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

I found the problem. The main problem was the GPU vent. It was blocked by a thin layer of dust from inside. I found that out when I noticed the air flow from CPU vent was much better than GPU vent, like 5 times better. GPU vent was barely working. I had to take out the fan to totally clean it. I also had a chance to clean the VGA chips and CPU top by alcohol. I applied IC Diamond thermal paste on both CPU and GPU and Aikenuo thermal pads on GPU chips.
I contacted the person who sold me the card and asked for the make and model of the laptop that this card belonged to. It was a MSI GT72S 6QE Dominator Pro. I found the actual NVIDIA driver for that laptop and installed that.
I run all tests on the main panel, without any additional monitors. GPU never went over 75C and never throttled. CPU temp was also dropped by 10C.

Time Spy: 3013
Fire Strike: 8184
Sky Diver: 21800

I'M SO HAPPY NOW

 

Nice work, and good find on your blocked vent. Sounds like you're ready to rock and roll now.

 

@TenGauge kinda off topic, but you're the first person that popped into my head for this. I was offered a pretty good price on a 3940XM and I'm considering upgrading from my 3920XM, but I'm kinda hesitant, mainly due to this comparison I saw on UserBenchmark showing the 3920XM actually outperform the 3940XM in various categories ( http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-3940XM-vs-Intel-Core-i7-3920XM/m7092vsm5061). Did you happen to have a 3920XM before? Or do you know/have you heard anything about this before?

 

See:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=901&cmp[]=1482

Unless the 'pretty good price' for the 3940XM was in the range of 'free' or, we'll pay you $50 to take it, I wouldn't be considering this swap in a working system.

Both are good CPU's for their time (circa 2012, 55W TDP units...). Keep enjoying what you have. The grass isn't greener on the '40XM side (as you've linked).

 

Was inspired by your post to take apart my laptop again. God damn you were on to something. The area inside the fan behind the vents are a . . . the term "dust magnet" doesn't even begin to cover it. I took everything out and scrubbed the vents with a brush under running water before drying it and putting everything back together. I just booted up so I haven't had time to test temps yet but I can already feel way more air going through than normal. It was a good opportunity to redo my thermal paste as well (I don't think I used enough last time). Time to see how this runs.

EDIT: got me thinking though. can anyone think of an easier way to clean that out regularly, cuz opening this up to do that is a PITA, and that's bound to get dirty and dust filled on a pretty regular basis.

 

Didn't run any benchmarks or anything but left my system on for a while, and played some league. I'm idling like 17 degrees cooler now at 51. Temps during game were much lower than usual too. I'm happy.

EDIT: this is docked with my 3x 2560x1440 144Hz and 1x 1920x1080 60Hz displays connected btw. Previously this setup was idling closer to 68 degrees. Haven't tested undocked yet.

 

@TenGauge. Do you know if the dreamcolor panel has a 40 pin connector (not the color board). I may be able to get a dreamcolor panel on here for around $200 it looks like if these are what I think they are. If I search ebay for the part number of the dreamcolor panel itself (not the assembly), which is 688736-001, I get a ton of results for 40-pin LG panels (and I know the dreamcolor display is an LG one): https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=688736-001&_sop=15

I had to go to a few other sites to find this, but searching for the part number of the color board (which took me a while to find), 652686-001, yielded some results as well. The best I could find was http://www.radwell.com/en-US/Buy/HEWLETT PACKARD COMPUTER/HEWLETT PACKARD COMPUTER/652686-001

It would add up to about $180 if these are in fact the right parts, which is my main concern. Are you able to check this at all?

Thanks

 

The DC panel is a 50 pin connector to the color board and then the color board to the motherboard is the standard 40 pin connector. The hardware ID for the DC panel is LGD02FC. This should be the proper panel here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-17-3-L...HD-1920-1080-LP173WF3-SLB3-50pin/253117932455

This would be the color board if you can find one: https://www.terapeak.com/worth/hp-e...cable-6050a2422501-6017b0299301/361805040584/

 

Thanks for the info. does the color board also convert the lvds signal to an edp signal? I thought that ebay post looked familiar, and it's because it uses the exact same image as this other post ( https://www.ebay.com/itm/17-3-LED-L...137364&hash=item4b23498290:g:z7EAAOSwKBVZrj4-) labeled for a 17" zbook G2, which I know uses eDP.

 

Yes, I believe it does.

 

I'm about to buy a 980M to upgrade my 8770W.
Do I need a 980M with a specific VBIOS?
Will a Dell, MSI or Clevo 980M work?
Being based on Maxwell it should work with my VGA Dreamcolor screen right?

