HP laptop upgrade ZBook G2 k4100 to Nvidia GTX 1070m and EliteBook 8770 (a few laptops)

[pawelnrg]

As the laptops are in good condition. (samsung ssd drives up to 2T.... And the EliteBook has 4 drives and 3 operating systems in general) And the k4000 is an outdated card. I decided to upgrade. The prices of the cards whether k5100 or GTX 1070 are similar and sometimes in favour of the GTX. I buy it from "Electronics home 88" for £190.00 - whether right or wrong is at the very end.
ZBook.

Measuring if it fits at all, and what thickness of cooling pads. Measuring old card, old thermal pads. always measured place and result. (photos taken for show in fact it was much more carefully measured)

continued.

 

[pawelnrg]

Same with the heatsink plate.

The "3d map" of the heatsink and the card has been calculated and it comes out to a gap of 0.96 mm, except for the resistors which are 0.5 mm higher than on the k4100. Gap is 0.48 mm. That is, all pads (except resistors) are the same thickness as the old card. So same thickness (1 mm) and new 0.5 mm pads have been used without stretching. And other thermal pads were also placed on several elements, as it was not clear whether they should be or not. everything according to the 3D map calculation (calculations will not be shown here because of the terrible scribbles).
continued.

 

[Assimilator]

You are aware that laptop BIOSes are hard-coded to specific GPUs, right? To the point where you can't just swap MXM modules because it literally won't work?

 

[pawelnrg]

PS. Here the photos above are "made up" later, because as you can see the heatsink plate in the photos was milled. unfortunately the original photos were destroyed

And we have the first problem:
the recess of the heatsink plate is narrower than the tab (resistor) on the card. problem poorly shown in these photos. on the 2nd one you can see a bit.

 

[pawelnrg]

You are aware that laptop BIOSes are hard-coded to specific GPUs, right? To the point where you can't just swap MXM modules because it literally won't work?

You have spoiled my story I will answer in a PM. And the answer is one that no one expects.

 

[pawelnrg]

A over 4 tonne, 3 phase mains powered machine managed to adapt the recess in the heat-sink plate to the tab (resistor?) of the card.

the thickness of the pads for the new card and the marked extension made at the local tank factory (sorry, I couldn't film or take photos.) PS. well, really armoured repair plants.

one last look, thermal pads and assembly

put the rest together
install the system
edit the drivers
and done.
continued...

 

[pawelnrg]

And done.
Everything works! Burning test enabled ( Furmark ), card temperature OK. Full success.

EDIT:
And shit. after a few minutes it brings up a screen like this.

EDIT:
Well yes... TPD... Laptop is designed for max 100W cards. (top one https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/quadro-k5100m.c2425 ) and this one takes more than 110W.

With lower frequencies should be less current-consuming. The "afterburner" will help!

continued....

 

[pawelnrg]

Yes. it works it works stably. Afterburn helped. those almost 3W and such a change. What a bummer the problem by 3 watts.

I even left it overnight and it was OK.

Full success!!!!

Well not really, this computers work most of the time in Linux that's why disk for Linux is 2T and for windows is smaller. That and the card has to work stable in many systems.... Lowering the frequency in this way is not a professional solution. It is a primitive you will admit. It would be best to change it in the BIOS. It's a pity that by chance I didn't fall for a GTX 1070 Max-Q card it has a lower frequency and lower power consumption and would work without a problem. ( here techpowerup is inaccurate! We know that Max-Q has a 90W TPD https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-gtx-1070-max-q.c2974 ) Ah pity it is impossible to edit it in the bios..... Well yes, but what if swap bios? Maybe it will help https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-nvflash/ But which one? then maybe the smallest one! Yes the smallest! is less likely that something will be there incompatible. 204493.bin is from msi is a problem? try.

continued...

 

[pawelnrg]

Oh heavens they helped everything work! mission completed!

a bit of a shame about the frequency... but the frames didn't drop too much.







EDIT: *&^%$#@!@#$%^&*!!!! @#$%^&*()(*&^%$#@!!!!!

continued...

 

[Marcus L]

Awesome job

 

[pawelnrg]

But why the blue screen again? well okay. but why?

what is different?

i.e. not core frequency, not TPD...

....well the memory frequency!

But why?
is it a defective card?
The memory modules are broken?
The board?
Or maybe the soldering of the processor?
maybe some manufacturer's discard cards? - that would explain the price.
Written will be to the seller what he says... (shawn2019)

continued....

 

[pawelnrg]

Update: Very nice man (shawn2019) who sold me this card. (Although it's been a good few months since the transaction) After reviewing the case, he promised to replace the card. Unfortunately, in November I will be away from home... I promise that in December when I return and receive the card there will be an update.

continued... (Please be patient until mid-December)

 

[:D:D]

Nice fun project.

Unfortunately, in November I will be away from home...

You make it sound like your having to do some jail time.

Seems those BSOD are fixed by full driver uninstall / clean and reinstall for others.

Laptop VBIOS are said to be modifiable, see Pascal TDP tweaker on github. Even then desktop Pascal VBIOS can be modified for lower TDP, for instance I have my FE GTX1080 set for 90W TDP limit by incorporating a VBIOS mod. Can still be increased by software to over 200% if required.

 

[hjgarcia]

I just registered in the site just to say how awesome this thread his and that I'm looking forward to seeing more!

 

[pawelnrg]

It happens much more unexpectedly than I could have thought. The graphics card has been in replacement all along (since mid-December). I even tried to order another one on ebay it said new.

I got.... used doused with insulating tape

Fortunately, Ebay arranged a full refund. And I negative for this gentleman.

