. It's running crazy hot tho, and now it's beginning to shut my system down. I bought a good laptop cooler and even resorted to taking the back panel off the pc and put wire mess over the covering (it does not touch any of the inner components). I need the laptop for another year before i can make a substantial upgrade to an actual gaming desktop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quipster Posted January 1, 2010 Report Share Posted January 1, 2010 "I assume you still have the 7600 go in your laptop, is this correct?" No i have the have the 8600m gt. It's running crazy hot tho, and now it's beginning to shut my system down. I bought a good laptop cooler and even resorted to taking the back panel off the pc and put wire mess over the covering (it does not touch any of the inner components). I need the laptop for another year before i can make a substantial upgrade to an actual gaming desktop. When your card runs crazy hot, then probably the heatsink doesn't make sufficient contact with the GPU-die. It is very likely that your heatsink would have needed dremmeling prior to installing the 8600M GT. Also you want inform yourself about the copper mod, about which I (I'm not the "inventor" of the mod) have written in this thread: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brainer Posted January 2, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2010 When your card runs crazy hot, then probably the heatsink doesn't make sufficient contact with the GPU-die. It is very likely that your heatsink would have needed dremmeling prior to installing the 8600M GT. Also you want inform yourself about the copper mod, about which I (I'm not the "inventor" of the mod) have written in this thread: Awesome advice, I've seen that trick before but being the brain that I am (Pun intended) I didn't think to use it. Can I use this trick on the CPU as well for some extra cool loving? I'm also concerned that I've already done some damage to the graphic card due to the lack of sufficient cooling. Going back to the 9600m gt. I have no problem waiting 30 secs on start up, as long as the card runs well. I've seen the overall benchmarks which puts it roughly a 30 percent increase over the 8600m gt and (so i've been reading) it runs cooler. Is it worth paying the 150 bucks extra anyone think? I only ask because I'm pretty new to the whole "graphic card/benchmark/upgrade/Overclocking" thing and unfortunately is a very steep learning curve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quipster Posted January 2, 2010 Report Share Posted January 2, 2010 (edited) Awesome advice, I've seen that trick before but being the brain that I am (Pun intended) I didn't think to use it. Can I use this trick on the CPU as well for some extra cool loving? I'm also concerned that I've already done some damage to the graphic card due to the lack of sufficient cooling. Going back to the 9600m gt. I have no problem waiting 30 secs on start up, as long as the card runs well. I've seen the overall benchmarks which puts it roughly a 30 percent increase over the 8600m gt and (so i've been reading) it runs cooler. Is it worth paying the 150 bucks extra anyone think? I only ask because I'm pretty new to the whole "graphic card/benchmark/upgrade/Overclocking" thing and unfortunately is a very steep learning curve. Actually the copper mod is intended to fill the resulting gap between the heatsink and the GPU when you replace the thermal pad with thermal compound. Apart from some very hard to find (you can get them via mxm-upgrade.com apparently)and rather expensive high performance heatpads, thermal compound and copper is always a better solution than a pad, which overall is a pretty poor heat conductor and seems to wear out over time. No need to do this on the CPU, in fact it doesn't make any sense there. With regard to your 8600M GT, I don't think that you already did damage to it as long as it doesn't show any artifacts. The 8600M GT is known though to be a pretty feeble fellow (due to a common soldering issue NVidia had in the past, several techsites reported the high failure rates and tracked down the cause) and you want to keep it as cool as possible. Also, I strongly believe that you have to dremel your heatsink to make room for that large grey inductor on the "upper right" corner of the card to give the heatsink the chance to make optimal contact with the GPU. I think the only person who is able to judge whether the upgrade is worth it is yourself. Are we talking 150 Canadian Dollars here, or US or even Euros? I personally won my card (770M = Quadro equivalent to the 9600M GT) on German ebay for 65 Euros, and I'm running the card overclocked and undervolted to 0.89V at 600/1450/870 MHz temps maxing out at around 76°C (when the back of the laptop is slightly raised, that is) with my CPU being a Pentium M 735 single core pinmodded to run at 2380 MHz (140 FSB high performance mode x 17). That gives me the possibility to run all current games very well on a 4 year old laptop (although I'm no longer much of a dedicated gamer). Edited January 2, 2010 by quipster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quipster Posted January 2, 2010 Report Share Posted January 2, 2010 I'm not 100% sure whether your heatsink has to be dremmeled at the same spot as in this picture, you might verify that yourself, but at least it could help you as some sort of guideline to the task ahead (see red circle): Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brainer Posted January 2, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2010 Just wanna say thanks again For all the help. Have been Beyond helpful. I have friend that's going to cut the copper shim for me, so that's no big deal. I Also checked out the card you are using,(NVIDIA Quadro FX 770M) and the 9600m gt they are selling respectively for $246 and $212 with shipping, Canadian on Ebay. It seems they've actually gone up in price, since i checked a day ago. Anyway, I'm going to deal with the cooling issue and keep looking for a better price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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