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6800 Go in a Latitude D810 - Page 2

post #21 of 60
12/22/05 at 6:41am
Really helpful information mikemex.
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post #22 of 60
12/22/05 at 10:47am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikemex
Hey guys, let me give you some light.

For at least two generations now, Dell just takes the D8x0 model and puts a better video card in it, changes some plastics, tweaks it a bit and issues "certified" drivers to sell it under the Precision line. Dell does it because engineering a laptop is expensive and they simply don't want to invest much money on a line of laptops that isn't going to have a high demand.

Like with my previous D800, the newer D810 can take any video card the Precision line has without any modification. It's simply because the modular card isn't anything but a mini desktop card. The connector was a regular AGP on the previous generation and is PCI Express in the current. Theorically speaking, it would be possible to plug a desktop video card trough the interface and make the laptop use it as the default video adapter.

The idea of flashing the D800 with a Precision M60 bios has nothing to do with video card support. The purpose of doing so is to enable DDR333 support on a D800, because the stock BIOS supports only DDR266. So don't flash a D810 with an M70 BIOS because you will not gain anything and it is still unknown if the swap is really possible.

Altough the cards of the 9300 and D810 are essentially identical, the cooling solutions are not. If you look at the cards carefully, you will realize that the X600 uses four discrete BGA memory chips (=128MB) on top of the card, hidden by the heatsink. The 9300 has eight chips (=256MB) on both sides.

The X600 uses 128 bit DDR, while the 6800 uses 256bit DDR. I might be mistaken, but it's the physical chip what gives you the bus width and not the arrangement. That means that the chips on the 9300 run hotter, because they run at higher frequencies and have a wider bus.

If you look carefully at a 6800 video card, you will notice that the memory chips are in contact with the heatsink. The chips on the X600 aren't. So overheating on the memory could be the reason fon instability.

Honestly speaking, you can run any card on the D810, includding a 7800 GTX. The problem is that you really have to be a "pro" to get it working stable and not damage either the motherboard, the video card or both. It implies phisically exchanging and modifying the heatsink and patiently try several voltages and frequencies to make the card comply with the TDP, wich requieres underclocking.

Here is some information you might find useful.

A D810/M70 uses a video card with a TDP of 27W.
For reference, a 6800 Ultra has a TDP of 66W.

The stock frequencies and voltages of a Quadro 1400 are:
(wich is a regular 6800; nvidia does the same as dell here)

Level 0: 125/166 @ 1.0v
Level 1: 200/200 @ 1.1v
Level 2: 275/295 @ 1.3v

According to my tests, the voltage only applies to the core. It is impossible to change the memory voltage.

Finally, my experience with my Thinkpad showed me that it is very possible to prevent booting trough a BIOS routine if an "unauthorized" hardware is found. It happened when I tried to put a generic wireless card. The Thinkpad only accepts IBM parts. Dell seems to not care about it, but the possibility is open.
Holy crap, someone with both an M70 and a D810, Christmas came early .

First off, thanks a ton for all the info. Second off, I already did most of that . The X600 and 6800Go are the same from factor. The cooling solutions between the two are interchageable. The DDR RAM on the 6800Go is very cool running. If you look at the original cooling design, the chips on the bottom of the card arent even cooled. Anyway, when re-using the thermal pads, the memory chips easily make contact with the heatsink. The entire purpose of this thread was the fact that I put the X600 heatsink on the 6800Go, everything fit perfectly, I tried booting, but got a jumbled screen BIOS screen and then the screen went blank. For some reason the D810 does not accept the video of the 6800Go. That's why I posted this thread in the hope of getting a fix, and BIOS incompatibility was my first solution.
You're saying that the D810 should accept any video card because a card is a card. Just an idea, what did you do to get your FX1400 Quadro to work in your D810? Just plug it in? I might see if its possible to flash my 6800Go to a Quadro and get it in that way. Anyway, lay some more knowledge on me!
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post #23 of 60
12/22/05 at 1:39pm
What if you downlclock the memory and gpu speeds of the 6800go (bios flash to the video card) and lower the voltage requirements (again in the bios) so that it's running one the same speeds at when it runs the 6800 in battery mode?

To me it sounds like a bios flash would provide more power to the video card, and if the mobo is the same it should work. (like the 9300 to XPS2 mod)

This is kinda a repeat of the other parts of this thread, I know.. i'm sleepy

- Spuds
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post #24 of 60
12/22/05 at 4:29pm
If it's something incompatible, it has to do with the video card BIOS.

The Inspiron 9300 has two panel options:

WXGA+ (1440x900)
WUXGA (1920x1200)

The D810 three:

WXGA (1280x800)
WSXGA+ (1680x1050)
WUXGA (1920x1200)

So it makes sense to be suspicious about panel incompatibility. Both WXGA and WSXGA+ have no counterpart on the 9300. There is a high chance that the video card is sending wrong data trough the LVDS bus, so the screen gets dissorted or shows no signal at all. You can also check the VGA/DVI out to see if the card is working properly, even if it doesn't display useful information on the panel.

