HP Zbook G1 and G2 GPU MXM [GTX 980m] (really im pretty pissed)

[lamarfromfsg]

Hello folks, I'm new to the forum.

So quickly to my problem without a due. In short and rapid way, I don't fu*** even understand what is the problem.

Thermal paste <- Check
Thermal pads <- Check
Bios into HYBRID GPU mode <- Check
GPU Drivers? <- Havent managed to do it with .inf, but Windows installed automatically, 388.xx version
Gaming? <- Crash bandicoot n sane trilogy detects GTX 980M with excellent graphics but poor FPS on 1080p, probably driver version, check?
vBios <- Got my USB ready for flashing, then I though why the f would I do it, if everything works, but.... But

Why from the first time, on 2 different laptops:

Hp zbook G1 with i7 4700mq
and
Hp zbook G2 with i5 4xxxx

When i press power button, my FAN is AT MAXIMUM, no exception, no explanation, no further steps. I post my pictures from HWINFO and GPU-Z
This is very very weird. I really need help on that, I actually raged and accidentally broke display on one of the laptops lmao.

I couldn't make changes with the MSI Afterburner, it doesn't support laptops, but HWINFO can reach the heat sensor??? ( see picture 2 ).

If the answer is vBIos, could you please really help me on that?

 

[er557]

I didnt think zbook g2 and certainly g1 supported 980m at all, rather then some quadro cards, and the heatsink must match the TDP as well,
Anyway, the gpu vbios is embedded in the main laptop bios/firmware and is not independent of it. So flashing that vbios should not matter.
As those are mobile workstation replacements, they usually are shipped with various quadro cards. I replaced mine with a supported k4100m, on the manufacturer parts page, and it works as expected, also those laptops ship with nvidia optimus technology, as an intel integrated gpu is present as well.

 

[lamarfromfsg]

I didnt think zbook g2 and certainly g1 supported 980m at all, rather then some quadro cards, and the heatsink must match the TDP as well,
Anyway, the gpu vbios is embedded in the main laptop bios/firmware and is not independent of it. So flashing that vbios should not matter.
As those are mobile workstation replacements, they usually are shipped with various quadro cards. I replaced mine with a supported k4100m, on the manufacturer parts page, and it works as expected, also those laptops ship with nvidia optimus technology, as an intel integrated gpu is present as well.

People got these working, including me. Both laptops have dual-pipe heatsink(The heatsink WAS definitely made for MXM Type 3.0b as it matches perfectly). no DreamColor displays.
My problem is really rare and I've seen 1 guy talk about it somewhere 8 years ago, that's why I actually posted here.


About the bios firmware, is there a way to mod the HP bios in the way it will cooperate with this gpu?

 

[SL2]

These models usually have whitelists in BIOS for every component. If your part isn't in the whitelist, it won't boot. There are workarounds avilable for at least some components, but HP have changed the BIOS a couple of times to make this harder IIRC.
Not sure that's the reason here tho..

 

[lamarfromfsg]

These models usually have whitelists in BIOS for every component. If your part isn't in the whitelist, it won't boot. There are workarounds avilable for at least some components, but HP have changed the BIOS a couple of times to make this harder IIRC.
Not sure that's the reason here tho..

I can definitely tell you that when i insterted the card into G1,

It gave me a black screen with this text on the top-left screen, maybbe you can recognize this:



F1=Boot F10=Bios Setup



After it just kept going into windows, the windows wouldn't boot on dGPU at all. Only hybrid mode. Nothing on G2 tho, but exact same problem persists. If possible could you help me find those workarounds, that would be the actual solution...

 

[SL2]

Sorry, I don't know how to do that. Found these threads.

TechnologyGuide

Thank you for visiting the TechnologyGuide network. Unfortunately, these forums are no longer active. We extend a heartfelt thank you to the entire community for their steadfast support—it is really you, our readers, that drove

forum.notebookreview.com

TechnologyGuide

Thank you for visiting the TechnologyGuide network. Unfortunately, these forums are no longer active. We extend a heartfelt thank you to the entire community for their steadfast support—it is really you, our readers, that drove

forum.notebookreview.com

I think the HP business forum over at notebookreview might be the place to ask if no one can help here.

 

[er557]

You took a perfectly engineered machine, designed specifically to work with MANY but only SPECIFIC hardware parts, and try to mod it or force it to recognize a much faster card it was not designed for nor supports it directly or indirectly. MXM is not plug and play, aside from the fact you can use quadro from ANY manufacturer and it will work, but not any gpu you desire. The heat output is not adequate, and it may fail to operate properly, which is what happens here. You should have opted for a k5100m in an extreme case and a heatsink to match. You took a shortcut to a non functional gaming laptop.

 

[lamarfromfsg]

You took a perfectly engineered machine, designed specifically to work with MANY but only SPECIFIC hardware parts, and try to mod it or force it to recognize a much faster card it was not designed for nor supports it directly or indirectly. MXM is not plug and play, aside from the fact you can use quadro from ANY manufacturer and it will work, but not any gpu you desire. The heat output is not adequate, and it may fail to operate properly, which is what happens here. You should have opted for a k5100m in an extreme case and a heatsink to match. You took a shortcut to a non functional gaming laptop.

