HP EliteBook 8570w MXM-B GPU upgrade

Let this be an upgrade journey of the beast 8570w. I wanted to share my experience of upgrading my pet with all my fellow users.

I always appreciated the build quality of the elitebooks and decided to buy a 8570w as i felt it is still relevant in 2018 in terms of performance and it doesn't cost you a kidney to get a pre-owned one. I got a good one very easily and I bought it with no HDD and RAM. But by looking at the cosmetic condition of the laptop i felt okay and took the decision of buying it.

Took her home and fired it up after plugging in 2x4 GB and an old 500 GB HDD i had lying around. It worked beautifully..had an i7 3610QM, a K1000M and the 1080p was a boon to work with.

It a workstation ffs, so i stress tested it. Thermals were xtremely good. No throttling on CPU or GPU under 100% load. So I went for an upgrade with a 3740QM with 3.7 single core turbo and 3.5 on all cores. I immediately bought the piece and swapped it with the good old 3610QM. Woked like a charm.

I will tell you why the 8570w and not any other. I wanted it for my gaming needs as well as a little bit of multimedia editing (noob tho). I was pleased with the appearance, touch and feel of the laptop - solid and its not a fingerprint magnet.

I installed Win8.1 Pro with the genuine key I had and opened task manager. I was just playing around and it made me look at the ram slots available in the RAM section. It said 2 out of 4 used. I just was staring at it for a while thinking that it can support 32 gigs and I was only thinking it can do 16 cuz I overlooked the fact that I got a 4 slot board. Then I really felt like I should do it justice and bought 8x2 Corsair vengeance 9-9-9/24 ram to swap with the old set for now. Switching thru multiple programmes felt stress free cuz more is always better than less i see.

I haven't found a single thread (or maybe I didn't search enuf) that says it all to start the real upgrade which we are going to talk about in a bit.

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Don't you feel like something is missing here? Should we not talk about the real deal here? The main reason for starting this thread? Upgrading the lil kid K1000m to an MXM-B type for the sake of greater good?

Let's do it. But what does a workstation truly need? It is for you to decide. I decided to go for a GTX 980M. You read it right, I wanted to go for it. But there are challenges that lie ahead if you are going for it:

1. Space - can be solved by removing the dvd drive
2. Heat exchange cap - the tiny single pipe heatsink isn't gonna do justice for the monstrous cards. Heat exchanger must be modded to cool the MXM-B card properly for its size, its vrm, memory as well as heat o/p
3. Fit and placement - the base/chasis screw holder, keyboard has a screw holder, palmrest has a shelled guide for placement of the keyboard screw holder and the dvd port (sata/pwr combo port) will come in the way

You must solve the above challenges before going ahead.

Now let's continue our story..should I specifically tell you that I was able to get my hands on a Quadro M5000M? Well I precisely did that and started to clear off the challenges one by one diligently. Come on now, it's an 8 GB VRAM with 1536 cores and a pro-grader.

After much waiting of almost two days of having the card sitting ducks while i patiently prepare for the ceremony of letting it in I took the mastergel maker and spread over the sunshine for a nice touch with the copper. I just put the palmrest and keyboard, connected them to the board. Didn't do anything but just kept calm for a couple of seconds.

Time has come to fire it up and check for once before assembling it all back to one piece. I have read somewhere that unsupported gpu upgrades on these elitebooks have a tendency to keep the system beeping, sometimes not responding with lights blinking, some saying to blind flash, some saying the backlight wont power on till you install the drivers.

Which of these would be my case? To find out, I switched on the power in slo-mo and turned my sight to the screen while I heard two thumps from my heart and couldn't blink. Mine was totally different.

Nothing happened for almost two seconds then I witnessed the pwr led, hdd led then immediately the system sprung back to life greeting me with hp logo. I then closed my eyes laughing internally while my mind silently whispered - u did it!! You know what happens next and I had to mod the inf for the driver to be installed.

