Elitebook 8570w GPU

[Varnavus]

Hi all. Recently upgraded CPU and GPU on my 8570w. Now running i7-3940XM with 32gb DDR3L 1866mhz ram with 1tb MSata and 2tb SSD.  
I upgraded the GPU from K1000m to a 965M, however upon boot I get no graphics output( neither screen or vga port). Whilst I know it will need drivers to work I don’t even get BIOS screen, but I can hear the machine boot up and go through its thing. putting k1000m back in it works fine. So I know it’s the card causing issue. 

can you advise if 965M is blacklisted in bios? Or how HP VBios can be installed onto card to make it work?

also on disassembly I managed to break a ribbon clip for keyboard (it still works fine, just a thing that will bug me. Can these tiny plastic tabs be bought separately?

[NonSequitur777]

@Varnavus,

Welcome to our HP Community forum!

The GTX 965M isn't officially supported in the HP 8570w (see the manual, page 28) -and the fact that none of the almost 1,000 Userbenchmark HP System EliteBook 8570w entries show an HP EliteBook 8570w fitted with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M MXM card, and the lack of video output on boot suggests a VBIOS mismatch rather than a hardware failure.

Look, HP's BIOS expects a specific initialization sequence from HP-certified MXM cards (such as the K1000M/2000M, 980M, or Quadro series). Unless you can flash a compatible HP or Clevo VBIOS onto your 965M, the system won't likely POST with it installed.

The 980M and Quadro P5200M are known working upgrades with modified drivers.

As for the broken keyboard ribbon clip, you can often find replacement ZIF connector latches on eBay or AliExpress or use a donor keyboard for the part.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

@Varnavus,

Getting any of the more powerful MXM cards to work in your laptop is trickier than I realized at first.

I found one detailed user-thread for the 8570w with a GTX 965M (not 980M) where the user encountered black screen / driver install issues: HP ELITEBOOK 8570W + GTX 965M - HP Business Class Notebooks - Tech|Inferno Forums.

FYI: I think I may be up to something: as per Userbenchmark, I found that several higher-end MXM cards fitted in an HP EliteBook 8570w show the HP-VBIOS identifier (103C 176B) -this is probably key evidence that HP-branded MXM cards (with HP VBIOS) are fully recognized by the 8570w's system BIOS.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[TzortzisG]

Hi!

It's a shame that a good source of info on this subject was taken down many years ago. Most of the work was done with the 8770w. You can see these following discussions, but there are many more:

Notebookreview1      Notebookreview2        Notebookreview3 

vBIOS is definitely the problem here: I finally upgraded the GPU in the 8570w -GTX 965M (Reddit thread) 

[Varnavus]

Hi NonSequitur777, 

Managed to solve the ZIF clip issue, so all good. 
Re: 965M 

It appears its been done. However not sure how (assume vbios flashing)

I finally upgraded the GPU in the 8570w (GTX 965M) : r/elitebook

I dont disagree its a bios / Vbios mismatch, the question is how to change the Bios (most recent is .71 from HP, installed on machine) did this before the card upgrade (theres no advanced menu option on this bios to check how the card was "seen". 

When i bought card, seller advised it had HP vbios flashed on it, hence suspecting HW failure of the type A 965M card.  

I agree that HP bios .71 expects a response, albeit from a whitelisted number of cards (k1000m/K2000m and AMD firepro 4000m only (again all type A cards). Although i hear mentions of no whitelist, why are some cards seen and not seen. 

 The 965M is the equivalent of the quadro m4000M so not mega powerful, 980M would pull more from the machine.  

I'm intruiged how a 8570W can run a 980M  as this is a "type B" card, which in turn would need the 8770W heatsink for the "B type" to cover all relevant chips to cool (not impossible, but not an off the shelf part). not to mention foul the keyboard mount and DVD connector. 

They do show 980M working in the 8770W the bigger brother of the 8570w though.  

The 980M and Quadro P5200M  ive seen working as im on a forum with some crazy people who had pushed the machine beyond its limits and they run those.

[Varnavus]

doing more digging on this,  From what i understand the 8570W and the 8770W have same Bios Version .71.  so that would rule out the Bios triggering the issue as ive seen much more powerful cards 980M, k5000M run in the 8770W whilst i get the 8770 is a bigger unit and might have bigger tracks in the board for the more powerful GPU. it seems to run these without much issue.

therfore must be a Vbios configuration, also reading Dell Vbios seems to interact with HP in a beneficial way for VBios builds, not sure why as they would have a different hardware ID in the config.

obviously cooling is a factor hence the 8770W having the dual pipe heatsink. I had built a dual pipe for the 965M however with the display issues its use is delayed. 

[KuBiX79]

hi,

I am waiting for the i7 3940xm for my elitebook8570w, when it arrives, I'll end the work on the gpu heatsink but for now I am runing i7 3740qm with  gtx980mxm 8gb with a copper plate and termal pad on upside memories. it's running fine, bottlenecked by the cpu. 

I had to buy a 230w PSU cheap on aliexpress.

if cpu is capable, future, I might upgrade for gtx 1070 mxm 8gb and for that to work I willhave to flash bios with a compatible one.

[Varnavus]

The 8570w can take Type A MXM cards so 965M would be a possible maximum.  Quadro K1000M/K2000M & AMD FirePro 4000M are the official supported cards. If your looking at 980m then that is final type B card usable with a standard FHD screen. GTX 1070 will need dreamcolour screen fitted. You have to bear in mind heat load as i7-3940xm is 55w alone on standard heatsink. If you’re considering 980M then you need 8770w heatsink as it’s designed for “B” cards which are bigger. In 8570 it will foul the DVD port connection and DVD drive too. There is a forum of people already doing this mod.

[KuBiX79]

Thanks for replying.

I'lltry to search the forum. 

Is there any possibility that my screen is already a Dreamcolor? The computer came from the factory with an i7 CPU, has 4 RAM slots, and the keyboard has backlighting. I heard that not all of them have the same specifications. if it doesn't have, what are the cons about using this screen with gtx 1070m ?

[Varnavus]

If you have the i7 and 4 slots that is the workstation Mobo.  Same as mine.   

You can search the device ID in your system to try to identify if you have the DC screen, Someone on here can share the DC part DeviceID detail.

if you dont, the 1070 "B" or any of the "10" series wont work, it wont display.  9X0M cards are the last Maxwell ones that should work, the "10" series are the newer architecture. Whilst they share the MXM connector, it might not yield results without alot of configuration.

Bearing in mind certain cards are configured to output on VGA/DP/Display etc, so even if you got card to physically fit and cooled. you might find the card is configured to display to a port the 8570W doesnt have. Doesnt mean you cant do it, just adds another layer of config to the challenge.  

I recently added a 965M to my machine, installed fine everything lined up perfect, as a type A card it worked with my standard heatsink. However display (due to HP VBios) restricted output to built-in display and VGA, i didnt try DP as i didnt have connector. Dell VBios are more compliant in running on our machines, not sure why, but they give better results in non supported HW. (which is a shame as HP SBios .71Final on 8770 & 8570 is same. but 8770W the cards above just work, but 8570 seems to have a blocker somewhere with HP VBios.