Elitebook 8570w GPU

[KuBiX79]

What matters is that it's customizable. It doesn't need to become obsolete.

I have a gaming desktop, and I don't think it's viable to buy a recent gaming laptop, since after a few years it becomes obsolete and there's nothing you can do about it.

I also had an 8570p that's now in the hands of a professional because I managed to connect an eGPU (desktop GPU) via PCIe wireless card and, by forcing it, I managed to play on the laptop screen, but it ended up corrupting at least the BIOS memory. I have this explained in another topic on this site.

then, i acquired this one from a previous owner, he thought it was becoming obsolete, but I allready new the hardware this one had, found out when searching for possible mods for the ancient 8570p. now and I'm trying to give it a new life...

I should also mention that along with the new CPU I also acquired 4x8gb RAM 1866 MHZ and I also have the built-in screen working at 75hz (so far I haven't tried to go further because there's no hardware to justify it). Also, when I researched this mod, before acquiring the GTX980m, I saw somewhere that i could run up to a 1060m without touching BIOS, but for a 1070m it was necessary to install a Dell BIOS. that's what I read on a forum...

thanks for sharing knowledge!

[Varnavus]

Nice work so far,  Yes the machines can be "evolved", there is a running forum doing similar

https://notebooktalk.net/topic/967-hp-elitebook-8570w-is-it-still-good-hardware-modifications/page/1... 

There are obvious limitations, however the Forum has resolved Thumb reader (original stopped working on win7), a few of the posters run modified machines.  Maxwell, Turing and Pascal card options are possible, with enough re-work. I think Turing & Pascal need DC screen though. 

Im running the i7-3940XM in a "W" mobo, not sure if the "P" mobo is any less capable. You can run DDR3L-1866 on these, ive maxed mine to 32GB, i believe 2133mhz DDR3L is possible, if you can find any. 

SSD and MSata options are good to increase battery runtime as 3940XM seems to oddly give more time with extra cores, despite running hotter. 

For the 980M mod, your going to need the 8770W GPU plate at the very least as the "A" plate wont cover VRAM chips. 

I'd be interested in seeing more of the 980 re-work (not sure if the HP mods will allow pics in here or sharing contacts assume not.) 980 would be a cool upgrade/ 1070 even more so. I'd love to know what Vbios you have in your 980M card to enable it to display via VGA/DP/built-in display

Not sure how you will get Dell SBios to install. However that said, Dell VBios works better with the HP Sbios with these cards so must be possible to some degree.  

[KuBiX79]

Thanks! I remember that forum , that’s where I first checked the compatibility with the GTX 980M, but back then I didn’t spend much time reading everything. Now I’ve gone through all the posts and even created an account. I should post some pictures there once everything is over and if it works fine with Cooper plates cooling.

I don’t have a way to modify custom heatsinks, so I am going this way.

For thunb reader I am thinking about instaling “reunion7” OS once win 10 updates end.

Have you tried good thermal pastes like Thermal Grizzly or Noctua? I might need a new heatsink cooler too,I think they get old over time, lose their temper, and the internal gas turns to liquid. How old is your cooler?

The heatsink I am thinking, helps that base heatsink.

I am also planning to use an ngff disk with na adapter to mSata. Good ideas you got there to save battery, so I can use battery to watch movies or browser without big changes?

I remember updating the GPU BIOS with some NVIDIA software, everything was already working, but I did it because I read it could improve performance. I also used DDU Uninstaller and NVInstaller just to be safe.

As for the BIOS installation, I’m assuming it installs normally from a USB drive. I think on HP laptops you have to rename a file to “rom” or something like that, that’ll be another task to research later. For now, I just wait for all the parts to arrive, and hope everything works as expected and so it try push gtx980.

[Varnavus]

Looking forward to seeing you on there. 🙂

Would deffo like to understand how you got 980M working as ive had bad experience with 965M where others had managed to get it functioning. Seems VBios related hence interested in your Dell suggestion as VBios is lighter build. Did you install VBios via CH314A? or with card in-situ in machine?

Re: Cooling,  Standard "A" heatsink singlepipe at present, but building a dual pipe "A" to improve heat transfer, Running MX-4 Arctic and PTM 7950 on the CPU and GPU and getting sensible temps with i7-3940XM. Not got the carbon/copper heat plates on my RAM but HW monitor numbers arent giving me cause to concern. 

[KuBiX79]

I would bet the graphics card is damaged, but check if your monitor ID in Device Manager is something like “MONITOR\AUO13ED”, that’s the version of mine. also make sure your next GPU is HP board manufactor. mine says that on CPU-Z
I don’t really remember if I updated the firmware or bios, but everything was done automatically by the computer. Then I had to restart. NVcleaninstall installed driver version 419.17, which I wasn’t able to install normally. The GPU was plug and play.

I’m using Arctic MX-6, and CPU temps go up to 85° when playing Destiny 2, and the game slows down by about 20-30 FPS sometimes.
There’s better thermal paste than Arctic , I’ll use conductonaut next time I open everything. Never tried it, but I tried kryonaut on this CPU on an 8570p, and it was stable around 80° or less benchmarking. When I removed the heatsink, I noticed it had been pushed to the sides of the CPU.

[Varnavus]

agree with the heat transfer compounds. that's why i went with PTM 7950 as its a sheet of paste so more viscous, the greases tend to get pushed out by capillary action, Has done me well so far. I agree there are better solid style HT solutions, ive even seen a carbon matt on the market. 

With my 965M issue, i never got a screen to see on any port, so could not check the monitor ID.  To add to that in the 8570W the intelHD even though its present in the CPU (I7-3940XM) it has no traces in the PCB to run it, not sure why that design decision was made, Just makes any MXM swap problematic as you have no fallback display.

[Varnavus]

Just looking for input on bios versions stopping cards working. I have .71ver on my machine when I tried the 965m. However KBX had .43ver on his when he tried the 980m and it worked. Just trying to rule out anything in the bios .71 that would stop cards from POST. 
looking at bios release notes there doesn’t appear to be, but just looking at options as KXB has a working 980m in his 8570w. 
can anyone verify bios?