I am aware that the stock heatsink won't stand a chance cooling the wonder. I throttled the cpu freq to 2.3G all time to avoid overheating. While carefully keeping a eye on temps, I played some games for a while to see that the setup if totally functional. It was getting to 87c on core and 75-88 on quadro which is obvious. I will talk later on the benchmarks and stress testing once my cooling solution is properly setup with a secondary radiator.

My biggest challenge yet: To my observation, the fan was behaving really weird.. its always hovering around 30-40 % of its full speed and also its all time making "whew whew whew whew whew whew...." cycles like spped up,down,up,down between 30-40% and never reacts to core temps no matter the load.

I really seek some guidance from you guys to solve this puzzle of fan control behaviour. Please help!!!

edit: fan issue solved but discarded on improving the project since card wont sit parallel to motherboard due to a small black protrusion that is keeping the card sit in a slanting position.

 

reserved

 

reserved#2

 

Any chance you can add some photos to this, I have an 8670w I and trying to figure out how to upgrade the GPU. Sounds like this might work for the 8670W as well? I am a little hesitant on spending 500$ on something that might not work out lol.

 

I have an 8570w, That was a typo and I can't edit it for some reason...

 

i think interested parties would still like pictures, I know I do even though my interest is purely academic (I have already upgraded a g1 zbook 15 with a 1070n MXM-B card)

 

i checked quadro m5000m on an 8670w and an 8770w too while i was wandering shifting my laptops just for fun. it works flawlessly!!. and i just had to mod the inf file to install nvidia drivers properly. it came with an m5950m firepro.

edit:

As much as I wish I could, I wouldn't recommend doing that. I forgot to mention that on the 15 incher 8570w, there was a balck tiny square protrusion besides the card, it wasnt allowing the card to be positioned parallel to the motherboard plane, instead i had to bend the heatsink copper pipes by hand to match the slantness of the sitting m5000m (the memory unit of the m5000m interferes with the black protruding thing and it sits on top of that protrusion making the card sit in a slanting position). this approximate pipe bending to position the heatsink parallel to card wasnt upto the mark and it was not removing heat off the guard effectively. well its a 150w card without a second fan would be hard anyways. and i didnt wast to damage the card so i took it off and sold the 8570w to buy an 8770w. so problem solved. but i ve heard for the zbooks that protrusion wont be there. you can check it out. for now, i already sold the 8770w too and moved onto m6800 dell. its with an i7 4600m dual core and a quadro k3100m 768 cuda 4 gb ddr5. i still have the m5000m and will put it on after buying a quad core i7 or after i could bypass the stupid current and power throttling thats making the dual core cpu sit at 2.9 ghz under stress wt*!!!!!

 

could you test your system with 3dmark firestrike v1.1?

 

thank you much for your interest. i don't have it anymore. very sorry couldn't upload pics.

 

i shall do it tonight and will add an edit once it is done. fyi, it is an 8760W i7 2640m dual core, quadro m5000m 8GD5, 900p reso.

 

Thanks for the response, will the m5000m fit alright in the 8670W? Or will that protrusion you are mentioning be in the way there as well?

 

i believe this time it is not a typo when you say a 8670W. to be clear the 17 inchers have got no problem at all taking in an MXM-B card both on 8670W and 8770W. i didnt test the pascal cards but m5000m is full on. good luck with your installation.

just a heads up. you will face throttling in the 8670w with quad core units. its tdp limit reaches very easily. i dont rememebr seeing the tdp limit control in teh 8670w when i had an 2820qm and 2760qm units whereas with the 8770w it is a different story and you can up the tdp limit using the xtu.

 

I have a HP 8570W and was planning to upgrade my K2000M to a GTX980M 8GB but this i a MXM-B card. What cooler did you use? As I can see the stock cooler is MXM-A and shorter...

 

Hi all,

Some time ago on my HP 8760w I have decided to go for it all the way and upgrade th GPU with any kind of better than stock Quadro 3000M.

