HD4850 on MS-1651(GX620)

Hello guys, I've just purchased an HD4850, but I cannot get it to input anything on the laptop display. It works fine through VGA and HDMI though. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

That's pretty strange.

Do you have another notebook that you can test the card in?

Might be a bad card.

One thing you could try is flashing the MSI 4850 vbios onto that card (not something I would take lightly, it's very risky).

If you can return it, I would.

 

I don't want to return it unless I have exhausted every possible option.The card works fine, I benchmarked it and played DIRT2 on it using my hdtv and it is really nice. My incompatibility seems to be at the bios level. Where can I find that msi hd4850 bios? In the mean time I'll try replacing the vendor on the card I have with MSI to see if that does anything. While I'm at it, do you know were I can find old EC firmwares for the GT627? I want to try that route too.
The hardware works. It's the software that if f'in up somewhere along the way.

 

try looking on the techpowerup website that host gpu-z. For some reason I keep thinking that someone found the vbios there before.

 

No dice. I need a gt725 vbio dump. Does anyone know where I can find one?

 

I think I've somehow managed to nuke my system. No post. Blank screen with the 4850 or the 9800... The capslock and scroll lock are on. Do you know what that means?

 

Did you attempt a BIOS or vBIOS flash?

 

Where did you get this 4850 card from? If it wasn't from a msi laptop it needed to be a Master card if it came from a alienware laptop. There's no reason for it to need a bios flash from a msi vbios. Unless it never worked in the first place.

 

Bios flash between barebone bios and retail bios. And flashed the a vbios with a modified vendor string. All went well, did multiple reboots and played for a bit without problems.

It's a M17 master card and it sort of worked when I got it. And the only problem i had was with the internal panel... I figured that flashing a msi vbios might tell the card where to look for to activate the main panel. But right now The laptop doesn't even boot with the 9800 so I have a much bigger problem at the moment..

 

Did you try taking the cmos battery out for a while?

 

Yes, I removed it for more than a hour to no avail. This is what the boot sequence looks like: YouTube - MS-1651 no post And it just sits there doing nothing.

EDIT: I've also tried booting from a floppy but I don't know what the key combination to do that is so, the laptop doesn't even try to seek the floppy disc.

 

There is a bios recovery feature, maybe contact svet from the msi forums:
MSI Notebook

He should know the correct way to recover the bios (if that is the problem).


One more thing you could try, take out the ram, just leave 1 stick in the second slot (slot #2, the top one). When I did that, my notebook booted into windows with a dead 3870. I had to press F1, ESC and enter (I think in that order) to get rid of that bios time reset thing that happens when you leave the CMOS battery out for a while.

 

That definitely did something. Now the leds turn off and it seeks on the hard drive and floppy drive. But still nothing on the screen.

 

So after you flashed the bios and modded the vbios everything worked for a little while?

Did you get an image on the internal screen when you modded the vendor string?

 

Nope. The card behaved the same. So I left it plugged to the tv and used the notebook that way for a bit. All I did was playing DIRT2 for a bit and then shut down the laptop to install some windows updates. That's the last time the notebook has been in a usable state ... I've tried all day to get this thing started. I followed your advice about the top ram slot and f1 est enter and when i do that with a floppy plugged in I can hear the drive spin for maybe 5 seconds and then it stops. I've tried putting a bios on ther renaming it amiboot.rom or boisnumber.rom but no dice. The system is looking for something on the floppy but I don't know what it is. THe gpu heatsinks gets hot so it is obviously getting power.

 

Well I don't think it could be a problem with the bios or vbios since you had it working after you flashed.

looks like you might have a hardware problem.

 

hmmm interesting did some digging around about this card and even though he claimed it worked, I can't find a single picture showing it actually worked all just post with text. Also found plenty of post about it not working >.>.

Since your computer seems to be somewhat functioning again have you tried the original gpu again? The only possible way I can see the 4850 working is if you use the gt627/8 bios instead of the barebone bios.

 

If you use the latest bios, it's actually the same one for the GX620 as the GT627 and GT628.
In fact the download link is the same.

I would also just leave the 9800m GS in there while you troubleshoot.

You should try re-seating some other stuff just in case the problem was not related to the GPU, I would re-seat the CPU, ram, HDD and anything else you think is important.

 

It's currently under the 1.12 bios available on the MSI website. I flashed the barebone bios and ec after installing the 4850 and when that didn't work, I went back to the gt627 bios and ec when i saw that it didn't work, and then did the vbios flash. Reseated cpu, ram, wlan card and gpu and it doesn't seems to have done anything.

 

IT'S ALIVE! But the 9800 seems to be shot....

 

Nice work, what did you do to fix it?

 

Just put the 4850 back in and it booted up with a blank screen, with but the backlight went one, so I just plugged it to my tv and up it was. Then I flashed the msi vbios and it's dead again ( I don't know weither or not to cry or laugh at this point). But on the upside I know that the rest of the laptop is working.

 

Can you blind flash at this point?

 

I'll try to make an autoexec.bat file and see what happens.

 

It hangs. Is there a key combination to bypass the post?

