Acer MXM BIOS Mods and discussion (was: x920G vs. 9600M GT)

[Hycks]

@.NetRolller : No, unfortunately... the 8600 sometimes reaches almost 70 degrees without even a fan turn... I have to wait the CPU to reach 55 degrees before hearing the fan starting (at 50%).

@blackened : Hum... seems like the OS lead is not the one... Have also you noticed a CPU temperature threshold for the CPu to start?
Héhé, I'm a bit lazy, so I think I will keep the 8600m gt heatspreader.. but I wish you well for your project (it will be beautiful, I 'm sure!)

[blackened87]

well i am finished with my cooling
later today-tonight i will post the pictures.
the thing i was worried is that the stock cooling did not cool the memory modules at all!
you could burn your self if you tried to touch them!
it may be that on factory clock's that isn't an issue...
now the card keeps idle on 50-55c on benchmark 95-6c.but it cools the whole card.you can touch the heatsink now
and the liquid metal is not set yet-you will se what i mean by that later on the pictures.
i also tied the cpu and gpu heat-pipe together so the cpu now shares the heat generated by the gpu and forces the fan to turn on
so that issue is solved.
any way it is an increase in performance because frame rate droped rapidly earlier cuz the memory got too hot.now it keeps the frames up in test but i cannot force it yet for another 24 hours for the material to set nicely.

[Hycks]

Last news...

I just tried to install the last .NetRolller's bios... and right after this, at the next boot try, my 9920g starts on a black (but lightened) screen without even posting... seemed like the card was bricked... and no way to boot on the usb key or something, everything was blocked

I was very disappointed, and about to give immediate feedback of total failure, but I decided to make a last test plugging my external screen before booting, and, miracle, acer post appears. So I quickly put my usb key, rebooted, and flashed the next to last bios netrolled has made... after that, it turns back to the former state (phheeeeewwww!!!! that was close!). I tried to flash one more time with the "faulty" bios, to make sure it was not a bad flash the first time, and the same syndroms appeared again...

So, to sum up, I have avoided a big crash, but the driver loading issue hasn't been solved yet... and I will borrow the external screen a little longer, just in case! In any case, don't try the last netrolller vbios at home!!!! (héhé)

So, Mr Netrolller, could you please help me a little more? I can give more informations, if you want. I'm sure we will gonna make it soon! Thank you very much.

@blackened : Great job with your soldering matters! By the way, how have you managed to "trick" the drivers, in order to force them to display things correctly?

[blackened87]

@hycks: everithing is fine at my end.picture is normal gaming movies all of it.

i installed a modified nvidia driver and then the screen went crazy.all kinds of purple 2 screens in one.i tried others but no luck black screen.
then i instaled the puprle one and navigated on that purple multiple screen and manually updated to the newest nvidia driver from device manager.and would you look at that everithing is normal...

i also tried the same thing connected to an external display but ended with black screen after update.

i don't understand why it works when you update it with the purple internal display,probably has something to do with display detection during instalation...

the last nvidia drivers are whql without the modified inf...

the weird thing is that now the nvidia control panel doesent work but i don't care much because everithing else work's fine

don't know the correct version of the purple deformed image driver i instaled but i know i downloaded it from laptopvideo2go.

but again i am using windows

dunno about linux.

[Hycks]

@blackened : Thanks for the feedback! Do you use the next to last version of Vbios provided by Netrolller or the very last one ("improved... etc etc")? And everything worked well immediately? For me, again, with the latter, It freezes at the very start, so in my case, it doesn't matter if windows or linux is installed on my PC...

When I turn back to my old 8600m gt, everything is fine (display OK on the internal screen), so as when I put an external screen plugged with my 9600m gt before power up, so it can't be an hardware failure... I guess it has to rely of what Netrolller has changed about mxm structures in the Vbios, because it has only affected the communication between the PC and the internal display... Maybe a closer look to the 8600m gt vbios should help (I wish I have enough knowledge to help Netrolller to do this!)... But I haven't, so I eagerly wait for the next try (héhé)!

So, to sum up, the next to last Vbios works fine with Windows 7 ultimate, but not with linux, for the time being... Correct me if I'm wrong, of course (héhé)!

[Hycks]

Hi all,

After a whole evening of drivers changes, issues fixes(without wanting it, I have improved my knowledge abou linux configurations... But that's enough for now! héhé), things haven't changed so much.

What I have done :

- Tried each kind of drivers proposed for the 9600m GT (namely, vesa, nv, nouveau and nvidia). I even tried to install the nvidia driver from scratch, and, doing so, I almost messed up my whole ubuntu installation.

