Good old Clevo X8100 works with GTX 980m

This old gaming machine is working with a GTX 980m which I pulled from a P170SM.
Only thing to do is Heatsink and Driver modding. I also tried a MSI GTX 1070 and RX 480, but it ends in a Blackscreen. It could work in SG mode but unfortunately the X8100 only supports I7 CPUs.
And here are some pics:

 

That's pretty cool! What are you using it for at the moment?

 

Nothing special, it‘s my Allrounder

 

i love it socketable hardware baby!

 

If only the more recent models could have such a nice unofficial upgrade path

 

Yes, the worst thing that clevo had ever produced was the P150HM/P170HM.

 

The only thing is that more modern cards will no longer work as they need eDP.

 

Yes, maybe the 980m is the last one which will work. But maybe sli will work.

 

well, i loved my P150HM to death (literally lol) and it provided us with at least 1-2 gens of gpu upgrades, cant really complain there

Sent from my Xiaomi Mi Max 2 (Oxygen) using Tapatalk

 

I can say I tried several Clevo cards in my old P170HM. Didn‘t work. Don‘t know why. Only card was Clevo 680M and works only with one VBios.

 

MXM has never really been a totally clean path for any model.

 

I'm surprised this works. Apparently the X8100 has better GPU support than the HM series that came after it?

 

i could imagine that the X8100 has similar unmapped free pins that behave universally like in the legendary alienware M15x. the HM series was a bit diva-like in that it had more requirements in the pins unmapped by the official MXM spec (= free for vendors / OEMs to map as they choose)

Sent from my Xiaomi Mi Max 2 (Oxygen) using Tapatalk

 

Wow, this is awesome as hell. How gimped is that 980M with whatever First Gen i7 you're using? I'm curious to see how that girl would perform with a tricked out 920XM and some clean overclocks. 100% sure that 720QM is not enough for that 980.

Makes me want to get back into hardware tweaks/mods...

 

Yes, with a 920/40XM and my unlocked Bios I can also overclock it to hell.
I would like to get an I7-620m working with IGPU and SG-Mode, to check if 1070 etc. will work. But Bios only Supports I7 without IGPU.
Is there a Chance to Mod the Bios to support all Socket G1 CPU‘s?

 

The board likely does not have the vrm for the igpu on it nor outputs from it.

 

But strange thing is that also in PEG-Mode the Display stays black.

 

https://www.anandtech.com/show/2901

Without the gpu die you have no PCI-e or memory lanes.

 

Today another X8100 arrived with a broken screen which I got for about 66 Dollar. The seller didn’t know anything about it. So I was lucky when I took it apart. Comes with I7-940XM, 8GB Ram and 460m SLI and 2 USB3.0 Ports.
But I can’t get it working on an external LCD. Changed CPU, RAM and GPU‘s. Nothing helped. Could it be that the Mainboard is broken?

 

Or maybe the slot?

 

LVDS doesn't have a hot plug detect, so the laptop will always think it has a functional LVDS display even if one is not attached.

The analog DVI should work though if you have a VGA display. On boot LVDS and VGA should be cloned together.

 

It also doesn’t work with DVI to VGA Adapter and VGA LCD.

 

Yes no analogue output on the dvi so just dvi-d.

 

I think the only way to find out if the Mainboard is bricked is to install it in my working X8100.

 

So the Mainboard is dead. Everything seems to work but not the Display.

 

I have a old X8100 laptop. While I was searching information about how upgrade the laptop graphics card i found this thread.
If i buy a second hand gtx980m on ebay, can it work well only replacing my old graphics card? or i need to do something more?
Thanks

 

It must be a Clevo or MSI 980M. And without G-Sync. You have only to mod the driver

 

Graphics driver?? How do i have to modify the driver?
Can i buy any mxm gtx980m graphics card and replace vbios?
Thanks

 

To mod the inf file search in google. There are enough procedures. No, every 980M has to work only with modded driver. And don‘t buy a Alienware or Dell 980M. They don‘t work.

