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Can We upgrade G73SW GPU?


andrewff2

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ty man,

I was trying to talk with jmhdj, about the problems, and i think is the same as you just some Hex tinkering.... that why i was wondering to pick up a 680m, and test out, what i needed was what more stuff like the bios and how did he solder all up so i can test the bios, make my changes on a hex editor, and so on >D

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jmhdj would know more about the 680m. I do think both our issues are the same, some vbios setting. like I said I chose the 670m since for me it is an upgrade and I got it for just over $130 (hard to pass that one up) so it was affordable on a tight budget. so for a 'maybe' go or no go attempt it was doable for me. that G73JH heatsink, even though it's made for an ati card, is almost perfect for the 670m series. that was a great tip. from reading forums about the higher end card upgrades that had higher power draw and heat dissipation specs, I know some folks said they had probs w over heating and auto-shutdown during intense gaming and the power draw might be higher than what the motherboard was made to support without additional modding and bigger power block. battery use might also be too low power for the higher end card. it just depends on what you want and are willing to give up to get that. so I believe the 670m and mx match the current system (for old card) heat and power specs, the 675m was a bit iffy and the 680m might need some additional modding for power draw and cooling. I'm sure jmhdj will figure that out once its up and running. it sounds like he's up to the task. so if you want to maxx out your system sounds like he'll know the hardware aspect of that. I want better gaming but would like to stay closer to the current power and thermal specifications and battery life. so I think your mod should meet your needs, which may be very individual. for my mod it's just the card, the heatsink w a few small changes, a modified inf file so the driver will load (some are premade, I modded mine, its not hard). the sticky part now is the vbios, which it looks like svl7 made quite a few changes to, so while I can see it in hex editor, other than a few small things to try, I don't know enough to correct that or tweak it to work. definitely a team effort.

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Well after some research about 680m and 670mx, i think that the 670mx is the best choice for mine for the same reasons as you IsouldGo, i live in Brazil, and here is very F***** hot, and i don't wanna change my powerbrick or use something that can damage the notebook in the long run!!! and the price WOW $350,00 for this amazing card is awesome ;D so i was thinking what i need, to go like you and try it???

* The card

* JH heatsink

What more i need? and as you told me before i need the pics if you have of all of the changes and parts that you got to make your mod, and programs any tips.... i have some experience in c# and C/C++ i donno if this will help but let's see!! :D

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well, I think I just bad-flashed my vbios. black lcd and vga screen. I put the nvflash command with the good bios into the autoexec.bat on the bootable usb drive. I don't even see it being accessed. I've tried all 3 usb ports if that makes a difference. I may be missing some key pressing or detail about activating the blind flash so it isn't working but I don't know. so if anyone does....please post. otherwise, I've found a site on ebay that sells the vbios chips I need, and they even offered to preprogram them with my vbios if I send them the file..... looks like I'll be taking a break while the new chips arrive..... :(

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ok, so I can't pm these, but i can upload to post...lol. jmhdj: Here's the 2D lcd screen connector cable pics: plz let me know if you need further (before i reassemble it. lol)

andrewff2: the quick guides to the mods you asked about...LCD screen upgrade: to remove the cover to replace the lcd screen- just the 2 screws under the little rubber pads at the bottom L and R corner, then pry off the plastic panel around the sides on the front --it holds on the outside edge of it, so the point of the pic is to show prying off from the inside edge (where it touches the lcd screen) and the outside little holders will just 'pop' off and on. then it's just the million screws around the side brackets that hold it in place. if you do upgrade or replace your lcd screen, do your best not to touch any of the little chips under the plastic on the bottom of the backside of the actual lcd panel (the side you don't see when its assembled), they're very static sensitive (usu covered w clear plastic to protect.)

- - - Updated - - -

Color keyboard mod: Use a small flathead screwdriver to pry off/pop out the 3 flanges at the top of the keyboard, then just pull off (held on by 2 sided tape) be carefull not to pull cables. can either leave in and just be careful or can remove 2 cables from adapters on motherboard and reinstall later (on each adapter there's a little holder, find the edge on each side and use a little screwdriver or push it backwards away from connector. cable then comes out, when reinstalling cable, just put cable in then pop it back in.) on back shiny metal side of keyboard- remove 2 tiny screws. now make color panel. 'color gels' cheap plastic films for theater lighting or photography works great. i ran out of decent tape so used crappy tape and it still works fine. you can even have the arrows of the wsad keys one color n the rest of the key another. :) so can get as creative as you want. make 2 little holes so the 2 back screws will go back in and slap it all back together. put the cables back in (if you took them out) and put keyboard back on backplane (bottom edge first, then top will pop back in).post-12042-14494995136617_thumb.jpg