I bought K4100M.

In short - I had no problems at all installing it.

It was in October 2015. Since then I still use it for everything including gaming Witcher 3 with ~26FPS @1080p

I recommend all this card as it is really great. I already an HP vBios on this Board, so this what is exepected here to be the most effortless GPU upgrade.

Below some screenshots from my platform. Note the BIOS versions, temps

 

you will have problems installing it as there will be a small black protrusion on the motherboard (both on 8570W & 8560W) that resists the card to sit down parallel to the motherboard. it will still work. however, you will have weld/join coper plates to cover the vitals on the card or get an mxm-b cooler of 8770w or 8670w then cut off and weld the copper carry joint.

but man, i wouldn't do that on an 8570w or an 8670w. instead, if and only if you are a performance seeker, then sell it off for an 17 incher 8770w (recommended as no cpu throttling/runs at full all core turbo on any chip) or 8670W (cpu throttles to a minimum turbo under load and temp reads higher).

and any quadro upto m5000m works on it perfectly. if it doesnt work then simply do a bios flash with a hp vBIOS and it should work.

congrats on your upgrade
edit: overclock the k4100m via vBIOS it has a lot of potential. i did it on a K4000M and K3100M. it is fun and has a ton of thermal headroom even after 180% clock increase. good luck have fun.
man why still running a dual core i7, upgrade already

 

Hi sicily428,

Could you upload any screenshot from your GPU-Z.
What is the original vendor for your M5000M card - usually it is a Dell or Clevo...
It would be superb if you download (using GPU-Z) and attach your vBios (if it is HP).

 

yes i can do that. but dont give too much about the vendor. it was dell by default i guess. but it worked on HP 8560W, 8570W, 8670W & 8770W ; Precision M6700 & M6800. HP or Dell, I can confirm that both are intercompatible.

edit: but i reflashed it to a HP during my trials i guess and the bios was of a ZBOOK. however, find the attachment and rename the file extension to .rom from .txt

 

Guide to upgrade HP EliteBook 8570w GPU to Quadro k2200m

I will outline the process for anyone trying to add a Nvidia Quadro k2200m to a HP EliteBook 8570w with a non-Dreamcolor screen. This process may work for other HP EliteBooks of this generation with a non-Dreamcolor display, I take no responsibility with your result if you mess things up. This card is a MXM 3.0a so no heatsink modification was needed.





Before we begin on my laptop when I lost my backlight the VGA port didn’t work but my display port did work using the [Fn] + [F4]. I have a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter and I was able to see the screen to make the changes necessary without having the benefit of a laptop screen.

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1. Enable RDP or if you have VNC make sure it is turn on that way if you don’t have another monitor to use you can gain access to your PC through a remote connection.
   
2. Upgrade your GPU, there are many videos out there that can show you how to do this. Here is a good link to show you how to access and replace many parts. https://h20574.www2.hp.com/results.htm?SID=5257502&MEID=2CBB4A54-A9D2-4561-A29E-404F40C9ABFC
   
3. After you have installed your new GPU and reassembled your laptop you will not have a backlight if your vBIOS doesn’t have the correct output signal, for me I had to flash my vBIOS with a version that comes with the Dell computer but more on that in a bit.
   
4. Start your computer up and connect a external display to your DP port. For me, I RDP to connect my laptop and installed the HP Nvidia Quadro driver SP82364 which you can get from here https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-elitebook-8570w-mobile-workstation/5257502
   
5. The driver will not install so you will have to install it manually. When installing the driver manually you will have to check the box to show incompatible devices and the k2200m will show up.
   
6. Once the driver installs and you reboot you will have a backlight again on your display but it will only work when the driver loads.
   
7. In order to make your backlight work in the BIOS as well as the boot process prior to loading the Nvidia driver you have to flash the vBIOS of your laptop.
   
