triturbo Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 A little back-story. I already have (so far) partial success with my GT 550m MXM-II Project. What I got from it is that with ATi (AMD if you preffer) I have better chances. So far I have 7770 Vapor-X GHz Edition, of which the cooling is used for another project. So I have 7770 GHz core (meant to see 1GHz and more) which translates to either one of the 88xxM variations - 8830m; 8850m; 8870m. All of them are meant to come with either DDR3 or GDDR5 memory. There are no GDDR5 MXM-II GPUs as far as I know, so I'm interested in DDR3 versions of them. Sadly AMD choose to focus more on the console market and this year's offerings are VERY few and in between, let alone the ones I'm looking for. I know that I'm shooting for the stars, and there tons of NOs on my way, but for me it is enough that they share the same BGA. Again, I know that it's not enough, but I have to take my chances My plan is to use HD4650 1GB DDR3 MXM-II (which I'm yet to buy) and the already mentioned 7770 GHz core and make a HD88somethingM. What I lack as always is a proper vBIOS to drive this madness I had plans about 6730m, of which vBIOS is found, thanks to @pchatzop, but I have to buy the HD4650 AND the 6730 core, and it's weaker I found couple BIOSes so far - a Samsung NP780Z5E (supposed 8850m DDR3), and 2 DELLs 3537 and 5537 (one of them has to has 8850m DDR3, but from all of the digging it's not clear which). All I know about them is that the Samsung is AMI, and the DELL's are probably Insyde. Here are the .exe files, hopefully someone would make something useful out off them - vBIOS extraction. I'm jobless at the moment, but I'll give what I think is fair for any contribution about this craziness Thanks for looking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svl7 Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Well, I don't need to repeat myself regarding BGA layout and different GPU... Vbios files are attached, not sure what's the device ID for the 8850m. 6823 should be one, not sure about the rest. 8850M vbios.zip 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khenglish Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Just because the BGA looks the same does not mean that it is. For example the 9600 pro turbo and x700 have identical looking BGAs, but they cannot be since one is AGP and the other is PCI-E. There was no bridge chip. Also the GDDR3 BGA is extremely different from the GDDR5 BGA, so I doubt that the same GPU package can run either.Also the strongest mxm-ii card is the 4870 designed for the asus w90. Most 4870 are mxm-iii, but the asus w90 4870 is mxm 2.1. It's also still a GDDR3 card though, but it's 256bit (and the core has 800 shaders!).How do you grip the chips by the way? When I fooled around with stuff like this my number 1 problem by far was not having a proper tool to grab chips with, leading to resistors and caps getting knocked off. Also I had problems with chips spinning around for apparently no reason while heating to resolder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triturbo Posted November 13, 2013 Author Share Posted November 13, 2013 @svl7 - Thanks A LOT! Is there a way to tell if any one of them is DDR3 @Khenglish - I don't, someone else does it for me, payed service of course. I only have a heater. Controlled temp one, but still a heater, while the guy has a proper IR rework station. I know about the BGAs, but I have to take my chance Also HD4870 is MXM-III, much larger than MXM-II. If it was a fit I wouldn't have bothered... probably Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svl7 Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Dell 1002 - 6660 -> Sun-XTSamsung 1002 - 6600 (2) -> Mars XTSamsung 1002 - 6821 (2) -> Venus XTThose are the DDR3 versions. I don't know the device IDs used for the 8850m nor am I familiar with the code names (see above) I can't tell you to which GPUs those files refer.As you probably noticed, the second number in the file name is the device ID of the vbios (the first one, 1002, is the manufacturer ID of AMD). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triturbo Posted November 13, 2013 Author Share Posted November 13, 2013 As I thought, all the DELL ones are GDDR5 Oh well, I hoped for at least one DDR3, since there were places that one of them was listed as DDR3. Since it is common for both, 6821 is the one. Now I wonder if it would matter if the RAM would be of a problem? The HD4650 uses hynix, while this Samsung most likely uses Samsung... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svl7 Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Yes, the ram can matter a lot. GDDR5 and DDR3 is not compatible, but that's obvious. A vbios running on a board with different DDR3 chips than it was designed for can be problematic as well, because of the timings (which are configured in the vbios). