P170EM & 1070 MXM - install, mods, nvidia inf mod (with photo)

continuing from a 1060 6GB MXM
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...nstall-mods-nvidia-inf-mod-with-photo.813384/

this was completed November 2019.

1060 & heatsinks




new 1070 side by side


Stock case



airflow mods





removing the 1060


some fancy copper after cleaning the fans


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MOCKUP 1070 to note chassis mods




now cut




Capacitor problem



removing capacitor under 1070


Mouser:
667-2SEPC560MW
2SEPC560MW
Panasonic Aluminum Organic Polymer Capacitors
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/panasonic/2sepc560mw/?qs=OE1iw1LrrPGEncoJFpEHsA==

new cap moved




some test fits


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https://www.amazon.com/Arctic-Silver-Premium-Adhesive-ASTA-7G/dp/B0087X7262

the big heatsink modding -- doublestack heatpipes





double stack heatpipes



old heatsink



filling gaps with silver epoxy etc


CPU & GPU heatsink were polished
i also tested raising the heatsink 1mm, eventually reverted this



putting the stickers back on the heatsinks


finale






this laptop was a 680M originally
replaced with 980m -> 1060m -> 1070m


the nvidia .inf mod was required as usual in windows7
no inf modding required in linux, i did not even have to reinstall the driver in linux.

linux - unigine: super position benchmark


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also note i use an official MSI 330watt psu
OEM Delta 330w 19.5v 4p AC Adapter for MSI



Admittedly, the GPU temp is quite high, peaking around 91C
i need to do more surgery and i have some new stuff here for a few changes.
although it peaks at 91C it throttles PWR quite well, and maintains 90-91C
peak power measured was around ~128Watts using nvidia-smi
it frequently goes from 100-117watts

no problems with Intel/Nvidia Optimus using PRIME

 

Did you get a benefit from doubling up the heatpipes? I'm worried you lost more through airflow loss than you gained with transfer efficiency.

 

i tested the 1070 before and after
there was not much of a difference,
indeed the gain from more pipes might counter the loss of airflow
still a fun mod
im not advocating or recommending someone do it...

atleast especially on this laptop chassis
OTHER styles of heatsink can benefit from similar ideas
but not these chassis heatsinks.

 

I have the same upgrades as you (I own a P170SM). Actually I had to remove 16GB of RAM because of random BSOD appearing in windows 10, apparently due current issues (230W adapter). Did you have to weld another kind of capacitor in orden to adapt a 330W PSU, some kind of modification? Do you think is possible to use a 330W adapter on a P170SM?

 

Also. It got my attention that you´re using linux on a model like that. Besides the graphic driver., did you have problems with other kind of drivers (backlit keyboard, camera, etc)?

 

I have used a 330w PSU in my P170EM from day one, no issue. Excess PSU capacity is not a problem, the laptop will only draw what it needs. Your heatsinks will be the limiter of how much power is used over an extended time, because temps.

91C is the 1070 thermal throttle point, you will experience poor performance as it bounces off the limiter. I experienced similar on my P370EM when it was using the stock heatsink (same one as your P170EM). You should 'undervolt' (aka. turboboost curve volt cap) the 1070 as much as you can, that can bring it down below 90C with .9V or .95V.

 

Thanks for the reply.

It is not the excess PSU that worries me but the lack of it.
Since I made these improvements I have not stopped receiving a report of current throttling with the XTU tool (image attached).



The issue of temperature has not been a problem in my case, only the one with current. My current question is if upgrading my PSU maybe could solve this problem and even ables me to upgrade to 32GB or RAM again?

Maybe undervolt the GPU could solve the problem if I´m wanting to keep my current PSU but seeing this post I´m willing to change it if it solves this only issue.

 

Where the heatpipes are is less efficient too, really you would want one set above the heatsink and one set below for best thermal flow.

 

Hey guys... do you think that an 4940mx can hold an 1070?? sometimes i think that what hinders the GPU now is the CPU :/

Some light?!?!

 

At high FPS's, the CPU is the bottleneck, depends on what games you are playing of course, but what made me reconsider upgrading to a 1070 is in games like Shadow of Tomb Raider there are areas that I drop to 45-50Fps's and its because my CPU is maxed out with even my paltry 980m hovering around 75-80% on those zones. The same happens on The Division 2, and on many other games.