8. The vBIOS that worked for me was a Dell one which you can get here
   
9. You will also need the Nvflash tool which you can get from here
   
10. I also recommend you get GPU-Z so you can backup your current BIOS just for safe keeping. You can get GPU-Z from https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-gpu-z/
    
11. Backup your current vBIOS using GPU-Z there several sources on how to do this including YouTube
    
12. Put the 183005.rom that you downloaded in step 8 in the same folder as Nvflash
    
13. Disable your Nvidia Driver
    
14. Load up the command prompt in administrator mode
    
15. Navigate to the folder that contains the Nvflash64.exe file
    
16. Type “nvflash64 --protectoff”
    
17. Type “nvflash64 -6 183005.rom”, then say yes to all the prompts
    
18. After the flashing is complete reboot your computer
    
19. You now have your backlight again, don’t forget to enable your Nvidia driver that you disabled in step 13.
    
20. If your hotkeys are not working you can use the HotKey fix from HP which you can get from here https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/closure/hp-elitebook-8570w-mobile-workstation/5257502

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Congratulations you should have a fully functional Nvidia Quadro K2200m Graphics card in your HP EliteBook 8570w. From benchmarks this card is about 5 times faster than the Quadro k1000m that I had. The part that I got is N15P-Q5-A2 which I got from ebay. The Ebay description said it was 8570w compatible but I think it was pulled from a HP Z-book and clearly it wasn’t 100% compatible otherwise I wouldn’t have to write this guide. My card did same sample on it.



Some benchmarks, I used 3DMark 11 here is what I got:

Nvidia Quadro K1000m – P1310 Graphics 1158 Physics 7197 combined 1058

Nvidia Quadro K2200m – P5248 Graphics 4975 Physics 7245 combined 5242

Delta - P 4x Graphics 4.3x Physics 0% combined 4.95x





The K1000m is a 45W part while the K2200m is a 65W part, that is a 44% increase in TDP which is something to consider if you are thinking about making this upgrade but I have not noticed the fan spinning up more than normal. I am not a gamer and plan on using the increased GPU power to do a little retro gaming.

That is 400% increase in the p score 429% increase in graphics, essentially the same physics score and 495% increase in the combined score.

I am happy with the results, when I got my hands on this laptop I was surprised by how upgradable it was. Here are some of the upgrades that I have made.

Bluetooth 4.0 module, upgraded the Wi-Fi to Intel AC 7260 HWC (card has Bluetooth but Bluetooth will not work, I tried putting tape over the last pin nothing worked), added the webcam made for this laptop, which cause me to get a new trim for this laptop, installed a Samsung EVO 860 500GB SATA 3.0 2.5” Drive, another 500 GB Samsung EVO 860 mSATA drive, Upgraded the memory to 32GB DDR3 RAM, MATSHITA Blue-ray / DVD writer, HP Backlit Keyboard and my processor is i7-3630QM. This machine is so nice I don’t really use my Microsoft Surfacebook anymore.

I hope this helps someone because I was looking all over for a step by step guide and didn’t find anyone putting the information all in one spot.
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Mike...I've followed your guide...I'm running into the problem of getting a screen or remoting into my laptop to begin the vBIOS changes. I've tried the methods using the DP to DVI port and nothing comes up, no signal...I've also tried to remote in but I'm having issues with my 8570w connecting to my network prior to logging into the OS. Any advice is much appreciated.

trying to swap out the Quadro K1000M with the K2200M GPU. Step by Step as you have suggested here. Thanks for any advice.

 

Did you try the VGA port? That worked for me once when I had a similar experience. Also did you try the Docking Station(if you happen to have one) and plugging in the external display via those ports instead?

 

I did, and no luck on the VGA port...I do not have a dock. I feel confident I could get everything to work providing I can get an image. I've also tried to remote in; however, I am unable to get the workstation to connect wifi prior to logging in and I can't accomplish that without getting a screen of some sorts.

