HP 8760w/8770w: Replacing GPU and Switch Non-Dreamcolor monitor for a Dreamcolor

HP NBR Team:

I have two quick questions and hopefully I can get some goods replies which will have the ultimate answers. A quick background. I have an 8760w that is basically used for parts, which has a DreamColor Monitor and I just purchased a "quick ship" model 8770w (B8V69UT#ABA) should be arriving 10/23. With this said, here are my questions:

Questions 1: Is it possible to take the 8760w DreamColor Monitor and install it on an 8770w, which has the M4000 GPU (The 8760w has the M5950 GPU, so it still a Firepro variant)? Do I need to buy any additional parts?

Questions 2: Is it possible to replace the M4000 GPU in my 8770w with a M8900 GPU (The 8900 GPU is from Dell M6600)? I have seen a lot of people inquiring about this option for the 8760w, but they never seems to get a reply. Has anyone tried this before or have any relative information to share? Is it worth it or should I just keep the M4000 installed. (Lite video editing and photo editing with Adobe Elelements 10; No Gaming)

Thanks in advance for all replies. :thumbsup:

 

1) Yeah, that should be pretty easy to do as long as you're comfortable with opening up things. I assume the fitting-together of the display assemblies in the 8760W and 8770W are very similar so you may simply be able to take out a few screws and remove the display assembly in its entireity from the 8760W and just swap it with the 8770W, or you can go the more complicated way of removing the panel and the colour mapping board for the DC unit from the 8760W and mod that into the 8770W. I would go by the former route if possible. You can always swap the bezels if you don't want plebs to mistake your 8770W for an 8760W .

2) If it's a Dell card, it's probably VBIOS locked to Dell so it won't work in your HP system. I'm not sure if anybody's hacked some ways around this, somebody else might be able to help you if that's case. I'm not sure if HP offers any of their own M8900 cards (probably not) with the HP VBIOS so, if you can't hack it, you may be able to buy one of those.

 

Dysprositos,

Thanks for your reply, it is greatly appreciated. I took apart my M18x R1 and R2 and replaced the GPUs so I am pretty comfortable. Yeah, I wasn't sure on the M8900 either so I will just stick with the M4000 which should be good enough for my lite Video and Photography needs. Thanks once again :thumbsup:

 

No probs.

I would assume the 8760W DC2 setup is fully compatible with the 8770W, I have played about with things in the past and the 8760W DC board + panel hooks up fine with the 8740W and vice versa, so there's no reason it shouldn't here, especially given that the 8760W and 8770W are the same refresh. I think there's no ambient light sensor on the 8770W system, but that should not be an issue if you swap the entire assemblies, may not be an issue even if you don't.

 

typo?? the 8740w is 16x10 ( 1200 ) and the 8760w us 16x9 ( 1080 ) and wont fit. it may interface though.
although I agree the 8760w and 8770w are the same, my panel ID's are even the same in the two.

 

Yeah, like I said I was playing about with things. Wasn't trying to mod one panel into the other notebook (although I wish I could put the 16:10 panel into the newer Elitebooks). We had an 8740W with DC screen coming in, but the monitor parts were coming in separately. The lads wanted me to test the panel before the main unit arrived (cause they thought the supplier was dodgy for some reason...), so I hooked it up to an 8760W just to test it.

 

good info to know, I may try to convince my modification obsessed husband to mount an 8740w panel into an 8770w now

 

If I recall correctly, you can either swap the panels directly between two DC2 units (without swapping the color mapping boards, although I don't know what impact this has on the default stored colour profiles for each unit), or you can just swap the whole shebang, the connectors are the same and everything works just fine.

Haha, if I had the DIY skills (and equipment) to mish mash an 8740W and 60W I'd do it in a heartbeat. Please do convince him, I'd like to see pictures of this hybrid notebook on NBR. .

 

certainly has the skills and tools. as soon as I can part with a 70w for a week or two, it will possibly be complete.
he used to enjoy screen transplants and put many old r50 uxga screens into other thinkpads even when aspect ratio changed

 

The 17.0" panel should fit the 8760W chassis if the bezel is trimmed shouldn't it? Also, re. the 70W, can you confirm HP is still using the LP173WF3 SLB1/2/3 panels? I note that you said the panel IDs as reported by MDA or HWInfo are identical.

The easy way to tell is if the monitor audibly beeps all the time with the AC unplugged, that's the only reason the 8760w annoys me, but I think I'm very odd in that regard, most people don't seem to notice the noisy DC2 panel in the 60w.

 

K5000m from dell/clevo/alien will work in 8770w or will be blocked by bios?

