senso

Tonight I could go to bed later, so I fired up NVInspector and surprise surprise, only the clock is limited to the typical +135Mhz, but voltage can be bumped up +250mV and memory 2500Mhz, tried to bump the core to 1050Mhz and the memory to 2600Mhz, ran Heaven benchmark, stable temps around 75ºC, will need to repaste the gpu and use good quality thermal pads because right now its with MX4 and random thermal pads that are not that good.

But I will send you the VBIOS, with some luck I can push her past the 135Mhz limit without artifacts. 

 

EDIT:

Went to play a bit of Crysis and the GPU clock is always bouncing up and down, this happens with both stock clocks and OC'ed, is this normal?

Goodnight Klem, could you help me with a 870m "MXM" GPu VBIOS from an Asus G750JS?

Would like to OC it a bit, could you unlock its voltage and clocks so I could play with her a bit?

The stock clock is around 940Mhz already.

 

Best regards.

The GT540M is soldered, there is no way to upgrade it.

You can put a better CPU if you dont already have an i7, apart from that, a good cleaning, new thermal paste(my preference goes to MX-4, easy to apply and goes well with the low pressure mount of laptop heatsinks, and its cheap and usually available almost everywhere.

Are you already using the latest manufacturer BIOS?

What RAM modules are you trying to use?

What you can do is OC your GPU with NVInspector, but Acer as a poor heatsink, don't expect to push a lot more.

Its indeed a limited BIOS, even with access to all the menus there isn't much to tweak.

Tried to change the NMode and had already disabled the ECC support, sadly, no change, in this case only with a CPU that officially supports the 1600Mhz, but its was just a curiosity, I'm no going to invest 100-150€ in a CPU just for the RAM.

Thanks for your time.

Teardown the consoles, relocate the cd/dvd drives and improve their cooling solutions?

I have done that more than twice, and sold a handfull of laptop CPU's for upgrades, if its the same generation/family it will work.

What laptop model is it?

I zipped it and tried to upload, but the zip size is about 1MB and the forum only allows me to attach files up to 0.49MB.

Don't want to break any rules, sorry.

Cant attach the BIOS file, will share via Google Drive, this is a just made backup from my BIOS using AFUWin.

EDIT:

BIOS now uploaded to forum to avoid the external linking, thanks Brian.

actualWorking_n53sm.zip

Good evening, I have a quick doubt, is there any way to put the RAM running at 1600(800)Mhz, by the Intel page, the maximum is 1333Mhz, but I have seen some cpu-z prints showing this CPU with 1600Mhz RAM, this is not a limitation of my RAM modules, the all suport this:

Quote

JEDEC timings table        CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency
    JEDEC #1        5.0-5-5-14-19 @ 380 MHz
    JEDEC #2        6.0-6-6-16-22 @ 457 MHz
    JEDEC #3        7.0-7-7-19-26 @ 533 MHz
    JEDEC #4        8.0-8-8-22-30 @ 609 MHz
    JEDEC #5        9.0-9-9-24-33 @ 685 MHz
    JEDEC #6        10.0-10-10-27-37 @ 761 MHz
    JEDEC #7        11.0-11-11-28-39 @ 800 MHz

I have already unlocked my BIOS, updated the ME Firmware, inserted the latest microcode update.

The laptop is an old old N53SM with an HM65 chipset.

This is more of a curiosity/want to try it.

Maybe I need to dump my MEFirmware and enable overclocking or tweak something and reflash it?

 

EDIT:

Photos of the RAM configuration in BIOS, no mather what value I choose over 1333Mhz it doesn't do anything.

Maybe that Memory RC: 1.2.2 as something to do about this, but I can't find any info about that, if its a hardware, or software module.

 

 

Going by this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_Reference_Code

It might in fact be a limitation/imposed limitation of my BIOS.

Best regards

Spent all morning pulling GPU's from dead laptops, two of them said they had a GT635M, the codenames are N13P-GLR-A1, and the other was an N14P-GE-OP-A1, all share the same footprint, that is different from the gt630M, I'm almost sure that the GF108 series uses an older footprint(its the same as the GT425M) and so there are no newer/better chips that can be soldered on.

The GT555M is a huge chip with a footprint different from all other as far as I can tell.

The only way to upgrade the GPU would be a full out crazyness, remove the GPU and use thin enameled wires and jumper all the PCIExpress signals to an MXM socket, I have space in the ODD drive, but its way to much work, I will epoxy some extra heatpipes and an extra bit of heatsink and OC this as much as I can and will continue saving for a new laptop, its a shame that there is no way to upgrade this GPU.

