Acer 5930G: Need to Reflash my 9600M GT, not kept any back up files. :eek:

Hi people,
Just had a browse on the forums, and couldn't find anything that would fix my problem.

Basically, I have got an Acer 5930G John Lewis model. I flashed my Nvidia 9600M GT 512mb to overclock it. Everything was ok initially and I was able to play most games maxxed out.

After about 9 months things started going wrong. Initially the laptop would only crash when playing a heavy game such as FEAR or crysis for a long period of time. Then as time went on, the laptop become less tolerant to any GPU processing and now crashes even when playing Quake Live or CS 1.6.

Migrating to Win 7 temporarily fixed the problem, but then things quicky went wrong again.

Before making any modifications, I had backed up all my files on a USB drive as I had no optical media at the time, unfortunately, the drive was placed into a mac by a friend by accident and subsequently formatted. OOPS.

So, I have lost all my original NVflash files and Im stuck with a 9600M that can't take it anymore. Is there anyway I can reclock the timings on the Gfx card or am I screwed?

Thanks

EDIT: Attaching a Screen cap of GPU-Z on the lappy incase it helps

 

Why did you flash it? You should have used a software program such as nvidia system tools to overclock it.

 

I was told at the time that flashing was a lot more stable and compatible with programs; especially for laptops compared to software OCing. I tried many stability tests at the time and not a single crash occured at that those clock speeds. Perhaps I won't dive in head-first next time lol.

 

Ok here is the bios you need I believe, if that isnt it, which I am sure it will work then browse this site - http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/

 

cheers, will give it a try.

 

an over overclocked graphics card is unlikely to cause a system crash so thats not a proper test to tell you if you've over done it. You need to check temperatures, check for artifacts on demanding games/graphics etc - sounds like your overclocked GPU has cooked itself over the last few months...

 

True that 950 memory clock is kinda high for that long period of time.

 

xzinkx, Im new to this forum and have a question for you. Would you possibly remember how you went about reflashing your 9600m to get the clocks you achieved? I understand doing so could have possibly cooked the gpu but I'm not concerned about ruining my gpu as it'll give me an excuse to get a new laptop. But I am VERY curious as to how you went about doing it. Thanks.

 

I've converted the .bin file into a .rom file. The device I.D, subvendor I.D, subsystem I.D and Board I.D are all matching giving me a cheksum of B8 on with both rom files.

But I am still getting a PCI subsystem I.D Mismatch when using nvflash 5.63. If I use the compare function I get "Missmatch at offset 0x0000001A. How do I get around this? Thanks

EDIT: Found out how to bypass the check sorted now

 

Too high of an overclock.
Temps are bound to be very high as a result, and if you haven't been paying an eye on them, then it's very possible they are the cause of your problems.

I don't know if the card itself is damaged, but the first thing I would do is turn off the laptop, open up the underside and clean it out thoroughly with a vacuum cleaner.
That's the first step.

Second:
Overclocking the gpu via BIOS flashing is fine, though you must find a frequency which is not only stable, but also will not cause very high temperatures.
I undervolted my own 9600m GT via BIOS flashing (on stock clocks) to 0.89V.
I will overclock the card and keep the undervolt, but will only set the settings to the following: 600/800/1500

Increasing the memory clock from 800 to more would probably not be very effective on a 128 bit bus (which is what my card is operating on), and those higher clocks are stable on the 0.89V (I tested it for a shorter time before).

So ... I would suggest you clean out the laptop, undervolt both the cpu and the gpu, and find overclocked frequencies for the gpu that are stable/efficient under the undervolt.

Also check the temps in tests ... if they are within 70 or don't go over 80 degrees (for the gpu), they are fine ... but above that, I would be worried.

Right now my own laptop doesn't go over 60 degrees when gaming.
That's on stock clocks and undervolted gpu/cpu (and a Zalman Cooler).
My gpu temps had a tendency of being about 25 degrees higher before all of this.

I suspect the overclock of the gpu would bring up the temps by about 5 degrees when gaming, which gives me plenty of room to 'wiggle' so to say, and under such conditions, I do not expect the gpu to fry itself over a long period of time.


However, you might try keeping your overcloked settings, and merely undervolt the cpu/gpu to reduce temperatures in the future.

You have to test them in order to make sure the temps are not too high.

 

For me flashing GPU Clock Speeds is very deadly.
Flashing the Voltage is OK, because it's important for an OCer to do so if he/she plans to have better temperature or higher OC capability.

TS, reflash it to original BIOS.
Then, use Nvidia System Tools(nTune) to OC it.

 

My suggestion is for Poster to grab the old BIOS using Nibitor modify the Frequency and reflash using nvflash.
The advantage of flashing the BIOS is performance is native doesn't require running of 3rd party programs
The disadvantage is the fear of bricking it.

 

The OP will definitely have to lower the clocks a bit I think.
If he/she undervolts too much with those high clocks, there's a possibiltiy the gpu won't be able to supply enough power for the speeds to be effective.

I just overclocked my gpu to 600/1500/900 via Nvidia Control Panel (still at 0.89V btw).
Stable (been gaming for 4 hours via Dragon Age and SW Force Unleashed) and provides a relatively notable increase in fluency when gaming.
Temps on the gpu are stable ... a few degrees lower than 60 (this is with the cpu undervolted to 1.038V and a Zalman Cooler of course).
Without the cooler, I would expect the temps to be close to 70 degrees, and most likely higher if we also eliminate the cpu undervolt.

3dMark 06 Score is 6460 (not that it's too important really when it comes to games).

 

Thanks for all the replies, just wanted to let you all know that I fixed the problem a long time ago and was able to flash to stock clock speed using the stock GFX card image and forcing to flash regardless of offset missmatch. May consider undervolting and reflashing sometime soon.

P.S. This laptop can cope pretty well with hot temperatures, never reset on stock timings when I've had it on my lap/bed/carpet regardless of the fact the fans are on full spin, also was able to play games perfectly in the hot summer weather without any probs