Bluetooth module addition/ upgrade: Really easy to add in a bluetooth module if yours didn't come with it. the little connector for it is on the topside of the motherboard at the lower R side corner (same side as power adapter, hdmi, etc near palmrest area). just buy one and plug it in. i just taped the little module to the case bottom, it's really tiny. the one i got was spec'd for asus and bluetooth 2.0 so i know that one works, others may or may not. --FYI -there is a software bug w win 7 x64 using blutetooth stereo headphones so you just need to go into the device manager and activate it as stereo headphones, then it's fine. (or if it suddenly stops working, same thing-check device manager bluetooth, it gets deactivated w some software changes so just re-enable it.) otherwise plug n play.post-12042-14494995136856_thumb.jpg

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Thank you very much ishouldgo. I managed to find 10.1 lcd with lvds single channel and then picture is just fine but on my AUO 1920x1080 every second vertical line is white so with that connector has not same serial number as yours I suspect that mine lcd cable is just single and not dual channel lvds. So every lcd with resolution over 1360x768 is not displayed correctly. I will examine my lcd cable closer now.

Thanks again..

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Any updates IshouldGo?

I still struggle with this damn fuzzy screen. Checked screen cable and it has 37 wires means duoble channel LVDS cable.

Conclusion: I damaged something on motherboard. Hell I am surprised it works at all after so much soldering all over a board :).

But damn internal lcd works and thats what matters.

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no updates from me. i'm still waiting on a vbios chip and in the mean time attempting methods to force an extra hard drive to pretend it's only 4GB, and then dos boot from it with a modified autoexec.bat file to make a successful blind flash and restore the vbios to a um....working... state. lol. no success yet...I'm guessing at the command I had to type to force the flash. I think it was 'YES' since the image won't match, otherwise it was just 'y'. but, I can't see the screen....so...who knows? I also realize I've been pushing the button to reset the laptop which I now understand to be the cmos reset button? and not an internal power button....lol. so maybe that's a good thing, and maybe not.... but hey, glad your internal lcd works! maybe you didn't damage the motherboard, maybe the connections need to be a little cleaner (flux?) or just check that they're all good solder connections? are you going blind yet from all that teeny soldering? ...lol

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no updates from me. i'm still waiting on a vbios chip and in the mean time attempting methods to force an extra hard drive to pretend it's only 4GB, and then dos boot from it with a modified autoexec.bat file to make a successful blind flash and restore the vbios to a um....working... state. lol. no success yet...I'm guessing at the command I had to type to force the flash. I think it was 'YES' since the image won't match, otherwise it was just 'y'. but, I can't see the screen....so...who knows? I also realize I've been pushing the button to reset the laptop which I now understand to be the cmos reset button? and not an internal power button....lol. so maybe that's a good thing, and maybe not.... but hey, glad your internal lcd works! maybe you didn't damage the motherboard, maybe the connections need to be a little cleaner (flux?) or just check that they're all good solder connections? are you going blind yet from all that teeny soldering? ...lol

Didn't slv7 created a sort of "how to" to blind flash the vbios?? If im not wrong he did this with conkers notebook in the upgrading process of the g73jw to 660m!!

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Didn't slv7 created a sort of "how to" to blind flash the vbios?? If im not wrong he did this with conkers notebook in the upgrading process of the g73jw to 660m!!

yes. thx for considering. unfortunately i cant boot off usb, so im shrinking a hard drive partition to usb size to try to blind flash off that. its ready, i just have to go do it (crossing fingers). when i was booting to dos on a usb stick n flashing vbios i restarted after to boot into windows n removed the usb stick n the bios deleted the usb boot priority as an entry. so it wont even look for a usb drive. it may not even be posting at this point, since both internal n external screen are dark i cant tell. :(

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if you have another computer you can download a windows 7 software boot, it makes your pendrive bootable... I use this a lot, and the only thing oyu need to change is just the files inside the root directory. I made this bootable pendrive for win7, win8, winXP.

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thx. I have bootable usb or pendrives for windows and dos. my problem is that the system isn't even looking for a usb/pen drive or a cd rom. I tried the blind flash w a spare internal hard drive shrunk to 4GB and formatted to FAT32 then set to boot to dos with NVFlash -4 -5 -6 olbios.rom in a modified autoexec.bat file in the bootmgr to force a blind flash (I think I get the 'E' for effort on this one, or maybe "D" for determined....or simpy "D" for "Dumb"....lol). oh well, so I'm still primed to swap out the vbios chip with a preprogrammed one. I have 2 issues here: 1): I need a new vbios chip (I do have a programmer w an adapter, but to be honest haven't used one in ages and will probably screw it up) so preprogrammed is the way to go; and 2): I have NO idea which chip on the board is the vbios chip. lol. if anyone knows......help would be appreciated here (laughing). I think I'm going to go have a beer....