 

There can't be any combination for this, because during POST bios inicializes the computer components (including keyboard, screen, RAM, processor, hard disc etc.) so until you keyboard is initialized, it cannot work and thus you can't press any keys to bypass the POST

 

Actually that's not entirely true. The keyboard is activates as soon as the computer is turned on. What you can do with it tough will depend on your computer. Anyway I ordered a fx3700m. It will be here tomorrow and I should be back to fully operational hopefully.

 

Installed the fx3700m and it's overheating.... The temperatures shoots up to 100C when the 3d clocks are active, I haven't been able to even complete a 3dmark run as the card just crash back to desktop... The heck???

 

Is the fan spinning up as it should?

 

No. I think it ramps up following the cpu temp and not the gpu temps.

 

Interesting, mine follows the GPU and CPU (only need 1 to get hot for the fan to spin up).


Try the latest vbios for the card, if it's HP:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...ebook-8730w-owners-lounge-71.html#post5940044


Unrelated to this thread, but funny thing is that even with this SP9400 when I run prime95 for a while my fan spins up while my GPU is cold.

Almost as if the notebook can still read the thermal sensor on the CPU, but wont show me any value. I don't know what's going on there.

 

Maybe there is a motherboard sensor somewhere that is only accessible to the EC. The vbios you linked to was the one that came with the card. I tried the one in your fx3700m thread but that didn't change anything.... And I don't understand. where the source of the problem is... Are you using the fx3700 vbios or a 280m vbios?

 

I'm using the HP fx 3700m vbios I linked to.

Even with the stock vbios it had the same temp.

I never found a way to control the fan speed with this notebook.

Did the thermal paste spread well?

 

Yup. When I saw the temps at first, the first thing I checked was the thermal past and yes, it spreads well. I even changed the backplate and heatsink screw and it's as tight as it is ever going to be. I'll downclock and undervolt to see if that makes a difference. There is a kink on my heatpipe but it never bothered the 9800 so I don't think that's the cause of my problems.

 

Those GPUs shouldn't be very different, so if the cooling was fine with the 9800m it should probably be ok for the 3700m, so I wouldn't worry too much about the kink at this point. (though after I got a kink in the heatsink you sent me for the 9600m, the temp of my 9600m did go up a lot, but I had several big kinks).

I know you didn't have much luck with ati vbios flashing, I wonder what would happen if you flashed the 9800m GS vbios onto the 3700m, would that make the fan work better?

I didn't try it myself yet, only tried a 280m and 9800m GTX vbios on my card.

Otherwise you could try taking the bottom cover off and use a notebook cooler.

 

I just flashed the barebone ec firmware and BIOS and the fan is now working as it should.

 

So how are you finding the 3700m?

When you've had a chance to test it, could you tell me which was better the 4850 or the 3700m?

 

It has a slight edge, but I still have a temperature problem. The fan still doesn't care about the temperature of the card, but it kicks in faster for the cpu. So the card gets to the 90-100 range before the fan start doing it's just thanks to the cpu approaching the 80s... Is there truly no fan control application available for the 1651?

 

Not that I know of, but you could try a fan mod like this:
Asus C90s MXM Upgrade

I connected my fan to my USB port once, but I brought it back to stock now. I have to get a switch for it.

 

I've asked for a RMA number. I thought the card crashed because it got hotbut it also crashes in Furmark with the temperature at about 70C, case open and a beefy 120mm fan blowing fan directly into it, I'll get it exchanged.

 

Will the FX 3700m work on my MSI 1722 ID2 (GX720) and will it run better than my 9600m GT clocked at 625 / 850 / 1550?

 

It walks all over the 9600m GT But I don't know why it wouldn't work on the 1722. You will need a new heatsink since the 3700m is larger. That can be found here: MSI GT725, GT729, And MS-1722 VGA-Heatsink Assembly For ATI Radeon™ HD 4850 for $80. And I got my FX3700m from those guys here: HP nVidia Quadro FX 3700M 1 GB Video Card NEW NB9E-GLM3 They seems to be having a sale ATM. $175 is a pretty nice price.

 

ok thanks! will it walk over the 4850 and realize that walking over it wasn't enough that it had to come back to it and shred it into pieces?

 

Lol! No quite. They are pretty much neck to neck when it comes to gaming, the FX3700 does have a crushing advantage when it comes to professional software though thanks to the optimized drivers.

 

The 3700m is really hot though, with my own cooling pad I hit 87C while playing metro 2033.

I usually take the cover off so that my cooler will blow right onto the GPU heatsink.

How hot was the 4850 getting?

 

It peaked at 78 under furmark. Its a cool running card that's for sure.

 

I just installed my replacement card and is still doesn't spin up... The heck is this???

 

idiotpilot just got the same card and put it in his GT628, he had the same problem.

I think he may have fixed it with some settings in the nvidia control panel.

To quote what he PMed me:

So maybe PM him and ask what he changed.

 

I'm still somewhat having the problem. My card hits the 80-90 mark, but never crashed. The odd thing is, I can adjust the fan speed on the 160m through nvidia system tools, but I can't on this. The slider to adjust it is locked..

I'm going to have to vouch for Aayle's theory that the fans are spinning based off the CPU temps. Which is why put a little more load on them (slight overclock, set as physx processor, set my pre-rendered frames to 8 in the control panel). This is what brought my temps from 100 down to 80. I still would like a permanent fix, though. : /

 

Moral, does your card look anything like this? We might have different revisions.