I actually do agree with you here.

I'll make last test with 8770w to test if GPU is not the problem here.
Will be back as soon as done.

 

[SL2]

Have you followed the description in my second link?

Spoiler: GPU Swap

After swapping the cards I cleaned the old heatsink compound and put some new stuff on there, made sure the heat tape all lined up properly and then put it back together. At this point you should see the device in device manager as "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter" or something similar and all that is left is gettting the driver installed (see notes section for instructions).

Notes

1. If you are running bitlocker you may want to disable before you do the swap, you will have to put your recovery key in to get the system to book after the GPU swap. If you have to swap back for some reason this will be a pain.

2. If you are running Windows 8 or later you will need to disable DSE to install a modded graphics driver. You have disable DSE every time if you follow most procedures online (reboot a few times to try to get the driver working) and it is a pain. Here is how to disable DSE permanently (at least until you are done and re-enable)

Run cmd.exe as administrator and enter the following commands

bcdedit /set testsigning on
bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS
bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON
3.You will probably need to modify an NVIDIA driver if your laptop doesn't ship with the card as a stock option (obviously the Zbook doesnt but you could use these directions for other systems as well). All you are doing is adding the hardware ID from the device to the .inf file with the proper GPU ID so it knows what to install, pretty straight forward and you are not running a driver that someone has modified the code for.

Here is a good walk through on how to update the .inf file so the driver will install.
How to Modify NVIDIA Notebook Driver .INF Files
4. Other tools that are useful when doing this.

DDU this is good for uninstalling old NVIDIA drivers or driver versions that don't work properly and wont uninstall (I had this problem with driver 368.22)
HWiNFO64 good tool to look at your hardware, it will show you details about your GPU before the drivers are installed.

 

[lamarfromfsg]

Have you followed the description in my second link?

Spoiler: GPU Swap

After swapping the cards I cleaned the old heatsink compound and put some new stuff on there, made sure the heat tape all lined up properly and then put it back together. At this point you should see the device in device manager as "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter" or something similar and all that is left is gettting the driver installed (see notes section for instructions).

Notes

1. If you are running bitlocker you may want to disable before you do the swap, you will have to put your recovery key in to get the system to book after the GPU swap. If you have to swap back for some reason this will be a pain.

2. If you are running Windows 8 or later you will need to disable DSE to install a modded graphics driver. You have disable DSE every time if you follow most procedures online (reboot a few times to try to get the driver working) and it is a pain. Here is how to disable DSE permanently (at least until you are done and re-enable)

Run cmd.exe as administrator and enter the following commands

bcdedit /set testsigning on
bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS
bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON
3.You will probably need to modify an NVIDIA driver if your laptop doesn't ship with the card as a stock option (obviously the Zbook doesnt but you could use these directions for other systems as well). All you are doing is adding the hardware ID from the device to the .inf file with the proper GPU ID so it knows what to install, pretty straight forward and you are not running a driver that someone has modified the code for.

Here is a good walk through on how to update the .inf file so the driver will install.
How to Modify NVIDIA Notebook Driver .INF Files
4. Other tools that are useful when doing this.

DDU this is good for uninstalling old NVIDIA drivers or driver versions that don't work properly and wont uninstall (I had this problem with driver 368.22)
HWiNFO64 good tool to look at your hardware, it will show you details about your GPU before the drivers are installed.

I've had done that way before. Be sure I'm decent with researching.

So, the seller sent me a defective GPU. I'm super sure it would've worked on G1, G2 and also 8770w, if not the ?heat sensor? defectives.

It's actually driving me crazy that I've broke my Zbook 17 G2 screen due to the misleading by seller. I would really wish to get refund on that also haha.

Will continue this thread on 8770w when I return this and get a new GPU and a CPU aswell in future.

 

[SL2]

I've had done that way before. Be sure I'm decent with researching.

I didn't get that from the OP, you never mentioned manually installing a modified driver.

GPU Drivers? <- Havent managed to do it with .inf, but Windows installed automatically, 388.xx version

 

[lamarfromfsg]

I didn't get that from the OP, you never mentioned manually installing a modified driver.

It had no success*, that's what I meant. Tried that correctly though.

I ought to guess, that could be the GPU or something missing on hardware part, that causes the driver install failure(new driver features, i do not know).

 

[SL2]

Maybe try older drivers for manual installation.

 

[lamarfromfsg]

Maybe try older drivers for manual installation.

Ergh, that wont fix the core problem tho, i can deal with DCH drivers but not the fan on 100%. Kinda weird there's no such problem up on the internet, well there was one guy, but as i told it was too long ago.

 

[lamarfromfsg]

The situation got resolved. I ordered another GPU, installed it. Modified .INF files and turned off Driver Signature Enforcment through safe mode and installed Nvidia control panel from microsoft store. The card works and having good temps along with good fps.