 

If you can hold around 4Ghz then anything not needing more than 4 cores should run well.

 

ohhh thanks for the info man

 

That's around the level you are looking at really at gaming loads.



Might be of interest.

 

1st question, do you have prema system bios. That may fix a current limit issue. I have never seen a current limit in my p170em with prema even when I boiled a 3920xm ES in it for a short time doing some benching at 4.2-4.3ghz.

I don't know specifically about the P170EM but I do get a current limit issue on the P370EM that drops the CPU to 1.2ghz when wall draw exceeds 540W - it is a motherboard/platform limit of some sort. If I set the power limit for the GPUs above 170W and load everything up it occurs. Set the power limits to 170W it never happens. This is not an adapter issue - as two 330W will handle over 600W wall draw with the P870DM3 (9900K + over-powered GTX1080s). The Deltas are usually fine with 300W, they do get hot if buried somewhere without some airflow to dissipate the waste heat, and they are reported by others to handle spikes up to 400W (not tested that myself)

 

The motherboard itself only has certain power limits after all.

 

So I see quite a few issues here in regards to the GPU heatsink in general. When I personally ran the same card in my p157sm-a I did a mod much like yours, and here are the issues i see;
1. The added heatpipes do nothing except keep heat circulating within the pipes. Since they are stacked, there is a failure in the way that these heatpipes transfer heat. If the bottom rung of the heatpipes heat too quickly, by the time that the thermal transfer hits the top heat pipes, there is already heat from the first layer saturating the heatsink. This causes a vicious cycle of delayed response to heat and essentially the top heatpipes do nothing to aid the reduction of heat
2. The die cooling itself is negatively affected by the addition of the shim with solder. The shim itself can be a good idea, but unless it is attached with a high-thermal conductivity metal like silver or copper, or even indium, you are creating a thermal choke. If you used silver bearing solder, at the best case, there would be roughly 70~w/mk transfer, but likely less due to an imperfect mating between the shim and the heatplate.


3. There is nowhere for the heat from the second pipes to go to. since there is already a layer of heatpipes secured to the heatsink, the thermal transfer is compromised as there is simply no way for the second layer of heatpipes to transfer heat to.
4. The solder on the heatsink for the second layer of heatpipes looks more of an issue than anything else. The heatpipes are distorted and evidently not smooth like they were from the manufacturer. where these heatpipes connect look less like a layer of reasonable mating and instead a deeply imperfect adhesion to the heatsink.

If you are serious about these mods, i would recommend doing what i did (although i lost my p157sm-A and the pictures of the mod i made) and create your own heatplate that is thicker than the current one to increase thermal mass, allowing you to have a solid block without a heat-choke. Increased thermal mass is important, and a proper channeling system from the plate to the heatpipe is crucial. Then, instead of using any regular solder, use a scientific SnAg 96.5/3.5 alloy. if you need increased thermal transfer, go with some of these heatpipes from digikey.
https://www.digikey.com/product-det...-inc/ATS-HP-F9L250S70W-015/ATS2155-ND/5049698

Just these two items (increasing the size of the heatplate, and replacing the actual heatpipes) will be enough to see you down to about 40-60c.

 

Stacked on the core side is fine if you layered the heatsink end as being top and bottom of the fin stack.

 

It Would be fine if the stack on the core side had somewhere to dissipate heat on the fin side. since it looks like there are no fins interleaved with the old heatsink, the stack has nowhere to put its heat besides back into the heatplate for the core side.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/clevo-870dm-g-and-msi-gtx-1070.806987/

merhaba 86.04.80.00.60 bu vbios uyumlu p870dm-g?

 

Just to clarify. I own a P170SM. I´ve already bought the 330w adapter, nothing changed. I had to try I guess. And yes. Looks like a very non-usual problem. I wouldn't bother me if it only were the current limit warning but there is also the BSOD related with the GPU current.

To answer your question, I bought de GTX 1070 from eurocom, so they provided me with the modded BIOS (I think is a variation of the prema mod but I don´t know if they differ in something though). Checking the BIOS there is no available option to control CPU current from there unfortunately. Right now I followed your advice and made a CPU/GPU undervolt using intel XTU and MSI afterburner, hoping for the BSOD to dissapear.