Clevo P870KM1-G upgrade -› 144hz gsync display / TM1 CPU heatsink+4th fan / 2080RTX+vaporchamber

As I have collected many info about the upgrade, I have decided to write a short sum up to share my experiences about it, if anyone is willing to do the same.

"Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale." - BJ Blazkowicz

The baseline that I have bough a EVOC/Clevo P870km1-g machine with a vapor chamber (looks like a VC TM1 version for me). I have managed to buy a 2080rtx as well, so I have planned to upgrade the 870 with the 2080rtx. As I am not an engineer guy, I have asked a guy who is a professional engineer to do hard job, I was bringing the solutions and ideas Majority of them were received here, so thanks a lot for the help of this great community!

Service unit



1. Panel
In order to have a correct gaming panel I have bought an AUO BTNHAN03.2 144hz IPS panel, which seems to be the standard panel for clevos. I have checked the forums, many ppl said it worked with gsync. So we changed the cable (30pin to 40pin) replaced the panel, and worked like charm. With cable it is a 100EUR investment roughly. Later on I will test the AUO 1440p 120hz panel and the ChiMei 120hz TN panel with the 2080rtx whether the gsync works

2. TM1 CPU heatsink
I have also talked to many ppl, I was told that the KM1 heatsink’s cooling capabilities are limited. Previously I have flatten it as much as possible, it was ok, but what I have realized that it is good upto 4,5Ghz with a 8700/8700k cpu. I have also deciced to buy the TM1 cpu heatsink modul (bought from clevo-computer) and do the upgrade. It was quite expensive 120EUR with shipping.

I have followed the following guide found in previous threads

Step1: First we had to disassembled the whole machine and the motherboard was taken out.



Step2: After the socket was removed, we had to remove the backplace with heatgun as it was glued there like hell.






Step3: You need to cut the case with Dremel in order to create enough space for the second heatsink TM1’s cpu heatsink. We have also polished it and painted with black alcohol pen to black. In this way behind the cover bars it looks almost original





Step4: From the backplace we cut 5mm. Actually it means, you need to cut the full size od the pegs from the place. You should not worry if it is not 5mm perfectly, as the pegs fits underneath to the motherboard, so the panel is wide enough the equalize them. We used Dremel, which got pretty hot after each cut, so it needed 15-20 minutes to finish all of them.



Step5: As the TM1's cpu fan has pwn, you need to rewire for km1 3 pins. After it you are good to go, so the whole machine can be assembled back.

3. 4th fan

I have bought "SEPA RADIAL FAN, 60MM, 5VDC, 78L/MIN, 28DBA" from ebay, thx for the tip for JC_denton. As I have the km1, I have planned to have 5V from the sata port. I tested the fan on 3,3V and on 5V, but on 5V it was a little big loud, so I have decided to connect to 3,3V, which seemed to have enough airflow with very silent operation. We have also soldered a small peg on the top of the cpu heatsink, so the fan is screwed with 2 bolt on the top of the heatsink securing its position perfectly.







4. Vapor chamber mod to 2080RTX
Actually I though it would be harder, and I wanted to be 100% sure that the km1 works with the 2080rtx flawlessy prior modding the heatsink.

Step1: we cut one small part of the ram cooler which was soldered to the VC with dremel, which gives the necessary layout for the 2080. I have used rainer124 thread as reference. You need to have very stable hands not to saw off the heatpipe.





Step2: instead of using other copper parts we soldered this part to the opposite site (with bismuth), so it “almost” original.




Step3: with Dremel we polished a small hole for the coil, which is approx. 1mm taller than the ram, so it needs to be carved in the copper. Unfortunately I have forgotten to take pictures, but when I disassemble the machine I will take some photos and update the thread.

Step4: putting back the gap pads and you are good to go.

5. BIOS
I used the stock bios on the km1, however under win10 the nvidia driver did not detect the 2080rtx card. In device manager I had also some pcie driver issue. With the usual nvidia inf mod, the driver can be installed though. I have flashed the 1.07.15 sdanke bios found in the thread just to try, and with that one it was working fine. I have also tried stock and dsanke 1.07.16 bios but win10 did not detect the card with neither one. All in all I went back to 1.07.15 dsanke bios as it works well, and win10 does not require any inf mod.

6. VBIOS
After the successful installation I have replace the original 150W vbios with 190W vbios, which worked fine. After I looking back I think after the first successful boot we changed the vbios, which could also cause the drive incompatibility issue. Anyways, it works flawlessly with the 1.07.15 bios.

In nutshell this was the whole story, the whole process took 6-7 hours, however we spent almost 2 hours figure out why the 2080rtx was not recognized by nvidia driver. The win10 update was also almost an hour I am still in the phase figuring out the sweet potato settings for the machine, as the 9900kf seems to be an average joe chip, I do not expect to much from it, 4,5-4,6ghz with ok temps would be fine for me. On the gpu I could add +110mhz on the core and +450mhz on mems.

Big shoutout to: @Prema @jc_denton @Mr. Fox @Papusan @DaMafiaGamer @snowy88 @rainer124 @bennyg @Erick182 @dsanke @Rahego

 

Amazing work! You can see that a lot of care was put into this project.

