*** OFFICIAL Sager NP8760 / Clevo W870CU Owners Lounge ***

That's right, the original PSU can't handle the 100W GPU, but there is obvious a problem with the detection of the gpu.
It doesn't shut down suddenly, the three sensor lights obove the keyboard are starting to blinking every second after 30 secs and after ~1:30 mins it goes off. The PSU light is not blinking during this, so there's something wrong with the bios.
I also only get a screen when I attach a monitor through dvi, the integrated one is dark.
It should be makable to mod the bios and switch out the 280m pid and vid against the 680m ones, so it can't complain

First I bought a Dell 7970M, there it was similar instead that it also started to beep and I had no picture everywhere.

Edit: I gave up, it's not working in my notebook. So I assume it doesn't work in W760CU general.
I go for the upcoming AMD parts

 

Feel free to use color profile using i1 Display Pro.

 

I noticed that due to my swollen battery pack, laptop didn't recognize it and it wasn't being charged at all for some time. I seems to be a design flaw in W870CU, there is no lock near the battery contacts that would keep them connected even in case of a lightly swollen battery pack. So I decided I would just cut out the batteries and keep the bottom plastic cover undamaged so that it could attach properly. But when cutting out the top plastic cover, I noticed that it was mostly just the plastic cover that was swollen, not batteries. One battery was swollen by about 1mm, which is nothing major considering it's thickness. Batteries weren't damaged by the procedure. If batteries are too swollen and have no capacity left, it will be probably better to fully remove them.

It would be nice somebody made a guide how to replace batteries in the W870CU battery pack.

 

@damascus_steel I'm pretty sure, as in every laptop battery pack, you would need to reset the chip inside the battery pack. If you change the cells and don't reset, the "new" battery pack behaves like the old because the eletronic thinks that the cells are bad. But how to reset the chip, is a very good question, I wanted to do this about 2 years ago and found no informations about that.
I would suggest buying an external power bank with 20v output port if you want to stay "mobile", its cheaper than an original battery.
My battery was okay for one year, after that all cells were swollen and 5 minutes time on battery, that's not worth the price.

 

Part of the issue is these machines could actually draw a lot of power for the time in very short period of time.

 

Hey guys, i just figured out why my machine won't boot any linux based operating system anymore since two years: The EDID of the built in monitor seems to blank, so linux can't detect its resolution and so on. Windows just uses a generic one, which works only there.
Can someone post this? There is a free tool where you can read it out: Phoenix edid designer
I have a 1920x1080 Glare Display, maybe someone with the same display could do this?

Edit: I managed to flash a new EDID, now its working perfectly

 

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470M in my CLEVO W870CU has failed.

After 10 years of loyal service it has finally bit the dust. It is time for an upgrade (sort of).

I have seen success stories with the AMD Radeon HD 6970M and maybe even the 7970M?

What was the latest GPU supported by the W870CU and can you suggest a suitable VBIOS?

Thank you kindly!

CLEVO W870CU
150W Power Supply
BIOS 1.00.18
EC 1.00.11

 

I'm not sure if the 9xx series was ever tried. Later than that needs eDP.

 

Do you mean like a GTX 970M? I've not seen any examples of people trying that either.

From what I have seen (in these threads) is the RADEON 6970M works and success is possible with the 7970M.

What I can't work out from reading this is what to do about the VBIOS. I've seen the lists on https://www.techpowerup.com/ but there are so many! Which is best for W870CU?

 

No idea, it has been so long. I know the HM is super picky but yours less so IIRC.

 

I keep seeing this HM and IIRC mentioned, what are they? I don't understand the abbreviations.

 

Generations, HM, EM, SM.

 

As in the Chipset; CLEVO W870CU Chipset Intel PM55?

 

No as in the clevo models.

 

Ahhh the penny drops. So mine is the CU generation I presume. EM seems to be mentioned the most frequently from what I've seen.

 

It was a popular series, also the first using Optimus which has helped for GPU compatibility.

 

Well, I seem to be narrowing things down.

Users have definitely had past success with the 7970M in a W860CU and the W870CU is also mentioned (I think the only difference between the two was the USB version and screen size).

Card version is also mentioned but which had success differs; V1.0 or V1.1 or V1.2?

What I cannot find is an example of a working VBIOS for the 7970M.

Eurocom no longer stock them so I cannot get one pre-flashed and they also said they lost their VBIOS database during a server crash.

So if anyone has a VBIOS for the 7970M (W860CU/ W870CU ) I would be most grateful.

W870CU (17")
BIOS 1.00.18
EC 1.00.11

 

Have gathered quite a few of them:
AMD HD 7970M vbioses.7z

The ' v022_e_AFR_MFR_7970M_dell_119.rom' worked for me on the W870CU using a v1.0 card from an Alienware system.

 

A server crash took their long term data? You would think they would take a backup at least every so often.

 

Thank you, that certainly gives me something to work with. Wow so an Alienware (Dell) card can work in a Clevo? I always thought they were dead end option.