In the meantime, elitebook 8770w with k5100, which has an ugly habit of shutting down unexpectedly at random times, was disassembled. The graphics card went to the Z-book g2 for testing (and it works nicely there), so the 8770w became the priority. Problems with ordering a motherboard for 8770w. I ordered with 4 banks of memory got with 2 banks. Also a refund.. - Because if the processor, graphics card, power supply are good then I guess it's only the motherboard, battery wasn't the problem either.
As for the reliability of sellers, weichi808 wrote from the outset that there is no 4 bank board and whether it can be 2 bank. I disagreed and he immediately refunded the money without Ebay's involvement for which he got a positive rating.
So be careful when ordering anything because you will probably get something different than what you ordered.
I hope eventually I will be able to write something more concrete, but I do not know when.

Laptop VBIOS are said to be modifiable, see Pascal TDP tweaker on github. Even then desktop Pascal VBIOS can be modified for lower TDP, for instance I have my FE GTX1080 set for 90W TDP limit by incorporating a VBIOS mod. Can still be increased by software to over 200% if required.

How about this, supposedly does not support. Checksums, etc. how did you do it? it didn't go through for me. And as I wrote on beginning with software you can also lower the frequency of processor, of memory and it works stably. But it is tedious. And what under Linux

 

[:D:D]

Sorry for the late reply, very busy with other things. A new entry to the inforom (PPO) then limit can be set with nvflash and --addpp IIRC. Since inforom is outside signing regions VBIOS can be easily modified. Best thing is setting stays with the card, not the OS!

 

[pawelnrg]

Thank you for your reply. From the help and description I read: "Add a TGP app profile entry: nvflash [options] --addtgpapp SGEMM 60000 15000 900 500"
And "Add a power policy entry: nvflash [options] --addpp TGP limitRated 250000"
then I will definitely have 90000: nvflash [options] --addpp TGP limitRated 90000
admit that I don't really know what I should do or how I should do it.
if I could ask you to direct me what exactly do I have to do. so straightforward with commands.

 

[:D:D]

Does "nvflash --save rom.ifr" save an inforom for you? Extension .ifr is important, name can usually be whatever. If you can would you mind attaching it?

 

[zehT]

Sorry for the late reply, very busy with other things. A new entry to the inforom (PPO) then limit can be set with nvflash and --addpp IIRC. Since inforom is outside signing regions VBIOS can be easily modified. Best thing is setting stays with the card, not the OS!

Hi, I just registered because I wanted to know more about this. See, I have a zbook 15 g2 which has a quadro p3000 mxm type b gpu adapted to it, however it gets really hot since it has a 75w tdp (and the heatsink is designed for ~50w cards). I tried "nvflash --save rom.ifr" and got a rom.ifr file (see attachment), how can I use it to lower the gpu tdp to 60w?

 

[:D:D]

Thanks for the attachment @zehT , will hopefully try to put something together Monday.

 

[zehT]

Thanks for the attachment @zehT , will hopefully try to put something together Monday.

Thanks I appreciate it. I also tried '' --addpp TGP limitRated 60000'' but it outputs "InfoROM does not have PPO object".

 

[:D:D]

Notes from a stranger on the Internet, would you really trust this guy?

Seems things have changed, the setting for my 1050Ti no longer holds but 1080 and 1660 does, also newer nvflash doesn't set addpp, had to use earlier version 5_556.0. I have no documentation for this, all guesswork and from 7 years ago so would be surprised if I haven't forgot something.

Have a full recovery method ready before trying. Keep both rom and inforom backed up, usually an SPI programmer can do this well and there are kits for around $5 that come with adapter clip and 1.8V convertor. Inforom can also be backed up on chip but I have no experience of recovering with it, never had to.

I've used HxD hex editor here but any good hex editor will do.

There's a discriptor 'ROM' table at the beginning which is 0x40 bytes long and has entries for IMG, OBD, OEM and BBO with their respective offsets. There's plenty of free space to add PPO and offset 0x370 at the end of those as shown in red. The PPO data itself 0x70 Bytes long has been added at offset 0x370.

My interpretation starting at offset 0x378 is
0x10 - Version
0x04 - Header size (starting at 0x378)
0x06 - Element size
0x00 - Number of elements

We could have added a TGP limitRated entry here but has been left blank meaning no override. Instead it can be added later by the "nvflash64.exe --addpp TGP limitRated 60000" which in this case would add a 60000mW default override providing the value is between minimum and maximum allowed. Yes, I did try higher than the maximum value but nvidia enginneers already thought of that and instead the value is ignored.

Hope I've covered it okay, if not and have questions let me know.

 

[zehT]

Okay that got way more complicated than I thought. Unfortunately despite having a CH341A programmer I don't have the 1.8V adapter, and I'd have to import it to my country. If I had the adapter I belive I could get away by just simply flashing a modified vbios with the tdp edited using mobile pascal vbios editor, I think that would be easier than flashing the inforom (and less risky, I think).

As for now I've flashed a dell vbios I found on TPU, it has the same 75W limit but the clock is limited to 1240Mhz, meaning in games it won't go above 50W. It's not a perfect solution but it will work for now, I'm trying to mod the heatsink to add another fan with heatsink onto the gpu, but first I need to salvage some heatpipes (otherwise I'd have to import them).

Thanks again for your time.

 

[:D:D]

No worries zehT, maybe some others will find it useful. Note that Pascal Tweaker actually breaks some hashes and 8-bit checksum but mobile seems to have a get out of jail free card from nvidia.

Some extra data I was going to add but cannot edit my last post!

I have set a similar IFR (InfoROM) on my GTX 1080 FE using "nvflash64.exe --flashinforom myrom.ifr" with same sections/Objects and set 100W with --addpp.

--listpp

And result in GPU-Z

Never liked the idea of using percentages TBH. So 100W is now 100%, was something like 180W before I think. Still can adjust from the OS if required up to 217% which in this case is 217W.