 

laptopvideo2go.com for a modified driver.

 

Can you recommend me where to buy a graphics card that can work?? Ebay?? Aliexpress??
Thank you for your help

 

EBay or here in the marketplace

 

You may also need a better heat sink depending on what you originally had for GPU(s). I had dual 285M's and had to buy the double heatsink used for newer 100+ Watt cards when I upgraded to a GTX-680M. Just thought I'd let others know just in case someone finds this down the line.

 

Yeah the 9xx cores can really eat the watts if you want to tweak them.

 

Hi guys, long time x8100 owner here. I've only posted once on this thread years ago to chime in about using a couple of engineering samples of 920 CPUs. I hope there are a few of you left who pop in from time to time that I can chat with in regards to upgrades. Both of the x8100's I built still boot up and the one I gave to my nephew still sees some use. I haven't used mine much since I started to get some artifacts in the display. Both use 460m's for gpu's, mine has 2 in SLI. I am gearing up to install a 970m in mine and see how it goes. I only have the single gpu heat syncs which is why I decided to pick up a 970. Does anyone know before I get started if I will run into trouble using the 460m heat sync? I am open to advice for any other upgrades as well. I don't have any huge hopes on performance for these laptops. I would like to squeeze a little a little more life out of these. I want to do the gpu upgrade just to show that is can be done.

 

I can say in general check the inductor locations and check core contact, might need a shim or might not.

 

Thanks for the advice Meaker!

 

If you layer them over each other and they are similar then you are probably fine. The issue is when inductors move around and interfere with other bits.

 

Here's an update on my GPU swap. I had to modify the heat sync to remove one of the "bits" in the way. I installed the card in the master slot and buttoned things back up. The bios showed unidentified cards in both slots with only 1 card installed. Booting into windows 10 the card showed up as a microsoft basic display adapter. Windows 10 had some pending updates so I let that run before I cleaned the video drivers with DDU. I ran gpu-z and the card showed up as a 970m. At some point after a windows update restart or 2 I checked device manager and the card was showing as a 970m. The driver loaded said it was from 2015. I still hadn't cleaned the driver install and things appeared to be working. I even risked letting windows update the driver for me and everything still works. I ran a benchmark to check temps and see how the card handled it. No issues with temps or crashing. The only issue I see is that I'm only getting pcie 2.0 x8. This may have something to do with the bios seeing 2 unidentified gpu's instead of only one.

So does anyone have an idea how windows loaded a working driver without a modified inf file? Also any advice on how to get x16 pcie lanes or is this hardware locked for a multi gpu setup? Either way I am calling this a success.

 

The slot is 8x only due to having 2.

 

Thanks for the reply Meaker. What do you think about the driver loading without any mods?

 

Doesn’t work. The X8100 was never sold with a card like yours.

 

heya razor0601,

my comment wasn't on whether it will work, it's on why does this work. I have a 970m in my x8100 now and it's working without any intervention on my part to the inf file. If I had to guess I would speculate that windows 10 plays loose with their own rules on drivers in order to get older untested hardware to run in the OS.

One thing that I have tested not to work is the hdmi out. What's funny about that is it's what turned me off the 680m upgrade back in the day. The dvi output still works and will pass sound with an adapter if I need hdmi output.

Thanks for your reply

 

The whole ID is the motherboard + video card. Maybe you randomly have a valid code. Or a modified system bios.

 

A little luck now and then is a good thing. I did download and update the bios from the eurocom website a number of years back which may be the culprit. I will source another 970m to do the upgrade to my nephew's x8100. I will update that progress and we will see if this was a one off.

Can anyone think of a good reason to do a couple of 970's in SLI these days?

 

Probably not unless you want to run benchmarks. Newer titles just don't scale.

 

Classic games ?

 

I've upgraded this week my x8100 with a clevo 8Gb gtx980m
It was so easy.
I've replaced my old card, put a new double modded headsink and i powered on the laptop.
W10 automatically downloaded and installed nvidia drivers and works perfectly.

 

Usually a single 970m is enough for those.