- Tried to run a fresh ubuntu session from the live CD, that didn't give any result (except to turn off my wifi card, I really don't know why! héhé)

Nothing really worked, at the unique exception of the vesa driver, that displayed one time correctly on the internal screen the login prompt (while not in the correct resolution... I wasn't able to reproduce this more than this unique success, and anyway, it is not an viable solution (for each change on the kernel, I would have to rely on an external screen to reactivate vesa... plus, that driver is out of date, and I may need some graphical specs that nouveau drivers offers and not vesa)..

But, this means that the vbios Netrolller proposed took the right direction, and it's "only" a matter of making a small modification on this vbios to display things correctly without relying on an driver tweak, or external screen... what I really don't understand is that, at the meantime, with the same drivers installed, the 8600m gt works like a charm... my bet is that the key lies in the Vbios of this card, but I can't say more because I don't know how to examine this... by the way, .Netrolller, is there a tutorial of how examine this point precisely in Vbios, so that I may learn how to do this? thanks!

By the way, Netrolller, if you still want to work on this vbios of course, I have kept a wide variety on xorg.log corresponding to many driver configurations I have tested... so feel free to ask!

Blackened, we are waiting for your beautiful pictures about the depths of your 9920g! héhé

Have a nice day, all, and thank you for any help you could provide me!*

PS : By the way, Netrolller, the former xorg.log I gave you one week ago were created using nvdia drivers, not the nouveau drivers, as I have claimed at that time...

[blackened87]

hi all
i was a bit lazy for picture uploads,sorry about that

so lets go step by step:

1:the factory cooling and the modified cooling inside the 9920:

you can clearly see the difference

2:a closer look at the factory non-efficient cooling heat plate compared to my diy version:


3:here you can see what i have done
mainly i desoldred the tiny cooper plate that transfered the heat from the gpu to the heatpipe.
then i mounted the heatpipe on the new plate using 2-component liquid metal...don't ask!!!!
once that was set i made a plaster mold-not in the pictures...then i tied the gpu and cpu heatpipes together using the same metal compound...this way the heat the gpu is emiting is transmited to the cpu heatpipe and sharing the heat
now the fan is forced to turn cuz its getting hot alongside the graphics card


so take a look at what i have done and give your feedback everyone

i personaly think i did a good job

[blackened87]

and the result in 3dmark06

sorry for the bad picture quality...taken with phone...

ouh yeh and look at those clocks on the 9600m gt....acer eat your heart out!

so the cooling does the work

now that the compound is set during benchmark the gpu temp does not go over 86c and in idle it keeps a cool 54-56
also that is all possible now that the stupid fan is kicking in when it should

[Hycks]

Hi all,

@blackened : Nice job! You bet it's efficient... heat should not be a problem anymore for you! Was it hard to do regarding as cutting the copper pièce... I couldn't do this personnaly, because I don't have the appropriate stuff to do so.... So I have to cope with the factory (and rather inefficient, I'm agree!) heatspreader! But, before that, I have to make ubuntu boot with the card, that is not easy, I tell you!

As far as I'm concerned, I can't use Windows on this PC for the time being (I have some programs for my job that works only on linux, that's why I absolutely need ubuntu to boot...). But I think you should describe a little bit more precisely how you've managed to install the appropriate drivers for windows, for the edification of future 9920g owners! héhé

Again, congrats for your great job, and for the great timings! And wish me luck for my own "fight", I will need it! héhé

@NetRolller : In order to understand better what you've made, I tried to read the two Vbios you've given me with a Hex editor, found tiny differences, but I can't interpret them, so it's useless... So I turn back to the drivers examinations , but nothing seems to work... Waiting for a new Vbios release (again, if you have time and will to bend over this problem again). Thank you for what you've already made, and for any help you could give me about the linux case!

[blackened87]

@hycks:
well it is a lot of work...a lot of cutting and final fabrication is involved....
then comes the part when you need to join the pieces and the plaster molds do take a lot of your time to make...
its a one day job-a full day...regarding if you have the tools to do the job.

but belive me when i tell you it is worth it!!!!
with the factory cooling i was having trouble on stock clocks..
on benchmark the temp of the gpu was at times at 102-3c because the fan was idle...
not to mention the memory modules-i think it was luck the they didn't burn out regarding the heat...when i licked my finger and touched the heatsink over the memory it was sizling-i don't know the right term-please correct me