Its the 40nm version, what I find strange is that GPU-Z reports 16 ROP's and 16 TMU's while their site says that the GT630M only has 4 ROP's.

I think I can now attach images:

What is the 144 shadders version, by version I mean codename to search for images of the chip to check the footprint.

I know, but the whole Fermi/Kepler thing just didn't ring a bell until now, damm Asus for gimping their laptops lol.

Finally found the BoardView for the N53SM, and well, screw all this

The specific GPU model is N13P-GL2 that as a different footprint from the GT640M GPU, the footprint that is equal is the N13P-GL1, damm..

Now it makes sense the N13P-GL2 is the GF108(Fermi)model with 96 shadders, while the N13P-GL1 is the GF106/GF116 model with 144 shadders..

My last hope is that maybe the Fermi variant of the GT640M LE uses the same footprint, but yeah, not so confident now, a bit sad

Edit:

Can't really find the Fermi flavour of the GT640M LE anywhere to see the footprint, and the GT635M is supposed to have codename N13E-GE2 but I can't also find any chip with that name, only with N13E-GE and that also uses the Kepler style of footprint.

Darnok44, thanks for all the time you have been spending helping me.

You hit the nail in your reply, I will look around for BIOS dumps for those models, if you have one, can you attach it here?

My doubt is if I there is free space to put the extra VBIOS, I can remove the VBIOS for the GT555M, and thats what I wanted to do, add the new VBIOS and test it before changing the GPU so I know the laptopt still works.

What I don't understand is if the BIOS tools alter the entry point to load a new module/VBIOS or if it must be done manually.

As there were none installed, is there a gap between the RAM/MOSFETS/Inductores that can be filled by the thermal pads?

The thinnest ones are either 0.5 or 0.25mm(this size being more rare to find, but Halfmann as 0.25mm thermal pads in 80x80mm size), if you can attach a photo or two of the heatsink and of the GPU zone, so see how easy it might be to install the thermal pads.

3.2w/m-K is an average thermal conductivity, not the best, but much better than not having the pads in place.

I was getting sleepy, and I ate a couple words, my doubt/problem is that the two original VBIOS are 64Kb each, and the VBIOS for the GT640M is 88Kb, so its a bit bigger, I don't know if I can just pull both of them and put a new one, and the GT640M VBIOS that I got if for a laptop that as Hynix DDR3 VRAM's, don't know if they will play nice, because my motherboard has Samsung ram's.

The licence part also leaves me a bit worried.

The best ones are either Fujipoly Ultra Extreme and the Phobia Thermal pads, either one measure your current ones and order new pads with the same thickness or you will end up with a worse contact to the GPU die.

The factory coolers have lets say a less than perfect surface finish, coupled with tin copper or alluminiun sections, they bend a bit with use, for me, the best result was to employ pacience, wet and dry sand paper and lap it, sometimes its impossible due to the curves and bosses that the coolers have to touch things like inductors, mosfets and VRAM's, but when its possible, I think its worth the time involved, my N53SM took me around 8 hours starting at 200 grit and finishing at 1000 grit, but its a small-ish cooler, for thermal paste I use MX4(cheap and available around me) and ordered some Fujipoly pads to put over the chipset and between the motherboard and the topcase(metal in my case) so my CPU and GPU mosfets run a lot cooler now, because its a part of the motherboard that never sees air flow.

Good night, some you have might already saw my thread over NotebookReview, if anyone wants the longer read here it is:

Upgrading an N53SM the hard way(with GPU change with some luck) | NotebookReview



Long story short, I will resume/aggregate all info in a single post, so prepare for the roller coaster of insanity and bad ideas, hope you can stick with me and with some luck also provide more crazy ideas, so starting from one end, just keep reading, it will make some sense, I promise.



My first laptop was an Asustek barebones sold in Portugal under the brand-name Tsunami, it was expensive, as in 1300€ 8 years ago expensive, all I can remember is that it had an 9800GS or 9800GT, heated like a furnace and I didn't care, two years of abuse later and he died, the cause, roasted GPU, in that time I tried a reflow using an hot-air + IR machine at my university, but to no avail.



So I got an Asus N53SM for about 900€ caring very little about the specs, even then it costed around 1000€, after losing my space heater to over-heating I developed a crazy need to keep my laptop cool, 1 year and still with warranty I disassembled the laptop, applied Artic MX-4 thermal paste and drilled a grill pattern under the fan/cooler and ripped out the small grills covering the holes under the RAM's and the HDD, it helped a bit, around 5ºC cooler.



