HP EliteBook 8770W mods/customizations

I got an 8770W because my old 8540W crapped out finally.

Here it is. List of mods and upgrades:

8GB > 16GB RAM (have 32GB coming)

i5 3230M >i7 3630QM (3940XM can't be OCd and provides no meaningful benefit)

FirePro M4000 > Quadro M3000M (I use Blender, sue me.) I have a P4000 coming soon.

120GB Crucial BX300

2TB Seagate FireCuda

Carbon fiber vinly wrap

Modded LED keyboard (Red)

Single heatpipe to dual heatpipe GPU sink/fin assembly

I paid $530US total.

I also put some MSI badging on it cause why not, the red looks good and people aren't gonna believe that I'm playing Skyrim at 1440p (upscaled) on a 7 year old notebook.

 

P4000 won't work on your system unless you have a DreamColor panel.
Pascal GPUs work only on eDP signal, yours is the old LVDS.
GTX 980M/M5000M is your best option.

 

Pretty sure the Quadros can do both. If not I'll grab a DC screen. Just means I can sell the laptop for more.

The P4000 specifically supports analogue DVI output.

 

Reading your signature, I'm assuming you took the Blu-Ray drive out? You've got 4 drives in there and the laptop only has 3 slots by default, 2x 2.5 SATA and 1x MSATA.

Personally the MSATA drives aren't worth their price unless you can easily secure a good deal, one reason I just went with small SSD for boot and SSHD for storage. I do 3D modeling so the raw I/O isn't needed as much as someone who does data sorting or video editing.

I will say that I've modded my M3000M. If you look at the GPU-Z window you can see that the clocks are higher as well as the voltage. My M3000M actually outperforms a reference desktop GTX 960.

Can you test Mobile Pascal TDP Tweaker and the latest modded version of NVFLASH? If I can't modify the BIOS of the P4000 without an SPI there's no real point in getting it.

 

Don't hope to get P4000 working on LVDS screen. In thus case it is not about Quadro or not, it is about GPU technology and Pascal is known to working only with eDP signal based LCD. As far as I know Mobile Pascal TDP Tweaker works only with SPI programmer.
Nice OC for M3000M
When I had M5000M (prior my GTX 1070) I got it working at 1400 core/ 1350 mem with Prema vbios, reaching 15500K graphic pts in 3DM11...but the die quality was insane - 77,3%.
I have 2TB on the place of the BR. And another 2TB in the docking station. 7.5TB overall.
Just keep in mind once you upgrade to DC screen and a Pascal GPU, you won’t be able to use Win 7 anymore as DC and Pascal need pure UEFI based OS.

 

Why do you need 7.5TB? Just get MSATA and two 2.5-inch ST4000LM024. Keep blu ray

Output through LVDS or eDP is dependent on BIOS. P4000 specifically have support for analogue output. Notice how other cards specify DVI type like dual link.

 

Yes, I know this.
You will have DP output to every external display connected, just the internal won’t work at all.

(I have 2TB music, 2TB pictures and videos and the 2TB in the docking station is my full pc backup, programs etc)

 

The P4000 card has an analogue RDAC.

 

Then give it a try, I will be interested to see if it works

 

put an LED strip under the lid after cutting it with a Dremel, soldered to one of the USB ports internally.

Needs to be cleaned up a bit with a better diffusion method.

 

Yes I definitely wanna see if that P4000 works with the regular panel

 

should be here sometime next week.

If it ends up I was wrong, I'm buying another EliteBook for my GF and I'll swap the panels.

Most eDP is 30-pin but there is also 40-pin eDP.

The Dell Latitude E54xx series have dual-type panels that support both LVDS and eDP signals. Tested with the 15.4 inch model.

 

Does the 8770w not have Optimus? So you can edit the vBIOS freely?

Regarding the 3940xm - if you're willing to mod the cooling system, it is a massive boost in CPU performance, and it's overclockable. Otherwise, the 38x0qm is a good and cheap upgrade over the 36xxqm.

I can't see the images, btw

 

The 8770W has the CPU's iGPU perma-disabled in the BIOS. The BIOS update packages are also encrypted and you cannot install older versions due to this being a corporate oriented laptop. My BIOS is from 2013 and I refuse to update because I don't want the performance deficit associated with Meltdown/Spectre fixes. My i7 3630QM outperforms a post-patch 6700K. Spectre/Meltdown supposedly knock 25% performance.

The 3940XM is only overclockable inside Intel XTU, not the BIOS. Given that you didn't even know that the laptop doesn't have Optimus, I'd watch what you say in the future.