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khenglish Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 @svl7 - Thanks A LOT! Is there a way to tell if any one of them is DDR3 @Khenglish - I don't, someone else does it for me, payed service of course. I only have a heater. Controlled temp one, but still a heater, while the guy has a proper IR rework station. I know about the BGAs, but I have to take my chance Also HD4870 is MXM-III, much larger than MXM-II. If it was a fit I wouldn't have bothered... probably The mxm naming system is stupid with many numbers having dual meanings. The HD4870 is the strongest card that is electrically compatible with your laptop without mods. Getting it to physically fit (connector fits. problem is enough space in laptop) and to receive enough power is a project in itself though. The strongest that both electrically and physically works is the 240m. There were some mxm 2.1 versions of it made for the mxm-2 size. It only has 48 shaders though which will have a tough time beating an HD4000. Just saying since I did this research myself for a compal JHL90 / sager np2096. Your idea does sound possible (just very unlikely). Hell I wonder if you will have a better chance at the card working without switching the vBIOS and just change the device ID? That way everything is right for the VRM and mxm interface setup and hopefully the core just blindly processes... you'll probably need some hybrid BIOS to get it to work right though. Also could you please find out for me how this person secures the chips and grips them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triturbo Posted November 14, 2013 Author Share Posted November 14, 2013 Yeah it's much more scrambled than what we have now with MXM 3.0. I know that the connector is the same, and my laptop can provide up to 75W to the MXM connector. That's part of the reason why I'm going forward to try this mod Unfortunately 5920G is not designed with MXM-III in mind; even if I sacrifice say the fan and find some other solution for cooling, it also interferes with two of the CPU socket screws. It's pretty much next to impossible to run MXM-III while retaining portability. That's why I'm headed towards this mod A custom vBIOS would probably be needed I guess, but I first have to figure out how to get some cash to put it this way About the last request, I'll see what I can do, since he could protect his secret or whatever. Hopefully he would share the info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pchatzop Posted November 15, 2013 Share Posted November 15, 2013 Nice work slv7! I extracted the bios from 5537 as well but only found the gddr5 version of the vbios so(since they wont do for this mod) i didn't upload them. I cannot download the vbios files due to some forum issue, so did you manage to extract it from the samsung as well? It's probably the only one on the market right now with the ddr3 vbios. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triturbo Posted November 19, 2013 Author Share Posted November 19, 2013 "A little" request, if anyone comes across another model than the ones above with either HD8830m, HD8850m or HD8870m DDR3 it would be greatly appreciated to mention it here. I know that if the BGA is different no vBIOS would be of help, but the more the better Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triturbo Posted April 10, 2014 Author Share Posted April 10, 2014 Sadly this project is dead as well Even custom vBIOS didn't helped. Unlike the 550m, this one didn't get any kind of activity, let alone picture. Well it was a long shot, but I had to take it. Maybe there are better chances with HD6730m, since both HD4650m and HD6730m are Terascale, but I wont be the one trying it. I had enough of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pchatzop Posted April 19, 2014 Share Posted April 19, 2014 Sad to hear that. You managed to pull the vbios of 8850m from the bios of samsung models? What modification did you perform on the vbios(i guess something about the 2gb vram part)? I was hoping you would go for the 6730m, but i guess its now up to me to do the honors . I should try it once i get my hot air station, since core swaps are somewhat expensive here in greece (about the cost of a new hd4650 ). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triturbo Posted April 21, 2014 Author Share Posted April 21, 2014 All kind of mods, but I think it's electrical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triturbo Posted April 30, 2014 Author Share Posted April 30, 2014 I was hoping you would go for the 6730m, but i guess its now up to me to do the honors Don't waste your money! The problem is VERY electrical. The BGA is 1:1, but there are pins that are not used in M96 (HD4650) and there are no traces on the board but are needed for newer chips. So simply put - it wont work. If you have tons of money to throw at, and you are willing to deal with a lot of soldering and troubleshooting, go ahead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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