Asus G75 680M upgrade

[Zymphad]

Have any of you priced a 680M yet? It's a $900 upgrade... What is going on in this thread and the thinking here? You brick a 680M, RJTEch is not going to reimburse you and the warranty is gone. Not only time wasted, now you are wasting more money than your G73JH is worth. You are only $600 away from just buying a Clevo ith a 680M, what is the point of risking throwing away $900?

[GuidoScoco]

We know it is a big risk. Me personally, I really do not like the looks of Clevo and Eurocom models, they really resemble the looks of what Charles Babbage would have imagined a laptop would be when he invented the punched cards; and Alienwares are just extremely expensive to me (I got my G75 for under 1400). I am really an Asus person, not just for the looks as I might have suggested before but for everything else too. Also this things are always an extension of a persons passion for this type of handy things (nevertheless it is quite expensive for me, I live outside the US and a 680m would probably cost me 50% more that it would to a US resident). In addition to this I do not know squad about all this BIOS and software issues but just want to know if this is possible.

[sarge_]

Have any of you priced a 680M yet? It's a $900 upgrade... What is going on in this thread and the thinking here? You brick a 680M, RJTEch is not going to reimburse you and the warranty is gone. Not only time wasted, now you are wasting more money than your G73JH is worth. You are only $600 away from just buying a Clevo ith a 680M, what is the point of risking throwing away $900?

Eurocom sells them for $725.

[GuidoScoco]

Guys, I have been doing again some looking into the back of the notebook and I think I discovered that it is not necessary to use 1.8' HDD. I imagined a way to re-locate the existing bays and make the room needed for the GPU to fit. This image shows my point:

From June 30, 2012

I found that the area marked in red is empty. this means that HDD can be moved further down by cutting the plastic with a saw or any tool. Connections from the HDDs to the mobo are via a separate PCB that lays in the middle of both HDDs. I think this separate PCB can be moved around since it is not hooked physically to the mobo.
To sum up, you can cut a bit of the lower part of the chassis, move the bays down and move the connectors down too, thus eliminating the need to use 1.8' SSDs.

I would be dismantling my notebook this weekend as posting the images to find out if this is possible.

[sarge_]

What's the point? First you need to find out if a different GPU works or not. You can do that while the notebook is disassembled. If it works, then you worry about fitting it back together.

[GuidoScoco]

Kind of all at the same time, if it works but no way to make it fit when putting all back in, then there was no point of buying the new GPU. I do not know about software problems so I'm trying to contribute with progress on physical issues: also as soon as people have sorted compatibility problems we can get a full upgrade guide as quick as possible by using all solutions.

[sarge_]

There's always a way to fit it. Compatibility should come first. So far, noone has tried it. G73sw, for example, has ample room for an MXM card.

[phill1978]

Have any of you priced a 680M yet? It's a $900 upgrade... What is going on in this thread and the thinking here? You brick a 680M, RJTEch is not going to reimburse you and the warranty is gone. Not only time wasted, now you are wasting more money than your G73JH is worth. You are only $600 away from just buying a Clevo ith a 680M, what is the point of risking throwing away $900?

your right of course.

out of interest the Asus cooling is much quieter and better. if they manage to fit a decent card in the G73, G75 then it will benefit more.

dont get me wrong the sagers are nice and all, but they do feel a bit workman which is ok, a bit dull but get the job done and in a raw unsophisticated fashion.

i still think its mad to around given the price of the cards and laptop! wait until asus realise alienware and even sager/clevo are walking over them in performance then we will get the good cards.. unfortunately they will probably stick with the ludicrously expensive 680m and make the laptop thousands of dollars / pounds

[GuidoScoco]

There's always a way to fit it. Compatibility should come first. So far, noone has tried it. G73sw, for example, has ample room for an MXM card.

If you see the interior of a G75 you will notice that there is little room for a card such as the 680m. That's why I look after these things. Also, I think that to just make it fit in and be able to test if it at least works, you will have to cut a bit of the chassis, so physical constrains are a deal in here. I seem to have sorted out a way to solve them but still have to check if it is possible. This weekend I will be tearing up my notebook and give you the confirmation.

[Cloudfire]

I`m really interested in buying the G75 and a 680M to see if they can work together. I haven`t done any modding on notebooks before so I have very little experience which is why I`m hesitating. But we have VBIOS from both Alienware now and from Sager, plus we have the people who can help us software wise.

I tried contacting Asus through many ways but I haven`t got a respond from anyone about including 680M. So I guess we gotta do it ourselves (if possible).

One major problem I`ve found is the weird MXM shape Asus use, while the MXM cards from Sager/Dell are plain rectangular shape. So I think you need to customize a bit to make the 680M sit firmly attached