HP EliteBook 8770w and 970M 6GB and 980M 8GB - they work!

Quick update: My friend recently purchased a zbook 17 G2 that I helped him replace the GPU and CPU thermal paste on, and I noticed something I hadn't seen before (and it never would have occurred to me to try this if I hadn't seen it here). The zbook came with a thermal pad (one of those floppy blue ones) directly under the center of the GPU between it and the motherboard. I'm curious to see how much this helps and I'll be trying it on my laptop soon.

 

All that means is hp intended to disipate some heat from the gpu to that section of the mobo which strongly suggests they tested it to make sure it did not cause mobo problems

 

I mean, yeah, I get that. but the two devices have nearly identical layouts and I already have a ton of heat going through that section of the mobo.

Besides, you're suggesting that I don't try something based on the fact that the manufacturer hasn't approved it? On a thread dedicated to sticking a 970/80M into a 2012 Elitebook? On a forum filled with bios hacks, unofficial configurations, swapping parts between several generations of products, literally taking power tools to computers to fit MXM type B graphics cards into unsupported laptops and to fit 16:10 displays in 16:9 computers, and other completely over the board hard mods?

God forbid if someone here does something non-HP-tested like adding a square inch of thermal padding. :O

lol.

 

A bit of an over the top re-action to a small cationary statement from a fellow modder no?

 

I just scored a decent deal on an MSI 980m on eBay, will this card work in my 8770w currently equipped with a k4000m without much fuss?

 

Might have to flash a different vbios as mentioned earlier here, but I can't see problems other than that.

On second thought the only other issue that comes to mind is if you happened to get a g-sync version, which I believe would make it incompatible. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Thanks for the reply. Is the only way to know if it's gsync to put it in and give it a go? Nothing was mentioned in the listing about it.

As for the vbios flashing I keep reading about. Is this something that keeps the card from working at all and needs to have a hard flash done or does the card still work but isn't recognized correctly and can be flashed while installed and running? Has anyone written a guide on how to flash a new vbios by any chance?

Thanks!

 

@artpra Will any current version of the nVidia drivers work with this inf mod, or did you have to use a specific driver set like the icafe Chinese drivers you were reportedly originally using at the beginning of this post? I am trying to get my ducks in a row for when my 980m comes in to make a smooth transition. Thanks!

 

@artpra's last big post explains pretty much everything. but to sum things up, I used prema's mod with latest nv drivers

 

Did you find Prema's a necessary step to get it all working?

 

MSI 980m in and working with no trouble in an 8770w. Quick and basic inf mod was all that was necessary. Also had to swap the heatsink bracket from the Quadro to the 980.

 

3dMark results below.

3940XM, MSI GTX 980M, 32gb RAM, 2 x Samsung 850 EVO 256gb SSD (Intel RAID 0), Standard Full HD Display

Stock vBIOS, stock inf modded nVidia driver v. 385.41

 

so.. I'm not sure what to make of this, but I don't want to tinker around too much right now since it's working perfectly. I upgraded to the fall creators update on my Win 10 machine (the same 8770w i've posted about before on this thread). When I booted up, nvidia drivers were uninstalled and attempts to reinstall the version I had in c://nvidia/ were failing, even after wiping everything with DDU. As a last attempt, I downloaded the latest drivers from nvidia (388.13). I completely forgot to do anything (mod the inf file, reboot with driver verification off, etc) and just ran the installer. It passed everything the first time and installed all the software with no errors. Can anyone else confirm this???

 

I'll check tonight when I get home from work. I let that update install after I got up to leave my computer for the night and never checked it again.

 

how are your temps though? Keeping this thing cool has been my biggest issue. I'm on the 3920xm though so I bet your rig runs even hotter D:

 

Interestingly enough I don't seem to have any pressing thermal issues, granted I've never tried to game with it not docked. At my dock I have a laptop cooling pad setup underneath it to help keep things cool, but I've never noticed any throttling or overheating while undocked. I'll be insider her tomorrow night though as my second Dreamcolor display should be coming tomorrow. I pray this is the last time I have to swap screens, it's a total pain in the ass taking out all of the screws and routing the stupid antenna cables through the bottom case.

 

Really? I frequently hit the high 80s and low 90s depending on my settings unless throttle the core clock and memory clock using afterburner.

 

My drivers have gone caput as well....