 

Yep those should all work. You just need to make sure it's an LVDS card and not eDP.

 

We have complete upgrade kits available - check our upgrade section. GTX 9xxM cards support both LVDS and eDP LCD panels.

 

Excellent! Pretty sure I'm going to go with the 980M.
However would you recommend trying to upgrade it to a GTX 1070?

 

I have read that it's possible. You may need to make a few adjustments to the heatsink to get it to fit properly, but it should work.

 

I have exactly identical setup as you man. How did you setup your RAID 0 configuration?
Read and tried everything all day long yesterday, no result.

 

Switch your BIOS to Legacy mode, then enable RAID in the BIOS, reboot and enter the RAID configuration manager (I think it's CTRL+i) when the Option ROM window comes up. Create your RAID array in there, reboot, back in to BIOS, switch back to UEFI mode, and you should be good to go.

 

Excellent! I finally did it. Thank you so much!

One trouble tortures me - every time I close the lid the goes blank. HP brightness up/down buttons don't work. On External monitor works fine. When starting in morning - screen is blank. Only restart fixes it.

Tried to flash the 980M GTX vbios however a strange thing occurs:
nvflash says:

WARNING: Firmware image PCI Subsystem ID (1462.1140)
does not match adapter PCI Subsystem ID (103C.176C).

The laptop "thinks" I have installed K4000M (the default factory gpu).

Latest bios from HP installed, No fix. Strange and seriously incredibly annoying!

 

Anyone?

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gMOZB2HPDJ-pEvSLUq5Pz-mx1qA9u6SD

(Link Above) Verified working driver for 8740w
Version 391.24
Windows 10 x64
Nvidia GTX 970m 6GB

Above is a link to my custom driver I used in my 8740w. It is version 391.24 and includes updated INF files for the 970m in the 8740w as well as a variety of Clevo and Alienware builds. You must disable signed driver checking in Windows 10 and it will install with no issue. I'd imagine if you add/edit a line in nvhmi.inf you can make it work for any other Elitebook depending on chipset.

Install was a complete success and I am so far happy with the results. Will be trying games and benchmarks later on tonight. So far I've observed 10-20C lower temps on both CPU and GPU surprisingly. Curious to see how that holds up after stress testing for a bit to factor in heat soak.

Below is the link to the how to PDF provided to me by my ebay seller (dsyzyl). He also provided me with nvcvi.inf and nvbli.inf modified for our needs but that did not work as I had to take the above steps to get my drivers installed. Figured it would be a good reference to link it in this thread. If you need those modified inf files download my zipped driver above and they are within the "Display.Drivers" folder.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzCUtaSqUXj9RFVTQzM1WDdXR0RXQlZkWDJPNlhWSVo4MEdZ

 

Worth giving my driver a shot. Pretty sure the 980m drivers are included as well.

Download and extract it and then within "Display.Driver" Open up nvcli.inf and search for your system ID (1520 in my case) and copy the line with that AND your GPU device ID (13D8 in my case) and paste it into the same location within nvhmi.inf. Example line below for my 8740w with GTX 970m.

%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.1520.103C% = Section002, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_1520103C

You will also need the device name for device manager (no performance loss if you don't do this but it will not display correctly in device manager) line copied from nvcvi.inf into nvhmi.inf. Example Below.

NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.1520.103C = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M"

Besides disabling driver signing detection on Windows 10 that's all I had to do to get this thing up and running. Also make sure to perform a clean install from the Nvidia driver installer.

If for some reason you cannot find the correct lines in the inf files you can copy and edit to your needs (I.E. replace my System ID 1520 with yours and copy and paste the same lines).

 

Hi guys, can someone just answer me a quick question please.

Would this card fit and work perfectly in my 8770w elitebook? Is there anything special I have to look for or watch out for?

I bought my 8770w refurbished last september, it has an ssd 250 and 1 tb disc, also the cpu was swapped to the i7 (i suppose, cos there is a sticker on the laptop sayin i5)

Thank you!

 

Yes this card will work, you just need to custom edit the driver file to make it work for your setup. In my 8740w with i7 920xm CPU I'm finding the 970m is the perfect amount of overkill. Very slightly bottlenecked by the CPU but it's performing awesome overall. Happy with how it looks and how it runs. I got my card from ebay seller dszxl and he was the one who sent me the custom driver information as well.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

I said this a few pages back (page 12 to be exact) but maybe it was missed? Since quite a few driver versions ago, I have NOT had to modify the drivers at all to get them to install on my 8770w. My current driver version is 388.13 (which I installed with no modification), and I'm currently updating to 391.35 as I'm typing this, and the installer started fine with no modification.