You can't change the voltage because the BIOS locks it down.

HP SimplePass works on WIndows 7, by the way, even though it's not supposed to.

As far as the images go, no idea what's up with that. I'll try a different host.

 

I'm asking because I have a ZBook and nvflash can't access the vBIOS even with hybrid disabled. Apparently even if it could, it would not work. Id have to edit the vBIOS stored inside the system BIOS and flash it with a hardware programmer directly to the chip. What a headache, but maybe I'll try that. My card is chilling at 60 degrees Celsius at full load which just makes me angry lol

 

60c? 60c is really good especially for a laptop at full load. Nothing to get mad at, in fact it's something to be jealous of. My M3000M gets 70+C during Cycles.

 

Here's a link to my M3000M's modified BIOS, by the way

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/220986/220986

 

Haha, yeah, I mean it's so low! I see people getting 30-40% higher clocks, and my heatsink could handle that, but I'm stuck with 835 MHz -_-. It's a Quadro K3100m btw

 

K3100M is garbage.

If you send it to me I can modify BIOS for you.

 

XTU doesn't allow overclocking on 8770W. This is locked out on bios level. No matter if the CPU is 3840QM or 3940XM with unlocked multiplier.
InSpectre app will give you back the performance lost, caused by bios update. No point on staying with old bios.

 

I was able to change the multiplier on my old 8540W with the 940XM. Figured it'd work on 4th gen elitebooks.

I don't want another app on my laptop, just one more thing to run at startup.

 

Oh really? For some reason I thought the 8770w allows TPL control for the 3940xm. That's a shame. At least it's 55W, which does give more room for performance but those chips get hot as hell. With some mods to the heatsink, it's still the best final upgrade, especially if you can get it for cheap

 

Not worth it over 3840QM, believe me. For 1-2% performance gain, you add 25% more TDP, resulting in 10C hotter CPU.
Temps around 90+C would be a norm with 3940XM.
Let aside the price difference...

 

I don't really use the CPU for that much, I use Blender Cycles with Quadro.

But my desktop has dual GTX 1080s and 7820X at 4.6Ghz on all 8 cores so my laptop is for casual gaming right now, but when I travel for work it;s useful. I'm an architecht.

 

For me "casual gaming" is playing WarZone where the CPU (3840QM on Liquid Metal) goes all the way up to 86-87C.
3940XM would reach 95+ for sure in CPU-intensive games...

 

Good thing I don't play Warzone. Most of my games are GPU bound.

Only thing I might be able to use a better CPU for is streaming, but I could use EXP-GDC for extra GPU encoding.

Anyone tried eGPU with this laptop?

 

someone tried using eGPU to work with r9 290 (or r9 280), or maybe HD 7970, and everything works fine. on YouTube it’s kind of like there is a video about it

 

Sorry to necro this thread but there is a lot of valuable info here.

Not really viable unless you build something that takes the internal gpu port and connect a desktop gpu to it. There was an initiative some time ago that wanted to kickstart the production of these cables but it did not succeed. There is lot of pciex16->mxm adapters for desktop pcs so I don't think it's super hard to implement. Otherwise, you can connect gpus to the smart card slot or to the msata but its super slow and would create a bottleneck anyways.

Regarding the eDP-lvds issue: adapters for these cables exist, maybe if someone has both type of panels could try one if it works. If you dont populate both 2.5" bays the adapter board would easily fit. I cant find much info about these connectors besides lvds is a 30 pin and eDP is 40 pin(but i can find 30 pin variant from the edp too).

Unlocking the bios, as far as i know, is impossible so the extreme cpus are useless here sadly. The cooling solution would hold up as @mirage_bg said.

 

This will soon be a very relevant topic for our laptop, since LP173WF3 will soon disappear from sales, even from the supplier) They will surely rise in price until an affordable LVDS> eDP for a display appears, which will be similar in characteristics to our DC2.

 

Useful info. I bought a used 8770W with a DC panel and unfortunately it has a recent bios which has the spectre fixes. On which bios did the Spectre fixes get introduced and can you revert back to an old bios or the only way is to solder a new bios chip?

 

There is no way to reverse to older bios, new bios chip is your only option, sadly...

