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HOW-TO: Upgrade your 9300 with the Ultra or 7800 "Photo Guide" - Page 20

post #381 of 1003
1/13/06 at 5:42pm
I've just stripped down my 9300 to check that I have the correct Northbridge Heatsink .... cool I do!!

6800 Ultra, Battery & Power Supply will be here early next week.

Question is .... Can I installed the Ultra card, put it back together and then flash the BIOS or shall I flash before installing the card!

Cheers
MArk
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post #382 of 1003
1/14/06 at 2:43pm
Hi. I'm kind of a newbie when it comes to laptops because I have one ordered from Dell currently (the 9400). My question is, the laptop comes with the vanilla 7800. Has anyone tried flashing the bios of this card with the GTX bios? Just curious if this would work.
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post #383 of 1003
1/14/06 at 7:57pm
Well over here in England ive just upgraded to a 6800 Ultra that i got off ebay and it appears to of gone very smoothly as im just running 3dmark 03 at the moment to see how things are and it looks very good so far...

Two things the instructions from DELL arent very clear on are

1) You need to remove the Optical Drive - otherwise the Palmrest wont come off.... Doesnt refer to this step if you follow the route from the Video Card link in the instructions

2) You also need to remove the Cell Battery from its place in the Palmrest, as it too is attached to the motherboard

Also

3) You need to remove some foam plastic spacers from the case in the top left hand corner so the second heat sink can fit in

Apart from that it was, touch wood, quite easy

My 3d mark 03 before the upgrade with bog standard drivers and a X300 was around 2000 ish

With the new 6800 Ultra it is...... waiting for it to finish..... 11711 3DMarks (1.73 1Meg ram)

Oh and just done the 3DMark 05 and that is 5156

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post #384 of 1003
1/14/06 at 11:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Weaser
Hi. I'm kind of a newbie when it comes to laptops because I have one ordered from Dell currently (the 9400). My question is, the laptop comes with the vanilla 7800. Has anyone tried flashing the bios of this card with the GTX bios? Just curious if this would work.
Nobody has recieved a 9400 yet, for the same reason as you. They won't be shipping until February, so until then nobody's gonna be able to tell you whether or not that'll work. And if by some chance it works, you'll definitely have to have a 9 cell and a 130w PSU for it to work.
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post #385 of 1003
1/15/06 at 7:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by darthweb
I've just stripped down my 9300 to check that I have the correct Northbridge Heatsink .... cool I do!!

6800 Ultra, Battery & Power Supply will be here early next week.

Question is .... Can I installed the Ultra card, put it back together and then flash the BIOS or shall I flash before installing the card!

Cheers
MArk
Anyone able to help with this?
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post #386 of 1003
1/15/06 at 10:16am
Do as the instructions on the 1st page - Flash bios and remove drivers before doing the upgrade...

However flash with the 9 Cell and 130W power in place
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post #387 of 1003
1/15/06 at 11:28am
If it's anything like my 7800, you can install the card with your 9300 BIOS/90w power adapter, but it will run downclocked until you do the flash. Of course, I already had the 9-cell battery. YMMV.
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post #388 of 1003
1/16/06 at 2:28am
I've read every post but still unsure of the answer to this question:

Will the 6800ULTRA in a 9300 boot up with a 130w psu and 6cell battery?

And will it work with just the 6cell in low power mode or will it not work at all with the 6cell?

Thanks
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post #389 of 1003
1/17/06 at 1:10pm
I bought a 6800 ultra at $132 from Ebay last week. I looked around and found that most 9300 owners didn't have to purchase the heatsink separately because they already had one in the system. I opened my system to see it's proper but I couldn't tell if it's an old or new one. Is there any picture comparing the two?
I know this is a dumb question, but do you need two heatsinks to install 6800 ultra or just one?
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post #390 of 1003
1/17/06 at 3:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hanjlee
I bought a 6800 ultra at $132 from Ebay last week. I looked around and found that most 9300 owners didn't have to purchase the heatsink separately because they already had one in the system. I opened my system to see it's proper but I couldn't tell if it's an old or new one. Is there any picture comparing the two?
I know this is a dumb question, but do you need two heatsinks to install 6800 ultra or just one?
Look at the picture of the Northbridge on page one of this thread.
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post #391 of 1003
1/17/06 at 9:02pm
Anyone look at the Dell website recently if there was any question to if dell (secretly ) encourages the GPU swap they now include the 130W PA as an option with the 9300.
and as someone mentioned before the 6800 is no longer an option
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post #392 of 1003
1/17/06 at 9:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grego
Do as the instructions on the 1st page - Flash bios and remove drivers before doing the upgrade...

However flash with the 9 Cell and 130W power in place
So put my 64Mb ATI Card back in with the 9 cell battery and 130w power, flash the bios and then install the 6800 Ultra?

Would the 6800 Ultra being pre-installed really make any difference?

Just trying to save myself putting everything back together and taking it apart again.
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post #393 of 1003
1/17/06 at 9:44pm
probably a pretty stupid question, but if im upgrading my XPS Gen2 to the 7800, do i still have to flash the bios? everything else in the guide looks like it applies.

thanks in advance for the advice
cheers,
a
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post #394 of 1003
1/17/06 at 9:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ahimsa
probably a pretty stupid question, but if im upgrading my XPS Gen2 to the 7800, do i still have to flash the bios? everything else in the guide looks like it applies.

thanks in advance for the advice
cheers,
a
You will need the XPS A04 or A05 BIOS. If you are already using one of these, no.
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post #395 of 1003
1/17/06 at 10:28pm
thanks mzimm. i just flashed to A05, so should be ready to go. now just need my card to arrive
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post #396 of 1003
1/19/06 at 3:22am
So what's the latest prices from Dell on the 7800 and 7800 GTX? Is the GTX worth the $$$? Thanks...
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post #397 of 1003
1/19/06 at 9:56am
$599 retail, $250-$380 thru replacement parts (GTX). Depending on which price you get, yeah, it's worth it.
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post #398 of 1003
1/21/06 at 5:37am
This is a nice thread.

Anyway, it seems like most here have upgraded to the 7800.. nice. I'm not fortunate enough to have the cash for that so I am getting an Ultra. Can someone tell me how different the battery life is after upgrading to the Ultra? I'm hoping it is not that much of a difference.

Thanks.
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post #399 of 1003
1/21/06 at 6:40pm
Hi all, plan to upgrade from a 6800 Ultra to 7800 GTX, laptop is a XPS gen 2 with A05 BIOS, do I need to flash the BIOS to the cracked version mentioned here on page4(i think), or is it just a matter of installing the card, and reinstalling the drivers?

edit: my search button works again, seems like a straight swap?
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post #400 of 1003
1/21/06 at 10:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by improv
Hi all, plan to upgrade from a 6800 Ultra to 7800 GTX, laptop is a XPS gen 2 with A05 BIOS, do I need to flash the BIOS to the cracked version mentioned here on page4(i think), or is it just a matter of installing the card, and reinstalling the drivers?

edit: my search button works again, seems like a straight swap?
You just need to uninstall the drivers for the 6800 Ultra, install the 7800gtx; then reinstall the drivers. No BIOS modding needed for XPS.
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