4850 in a m5750!

I just wanted to drop by to say Yippee ki yay, Mr. Falcon! I got a 4850m to work on the internal display in my older m5750!

Now lets see if it stays cool enough w/ the stock cooler designed to run an x1800.

Updates to come over the week!

Update 1
Running at stock clocks will most likely NOT be an option for this laptop because of its original cooling design. The card seems to idle at 50C which is not terrible. Right now I brought the GPU down to 375 and the Memory down to 630 (~25% decrease from stock) and the temp seems much more stable. I am going to work my way up from here and see where I can get this thing

Update 2
Still working on this. I ran into some issues with the heatsink, mainly me accidentally bending it and making it into a nice paperweight. I have the new one now so hoping to have time over the next week to continue this.

Update 3
Heatsink has been modified to fit the "cityscape" of the new card. Applied some AS5 and doing the 200hour burn in before really pushing it. Still have the clocks on the card down 25% for now. I modified the fan to run at the 5V 100% power all the time to keep things cool. The card seems to be idling around 50C. Pic below of the card in the notebook before the heatsink went on.

Update 4
Burn in almost done. Noticed the DC coils on the card are getting very hot so I ordered some small heatsinks that I plan to slap on top of them. Will do some real testing after the burn in.

Update 5
So I am still running the unit at a 25% underclock but have finally tried some games. I ran one shooter called "singularity" and got a 10fps increase at the start of the first level compared to my previous mxm Type II 4650 1GB DDR2. I also ran 3DMark Vantage and got a score of P4074 which was double my original score of P2121. I am still working on increasing the clocks / monitoring temps. Also these scores are with a T7400 and 2GB of ram. I have a new 4gb kit but since I originally tested the 4650 with 2gb, I wanted to keep it the same for comparisons.

Update 6
Added a second fan blowing directly on the graphics card (pics soon) and bumped the clocks back up to 100% (stock). Ran 3DMark Vantage and got a score of P5112.

Update 7
And.... brick wall :/. So I was noticing that some of the games seem to stutter for a moment and drop down in frames but then go back up. Knowing on a desktop this usually means you need a bigger power supply I decided to put a meter on mine. Its rated for 120W and sure enough was putting out 123W, 3W over its rating. Please see post #5

Update 8
Lenovo 20V 230 watt adapter on the way! Lets see how this goes. Either it should fix my stuttering problem or I will fry my m5750 . Added new pics of the 2nd fan I added and the modified bottom panel I made.

Update 9
Lenovo adapter is in. The laptop will draw ~135 watts at full load which the 230 watt adapter handles fine. I had a chance to use the laptop in an old fashion LAN party and it did well. Temps through the night stayed under 80C. The laptop was hot to the touch but it did this even with the old card. Most games ran well but Skyrim & DeusEx:HR still stutter some. From reading this seems like a common problem w/ AMD cards and these games. The frames will be at 60 but for 1/2 a second the drop down and then go back up. Most other games such as StarCraft 2, Tribes:Ascend, Serious Sam HD, Unreal Tournament 3 all ran fine. For the first time ever my processor is now my bottleneck.

Update 10
Laptop is still going strong a year later with light use and a couple of LAN parties. On page 3 I posted that I also installed a T7600G. See that post for benchmarks.

I have an i7 desktop I normally use for gaming and an iPad for browsing the internet on the couch so this laptop had been collecting dust for 2 years since I graduated college. It's nice that this thing can serve a purpose for a few more years. As a daily use laptop I don't know if I can recommend cramming in a card that runs this hot and is this power hungry. I am sure battery life is terrible, the thing heats up easily, the primary fan / 2nd one I added run at 100% all the time making a lot of noise, and it requires a power adapter I had to splice. Though, as a quick computer to grab and bring over a friends house vs lugging the large desktop it is AWESOME!

 

Very nice keep the thread updated with progress! Good luck with modding!

 

Been a month and I have done a handful of updates so... bump

 

Looking good...

 

It looks like the new 4850 draws A LOT more power than any of my previous mxm cards. Well I am now on the hunt for a bigger power adapter that will work for my laptop. I know the volts have to be the same (20V) but that the amps can be higher giving me more watts to run the card. There is a lenovo adapter out there that has plenty of power with 20V & 230 watts. The problem is that the tip has the dimensions of 6mm by 3.5mm where as my alienware tip is 5mm by 2.5mm.

Any thoughts on if the Lenovo tip would fit snug enough? I don't really want to splice cables together.

 

Do you know if the pre-Dell Alienware systems have the proprietary AC adapter that communicates with the motherboard EC? If it does, that might prevent the Lenovo adapter from working properly.