 

I have a few questions:
1. do you know if it posted successfully by reading some signs.. like fan speed observations, logon screen sound(if os is win7)
1a. if you know it goes till login screen somehow then try phone light on the screen by keeping it like an inch above and see if you can see screen output at all. this is to check if the backlight isnt triggered when the lcd output is working
2. what boot mode was it in before doing the gpu upgrade i.e., uefi or legacy
2a. if uefi, then you need to find a way to switch to legacy bios by doing a blind screen bios reset(assuming it actually posts even with blank screen) or by doing a cmos reset
2b. if unsuccessful then you gotta shove the old card back in then into bios and select legacy boot mode and then replace card to check whether it displays screen output with the k2200m
3. what is laptop behaviour after power on button press

 

1.) I can get the fan to kick on, power up then idle back down and hold. No sound for logon (OS is Win7).
1a.) Haven't tried to illuminate the screen (obviously the backlight isn't on); although I see no change in the screen whatsoever upon boot, I assumed I was getting no signal to it.
2.) I believe it is in Legacy as I had never changed the boot settings to UEFI...Isn't the default setting in Windows 7 to boot Legacy?
3.) On most boot ups the fan spools up. Keyboard has power and lights. I get a blinking light code which, if my research served me correct through HP then the steady blinking was a either BIOS issue or Display issue. Their troubleshoot is a bit conflated. The capslock indicator will blink repeatedly or up to a series of 7 blinks which is a troubleshoot message.

I'm at the point, after swapping these cards back and forth multiple times that I have the old K1000M in it. I will attempt to go in and check the boot mode and follow your 2a & 2b guidance. If I confirm it is in a Legacy boot mode and I pop the K2200M card in, and I still have these issues, what direction should I point myself to? Thank you for your help.

 

continuation..
1. (skip to 3rd as this is just extra info that might help further)fan kicks on and off and then never turns on again? plug in power source and make sure the option in bios which states "fan always on when plugged in(or something similar to this)" is checked once you put that k1000m back in. if you are using hdd and not ssd then you can sense the hard drive making a variation of ticking noises for read operations during boot time(lasts approx. one min) which means it is booting and not giving screen output. by default(unless you turn off sound), win 7 will give a sound upon landing on the login screen
1a. the change in screen can be so subtle that one can't notice it on these ips screens. please try illuminating it by a flash light in close proximity like i mentioned and try reading the screen preferably in the middle region by looking at it from very close. so you can notice the windows logo in boot time and on login screen with the help of light // assuming it turns on that is..
2. i had a similar experience on an 8770w DreamColor display(connected via eDP port(not LVDS like most displays) on the mainboard)when i upgraded to M5000M as it would not give out display 'after i install driver' and only gave output after i switched to uefi mode(native uefi not hybrid uefi/csm). i think you may also install win7 in uefi mode but i do not have first hand experience on that.
3. if it is giving out light blinking in a pattern then its not posting.. some sort of hardware incompatibility.
3a. in this case I would swap back to k1000m and set it to boot mode to uefiand popping the new card in again and test (edit: if forgot the fact that i told in the earlier post to switch to legacy from uefi if it was in uefi in the first place so you can ignore this) . just snap fit the palm rest for quick check but always tighten the heatsink screws all the way as usual
3b. another easy work around(maynot sound easy but still) is.. if you have a dell m6700 or m6800 or m4700,4800 or something that you can put the card in it to flash a compatible bios that works for your 8570w. for my m5000m on my 8770w and 8760w both dell and hp bioses worked fine. or if you have a bios programmer kit then you can flash it that way too.
4. (you can ignore this piece) i wouldn't advise but a maxwell card maybe m2000m or gtx965m(1024 cuda) and bios mod the card to run cooler than usual would yield better results with no need for hardware mods. if you're open to hardware mods then a fastest trouble free card to get would be a gtx 970m as 980m(or any 8gb ddr5 cards) has some complexions in the installation.