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sooo??? any news??!?!?!

now both internal and external screens remain dark with both video cards. hmmm, I'm seriously thinking the bad vbios I flashed affected the system bios somehow. ideas welcome. still waiting on a new vbios chip for the clevo 670m. As a side note, it seems to be that the obvious video card choice would be an ASUS 670M that they use in the G75 series. Has anyone tried that? Thoughts?

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Ok, since I'm cooling my heels for a bit....thought I'd post the last few things I changed with info for future searches

Upgrading the DVD drive to Blu ray: Very easy: The DVD drive is just held in by a single screw, accessible from the bottom of the case if you just take off the panel that accessed the hard drives and lower memory sticks (see pic of bottom panel removed w red arrow showing screw). i just picked a good bd-rw to upgrade. it needs to be a slim model and a sata connector. To do it: flip over the laptop, remove the rear panel, and unscrew the screw. push the drive out using a flathead screwdriver or something and pop in the new drive the same way. The cover plate on the drive you'll want to pop off whatever model you get and use the one from the ASUS laptop, because nothing else will match the case or look right.

DC power jack replacement: Major pain in butt (with potential to screw up computer without a static mat and some caution): The pins on the bottom are for the G73 not the G53 (different pinout). I needed a 40W soldering iron to get it off (a 25W wasn't hot enough to work). I also deliberately destroyed the connector with pliers and wire cutters and then just used pliers to pull out the pins with solder wick to get the extra solder off. Not destroying the connector proved to be impossible to get all the old solder off to get the pins out. Plus, the old connector wasn't needed anymore... I changed it out because the adaptor was a little wiggly in the slot, and it would switch continuously from ac power to battery and drove me crazy. The dc jack adapter I replaced it with has a more robust inner pin so may put up with the tension on it better. Now it works great. ---Note on this one, that little jack is buried at the bottom of the laptop, so those brave souls who've already changed this one know that you literally have to take the entire laptop apart and the motherboard out of the case to get to it....if you've got other mods and projects you want to do, you may as well do them all at the same time if you're getting this one done. One pic shows top w new adapter, and other shows bottom w places to desolder. button is the power button next to it.

Hindsight: Don't use threadlocker on the screws--- using threadlocker blue was a really bad idea. i can tell asus used some type of threadlocker on their screws, so I tried to do the same, but the commercially available blue threadlocker was much stronger than the little nuts in the plastic and basically pulled them out and may have even melted the plastic on some areas of the case.post-12042-1449499533129_thumb.jpg

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lol, no. I bought it used and it was like that already. apparently it's a known weak issue with this design. (maybe it being on the back would have been better?) but I couldn't charge a battery or run on ac without it switching modes from ac to battery to ac continuously and this solved the problem. now the jack is rock solid and the little cable doesn't wiggle at all.. :) now, all I need is the video card upgrade to work.....that video bios thing again.....

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yeah, that i cannot help :/ i was thinking into going for an Sager 9370 with dual 7970 and i7 3610QM (the price here in Brazil on cash.. about $3000)

Nice! I have to admit, the asus line is really nice n i dont think anyone can touch them on styling, but for this level of investment, to have company reps refuse to help or provide any info to modders(who are ok w no warranty etc) when other companies will help you keep your investment by at least sharing what they know to upgrade-- processor replacement, video card, etc, and that they have competitors for the high end market that DO upgrade now, I think ASUS has really shot themselves in the foot with this attitude. When I think of a future high-end new laptop purchase, as much as I like this laptop, I simply cannot justify purchasing their product over a company that will help extend the life of my purchase for this kind of money by sharing knowledge of what can be done or actually doing an upgrade---either by the user or sending it in to a rep, etc. this really should not be a 'throw away' purchase it this level of expense----- especially when there are multiple competitor companies that are now helping and doing upgrades on systems theyve sold. i think asus needs to wake up that they are cutting themselves out of the high value market with this approach. pity too, i really like their laptops...

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I finnished my upgrade and internal lcd is working now. Have installed latest beta 320.14 driver i had to modify inf file though. But core does not go above 150mhz even that gpuz reports normal speeds. Nvidia inspector hwinfo and other programs report that core is not going above 150mhz. Even with 150mhz 680m is on pair with 460m. With 460m I got 1829 points on graphics and with 680m 1920 points. If svl7 read this can you share some thoughts please. I use 670mx vbios from asus g75vxit is only one that posts on internal lcd.

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Score!!! you're much further along than I am...lol.. I backslid and am still awaiting a resolder on the vbios chip. I am thinking I may need to reprogram/replace the sbios since I get dark on both screens with both video cards now and didn't before. do you know?

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you didnt do anything With 460m vbios? I f not then I am very unsure what could be problem. But I remember you mentioned how you damaged 460m when removing xbracket and had red line across screen after that. It may be that damage got worst after some removing and mounting it. But try and remove gpu from Laptop and leave fans connected to motherboard. Assemble laptop and power it up if it boots with fans on max and you can toggle between caps Lock and see hdd light blinks then motherbard/sbios should be ok.

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