 

The adapter seems pretty generic. Its a regular DC plug not the special "4 pin" adapter found on the 7700 or the M17 laptops. I was looking at using a m9750 but the voltage is 19V not 20V so that option was out.

 

The pre-Dell models didn't

 

Lenovo adapter is in! Ran out of electrical tape lol. Picking some up and hopefully completing this today!

 

From what laptop this card came from? It is really nice you get it work.

 

No clue. The green pcb alienware one did NOT work in my m5750. I found this on ebay and it looks like it could even be a reference card but it works with the built in display!

 

Thanks. Just wondering if you know the seller? I want to contact him if he dont have one more for me.

 

Awesome work on the your m5750.

I ran my m5790 into the ground and it still works, the only drawback is the m5750/90 design does a very poor job with cooling. I had to replace 2 X1800 GPUs because of it.

 

Great job with this project, does your fan kick into full speed to help with cooling that card? Have you modded the heatsink to help manage temps better? How's it doing currently and did you have to do any bios mods to get it working properly?

 

Good to see someone did the "KEEP IT ALIVE!" routine with a legacy machine. ;D

Gets tiring when all you see are the M17x R2 owners saying "I've got to make this 7970M crossfire work!"

 

80 c is a standar temperature for a 4850 mines often ran around 90c for the last two years and only now one is showing defect

 

Both fans are always at 100% because they are powered by the 5v USB. The only mod to the heatsink was some cutting so the new card would fit. Currently the laptop is fine running on a stock BIOS.

 

Had some $$ burning a hole in my pocket so I picked up a T7600G on ebay . Assuming the CPU works as the seller described I can't wait to get this thing in my m5750 and see if I can bump my scores up some. If all goes well this should make for the fastest M5750 out there.

 

Awesome CPU, had one in my older m5790.

 

T7600G didn't work out. Get this, seller shipped it in a plain envelope with a tiny amount of bubble wrap :/. Needless to say the pins were all bent.

I did pick up a new UJ-120 Blu Ray drive for the laptop though! Swapped the front face plates and it looks just as the old one did! Now for some movies on my 1080x1920 screen!

 

Aw man, what a waste

 

Yup a nice T7600G ruined, at least ebay gave me back my money though the seller's initial response was for me to take up issue with the Post Office for bending the pins, and not their lack of proper shipping haha.

 

This card is practically impossible to find. I'm so jealous. The green 4850's are hard enough to find. But I have a question for you. Might not be the right place, but reading through other threads I see you tried the 4870 probably from an asus w90 in your m5750. Did you have any luck with that? My FX3700m in my m15x which I had for 4 months just fried and I don't think it's worth getting another one. I've been looking at the 4870 seeing as I can't find any 4850's to try.

 

I tried a 4870 in my m5750 & a m15x and it did not work. It was not an asus card, I was told it was actually a Dell card used for the 17 inch alienware. A user named Table21 sold them and said he got them from Dell. They were intended as a upgrades I for the m17 or m17x (can't remember which) but were never actually sold to the public and somehow he managed to get his hands on them. They were 512mb & on a green pcb. I think that is how the story went but being almost 2yrs ago I am unsure. I did find the old FS thread though if you want to read it: http://forum.notebookreview.com/com...-video-cards-mxm-3-0-6990s-mxm-2-1-4870s.html

 

Good news everyone! haha. I won another T7600G on ebay and it was even less than the previous. Lets hope this one is shipped properly.

 

Got the T7600G in and had enough time to run Vantage once before going to bed. CPU score went from 3800.4 w/ the old T7400 to 4612.2 with the T7600G overclocked. Overall score went from P5140 to P5485.

Pretty happy now knowing I probably have the most powerful M5750 out there, have loved this thing ever since I got it back in 2006 on the week the new model was released.

 

Nice scores you got there. Nice to know that this CPU arrived alive.

 

just signed up to hopefully learn a few more things from protivakid. i have a 5750 that i too waited for in 2006.

a few years back i replaced the x1800 once, the new one is working great, but just doesn't cut it for newer games anymore...

i am having a hell of a time trying to find a 4650 in mxm type 2. having spent a few days searching i thought 4850's and 4870's don't even exist in type 2. if i only i knew which laptops they came from, maybe i could snatch the right Acer on eBay, because separately there are absolutely no 4650's, 4670's or 4850's with mxm type 2 connector available now, nor sold in the last three months.

messaged a few alibaba sellers, but not really holding my breath. where the hell do i get a decent mxm type 2 card now in 2015? instead of becoming widely available and dirt cheap because of age - they're gone!

and just to be sure, HE cards are not an option for 5750's? or is it a risky option? point me in the right direction here!

what i'm trying to run a little better is a free game called Ghost Recon Phantoms. if there's a slightest chance that you, protivakid, could try this very fun 3rd person online only shooter and post how good or how bad the performance is on your machine - it would reassure me that my 9 year old beast can still bite or help me avoid a costly and pointless upgrade. hope to hear back soon...