 

Can you host the photos in imgur.com ?

Edit: My malwarebytes premium was blocking the domain "cloudfront.net" for some reason..

Good job with the upgrade! Loved it

 

Nice work, big efforts,,,, well done.

 

Extremely nice work and pictures!

I am quite jealous.
Was thinking about going for a p870 as well, but now I am just plugging a 9900ks into my p775. If I am not satisfied with that, I will study this post in more detail!

Just curious about the 190W bios for the 2080. Do you see any issues? Some people have reported even lower clocks in certain situations.

 

I am also curious on which bios you are running on the RTX2080.

 

Now I know why this took until 4AM to finish

Still waiting for that Fire Strike temp to see CPU stability and temps

 

Then check my posts from yesterday on ph gaming laptop forum ( it was dedicated to you btw)

 

You might also find this interesting @matyee

Lapping of the 9900k + custom ihs = 27c temp drop
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/clevo-overclockers-lounge.788975/page-1792#post-10968036

 

Thx, I have forgotten this from the thread. my 9900kf is delided, lapped, tgc went under the ihs (original)

 

I have not testes with many things but under firestrike it performed well

 

Did you lap the die or ihs?

 

It is delided and the die is lapped by 0,2mm (if i remember correctly)

 

You will have increased the gap between the core and IHS is the only issue with that.

 

I apologize, but I dont get this.

 

If you lapped die 0.2mm, you have to do the same for IHS. Otherwise you will get a gap between lid and die. And I don’t talk about top of the IHS.

 

Yes the part of the IHS that touches the CPU package.

 

Thx for the info. I have asked the guy who made it. It was 0,1mm, but the IHS reaches the chip perfectly as the original soldering is around 0,1mm. So in that why I cannot see much upside anymore

 

So they shaved of 0.3mm of bottom of lid or reduced the heigh on frame for die?

 

When I lapped my 9900K and the stock ihs, I had to remove the retention bracket and use the c-clips on the opposite side to increase the mounting pressure between ihs and heatsink.

 

As far as I understood he has just removed the soldering material and that is it. removed the previous silicon frame and glued the ihs back

 

Then it’s likely that you have a gap between lid and die. The usual copper lid you buy on the web ain’t customized for lapping of die. You need custom made lid for that.

All copper lid sold is intended for thin layer as liquid metal and very thin layer of gasket glue but not for lapping down thickness of the silicon.

 

If it was just the solder it's likely not awful contact, just room for improvement if you felt adventurous.

 

The issue that under 4,7-4,8Ghz it works flawlessy under gaming or firestrike. However under aida stress test it reaches 90+

 

The die is shaved of 0.2mm on top of the removed solder. A thick layer of liquid metal will of course offset some but not enough.

 

And we have the heatsink + retention bracket lottery on top of that.

 

I am going to lap my 8086K very soon. I couldn't believe the temp reduction I've seen on others doing so. Hopefully I can get up to like 5.2Ghz. I am not really sure how well my CPU scales with voltage going 5Ghz.

 

It's not a linear scaling at that point, each additional 100Mhz comes at an increased power cost.
5.2Ghz for benching, yes. Gaming, not so much. Even at 5.1Ghz I recall BO4 pushing 5.1Ghz to limits of what I'd run daily in the p775tm1-g (8086k)

 

Plus what is that 100mhz (or 2%) going to do day to day?

 

In games, FPS wise, not much.

 

Won't do much on the thinner 8th gen silicon.

Silicon lottery said an additional 1/2 bin on top if you lap the 9900K die.

Exactly.

 

Fine for benchmarks of course but it's worth keeping that clock vs power graph in your head and choosing not too far beyond the knee where it goes way up.

 

Hi. Tell me what elements need to be protected from heating, I was concerned about the small elements at the edges. Here http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...876-owners-lounge-phoenix-3-0.800081/page-318

Modification process for rtx 2080 and rtx 2070 and radiator from GTX 1070. Let's look at the temperatures on it, then take the radiator from the GTX 1080. Who is familiar with the process of soldering of radiators, send me a PM.

 

I design a custom platform for the processor and the problem is soldering heatsink. Share your experience or soldering technology? Then I can make a quality factory-type product.
Will be able also do project heatsink for RTX 20 series of for P870KM (TM)

When separated the pad, noticed that swollen heat pipes. Perhaps the high temperature from the stove is to blame

P.S. Maybe I should create a separate topic on the issue of soldering the radiators?
Since there is little information about the technology and process of soldering them

On New year's holidays I'll make a video review of the entire line of Clevo RTX 20 Graphics card series and compare the temperatures with different radiators. I will translate the video into English for you.

 

The VRMs are the most important next to the core, next are the capacitors and then inductors.

 

Right? And whether it is necessary to take away heat from elements with a sign "?"
Under number 3 these are also capacitors?

Maybe you have a service manual for these cards?

 

No, they are low power auxiliary rails and should be left uncovered.

 

What pad height are you using in 1, 2, 3.