Upgrade paths for GPU on Clevo P150EM with ATI 7970m

So I gave up awhile back waiting for AMD/ATI to release a real upgrade and not just a rename with slightly different timing/voltage. I'm back checking one last time before I give up and go with a new desktop build. I'm running an older Premamod bios (I'll reboot for a version when I can) and upgraded just about all I want/can on this thing as is. What is killing me is the GPU. Is there some way I can jump over to NVIDIA now or is that still not possible? If not, does AMD have anything that will work with my setup that is worth a damn?

 

Be patient, Eurocom is working on a solution to fix the EC communication issue with the RX 580. If they manage to fix this somehow, we will then be blessed with an RX 580 upgrade. I don't know if @Prema nibbed a bit into this yet, maybe he will get some solution to this, but until then the best you could get is the M395x or so and that thing is only like a GTX 970M performance level or so. Be patient and lets see if some people will figure out how to get the RX 580 working on the Clevo. As far as I know, the RX 580 works, but due to the EC not being able to detect the temp sensors it powers the system down, so maybe Prema can do something about it and force the system to not shut itself down, which would be kinda risky in itself in case u mess up mounting cooling and kill something with heat.

 

I'd like to think 4 years of waiting is patient
I've already got a Calyos NGS S0 on order and when it arrives I'll likely be starting my build. I haven't had to game in a warzone for about 3 years now so really no reason not to if laptop gaming keeps me down.

 

@SMGJohn Has a GTX 1060 in that laptop. As far as I know all you need to do is add a copper shim to the heat sink for better contact, reset the CMOS and modify the driver to get it to install properly.

 

The P150EM will support a great deal of GPU's out there anything from Radeon R9 M290X to GeForce GTX 980M.
The MSI GeForce GTX 1060N 6GB and the Eurocom GeForce GTX 1070 8GB will work fine in the Clevo P150EM.
However I would rather recommend you upgrade to 1060 as the 1070 gets quite hot on the P150EM and you need to do a heatsink mod to it, considering the poor performance leap on the card over the 1060 its not worth it, you can more easily vBIOS hack the 1060 to jump the TDP from 80W to 115W and get more performance that way even surpassing the 1070 I am sure.

Here is how I did my 1060N MXM upgrade in the P150EM.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/p150em-upgrade-gpu-to-gtx-1060.798609/page-9

 

If you don't need anything portable then a desktop is better anyways. If you need performance a desktop will keep you way happier. Interesting case btw, thanks for sharing!

 

I agree with everything you say ... up to the point where you start defending the 1060 over the 1070 from a performance standpoint. Taking FS GPU score as example the highest 1060M is ~13500. Stock for a 1070M is 16000-17000 (and upper end is nearly 22000)

 

I thought you couldn't switch from AMD to NVIDIA with these laptops. Is that no longer the case?

 

No, he's refering to the post Eurocom made.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/posts/10618133/

The GTX 1070 only scores around 14k points on 3dmark2011

Spoiler

http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachments/3d11-png.150711/

This is even less than a stock 1060. That's what he's referring to. It seems the P150EM cannot fully utilize the 1070 on the system, why that is, is unknown.

@ aggie113

Who told you that? Of course you can switch from AMD to Nvidia, no issues there.

 

A bunch of 59.xx fps results in the 3dm11 graphics tests makes me wonder if they left vsync on...... Should be well over 100 fps for the first couple

That was a thing for the HM series. Had to switch bios along with gpu brand

 

Wow, i didn't see that ;_;.
Yeah looks like vsync or some weird bug is going on. The FPS are literally the same on the first 3 tests, so the vsync assumption is probably spot on.

 

I just ran mine on single GPU at a 115W power limit. I basically have it undervolted on a curve since my cards crash at over 1.03V (MSI Vortex 1070 thing) but it maintained 1600-1700MHz, 75C max

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/12453178

(actually I may have had physics running on GPU #2. let me redo it)

 

Nope, no difference
P16858
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/12453214
23k GPU score on stock 115W TDP, 75C max
It was maintaining between 0.80V-0.83V throughout.

Huuuuuge gains to be had on GP104 from undervolting even at stock TDP.

 

0.8v? That's pretty impressive!

 

I think I'll go with a GTX 1060 upgrade. I will be so happy to be rid of this 7970m and the ******** drivers that made it such a pain in the dick to play it using the dedicated GPU instead of the integrated graphics.

 

It's a good choice, I bought myself a GTX 1060 MXM as well! I can direct you to a guy who sells them for a very affordable price and provides excellent services. I'll send you a PM

 

In the non enduro models it was beast of a card... Shame really. At least optimus means you can use the 1060 and up now.

 

I would like to know also, if it's not a problem.

//edit
Btw I wonder if anyone has tried (or is it even possible) to flash GTx2vr vbios on 1060-vortex on(using this platform) clevo p1x0EM?

 

So I got the kit from Eurocom kit and it included a copper shim. I'm curious what this is for? I'm guessing it's for the base of the main heatsink but not sure.

 

It sits on the core to reduce the gap between the GPU die and heatsink due to Z height differences in the new cards most likely.

You create the following layers:

Heatsink
Paste
Shim
Paste
GPU die

 

Seems to be doing good without it for now. Checked that it was transferring paste to the heatsink. This IC diamond stuff is super thick and hard to put just a thin layer down. May do it again with something easier.

Thanks for the help, was able to get the driver suite installed after doing your steps.

 

I seem to be unable to get any games to run with the NVIDIA card. I had this issue with the ATI card so I went and made sure the 1060 was the default and even tried using the launch option for the game exes as well. Will Windows 10 let me use the driver I installed without a signature or do I have to keep booting into that mode to let it run the card's modified drivers?

 

Once a driver has been installed it should load without being in test mode.

 

Well, just reloaded windows 10 from scratch, finished loading the 388.13 moded drivers and checked my global and exe specific settings. Can not get any game to use the new 1060 card...

 

Here are our benchmarks with GTX 1060 in P150EM. We can probably get performance higher if we tune up VBIOS and provide higher TDP.

 

I don't suppose you can share how you were able to integrate the card into the p150em. Did it need a certain BIOS ver or vBios? What version card drivers were you able to use? Any issues with Windows 10 use?

 

We provide proper BIOS, VBIOS and drivers as part of our upgrade kit. For 1070 card you need to modify the VGA heatsink but for GTX 1060 you just need to change thermal pads layout. Check our website UPGRADE section for more details.

 

Would love to be provided with those... and you may want to talk to your sales associates as I was upsold the heatsink on my order when it was not needed (as you said, just pads changed).

 

It is aways better to get complete kit with VGA heatsink so you get complete set with properly installed thermal pads and heatsink that fits . Some of old heatsinks may we warped and may not provide proper heat transfer.

 

Hey man, just posting to see if you were still having issues as I had a similar one.

My GPU was installed correctly and Windows could see it, but no matter what my games wouldn't run on it (e.g. it wasn't switching from my iGPU to the dGPU).

I would recommend double-checking the "Section" that your GPU is listed under in the nvcvi.inf file. Different sections have different settings, and yours needs to be listed under a section that includes the line: "NvSupportMSHybrid = 1".

I was searching for days before I realised some other forum posts said it doesn't matter what section you put it under, when clearly it does matter.

Hope that helps!