 

Just thought i would post here to showing my take on putting a mxm-b card in a 8570w. First thing is i used a different heatsink, 04CN35 is the part number. At the time of writing they are only about $10 on ebay. It is also the largest one i think you could fit in there. I used a torch to pull off the gpu part on the heatsink and them sanded the cpu part flat.
The fan on the heatsink is the same type as the main cpu fan so i just spliced the connection so both fans run at the same speed.

Next i protected any non copper metal with thermal expoy and then used liquid metal on the copper to copper areas. Make damn sure none of the liquid metal can get out as i have no idea what the makeup of the silver metal is and if it will react with the LM.

Then i placed the heatsink on the area you can see in the picture. then used lots of jb weld expoy all around it to make sure it is sealed, once a gain to make sure no LM can get out and to make sure its stuck to the heatsink well.

After that i opened up furmark to heat everything up, as epoxy cures MUCH faster wile hot.

I wish i had taken pictures to make this a proper guide but i think the most useful info is the heatsink part number that fits in the cd bay. I also cut some holes in the case and bottom cover to let more air in. I used it like this with a m4000m for about 4 months just fine with the gpu never even hitting 70c. But one time i tried using the system on battery and the card seems to have died the moment i unplugged the ac. I ordered a m3000m to replace it as its 25w less power. But i think i will just remove the battery this time.

 

How do you remove that DVD-sata connector which prevents the card from sitting flat on the board?
Do you have to desolder it, can you cut it away, pull it of carefully, or how do you go about doing that?
Can you install the card ontop of that connector, and bend the heatsink accordingly?

 

Damn, good work!

Does the keyboard fit with that heatsink installed?

 

Anyone know how to get this done? I am tempted to do this mod, as I have a spare k4000m lying around, but obviously I don't want to mess up my machine in the process?

 

It is fine, I was there too. What I suggest is considered unprofessional but here it is..'do you know how to break a copper strand?- by repeatedly bending it to the extreme ways at a desired point?' I have done the same at the root points of these pins and they will just fall off, you can try a nail cutter too if you can be careful to cut them off at their root one by one. Please be careful and have fun. The K4000M will most likely work especially if you pulled it from a Dell or HP machine

 

Thnaks for your unput, really helpful. Just rock/bend the connector left and right <--> until it lifts off, then cut the pins from beneath? How long did it take you?

 

Yes that's what I did exept I also gave the pins a rocking motion till they cut off at their root of the board. It took me around a minute to get the sata (dvd) port off and the pins.

 

Hmm, would it really not fit if you leave the SATA port intact? Kind of a shame to lose it. The MXM card will still work if slightly bent lol

 

It would indeed work; all it needs is proper pin contact and the heatsink parallelly aligned to the card by bending the copper tubes accordingly. User can make sure if is not interrupting a proper pamlrest / keyboard fitment.

 

I ended up putting the K4000M into a 8760w which I got on a bargain, and it works without any issues.

 

I noticed the K4000M has all memory chips populated on the board. This might usually interfere with a proper seating of the card and would only sit a bit slanted due to a small protrusion on the motherboard. So, only cards like GTX970m/GTX870m or M3000M/M4000M would be better choices but someone said the card failed when the power is unplugged to use in battery mode. You never know.

Anyways, I have a small question. What is your feedback on the rear exhaust (is it a proper term? ) in my machine I barely feel any air even at full speed of the fan whereas the side exhaust port gets full blast. The ports and fins are super clean, no dust buildup whatsoever.

 

Good to know!

Could you possibly try saving the vBIOS with GPUZ, to see if the feature works on the 8760W/K4000m combo? Thanks!

 

Yeah the side vent definitely has more airflow than the rear, which is funny because the GPU on these Elitebooks (and ZBooks) is *very* well cooled, while the CPU constantly has thermal problems. Probably because the GPU heatsink is simply bigger on both ends.

 

Dumping the Bios with GPU-Z works. The card has 80.04.33.00.2F on it, which seems to be this one:
https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/151973/151973