 

Any info on thermal pad size? looking for a rough estimate for the 980m...

 

I just wanted to post on here an update I had with my 8770w. I have a Core i7-3840QM (2.8Ghz base and 3.8Ghz Turbo) and a Geforce GTX 970M 6GB (w/Prema VBIOS clocked with Turbo of 1038Mhz) installed on it and the temps was getting too high for my liking. This is with Noctua NT-H1 TiM. I would see temps reach 55-60C idle and 90-95C load on the CPU while gaming and 45-50C idle and 80-85C load on the GPU. I did some research on better TiM's and what would work well in my system. Some suggested to try liquid metal. I know that there is some drawbacks and the care that would needed to be taken when using it. But when I see people posting drops of 15-20C under load, that pushed me to try it.

I picked up some Cool Laboratory Liquid Ultra compound and slowly + CAREFULLY pasted it on the CPU and GPU. You only need VERY LITTLE of this stuff on the CPU and GPU die. You can put some electrical tape on the outer edges of the die so it prevents leakage to the metal contacts. (Which if it does make contact...bye bye CPU/GPU) The pasting was surprisingly easy. I was worried about the temps when I installed the 970M and 3840QM due to them being high powered parts. I had a right to worry when I was getting temps before applying the liquid metal on. But I gotta tell you this stuff is insane when it's put on correctly.

I now have temps 38-42C idle and 80-85C Max on load for the CPU. (Most games have 70-80C under load unless the game is CPU intensive). The GPU got even better temperature drops, So much that I had thermal headroom to OC the 970M! I set the core clock to 1157Mhz and put 2620Mhz on the Shader clock. The card is actually clocked a little faster than the stock 980M right now! Temps for the GPU idle at 36-42C and reach 70-75C on full load. All of this of course can change depending on the ambient temperature in the room.

I was thinking about selling the 970M and getting the 980M instead, but as it stands now, I already get great performance out of this machine. I will keep it the way it is. All coming from a laptop that is over 6 years old!

 

I upgraded my 8770w with firepro m4000 to nvidia k3100m with new larger heatsink. the k3100m is new one, HP one.
First it was black screen with display output only from DP port. I used Display port and used nvflash dos version to flash dell vbios to the card. The display was then output from laptop screen, and no DP. I was able to login with basic display driver and k3100m recognized,but with basic display driver.

I downloaded nvidia driver from nvidia website and installed the driver, but when i restarted, there were multiple screens, green flickering all over the laptop screen and no output from DP port.

In upset situation, I again flashed another HP vbios. Now I am stuck with black screen both in laptop and no output in DP port.

I tried to used blind flash (changed boot order to run from usb drive at first before looking hard drives) too using the backup original firmware I created, but now I am stuck and when I type in using keyboard, I start to get beep sounds on pressing every keys. CAn some body explain why I am getting such sound?

Finally, please anybody has a solution to get the k3100 back to original bios state. I am desperate need of some expert advice.

 

Liquid Ultra is definitely one of if not the best liquid metallic TIM the only problem I have with it is that it requires a more frequent replacement interval. I hate having to strip the notebook down to do the job so I decided it was worth slightly higher temps to not have to fuss with it for presumably the rest of the time I'll have the notebook.

 

Has anyone managed to resolve the problem with grayscale of the DC display and nVidia GTX graphics?
I installed GTX 780m on my HP 8760w and now I can clearly see some banding in grayscale...the transitions between the colors in grayscale are not smooth even for 8bit panel...

 

I finally caved and ended up opening up all my laptops and replacing all thermal compound with IC Graphite. I haven't had any issues with temps since switching. As far as I can tell, if there's any difference in performance vs standard paste, it's a degree or so at most. Personally, the peace of mind I get from knowing I'll never have to tear everything apart to repaste far outweighs that.

Currently using IC Graphite in my multiple 8560w's, 8570w, 8770w, and ZBook 17 G4, and I couldn't be happier. The material is easy to work with. It's a bit fragile, though more durable than I was expecting. You can cut through it easily with scissors or a razor blade (though probably not a Razer Blade ) to fit to size. I was able to cut out enough for the CPU and GPU for 2 laptops from a single sheet and still have some left over. The only tricky bit (not really) was positioning it and keeping it in place due to how lightweight it is. It is electrically conductive so you have to be careful with it. I noticed little pieces can come off of it if you don't cut it cleanly, and I'd suggest not having those flakes floating around in your system.

