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

[lbr]

@.NetRolller 3D: Thanks, flashed A1667g equipped with x1900, it works)
Will report if 9600GT works later.

[Kailoq]

I posted this in the 7720G upgrade thread, but it's gettting burried without any looks. If it's against the forums rules to repost this, just lemme know.

I put in a GeForce 9600M GT 512MB GDDR3 VG.9PG06.006 in my 7720G, but I'm getting green stripes over the black parts of my screens at the startup, as well as a rippling effect across my desktop. Normal Nvidia drivers don't recognise the card. I managed to install LV2G ones (tried the 2 latest ones and a couple of old 280xx ones), but the artifacts are still there.

The strange part is, my bios tells me the vBIOS is 62.94.4A.00.23, which seems to be the vBIOS for the DDR2 version. GPU-Z and device manager tell me I have a NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT / GeForce GT 220M with DDR2 1024MB revision C1. What the bleep?

[paymey]

It works, great thanks NetRolller 3D you are my hero!

@Kailoq- bios update to v1.45 and try this Aspire 7720G major upgrade

[Kailoq]

I came across that thread, but since my problem is different from theirs I don't think it'll help. The original topic the solution is based on can be found here: http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/top...ypical-subsys/

The problem was getting the card to be recognised, because it had an untypical subsys name. I have the same subsys name, but I'm able to install any LV2G driver I want. My main problem isn't recognising the card, but artifiacts/green stripes. Also, that topic was based on a DDR3, while I have a DDR3 showing up as a DDR2. On top of that, it seems the user also changed the vBIOS, but if I do that I can't return the card to the seller.

As far as updating my bios goes, I've never tried anything like that I thought the 9600 would work out of the box, but I'll look into it.

EDIT: I'm stuck at the get-go. The European acer site only has the 7720 listed, with BIOS 1.45 at 2.2 MB. http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers...k/as_7720.html
The American site has a special page for the 7720G, with a 1.4 MB bios. http://support.acer.com/product/defa...px?modelId=123

How do I know which one to use?

EDIT2: The Belgian Acer site has a dedicated 7720G page as well, but the bios consists out of a single .exe, while the main european and american sites have winflash thingies.

[u6b36ef]

@ blackened87,

Hi, I keep wondering about your 9920. (Mine has gone.) Anyway about the SBIOS fan switching temperatures. I did find a free version of a program that could read/edit the laptop BIOS. When I find it I will tell you; it will be in a folder somewhere.

Yes, you see, you said that software stuff wasn't really your thing, but hardware. Anyway I tried the prog I had, a while ago, but I still got garble really. Anyway again, if you read the very early pages of this thread, you will see .NetRolller 3D gave instructions how to make the BIOS readable, 'in English', I mean. Why not try using a BIOS editor and Net's instructions. I think you'll see the fan controls clearly, and might feel happy to fix it yourself. Or at least you might write Net3D about what you find.

Anyways anyways, good luck. Btw, very good news to see you have your 9600M GT - 9920 happy.

@ .NetRolller 3D,

Hi, I just took a look for a page with blackened87's name on it to check the spelling, and randomly clicked page 75 first. Anyway there at the top of the page was a GPU-Z (version 6) image of a 9600M GT in C1 rev with 512MB GDDR3. Looks like I stand corrected, and you were right. I'll go back to previous posts, and make ammendments, if they need it, so not to mislead. My findings were mostly from extensively looking at 9600M's on ebay and relevant info, so was sure. Like, if you google G96-630-C1, you get streams of results for DDR2 1GB versions of 9600M GT. Therefor please do forgive me for being wrong.

Anyway I'd still be glad to see a tech paper showing the C1 is die shrink. (Have not seen any evidence of that yet.) That would be a nice conclusion. The C1 GS I have is certainly cool. 70'C on average, and only the most aggresive shader game aps push to a higher mere 77'C.

Otherwise, I read 'paymey's post on page 86, at 06-25-2012, 07:32 PM. I wonder if that is what I am having with the 9600M GS in the 8920. I get a boot, but blank screen. I don't know if paymey gets a boot. Anyway, maybe I'll try another driver sometime. (Leaving it for now as GPU's would need to be swapped.)

[.NetRolller 3D]

@Kailoq: If you extract the 2 BIOSes with 7-Zip, you will find that the embedded BIOS image files are identical - only the flashing programs differ (presumably one is a DOS flasher, the other is a Windows one). The 5315, 5320, 5715, 5715G, 5715Z, 5715ZG, 5720, 5720G, 5720Z, 5720ZG, 7720, 7720G and the eMachines E510 all use the same BIOS images.

[Kailoq]

Thank you. I'm too scared to try it myself (since apperantly I need to make a backup of the bios too?), so I think I'll head out to my pc store and ask them to do it (and check the card's serial while they're at it).

[.NetRolller 3D]

Reading your original post, I suspect it's not a BIOS issue.

Can you read the serial number off of one of the card's RAM chips?

[aikidokaboy]

Asus cards are not recommended - for example, almost all Asus cards I know are DDR2, which is not supported in the 9920G.

Others (e.g. MSI) should be fine, though.

I'm not sure I understand mate...
Can you help me please?
My 9920g had an 8600M GT video card.
What if I find another 8600M GT with DDR2.
Does that mean it will not work at all or it means I can't make it work with my internal display?
Thank you!

[paymey]

I am not able to detect the external display (LCD,DVI-HDMI) after changing the BIOS(BlackE.), any suggestions gentlemen