 

As far as my quick look by specs goes it wont. Hp has different motherboards for almost every configuration out there. So even if you manage to bypass bios whitelist you will encounter power design issurs and possible thermal issues. As k5000m has much bigger power requirement and much bigger tdp. And by looking at things m4000 is mxm 3 a sized gpu and dell uses bigger mxm 3b standard so most likely it wouldnt even fit phisically inside.

Sent from my HUAWEI Y300-0100 using Tapatalk

 

So now I use eb 8770w and want put cpu 3740qm or 3920xm and k5000m. Now there is ati firepro m4000. As you wrote I think maybe nvidia 5010m will fit. Damit everything is so confused.

 

The 8760w/70w accommodate MXM 3.0b cards and someone here on the forum mounted a K5100M on a 8760w. Problem with Dell K5000M is if there is a videocard whitelist in the HP bios, but again, the K5100M mentioned previously was apparently not an HP part. May be worth a try.

CPU upgrade is hassle-free provided you have the right quad-core heatsink.

 

Yeap I ordered heatsink for quad core and for gpu nvidia. I will try to put K5000M. Also I saw that someone put K3000m to eb 8770w with intel i5 cpu, where previously was ati fire pro m4000.

 

Both heatsink got at home. Still waiting for 3920xm and will try K5100m from Hp if I find one.

 

It seems very difficult to find K5100M's from HP but it's quite possible one from Dell will work too.

 

Without any bios modification, or sth must be done before putting in?

 

Technically yes, it's possible without a bios mod, even of a 8760w, as reported here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...ebook-8760w-owners-lounge-79.html#post9479823

But I have never tried it myself so I cannot be 100% sure.

 

Bought K5000M from dell, we will see.

 

Great! Please do report!

 

Feel the power Works great.

 

Bravo!

Will start looking for K5100M, then.

 

I seems that gpu are not blacklisted. My dell gpu card is DP/N: 01KJ4N.

Do you modify your gpu bios?

 

No, no need to change anything afaik.

 

I read that they put bios from gf 680 to k5000M.

 

Is good choice to put this panel http://www.lcd-store.nazwa.pl/lcd/lp173wf3-2.jpg ? What else I need to buy?

 

A new motherboard, unfortunately. The non-DC one has a different display connector from the DC mobo...

 

Yeap I checked this. :/ Thanks for info.

 

btw, does the bios recognize the K5000M card in the system information page?

 

yes it does.

 

I will add sth interesting.

Mosty my laptop works 24h/7. Never turn off, only wne made some restars or updates. When I use option restart it only show standart VGA graphic, but when you trun off and on normally show K5000M. Still everything works fine and temps are low than in ATI.

 

Hi there. I own elitebook 8760w and I'm thinking about upgrading my stock radeon firepro to something more modern.

Because of the drivers issue I want to stick with radeon and was thinking about 7970M, lots of which are on ebay, usually came from dell alienware. At first I thought that I need only to worry about TDP and power, which should be OK, but then I read about this strange VBIOS lock, and BIOS whitelist, and stuff.

What do you think about the chances that 7970M will work with my laptop? Is there some black magic to "unlock" the vbios and "expand" the whitelist and what hardware this will require? I don't have any PGs, only the laptop itself.

 

I don't know for sure, but I doubt the 7970M would work. The HP bios will recognize Firepro and Quadro cards, but most likely not "regular" Radeons and Geforces as well.

Still, Dell's recent Precisions do work with both 7970M and GF cards - both those made by Dell for their Alienware line and those by other manufacturers -, so who knows?

Also, you could try replacing your M4000 - I assume - with a Dell M6100. Very fast Firepro card...

Lastly, the bios blacklist is not bypass-able, but then there seems to be no blacklist for the W-line Elitebook GPUs.

Anyway, if you bite the bullet, please report.

 

No, not M4000 actually, but M5950, so it would be a rocketship launch for me

notebookcheck.net tells us that 7970M is about 15% faster then M6100. Definitely not worth it, if M6100 is almost sure to work, while 7970M is almost sure not to.

 

landsome did you try with K5100? or still looking for?

 

I would not say sure to work, but much likelier.

Still looking for. Probably will settle for K5000M.

 

Yeap very hard to find, but when you find out, the price is ridiculous.

I'm still wonder why sometimes gpu random choose.

 

Is this true, I can only see two different motherboard configurations. For Dual or Quad-Core CPU options.
Found a Dreamcolor (LCD only) cheap, waiting for my 8770w to be delivered with the non-DC 1920x1080 panel in it with the M4000 GPU. Cannot see that there are any different cabling either in the service manual, unless I am mistaken. Please confirm this.