If you ever upgrade the CPU or GPU, or decide to sell or dispose of the laptop, the IC Graphite can be removed, re-cut to fit, and reused in your next system, with no performance loss. It's completely moisture free so it'll never dry out, and with the proper care (and if by luck, you never have to resize it), it could theoretically be used hundreds of times over before wearing out.

 

Anybody??

 

Seriously? It hasn't even been 12 hours. This doesn't make anyone respond any faster.

 

=OFF=

 

This actualy made me not want to answer your question. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@ Verklärung
How does the graphite hold up vs LM?

 

I am sorry if I have offended someone. It wasn’t my intention.

I would be very grateful if someone help me with advise.

 

To be obtusely literal, it holds up much better than liquid metal since you never have to replace it. But temperatures don't compare at all. It's comparable to paste and I've found my temps are within a couple degrees, if even that much, of paste. My 8770w and ZBook 17 G4 both have pretty powerful GPUs (a GTX 980M and Quadro P5000 respectively) that can run on the warmer side, and I haven't noticed any loss in performance. The main reason for using it isn't because of the amazing performance gains; rather the main selling point is never having do thermal compound related maintenance again, especially on systems like AIOs and laptops which can be annoying at best to open up repeatedly.

And I'm sure someone will add something when they have something to add. Until then, you're stuck with me, and if you really want an answer that badly from someone who has nothing useful to contribute, I guess here you go:

I don't have that display, that system, that GPU, or that issue, therefor I have not managed to resolve the problem with grayscale using that hardware.

 

In your NVIDIA control panel you havbe options to set the color range and bit of the panel.

Depends on the system. I literally have to lose 2 screws, take a plate off, loosen 3/4 (depending on what I want to repaste more screws and take the heatsink of. Worth the extra tempgains.

I do get the appeal for pain in the *** to open notebooks that don't have OCed hardware tho.Neat to know, I might get it for "repaste" of notebooks that dont need high performance Tim.

 

For ZBooks/8770w (they're all roughly the same) you gotta remove the security screw (yeah I use that), ~9 torx screws that hold the bottom case (newer ZBooks) or top cover (8770/older ZBooks), 2 or 3 screws for the keyboard (older), 3 or 4 ribbon cables (older), a few more connectors for the fans, and finally the screws for the heatsink(s). It's not terrible, but a nuisance.

Another idea for using IC Graphite is if you're putting together a system (desktop or laptop) for family or friends who you know won't regularly maintenance the system, whether that's a build from scratch, or even if you're just tuning up a laptop for someone. I've taken apart some new gaming laptops and such for friends just to replace the crap stock paste. I'll be replacing it with IC Graphite going forward unless it's for someone who knows how to service it themselves.

 

I’ve done this, 10 bpc is selected, still there is visible banding/gradience in grayscale...

 

Do you know for a fact that it's not the source?

 

Definitely not, if you mean by “source” the file I am using to check the grayscale.
I did test it on another system with Intel Integrated graphics and 6+frc bit laptop IPS screen and the grayscale looks much better than on my 8760w with DC2 panel and GTX 780m. This problem appears exactly the same on Win 8.1 and Win 10...

 

Changing that many variables doesn't help much.. What about the same system with a different gpu?

 

That would be a problem...I don’t have another and would be difficult to order a new one...
Another guy here tried Quadro K5000M and has faced same problems with the grayscale...I still do think there is some software incompatibility between DreamColor panel and nVidia Kepler based GPUs...or maybe hardware...

 

You also need to enable full color range, on default it's just on 16 - 235, set it to 0 - 255

 

How can I do that?

 

I changed my card with GTX 980m, but now when I install nvidia driver, my screen goes black after restart and only DisplayPort sends signal to my Samsung TV.
DC2 screen remains black, and there is no “monitor” in device manager, once the nvidia drivers are installed...
What is the problem? I thought that GTX 980m is fully compatible with 8760w DC2...
What to do now..?

 

Is there any proof of this?

did you check the vbios?

 

Can you provide the hardware ID of the card?

 

Sure - 13D7

 

I think I just was too optimistic because of posts of @artpra in this thread...

The vbios is the original one from Clevo - 84.04.2F.00.79

I don’t know how to flash the vbios on my system as long as I can’t see the option “disable” when I go to “device manager”=>”display adapter” and right click on it...this was on Win 10, today I will check on Win 7 via DP port.
Is it safe to flash the vbios without disabling graphics driver from “device manager”?