[Guide/Tip] Asus G53SW Upgrade from GTX460M to GTX560M Knoates

[techneer]

Recently one of my customers asked me to upgrade their son's Asus G53SW laptop to a GTX560M graphics card, up from the original GTX460M card. After doing some research, it didn't seem like much of an upgrade, but apparently the son wanted to run a particular game that required the faster card.
So, after receiving the ordered part and consulting the YouTube video at https://youtu.be/pRXfrJIfhrA, I installed the upgrade, which went pretty smoothly. I noticed that the manufacturer had used what appeared to be gold-filled thermal paste for the graphics chip, which I scraped off and reused as much as possible, adding a little arctic silver to fill it out a little, since I didn't have any gold-filled thermal paste. I also reused the other pastes as much as I could as well.
Then, after reassembly, I got to the part where I needed to install the driver, which is where the upgrade got dicey. Apparently, after changing the graphics card the computer no longer recognized itself as an Asus product, and Asus drivers that checked for that wouldn't work. Nor would nVidia drivers downloaded from other sources. After going down quite a few rabbit holes I finally bumped into a site that explained what the actual problem was and how to fix it. The real problem has to do with the driver .inf file not pointing the driver installer program to the correct hardware or hardware address. Basically what you have to do, following their instructions, is to edit the .inf file, which provides instructions to the installer program (usually named 'Setup', or something like that. Anyway, here is the link to that site: http://tinyurl.com/bcbbodp
Since my customer was running Windows 7, I chose this driver: VGA_nVidia_Win7_64_Z817129616 to edit. If you are doing the same upgrade, feel free to download this driver with the edited .inf file in place at http://tinyurl.com/j7j7yzw. If you want just the edited .inf file you can download it here: http://tinyurl.com/jm3s9nv. It's also zipped so you need to extract it before using it. You will take the edited file and copy/replace it to the Display.Driver folder inside the extracted, unzipped folder of the freshly downloaded driver (Remember, the driver I provide already has the edited .inf file in place. I renamed it by adding an (x) at the end to differentiate it from other drivers. I was downloading alot of drivers in a doomed effort to find a working driver.). Or you can open the original unedited .inf file and the edited .inf file and compare them to see what and where I made the edits (using Notepad), in case you want to use a different driver. You should search for VGA_nVidia_Win7_64_Z817129616 if you want to do that, to download the unedited driver, for comparison.
Editing Tip: Also, I pressed the alt and Print Scrn keys to copy the active Hardware IDs info in the Properties tab 'Details' in the Display adapters Properties window found in the Device Manager: Device Manager>Display adapters>Standard Display adapter (or whatever you have)>right-click for contextual menu, left-click on Properties>left-click on Details tab>select Hardware IDs>alt and Print Scrn keys to copy>open Wordpad (Programs>Accessories)>click in Wordpad window and paste: Voila! Easy to view reference that you can look at via the Taskbar. It just makes it easier to see the data you need when editing the .inf file in Notepad (Programs>Accessories).
Okay, that worked very well and the driver installed as it normally should, and showed up in the Device Manager under Display adapters as nVidia GTX560M, or maybe it was just GTX560M. It's been awhile. The point being, it worked! Be advised, after the upgrade your laptop will no longer recognize itself as an Asus product, so you should probably update all your other drivers before doing the upgrade. If you are planning to install Windows 10, you should extract the installer files from the ISO image and edit the .inf file for the graphics drivers and then slip-stream (search web for how to do this, and anything else you don't know) the edited file into the Windows 10 installation ISO file, before trying to install it. I tried unsuccessfully to install Windows 10 as is, and I expect it hung-up on the graphics driver. So, good luck to you. I hope I've been of assistance to the would-be upgrader.

Update: My customer was sometimes experiencing glitches with video so I downloaded and edited the latest nVidia driver; the files for which can be downloaded here: https://app.box.com/s/nwt39fnbbsvr0sfzvlye85t5fgk7l69n and here: https://app.box.com/s/yhg9bhcuauktjlls6r9o0s0yed5k67gy. These files are for the nVidia driver designated 378.49 and should be copied into (to replace the original files already there) the Display.Driver folder inside the overall driver folder which you will have extracted in order to get access. These 2 files are named nvaci.inf and nvami.inf. Install the driver in the usual way, by locating and starting setup, which is located inside the overall driver folder. You shouldn't have any problem installing the driver, but if you do, please reply to this post. It may take me awhile to get back to you, so be patient.

[Hennich1983]

Thank You for your great DIY. I used Your Thread for my own upgrade.

Unfortunately it won't work on my G53SW. I can't install the driver for the new GTX560M. I've tried Your modded inf-Files and nVidia Driver 378.49 but I was not successful. After a few failures I compared the BIOS Files for the G53SW and G53SX. Both Files have the same Size. So i edited the G53SXAS.209 with my HEX-Editor. It was very simple. I changed the Filename from G53SXAS.209 to G53SWAS.209 and changed every G53SX (47=G / 35=5 / 33=3 / 53=S / 58=X) in the Hex Editor to G53SW (47=G / 35=5 / 33=3 / 53=S / 57=W).
Put the modded BIOS File to my FAT32 Stick and started EZFlash from the BIOS. The Flash worked like a Charm.
After BIOS Flash reset to DEFAULT and changed my BIOS settings back to my preferences. Windows started up and i was happy.
The big advantage is a normal behavior with the nVidia Driver installation.
One last point. The nVidia applications like System Control recognizes the System now as a G53SX.
After the Mod i had to install a few drivers again but i can't clearly say why, because Windows Update was very diligent, too.

Now my System:

OLD

G53SW / 8GB RAM / Win10 Home 64Bit / i7-2630QM / GTX460M 1.5 GB 192bit

New

G53SW / 8GB RAM / Win10 Home 64Bit / i7-2630QM / GTX560M 3.0 GB 192bit

Thank You for your work and I hope my MOD will help you with Your customer.

A few Pictures

[k_a_i_r_o_s]

hennich1983 wrote:
thank you for your great diy. I used your thread for my own upgrade.

Unfortunately it won't work on my g53sw. I can't install the driver for the new gtx560m. I've tried your modded inf-files and nvidia driver 378.49 but i was not successful. After a few failures i compared the bios files for the g53sw and g53sx. Both files have the same size. So i edited the g53sxas.209 with my hex-editor. It was very simple. I changed the filename from g53sxas.209 to g53swas.209 and changed every g53sx (47=g / 35=5 / 33=3 / 53=s / 58=x) in the hex editor to g53sw (47=g / 35=5 / 33=3 / 53=s / 57=w).
Put the modded bios file to my fat32 stick and started ezflash from the bios. The flash worked like a charm.
After bios flash reset to default and changed my bios settings back to my preferences. Windows started up and i was happy.
The big advantage is a normal behavior with the nvidia driver installation.
One last point. The nvidia applications like system control recognizes the system now as a g53sx.
After the mod i had to install a few drivers again but i can't clearly say why, because windows update was very diligent, too.

Now my system:

Old

g53sw / 8gb ram / win10 home 64bit / i7-2630qm / gtx460m 1.5 gb 192bit

new

g53sw / 8gb ram / win10 home 64bit / i7-2630qm / gtx560m 3.0 gb 192bit

thank you for your work and i hope my mod will help you with your customer.

A few pictures

i do that and İnstall atk drİver but warnings are 3d active and inactive on my screen
key lights do not work when i set up atk