Also, for the rest of the thread. It seems GPUs are not affected by the whitelist. Only WWAN/WLAN adaptors. And for that there are custom BIOSes out there for almost all HPs. Had to get the whitelist removed for my 8730w to be able to run a PCIe card (Sound card) externally through one of the PCIe express ports. Would not boot otherwise.
In any case, I've tested and seen people use almost any GPU that physically fits in 87X0w laptops with the cooling solution.
Long due upgrade from my 8730w now..

Edit: I looked up the panels themselves, and it seems the 1600x900 / 1920x1080 non-DC ones have 40-pin connectors. And the DC has 50. What the hell.. So, new mobo, only option to upgrade? Anyone with experience with this exact "problem"?

Would you be able to buy a motherboard with a certain P/N? Service manual only lists two versions. Sounds very weird this fact would not be mentioned in the service manual. I can understand the cable between the panel and the mobo might differ, but the connector on the mobo itself..?

 

The DC needs a new connector for its FHD 10bit output - at both ends. Nothing strange about this (indeed, it would be strange if only one end of the cable differed.)

Unfortunately yes, you would need a new mobo (no idea about p/n, unfortunately); and possibly also a new screen case (the DC2 is thicker).

Partly the same situation with the Dell Precision line, though here there is a workaround (involving many parts, unfortunately) because the Precision has both connectors on the mobo: http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...ps-display-diy-upgrade-conversion-thread.html

A few people have changed the screen on the Precision because of the dual connectors, but I've heard of no such feat on the Elitebooks.

In what concerns the WWAN & co. blacklists, I don't know that there are modded whitelist bioses for the recent generations of W Elitebooks - but I may be wrong on this point.

 

Same here, browsed sites for modded bioses for W series and nothing found.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Just found it strange that it wasn't mentioned in the service manual about differing parts. What you say makes sense obviously and I will just have to give that idea up.
Just figured they had equipped the motherboard connector with the full pin count, and simply not used all pins when using a non-DC display because the lack of part numbers differing.

You guys might be right about the modded BIOS for the 8770w, last I checked I found a huge list of modded BIOSes somewhere (believe it was linked to from the 8730w owners lounge). But that was back when the 8740w had just came out.
But for the GPUs, as long as they fit - it most likely will run. Seen people put in just about any "normal" non FirePro/Quadro card in a 8760w and ran it. (within TDP of the cooling solution obviously as well)

 

Those bioses are encrypted now, which makes them pretty much impossible to mod.

Getting a cheap used 8760w feels really tempting now since the GPU upgrade is confirmed.

 

Can you give link or something so that we may se the difference in mobos's connector for the display? Just got a 8770w ( amazing laptop ) but no Dream Color. I was thinking in getting a DC panel and a new flat cable because of the 2 connexions on the display panel but I was not expecting the motherboard to have a different connector as well. Can you post by any chance a picture of what you have, a picture of the display connector of the motherboard?


And maybe you can share some light on a issue I'm having with my current display. It,s not a dream colour, it just a simple MATE FHD panel. From what I can ghader the ppi on the standard display is the same as dream colour, 127dpi. But if that is the case how come no one is complaining about the display dots. anyone can see them. I mean there are huge. Every thing looks horrible on this display. I came form a macbook pro 17" 2010. On that macbook the dpi is 133 maby? Ive checked. the difference is not that huge, it should not be so obvious. The image quality not the colour should be similar. So no one is bothered by the dot size on these 2 display's? The standard and the DC? Yeah, there may be an incredibile performance in colour quality and viewing angle, but i mean seriously, no one noticed the matrix of dot's? Why is this? Could it be that i received my laptop with a weaker screen, a smaller density dpi than the normal of 127, or is everyone annoyed by the size of the dot's. It almost looks pixelated. Am I the only one?

 

Do you have any links showing this?? I'm about to upgrade my 8560w videocard, and this would be great!

 

This is about the 8760w and 8770w notebooks. Also, you probably know this already but options for the 15" WS are more limited - you need an MXM 3.0a card. The best you can do is a K2100M...

 

You will definitely need a interposer/converter board which is pretty hard to get. HP sell this in whole display assembly,

 

Will this do?

Hewlett-Packard HP EliteBook 8760W 8770W DC line screen dream screen decoders decode board - Ugomark Taobao Agent , shopping from Taobao

 

Yes, thanks, I'm aware of that, i was thinking on getting a firepro M4000, that it's a MXM 3.0a card, will it work? I'm thinking on trying with a Radeon 3650m i have at hand just to check if the laptop takes any card that is not in the compatible parts lists.

 

3650m uses older mxm II standard i think and will not work in 3.0a port regardless of whitelist.