 

[EarthDog]

The situation got resolved. I ordered another GPU, installed it. Modified .INF files and turned off Driver Signature Enforcment through safe mode and installed Nvidia control panel from microsoft store. The card works and having good temps along with good fps.

Lessons learned...

1. Dont be a rage monkey...yikes!
2. Bad cards happen. Glad you found another and managed to get it to work.

 

[er557]

what card did you order? and in which one of the laptops? I was looking into bios modding of my quadro k4100m with patched specs, however it was not possible in hp zbooks being they store the vbios in system bios and not look into the card vbios. Also, does optimus work on your laptop, and how is battery life?

@eidairaman1 : regarding my first response to the OP, I insist that in zbook the vbios is being read from the system bios, that's why modding it there is impossible, unless your reaction with ha-ha was supportive of my response...

 

[lamarfromfsg]

what card did you order? and in which one of the laptops? I was looking into bios modding of my quadro k4100m with patched specs, however it was not possible in hp zbooks being they store the vbios in system bios and not look into the card vbios. Also, does optimus work on your laptop, and how is battery life?

@eidairaman1 : regarding my first response to the OP, I insist that in zbook the vbios is being read from the system bios, that's why modding it there is impossible, unless your reaction with ha-ha was supportive of my response...

My card:

GTX 980M 8GB with DELL VBIOS

http://imgur.com/VWbKUcn

Benchmarks(8770w, CPU bottleneck):

http://imgur.com/YpG05xZ

Cinebench R15

http://imgur.com/B0o7xrR

Unigine Engine 4

http://imgur.com/PfPSWht

3DMark Fire Strike

http://imgur.com/FzKT86a

3DMark Time Spy

Userbenchmark 43th percentile(average)

About the temps:

Had 90 degrees max on benchmarks, I don't know If that's okay or not tho..

About the Zbook G1, today I will put the GTX 980m there and test it, afterwards will post here. But according to the first defective card, 980M should work on the G1 and G2 because It booted up OK, with a prompt, but OK. In bios you could read the Nvidia text and GPU-Z detected it as well and drivers should have installed correctly(I'm silly, didn't turn off the DSE when complaining in OP) .

 

[lamarfromfsg]

So now card is in the Zbook G1. It's automatically in Hybride mode, when I play it's okay but when I run either 3Dmark or Unigine, It tells me 405mhz clock and that It's GTX 980M, the 3DMARK FIRESTRIKE score was 294 on GPU. Why that happens?

While gaming I got these stats, High settings:

http://imgur.com/fCSA55E

The load and temperature are insane, is that normal?

 

[er557]

Did you try discrete mode instead of hybrid? are you booting in strict uefi?, do you have windows settings for using which gpu for what task? Also is the heatsink dual pipe type, you seem to fry the card without getting proper results, maybe zbook has restrictions to prevent using foreign gpu.

 

[lamarfromfsg]

Did you try discrete mode instead of hybrid? are you booting in strict uefi?, do you have windows settings for using which gpu for what task? Also is the heatsink dual pipe type, you seem to fry the card without getting proper results, maybe zbook has restrictions to prevent using foreign gpu.

No choice of the gpu mode in bios(new, i had to solder new bios chip for the zbook)
Using UEFI CSM.
Tried to set 3dmark app from new win10 settings + setting nvidia default in context menu + nvidia panel.

The pipes are dual on all of my laptops.
Can the problem be thermalpads, because i have installed all over the card, even on bottom. It might be too tight..?
Zbook G1 should have no restrictions on what I have experienced.

 

[eidairaman1]

If the notebook wasn't designed for it there will be problems.

 

[lamarfromfsg]

If the notebook wasn't designed for it there will be problems.

You decided to invest your contribution as it seems.

 

[eidairaman1]

You decided to invest your contribution as it seems.

Yup and you are having problems using a card in a notebook it was not designed for due to power and thermal characteristics/restraints of the card and notebook.

Notebooks are proprietary. There is a limit from the manufacturers that specify max gpu, cpu supported due to tdp design of the notebook.

It's no wonder you are pissed. Just need to realize that there is a limit by physical design of said notebook.

I would look at this sheet and spec out equivalent Geforce cards that are like the quadros, and radeons equivalent to Firepro/GLs

HP ZBook - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[lamarfromfsg]

Yup and you are having problems using a card in a notebook it was not designed for due to power and thermal characteristics/restraints of the card and notebook.

Notebooks are proprietary. There is a limit from the manufacturers that specify max gpu, cpu supported due to tdp design of the notebook.

It's no wonder you are pissed. Just need to realize that there is a limit by physical design of said notebook.

I would look at this sheet and spec out equivalent Geforce cards that are like the quadros, and radeons equivalent to Firepro/GLs

HP ZBook - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Thanks for explanation, but community is made for solving problems, not pointing out obvious things that aren't even worth having though about. I surely know I'm going off the HP standarts, you should point it out for people that have even 1070 installed on these laptops, not only me. Let's not have a company that has bullshitted dozens of people give us the borderlines.