 

I ran the 1GB DDR2 4650 for a while but it didn't cut it long. I have heard the 512MB DDR3 4650 is somewhat better but even more rare.
An HE card will not physically fit in the M5750 because of the motherboard's internal ethernet connector that is placed right in the way. I think someone way back tried cutting the HE tab off but that just resulted in a bricked card.

The 4850 I found seems to be an incredibly rare card. Not sure what it was pulled from or if it was just an engineering sample. I have seen a green PCB one on ebay month to month but have yet to see another red PCB pop up on ebay. The green PCB 4850/70's from the newer Alienware models will NOT work. The VBIOS is not compatible with the built-in or external display on the m5750. You will be able to hear windows boot and if you VNC into the laptop from another machine you can see the 4850/70 is installed and working but no display. You might be able to flash a green PCB 4850 with the VBIOS from my red PCB 4850 but that could just result in a bricked card.

Sadly the best advice I have is to set up daily ebay email searches and keep your fingers crossed. By the way the 4850/70 is a Type III card so make sure you are using the right terms on ebay.

What CPU do you have?

I do not mind at all benchmarking with that free game but it may be a bit before I find the time to do so. I can update you if I do. I will say that even with my T7600G and 4850 this laptop is not something I could run all modern games on. I use my desktop regularly for that. This was more a labor of love and an experiment. It does get light use if I want to run to a friend's or go on vacation as it will play most modern games on medium but that's about it.

 

i still have the T7200, but am already looking for that T7600G. there's a nice one listed on eBay from Poland right now, but it's kinda pricey... i have my i7 desktop with GTX480 SLI for when i'm at home.

will keep searching for a red PCB type 2 card, but now you have me all confused - "By the way the 4850/70 is a Type III card so make sure you are using the right terms on ebay." i didn't think that type III A or B could fit into our slots. if that could work i would probably go for this - http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Mobilit...897?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a068d4c89. i'm not too excited about having to swap the power supply, but if that's all it takes - why not? from the pictures you posted - yours looks like a regular type II though?

 

also found these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/GENUINE-MSI...818?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4190b73c1a

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Mobilit...322?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27b8abdc3a

the first one looks sweet, but is a green PCB =(... any chance it'll work?

 

You are using the terms wrong. Type I II & III all have the same connector. It's the physical size of the card's pcb that is different. Type HE is the same as Type III card with an extra tab. Type IV is the same as HE with a larger pcb. Type A & B use completely different connectors. Read the below for more info.

http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/Tech_13.html
http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/Tech_30.html

The first card you linked might work and looks to be the faster 4670 I mentioned. It would be a trial and error which may result in you having to re-sell.

The only green pcb cards I mentioned won't work is the 4850/70. Any other green pcb card may or may not work. You would have to try it.

 

i've looked and looked at those pictures over the past week and still didn't get the types right!

just submitted a best offer for that 4670. hopefully it's plug and play. i did find a thread on here where a guy ran the same exact card in his Acer 5920g. but if that doesn't work out - type III cards would physically fit, but type 3.0 A and B wouldn't?

 

Plug & Plan + MXM do not go together haha. If you get past the biggest hurdle of the card's VBIOS working with the built-in display great! But now you still need to monitor idle & load temps to make sure the fan is properly responding to and cooling the card. In my post you can see I had to add a fan. Also if you have a meter make sure it's not pulling in too much current for the PSU though I doubt the 4670 would pull in anything near my 4850.
A&B are different connectors so no those would not work. Type III is the same as Type II only with a larger pcb.

 

just paid 70 GBP ($110 USD) for that 4670 with shipping included. might take a while to get here from Lithuania, but i'll keep myself busy researching BIOS flashing and so on...

my heatsink fan has been hardwired to a USB cable ever since i lost the original x1800. got a copper shim on the GPU and all the vents have been cut out almost completely. i will definitely look into your second fan design. thank you for all the help. will update once the 4670 is in.

 

Not sure what other VBIOS you could flash the 512mb 4670. I think there was only one variety. I wouldn't suggest flashing it with the VBIOS from a 1GB 4670

 

that's even better. guess it's gonna be either hit or miss. in case my laptop doesn't like it, i think i could make a little profit if i resell it. will post back soon.