 

Are you worried about the performance drop? Afaik the microcode update (delivered via the BIOS update) itself doesn't do anything, it just enables the OS to mitigate Spectre/Meltdown vulnerabilities. You can disable it in Windows with InSpectre, and Linux with some boot parameters

 

Yes, mainly worried about performance loss. Thanks for this, I'll download it and give it a go

 

I made a modification. 74 degrees with lid closed. True, there are problems with the height - I had to cut a piece on a sufficiently large keyboard, but that was not the case. I took up the pipes - I damaged one, as a result, about 76-78 degrees. After the New Year, I will redo it again ... The radiator will also be different.

 

Great mod! Congrats!
Which GPU do you have there?

 

GTX 980M ( 105w - the highest TDP recorded during all the tests ) ( ASIC Quality 75,4% ).

 

You have a great unit with its ~76% ASIC quality, that‘s why it needs lower voltage which influences the max TDP.

 

alteration of the pinout of the zbook cooler.
(if you do not do the pinout, then you will definitely kill the PWM cooler on the motherboard.)
I hope it helps someone.

 

When I did test the original one from 8770W gave me best results at the end
I was testing it among the one from 8760W and zBook 17 G1/2

 

Very nice, I am thinking of something similar for the CPU on a Zbook, which desperately needs more cooling (for overclocking hehe). Just bridging some heatpipes to the GPU heatsink should be enough, but there's no space for standard ones, I'd need really thin pipes. And it may need to go over the RAM sticks, which could be a problem.

 

Can an external DP be turned into an internal one?

Which to output an external monitor
Why is this interesting? Because we have an ancient LVDS inside the laptop, and I would be interested in how the laptop will work with a matrix that is connected "through" an external video output, i.e. DP. Naturally, with a board that converts the external DP connector to eDP.


We could use 4K monitors, for example.

 

Hallo ,
I have a problem with my Hp 8770w , caps lock blink continuous , no beep , light and fan power on but laptop won't boot up at all, the screen stays black , I've tried it on a second screen but same problem.

My spec.
Cpu i7 3940xm
Ram ddr3 1600mhz 1.5v 32gb
Gpu quadro m5000m
Bios f.66
IOS Arch Linux

I did the following:

I have tried the hard reset, ie, remove the battery, then holding the down the power on button for 30 seconds....and then reinserted the battery

I took out the RAM and disconnect and reconnect the wireless card. Press the power button at that point, and keep it pressed for like 30 sec. Reassemble it all and try to boot.

Reset the BIOS from CMOS by taking out the small battery behind the RAM modules for a few seconds and reinserting it.



Regards
Devid

Black Arch

 

This sounds like an issue with the motherboard, unfortunately...

Did you try with different power adapter?

 

Hi, thanks for your reply, yes tried another power adapter, but same problem.
I need replacing my motherboard.

Thank You so much.

Regards Devid

Black Arch

 

Hallo, @mirage_bg I have replacing motherboard and laptop start , setup BIOS uefi native no csm , reboot laptop but black screen and led caps +lock num lock blink 4 time .. GPU error .
Remove M5000m and replacing it with k5000m and laptop power on and no error.
Bios on system information show Nvidia Gpu uefi driver , with k5000m , but with M5000m show Nvidia 04/01/2016 is not compatible ?
My display is dreamcolor.

Thanks
Regards Devid

Black Arch

 

Did the M5000M work good on the previous motherboard?
Your bios is very old. F.40 is from 2013, most current one (F.71) is from 2019.

 

Ok... strange issues....upgrade ram and GPU and laptop power on BIOS, setup system configuration, reboot and black screen caps lock blink continuous.... replacing mobo, laptop start on BIOS ,ok, rebooting and blink 4 time... replacing GPU, and start on BIOS, today power on laptop and caps lock , numlock blink 3 time... start uefi diagnostic tool and quick test memory failed.. ???
Reset memory and laptop reboot and BIOS show 32 Gb Ram correctly..??
Same problem with old Mobo BIOS don't recognize correctly Vbios Nvidia , show Nvidia 04/01/16 .
Vbios Nvidia Quadro is for Dell laptop..
Hardware problem with Ram??



Thanks
Regards Devid

Black Arch

 

Try with different RAM modules first.

 

Correct ram 8gb ddr3l 1600 pc3l-12800 1.35v micron and work pretty good, test memory ok.. very strange my new ram Corsair Vengeance ddr3 pc3-12800 1.5v is not compatible.... but 8770w with i7 3940xm support this ram ....
Now start to install M5000m... your BIOS show vbios Nvidia uefi on first installation ??

Black Arch

 

Yes, some RAM chips are incompatible with the 8770‘s motherboard.

Yes, all of my GPUs are recognized as „Nvidia UEFI“ under UEFI non csm.