 

try what I did. wipe with ddu and install latest from nvidia site. see if it needs modding or succeeds without doing so.

 

Yep, worked like a charm. I didn't even DDU the old drivers. I just installed latest WHQL's from nVidia's site and worked a treat. So strange. Thanks for the tip!

 

This must be a Nvidia thing right? The windows update wouldn't affect driver compatibility with nvidia's whitelist. Surprised they're approving self modded builds like this now.

 

It's very strange but at the same time I never really understood the point of locking the drivers to specific model and card combo's unless it was solely because they didn't want to be bothered by people emailing about compatibility issues. I haven't checked the driver package yet but is it still using the same set of inf files or is it different now?

 

I ran a diff on the two nvcvi.inf files I have (the one I modded in 382.05, and the latest from 388.13) and there are a TON of differences between the two, including what looks like hundreds of lines near the middle of the new file that don't exist at all in the old. In fact the new file is .2MB larger than the old.

 

Wow. Sounds like big changes then, glad nVidia has given some power back to the consumer!

 

Hey everyone,

I found this forum and this topic recently. I've got a 980M at a good deal on eBay. After following everything on this discussion I managed to install the driver. I downloaded the 388.13 driver and my windows 10 64-bit is up to date, but still I had to mod the driver. I modified nvhmi.ini since it was for HP laptops. My device id is 1617 but the only driver available in that file belonged to device id 13D7. Anyway, I installed that one. Everything looks good except the GPU throttles every time it hits 80 C. The core frequency drops significantly (from 1034 to 680-840). I've never gotten the results posted on this discussion. The first thing in the morning (the whether was cool) I opened the window and turned on the laptop, run the Sky Diver benchmark. First result was 17544. Right after that run it again, result was 16233. Run it for the third time in a row, result dropped to 14128.
I was so excited to turn my old workstation laptop to an ultimate gaming laptop at first. Eventhough the result are far better than my old K5000M, this throttling issue bothers me because I don't get the most out of this setup. Is there anyway to overcome this issue?

Update:
Btw, my GPU heat-sink is the full-size dual pipe one

 

Did anybody try to run GTX 1060 or 1070 in 8770W? We have standard size MXM3 82x105mm GTX 1060 and 1070 available. Check pics below.

 

Would have to modify the heatsink slightly, but probably not a hard task to make that card fit. I don't think it's really an issue with the size of the card as much as the 10 series cards not supporting LVDS and only eDP?

 

I believe if you flash your card with a Prema vbios it will increase or even disable the thermal threshold before throttling.

 

But would that be dangerous? Clearly, the cooling setup cannot keep the GPU cool enough. I fear that melts my laptop down.

 

Another question is, what type of thermal paste and pad I should use? The original pads were flexible and sticky, but I got a Arctic paste and pad which is not anything like that. I also was thinking of modifying the heat-sink and turning it to a water-cooling system. I don't know if it's worth it. Haven't done anything like that before.

@TenGauge and @Verklärung did you guys add extra pads and paste? It appears your results are better than mine.

 

I am using IC Diamond on the GPU and new thermal pads on the VRM. Applying the proper amount of paste in the correct method is absolute essential to proper thermal transfer, the rice grain drop in the center method is the most efficient application technique.

 

I never actually replaced the pads. I used the ones that came with the heatsink, plus added some from my old heatsink for the half-sized card to get some of the chips that weren't covered by the existing pads. I did replace the paste with good ol' gelid GC extreme. Also using prema's mod.

My card runs ok but demanding games (e.g. overwatch at ultra settings) will easily put it over 90 unless I lock it to a max temp in afterburner. With less demanding games (e.g. League) I usually throttle both the mem clock and the core clock as far down as they go and that keeps it from overheating with no performance hit.

As I've mentioned before, I also purchased this ( https://www.amazon.com/Temperature-...1510352566&sr=8-5&keywords=laptop+cooling+fan) which I keep plugged in and running at full speed when docked at home. Essentially a USB powered external fan that mounts to your laptop and sucks the hot air directly out of it through the vent. I've measured up to 5-10 degree drops situationally using this cooler.

 

you mind tracking your core clock, mem clock, and temps the next time you're gaming? Curious to see what temps you're hitting and when you're getting throttled if at all.

 

Definitely.

What do your idle temps look like out of pure curiosity?

 

Granted, not the most taxing game, but settings on ultra, max AA. Gets about 20deg warmer when I am docked and playing on my 4k monitor.