EDIT: while looking around locally, stumbled onto a blue m9700 with a slow single core AMD Turion and WUXGA screen. the guy says everything works great, wants a $100 bucks! if i found a 2.4 GHz CPU for it, i think it could become a great machine to give to my daughter. maybe even stick a single 8800 GTX in there... does that make sense?

 

Grab it! At the very least you will have another mxm laptop to try cards in. If they don't work in the m5750 try the m9700. Could also use it to flash a VBIOS to a card that doesn't work in the m5750 in the hopes that it would after the flash.

I always though it was funny that AW came out with the m5750/90 in 2006 with the fast Core 2 Duo and then the following year released the slower m9700.

 

well, the card came in yesterday and everything's going wrong so far! the nuts that hold the heatsink screws are underneath the card, not on top like on the x1800. i had to grind them down to half the height for the card to fit. and, of course, the original screws are too short and too small for those nuts. found a couple that are perfect for the job. drilling bigger holes in the heatsink brackets right now... didn't expect the cards to be so different!

 

and it's back to the x1800 for me. the laptop just wouldn't power on at all. a quick flash of the lights on the panel and it was dead. the experiment drained my battery completely for some reason. when i started Windows with the x1800 back in there the time/date were reset and my tray icons weren't there. all was fine on the next start up though. so yeah, MSI HD4670 and Alienware m5750 are NOT a match. it's going back on eBay.

EDIT: which system BIOS are you using with the 4850? i'm on 1.19 with 4GB of some cheap Corsair memory. read somewhere that it might help taking out one stick...

 

Sorry it didn't work out bud. I am on 1.19 but have used 2.06 (or 2.07 cant remember) with my 4850 as well. Always better to do the experiments with the charger plugged in though.

I also had to go to the hardware store to get some longer screws and but a different mxm bracket on ebay for my card to mount to the heatsink.

 

oh, i always have it plugged in, otherwise it lasts about 40 seconds on full charge! 9-year old original battery still. in any case, i guess i could try one of the 1GB 4670 versions next? i'd hate to go with a 3650, but that would a sure shot, no?

 

The 1GB red pcb 4670 should be compatible if it has the correct VBIOS.

 

can't find any of those, but i think i just tracked down one of your rare type III 4850's in red! $499 is the price! i don't know what to do! http://www.serverpartswarehouse.com...M-M98-GDDR3-1Gb-MXM-13-Type-III-P1922303.aspx took them two days to check stock, and it's sold!

gave up on searching for a t7600G and pulled the trigger on a used t7600 for $39.

what's my very best Nvidia option if you have an idea?

 

That card has been listed FOREVER on that site. Also the picture they used is ripped straight from the ebay auction I bought my card from back in 2012. No lie the card in that picture is the EXACT same as the one I have. Not the same type, or same version, physically the exact same card. Compare the pics in my first post. Because of this I doubt these guys ever had stock of it because I didn't buy my card from them, I got it from some guy in Canada. I just assumed that if anyone paid them the $500 they would be putting in a paypal claim not long after haha. Best Nvidia opttion is going to be weaker than the 1GB 4650/70. The most I have seen anyone try is the 8600GT or 9600GT. 1gb 4650/70's used to be very common on ebay. If you keep looking one will probably pop up.

 

funny, on the phone they said it sold only a couple of weeks ago. oh well. here's a fresh listing for a few 4670's from China - http://www.ebay.com/itm/For-ASUS-N8...827?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35df7e76e3. what do you think?

 

That looks like reverse mxm to me. The connector is reversed. Some manufactures did this.

 

Hi if someone is interested I have couple green, slave 4850m from Alienware. Sourced them few years back and they're sitting since then in my closet. Somehow never had time to sold them to someone who would need them. Maybe it's time to find, at least for one of them new home.

 

@ p377y7h33f - Is this the 4670 you bought? If not maybe it would work? http://www.ebay.com/itm/231100676746

@darnok44 - I wonder if flashing those with my red pcb's VBIOS would enable compatibility for the m5750 or brick them.

 

those look exactly like the one i bought, though mine was from an MSI GX623 laptop. here's my ebay listing: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Radeon-...267?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4635fe26e3. the green 4850's all seem to be HE type, but if his are type III it'd be worth a try. they're most likely M17 cards.

this looks to be my only option at the moment: http://www.ebay.com/itm/251866229213?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT, but in the screenshots it seems to be extremely underclocked, unless that's just the core idling... and i would love to sell the 4670 before i bid on this one. can't keep dropping $$ into this.