[GUIDE] Dell Precision M6800/M4800 sBIOS mod

hello rzrwolf:
I am so sorry , today, I turn on my computer, it return to 37w limit again. I set the vars again with value 0x00, all locks be disabled, in XTU , every change Items show, and i can change every thing， but the current limitation not be eliminated. Looks like the setting for current no working, others are effective. I reduce the core vol -100mv, the cpu can run at 3.3G with full payload.
I want to know how about your A16 version BIOS, can it run over 37w? Or can run with 54w? If A16 bios can work, I will reflash it back to A16. leave your e-mail here , I will send you my BIOS dump file.

 

I am getting these results with A16 unlocked as per guide. However only unlocked, not tweaked - i havent changed any defaults

Sometimes however (especially after AC/battery on-off cycle) - the TDP limited by 37W - the only solution is rebooting.)

I think it has something to do with battery/ac adapter - as one guy told before - changing battery helped him.

Just try removing battery before starting laptop and check if it is running full speed

Please send me a 12mb full (all regions) bios to my email [email protected] if possible.

I am willing to cooperate and test together.

However my main issue is inability to update BIOS - AT ALL) The original update files M6800A23.exe or any other version just reboots laptop and i still have A16 bios...

I had it A05 when got the laptop, but @valuxin helped me with flashing and bios dump of A16

 

I have received your bios dump.

Do you have m4800 or m6800 model?

I have tried your bios - work fine, updates and cpu looks good >=45w.

However i have lost secondary HDD from system - i guess its due to your bios being from m4800 model.

 

Ok i got the issue with 37W limit - just run intel extreme utility and start stress test.

When cpu capped with 37W - remove and insert battery.

Check cpu cap again. I have it increased up to 46+W immediately.

 

OK， thank you , my laptop is 4800, I tested your method, I still be limit to 37W , I reduce the core vol -100mv, then the top power is 42W, full payload cpu speed is 3.49GHz，maybe I should buy a new original battery to test. Maybe dell just want to sall batttery? btw , have you solved the hd problem?

 

I noticed that these particular models are very sensitive to PSU and battery.. Maybe worth to try.

I havent solved the HDD problem - it seems m4800 bios just different from m6800 in terms of sata devices.

I have checked both bioses in diff compare - all differences i found are ME settings. Nothing about SATA.

So i guess i need bios dump of m6800 model.

 

@valuxin I bought a Dell Quadro M1000M and installed it in my FHD LVDS Dell Precision M4800. The Quadro M1000M only works on external displays and not the internal FHD display. Do you think I could flash a K2200M 2GB bios to enable LVDS on the Quadro M1000M? I'm worried that the issue would be the K2200M has 640/40 vs 512/32 shaders/TMUs in the M1000M. What do you think?

 

Do not attempt to cross-flash a different GPU's vBIOS... Especially from a different generation (Kepler vs Maxwell)... That will certainly not work.

I think you have a different problem anyway. M1000M does support LVDS, NVIDIA did not kill LVDS support until the Pascal line of GPUs. I have a M5000M working in my M6700 with LVDS, and I've read other success stories from getting the M1000M or M2000M installed in the M4700/M4800.

As a temporary or quick fix, you could enable graphics switching and use your M1000M with Optimus.

 

I would never dream of flashing a Kepler bios on a Maxwell chip. However, the K2200M is something of an odd bird and is actually a GM107 chip. I already have Optimus enabled but the Quadro M1000M refuses to run anything on the LVDS screen, even when "forced" by the driver. When I turn Optimus off, the computer won't display anything on the internal screen. This leads me to believe that the M1000M does not support LVDS. A lot of people on the forums have upgraded their eDP M4800s to M2000Ms, but I haven't seen any confirmed success stories of LVDS M4800 upgrades to Maxwell. According to @valuxin, the K2200M and the 965M are the only 2 that did. Hoping he has some more insight as to why only those two models support LVDS and not the M600M, M620, M1000M, M1200, M2000M, or M2200 (965M equivalent). There is even this block diagram that supports what you're saying, but I just can't get my Quadro M1000M to drive my LVDS screen.

 

Here's a success story that I quickly found for Quadro M2000M in Dell Precision M4700. (M4700 is only available with LVDS.)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/m4700-owners-thread.682758/page-113#post-10246702

I can't find any stories for the M1000M off-hand... Maybe I made up having read that before, it seems like people are understandably more interested in upgrading to the M2000M. I did find some eBay sellers claiming that the part will work in Precisions as far back as M4700 (again, LVDS only there).

You mentioned that your card is a Dell Quadro card. To confirm, it does have a Dell vBIOS on it, correct?

Not sure what else to suggest. I'll mention that, regarding Optimus not working, there is a peculiarity with the driver INF file that I noticed when installing my M5000M.

I'm assuming that you had to do an INF modification to get the driver to load for this card. You probably noticed that there are multiple "versions" of the card listed in the INF file. The card actually shows up in the system with a different device ID depending on whether you have "Optimus enabled" or "Optimus disabled", so you have to make sure that you pick the correct one to copy and replace with your own device ID.

Now, here's the kicker. Looking at the hardware IDs for my old Quadro K5000M...

NVIDIA_DEV.11BC.053F.1028 = Optimus off
NVIDIA_DEV.11BC.153F.1028 = Optimus on

Cool... They're the same except for a "1" and "0" are flipped depending on the state of Optimus...

When I got my M5000M and installed it (Optimus on), it showed up with device ID
NVIDIA_DEV.13F8.153F.1028
There's a "1" in the same position as before indicating that Optimus is on.

I found these existing entries in the INF file for the M5000M.
NVIDIA_DEV.13F8.06DA.1028
NVIDIA_DEV.13F8.16DA.1028

Alright, pretty similar, two devices with 0 and 1 flipped depending on the state of Optimus. I just changed the device IDs to match the device ID that my PC was reporting, leaving the 0s and 1s in the same spot.

After installing the driver this way, Optimus was not functional (similar to how you describe above, everything appeared to be in order but the NVIDIA GPU would simply not take over rendering no matter what I told it to do). I assumed that there was some sort of compatibility issue (installing an unsupported GPU in this system, after all) and I just ran with Optimus disabled for a while.

Later on, I was checking my Precision 7510 which has a Quadro M1000M, and I noticed that it's device IDs are set up this way...
NVIDIA_DEV.13B1.06D9.1028 = Optimus on
NVIDIA_DEV.13B1.16D9.1028 = Optimus off

So... It's the same... Except in this case, 0 means Optimus is on and 1 means that it is off, backwards from what it was before. Turns out that the Quadro M5000M running on the 7710 is set up the same way as this. After I accounted for this, I was able to get Optimus working. Before, I had inadvertently installed the "Optimus off" version of the driver when Optimus was enabled on the system.

The moral of the story is, when you are modding your INF file and choosing which existing entry for the M1000M to modify or clone to get it working with the card in your Precision M4800, you may well need to swap the 0 and 1 in the position that I indicated, because Dell at some point changed from using "1" for Optimus enabled to using "0".

If you think that you set up your INF file incorrectly, I recommend that you reinstall using a different driver version (and the "clean install" option in the NVIDIA installer) to make sure that Windows doesn't try to use a cached copy of your INF file.