 

whats your clock speeds when it's at 30?? Mine's idling at around 65 degrees at the moment...

 

I'll check tonight, not sure but I am not using any kind of modded settings or vbios so at idle it should be throttled back a substantial amount.

 

135mhz core and 162mhz mem @ idle.

 

ah, I realized my gpu wasn't going down to idle speeds due to being in high performance mode in the nvidia control panel. I tried changing it to optimal or adaptive, but apparently there's an issue that others have reported as well with nvidia cards not going to full idle when multiple high refresh rate displays are connected. I'm running three 144Hz 2560p displays and one 60Hz 1080p display currently, so at idle, I'm now getting a 835MHz core and 2505MHz mem. Temp is currently sitting at 68, which feels a bit high. I'm thinking I might have to open this back up and reapply the heatsink or something. Like I said, I regularly hit 90+ temps and get throttled in demanding games.

 

I didn't look but that's definitely true because mine usually idles at about 50 when I'm docked and displaying through my 4k monitor.

 

Would you please run a benchmark, like sky diver and see if you throttle at high temp? I’d like to know the highest temp and corr/mem clock during that time.
29 c is great, were you docked at that time? How many monitors were connected? What cooling panel you use under the laptop? Is it custom made?

 

Have anyone here tested Dell Precision M6700? I checked its cooling system. It’s like it has a better heatsink. 3 copper pipes, and copper plates on vRAMs. I don’t know about the fan and ventilation tho :-/

 

Yep I'll check that. I'm out of town for the weekend now it when I get back will do.

My 29-30 idle is undocked using built in display. When I'm docked my idle is about 50 with a single 27" monitor at 3840x2160 resolution. I know for sure I don't get throttled when using the built in display. Might be when gaming at 4k.

 

Yeah, tested mine undocked today. Was getting similar idle clocks to yours and it ran pretty cool. Like I said before, when docked I'm running 3x 2560x1440 displays at 144Hz on displayport and 1x 1920x1080 display at 60Hz on VGA. My core stays at 835MHz and memory stays at 2505MHz. Idle temp right now is 68 degrees. Really wish there was a solution to cool this better. I'm almost at the point of just wanting to pay someone with hardmodding experience to do some of those crazy extra heat pipe mods on it and shipping it out to them. If anyone knows better solutions, lmk.

 

Verklärung and TenGauge what is the room temp for you guys? I was wondering if my room is a little bit warm :-/

Me too, I'm kinda leaning toward doing the same thing. My results are worse than you guys :-/ . I think the thermal paste, thermal pads and the room temperature are the main reasons here. I don't want to think the card itself has problem -_-

 

room temp varies. but I don't think it's too much of an issue unless you're in arizona in the middle of a 120 degree summer with no AC lol. I can tell you for sure, if you're using the right drivers, and you don't have external displays connected, it should idle at around the same clocks as we've mentioned here (not my higher clocks when docked), and your idle temp should be around 30º C

@TenGauge Where did you get your dreamcolor panel btw? I want one so much.... did you get the full display assembly or just the panel? if just the panel, where'd you track down the color board?

 

I can't tell if the driver is the issue. I'm a newbie in term of these driver stuff. I modified the HP driver in nvhmi.ini. There were only one HP laptop on the list with the different deviceId (Mine is 1617, and it was 13D7). I don't know how to verify if that's the right driver. I believe your new driver installation didn't need any modification as you mention before. What driver had you been using before that?
Is there any website to identify laptops and their models based on their ids?

 

The prior posts on here gave pretty clear guides on how to mod the drivers. Not sure what you did with nvhmi.ini but I think everyone here modded nvcvi.ini as directed earlier. I listed my two driver versions (current, and prior) on the last post I made before you joined.

 

I got it on eBay as a complete assembly, I paid ridiculous money for it, and had to send it back once for a panel replacement, the brand new panel they had put in it was defective and they didn't test it before sending it to me, the second replacement panel was perfect however.

You can read about the whole fiasco here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/to-dreamcolor-or-not-to-dreamcolor.809350/#post-10629692

 

You are right, but nvcvi.ini belongs to Clevo and another brand. Clevo laptops are more chunky than 8770w and have better cooling system if I'm correct. I modified nvhmi.ini because it belonged to HP brand. I tried nvcvi.ini but I sensed no difference. Do you think re-installing the OS would help?