Yeah that's what they told me after they said they don't have those cards in stock anymore. I was hoping they might at least be able to tell me which VBIOS they used but looks like the knowledge is lost.

 

I've managed to get my hands on a CLEVO ATI HD 7970M 2GB V1.2 6-77-P15EL-D11-1
Comes from a P1*0EM system.



What do you think the chances are that it won't even need flashing?

Update: Spoiler, it needed flashing.

 

I guess you'll find out?

 

So the 7970M arrived, I got it installed. The heatsink is correct and it even boots up because I can hear the Windows jingle when it reaches the login screen but the monitor is completely black/blank.

I think this is good news to get that far, I guess this is the stage I need to perform a blind flash...

 

Yes that sounds right so far.

 

So what I have worked out so far is the reason it boots up blank is the VBIOS performs an IGP check at boot but despite there not being any integrated graphics fails to use the card (that part I can't work out why), I think it also has something to do with Enduro (which sounds like the same as the IGP check) but this is where I get stuck, where do I find a VBIOS to skip this IGP check?

Can I make one?

I'm not interested in OC or OV just now (loads of them), I just want to see the display!

 

Try searching for an HM 7970m vbios they created for the p1x0hm series.

 

Well some strangeness happened.

I could smell an almost sickly sweet smell coming from the laptop. Eventually I worked out that one of the foam support pads on the X-Bracket underneath had melted:

Can't find similar situation online. Not sure what happened. How should this underside be supported?

 

Short on the bracket maybe? It's melted the insulation below it. I'd not put it in again.

 

I fear a short myself but I cannot work out where it would be coming from and also the it doesn't stop it booting all the way into Windows 10.

You wouldn't put what in again, the insulation or the card?

The old GPU was fitted inside a little aluminium tray and its x-bracket was screwed tight to it. I am thinking of trying that method to mount it next.

 

The card with that xbracket, it's bare against the PCB in places now underneath it.

 

Oh no no underneath is a separator, a black sheet of some kind (undamaged). It cannot touch the PCB bare, plus there is also a little clearance of a few mm or so.

It really seemed localised around this one point of the x-bracket.

 

SUCCESS!

Sort of...

I managed to blind flash the 7970M in the end, the screen started working straight away, however Windows 10 won't boot; Critical Process Died. I think I know the cause though.

However my system is dual OS and Windows XP worked just fine, managed to install a driver for the 7970M and play a really old game that won't work on Windows 10 as a test and it worked, better than the old GPU.

 

Some classic gaming eh? I've been playing some heroes of might and magic 4 just recently.

 

Ooo close, I play M&M 3. The game that refused to play on Windows 10 was Hogs Of War.

 

I got 3 but even though 4 was not liked I have a soft spot for it.

 

I am really happy! I've have this notebook over 10 years now and it is still going strong. I probably won't push it much more than this now because over heating may still be an issue (although last time I looked via HWMonitor it was a cool 45°C) but it is certainly an improvement.

I think I worked out my burning/shorting issue; the copper heatsink plate was touching the solder of one of the chips, so I trimmed the plate back a bit more with my Dremel and that seems to have rectified it.

 

I've successfully upgraded my CLEVO W870CU notebook with the 7970M!

I would like to give kudos to the various people and topics that were of great help:

@t456 for the heatsink modification inspiration (and for replying to my messages), thank you! http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...are-dell-gpu-in-a-clevo.778988/#post-10050324

@yoshey791 for your random comment that confirmed the 7970M works with Enduro disabled; https://www.techinferno.com/index.p...50hm-with-7970m/&do=findComment&comment=25398

@Nospheratu & @svl7 for the VBIOS; https://www.techinferno.com/index.p...-vbios-mod-clevo-7970m-vbios-pack-non-enduro/

@jaybee83 for the "blind flash" guide; http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...modded-vbios-for-clevo-p1xxhm-laptops.688656/

atiflash.exe -p 0 -fs -fp -reboot 7970m.rom did the trick!

 

I'm really glad the card is still working.

 

I'm very pleased!

 

Well I spoke to soon.
Everything was going great. I'd been using the driver Windows update found for me but I went to the AMD website, used their automatic driver update tool and the driver update seems to have killed the card.
I get either blank screen (full bright) or distorted colour palette, even in the BIOS).
Performed a system restore, safe mode uninstalled the display adapter but no joy.
Checked with the old GPU and that confirms it; something is wrong with the 7970M.

Why would an official update damage the card?

 

Maybe it was coincidence and the chip has failed from the previous damage?

 

That's possible. It seemed to be running fine though, I had used it with basic driver during testing and it failed during driver update, ironically AMD did have little message in the progress bar: your screen may flicker during installation. Well they didn't lie.

Update: it looks a lot like this so I'll give this a try.

 

I might try my luck with a cheap Dell card, how do I tell if it is v1.0 with a Dell/Alienware?

I saw this old post of yours here is the 015.022 the tell?

 

The pcb revision is printed on the top, near the large power pins:

Spoiler: Dell v1.0 HD 7970M - vbios and revision number

 

Brilliant, so obvious now. Never spotted that before.