Some 6 months later my department got a free 3d printer(BeeTheFirst, made by former students) and as I had founded a robotics and electronics association had access all the time and some free spools, so I grabed Solidworks my old laptop fan, and made a case to mount the fan in the ODD bay, I also grabbed a small pcb I had made with an Attiny45 and added a button to control the fan RPM via PWM, also drilled another grille pattern under that fan, given the Asus N53xx chasis the fan shoots air right into the GPU heatsink that has some nibs, and with that I got stable 60ºC GPU temps under hours of gaming, and the CPU never went over 75ºC, I have been repasting the CPU/GPU 1 time a year and have also lost about 8h lapping the heatsinks(call me crazy), dropped 1-2ºC in the CPU, not very time effective, but I had to do it!



I don't game a lot anymore, in fact the last game that got me really hooked up was Mass Effect(1,2 and 3) and it looks pretty good in the laptop and runs fine, but I would love to have some better graphics performance, so enter the new idea, in my current workplace I have an Ersa IR650A pro reflow station, complete with pick-and place head, alignement camera, thermal probes, and reflow profiles that I have been fine tuning since January.



And my idea is the following, given that there are laptops with MXM interfaces, that with some BIOS massaging can run much newer GPU's maybe I could go up in the GT6xxM family, currently my laptop as a GT630M(N13P-GL/GL2) with 2Gb DDR3 RAM, and following the same N13 familly the best I can go maintaining the same DDR3 128-bits memory interface is the GT650M, a pretyt nice stepup from the GT630M, it as 10W more TDP, I think my motherboard can handle it, but for safety reasons the GT640M offers the same Shadders/ROP/TMU's at a lower clock(that can still be overclocked a bit, so its fine).



My big problem with this is the VBIOS...

I don't know how to grab a GT640M VBIOS and make it play nice with my original BIOS.



After playing around with MMTools/AMI BCP I have sucefully identified and extraced the VBIOS contained in my laptop BIOS, in fact there are two VBIOS inside, one for the GT630M and one for the GT555M(N12P-GT), the start of each VBIOS is here(the device ID line is my addition):

Device ID: 10DE_DE9

Uª.ëK7400éL.wÌVIDEO ....ˆ.<...IBM VGA Compatible....À.K¶09/27/[email protected]ý4ýé–*.C...ÿ#ü..D..ÿÿÿ....€M?¥òéþFé.GPMIDl.o.... .°.¸.À.3N13P-GL2 E1079 VGA BIOS ...OS....................................................Version 70.08.55.00.0D ...Copyright (C) 1996-2011 NVIDIA Corp......ÿÿ....ÿÿGF108 Board - 1079df40.............Chip Rev .........





Device ID: 10DE_DF6

Uª.ëK7400éL.wÌVIDEO ....ˆ.<...IBM VGA Compatible....ð.ïµ12/29/10..........@.Õü°üé†*.C...ÿ?ü..@..ÿÿÿ....€,?¥ûéÛFéâFPMIDl.o.... .°.¸.À.3N12P-GT E1079 VGA BIOS ...IOS....................................................Version 70.08.45.00.A6 ...Copyright (C) 1996-2010 NVIDIA Corp......ÿÿ....ÿÿGF108 Board - 1079df60.............Chip Rev ......... 

Thanks to a parent post in the NotebookReview forum I went ahead and also extracted the VBIOS from an Asus N56VZ that uses the GT640M and got totally stuck the GT640M VBIOS as a file size of 88Kb with a lot o zero padding(from 0x0AEE0 to 0x0EA00, about 15Kb of zeros) and ends with two MIIC certificates that I can't find any hint of information about:

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----.MIIC....data....

-----END CERTIFICATE-----[FONT=Georgia]-[/FONT]

One of those ends with == so I taught it might be something encoded in base64, but no such luck.



If you are still there, any ideas on how to Frankenstein my BIOS to add support for a GT640M GPU, given that I can change the GPU with no problems and that I can trust the eBay GPU vendors..



Best regards, and thanks for just reading my ramblings, and if you don't mind, just say something, call me crazy :48_002:

Goodnight,

So, I'm Tiago from Portugal, formerly and electronics and telecoms students, but procrastination got the best of me and I'm working in a laptop repair center doing component level repairs, got the job thanks to a freelance automation job.

Joined this community due to some crazy ideas that are floating in my head and having posted in some other forums none of them was has focused in pushing the limits as this one seems to be.

Best regards.