Either case, a BIOS flash should fix it. Use a Quadro BIOS to flash the 9300 video card. Just make sure you are flashing the right card (NV41/42) with the right BIOS.
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post #25 of 60
12/22/05 at 6:37pm
Thread Starter 
Hmmm... ok. Great info spud and mike. So mike, all you did for your quadro was pop it in there? You didnt have to do anything to your D810 mobo? Well that's easy as shit then. If the 6800Go can be flashed to a quadro (not that software powerstrip stuff), then I guess it should work, right? I'll go search online and see what people have done about that.
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post #26 of 60
12/22/05 at 11:00pm
Yes, just popped it in.

I think I wasn't explicit enough, but here goes again:

Precision M70 is a relabeled Latitude D810 with annother video card.
A Quadro card is a relabeled GeForce with some features unlocked.

Speaking of hardware incompatibility, there is none. The BIOS, however, could have some locks built in, but I found none when upgrading my D810. I did the same with my previous D800 & M60 (I had two of them too).
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post #27 of 60
12/22/05 at 11:20pm
did you try hooking up an external monitor to test out mikes theory? i think he is on to something. Id flash to quadro.. try the www.mvktech.net forums.

Thats where i got all the info to flash the bios on my 6800gt to Ultra ( in desktop).

Hell someone may even make a custom bios for you if you are lucky.
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post #28 of 60
12/23/05 at 12:38am
Thread Starter 
Holy shit good show guys, thanks for all the info! I dont have the laptop with me right now, but my friend might be over soon and I'll test it out. In the meantime I'll check out those forums. I promise pics and benches if I can get this thing up and running
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post #29 of 60
12/23/05 at 1:14am
Yes, either way please report your results back. This is a community and everything here is comrade-made.

I'm more than willing to help you; don't hesitate to contact me if you need a hand. Most topics here are chit-chat and I really hunt for interesting projects.
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post #30 of 60
12/23/05 at 3:50am
Thread Starter 
Thanks alot mikemex

Well, seems like everyone BIOS flashes, looks like it could definitely be possible. I guess I should just try it. Worst that happens is I have to blind flash it back to a 6800Go, right?
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post #31 of 60
12/23/05 at 7:33am
in a desktop u can blind flash w/ a seperate pci card 100%. w/out it well just hope thesystem isnt frozen and u have a photograhic memory of any prompts,
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post #32 of 60
12/23/05 at 2:44pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2sl0w
in a desktop u can blind flash w/ a seperate pci card 100%. w/out it well just hope thesystem isnt frozen and u have a photograhic memory of any prompts,
Here's to adventure then
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post #33 of 60
12/23/05 at 5:15pm
Thread Starter 
Bah, tried flashing today and it wont do it. I can use the override commands to ignore the the device ID's and subsystem IDs, but I cant figure out how to bypass the board ids so that it'll flash. However, if there's this much discrepency between the two cards, I'd imagine a BIOS flash will totally FUBAR the thing anyway. Damn shame too, I with there was a way to get this in there. I'm going to go over to www.mvktech.net and search around some more.
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post #34 of 60
12/23/05 at 5:22pm
There are two versions of the card: NV41 and NV42. If you use the correct BIOS, the board ID should match.

You will fuk your card if you flash it with the wrong BIOS.
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post #35 of 60
12/23/05 at 6:20pm
Mr. K6, did you try booting the laptop with an external monitor attached?
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post #36 of 60
12/24/05 at 3:23am
Thread Starter 
I have the NV42 and got the Go FX 1400 BIOS from MVK tech forums. I never could flash it anyway, so no worries about FUBARing the card . We didnt have time to throw the card in his lappy today, so I'll see what I can do later on, and I'll definitely try the external monitor
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post #37 of 60
12/24/05 at 4:17am
I was just checking my BIOS against a regular 6800 BIOS and everything is the same except for some strings and IDs.

Mine:

Device ID is: 00CC
Sub Vendor ID: 1028
Sub System ID: 019B
Board ID: AD56

6800:

Device ID is: 00C8
Sub Vendor ID: 1028
Sub System ID: 019C
Board ID: AD56

Product says nv42 Board - p242h0, mine just has a 'g' at the end.

So I'm pretty sure that you are trying to flash it with a wrong BIOS. There is people around with dead video cards, so be careful.
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post #38 of 60
12/24/05 at 2:29pm
Thread Starter 
Yup, it's the wrong BIOS . I had the 19C and 19B discrepency, but the device and board ids were different also. Wanna do me a favor and use NiBiTor to take save your BIOS and post it in this thread so that I can flash it to my card? Those two BIOSes are almost identical, I think it'll do it .
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post #39 of 60
12/26/05 at 4:47am
Here you go.
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post #40 of 60
12/26/05 at 11:33pm
Thread Starter 
Sweet, thanks. I'll work on that sometime this coming week whenever I see my friend.
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