HP 800 G1 usdt mxm graphics card upgrade - not booting

[SpaciaSystems]

Hello my fellow HP Community,

I've bought a HP 800 G1 USDT, upgraded everything possible, maxed it out.

Everything works a dream except for the upgrade on the graphics card.

Motherboard has an MXM slot, I've bought an AMD Radeon 7600A 2GB MXM card, as per the discrete graphocs card option on the HP Specs Sheet; doesn't want to work. Machine doesn't boot, just beeps at me, red light on power.

It boots absolutely fine again after removing the MXM card. I have three machines, and bought three cards, I've tried them all, so not an issue with the card, does the same on every machine.

I then thought to try another option and bought the Nvidia Quadro M2000M 4GB MXM card; same issue. Again, like a fool, i bought three. So now I have 6 of these cards staring back at me, not one works.

Supplier is totally cool with me returning them, but I just want these things to work, especially if I can get the quadro working.

Machines are to be used for general computing and the occassional photoshop/illustrator purposes (bought for my teens to do hmwk etc..) so thought the quadro would make lighter work of rendering.

They're i7-4770s, 16GB HyperX DDR3 1866 Ram, SSD & mSATA SSD, running two displayport screens and they perform fantastically. Just can't get the MXM Cards to work.

I've done the Bios tweaks - Secure Boot Disabled, Legacy Enabled, etc.. doesn't make a difference.

Last option is to update the bios, but thought I'd post the question here first, plus I need to find some time to do it.

Can anyone help me? Really got to get this to work.

Many Thanks in advance!

[edit]

 : )

[DGroves]

laptops is still like the wild west when it comes to video standards and yes your 800 G1 is based on laptop parts

the main issue with MXM video card compatability is with the motherboards VBIOS (video bios) each vender seems to do this diffrently instad of using a industry standard like the desktop makers do

we need the beep/flashing light sequence, in order to check if it's a video failure

some vbios's have a white list EG- only preapproved card models work

some have a more generic vbios, that allows all card models up to a specific generation to work but fail on later models

but the main issue here is that acording to HP the G1 (including the SFF model) uses normal pci-e slots

https://support.hp.com/au-en/document/c03831415#AbT2

since you have a MXM video slot your correct model is the:

HP elitedesk 800 G1 "ultra-slim"  desktop busnieness pc  in future posts please refer it as a elitedesk 800 G1 "ultra-slim"

in order to avoid confusion with the other 800 G1 variants

https://support.hp.com/ro-en/document/c03836666

hp lists the AMD Radeon HD 7650A (MXM) as a option so i suspect any MXM 7000 series card should work but acording to you does not if you can try the HP listed model and see if that works if not then the issue is on your end!

[SpaciaSystems]

Thank you DGroves,

Really appreciate your help, pretty much already covered all those bases, and yes, laptop graphic options do feel very much like the wild west.

My subject heading clearly states 'usdt' so anyone getting confused between 'ultra-slim and 'small-form-factor (ssf)' clearly isn't qualified to answer the question, but will take note and clarify 'ultra-slim in future posts, thank you.

I've just ordered an AMD Radeon HD 7650A (MXM), playing devils advocate, let's see if it works. I'm of the same mindset; surely all 7000 series mxm cards should be compatible, but let's see.

Ideally want the quadro's working as they fit a dream in the box, there's really not much space in there for anything else.

I do love HP systems and how everything just fits by design. Personally I'm running a z800 workstation, dual xeons, 192 ram, pcie NVMe and quadro 12gb card. Its effortless to upgrade and everything just works. The slot in - slot out concept follows suit throughout their machines, but if they're whitelisting components and there's no option to support other oem parts in the g1's, that's a real letdown for hp.

I'm still thinking a bios update will do the trick, but I've never done that before. Looking for time to do it first. Any recommendations on best method or software to use?

Thanks again for your advice and taking the time to respond.

Kindest regards.

J.

[DGroves]

i would hold off on doing any vbios updates/modding untill after you try the 7650 and note the results. there are some sites that cater to modding mxm video cards, and i would ask for suguestions on those sites

and yes, your header does state 'usdt' rather than SSF, but i bet if you ask people what ssf and  'usdt' stand for you may find many have no idea and those that do know that SSF means a small computer box will be lost on usdt since that is not a standard acronym, but rather one that you have coined.... i'm not saying your usdt does not match the actual box size, just that it's a non standard description that makes id'ing the system harder not easer when asking for help

[SpaciaSystems]

Thanks buddy,

That's sound advice.

I bought 5 of these machines as a job lot, so two just sitting there not being used. As a result I'll run the risk with the bios update on one of them and report back, hopefully on Sunday if i get some time.

The Radeon 7650 doesn't arrive until end of the week, and I've never been a patient person, idle thumbs n all.

Is overclockers a good place to ask about the card mods?

Thanks again for your time, and 'ultra-slim' issue duely noted my friend! Always best to describe things properly.

Kindest regards!

Jamil @ Spacia Systems

[DGroves]

first find all related sites you can then read, and when you think you know,... read some more, bios modding is a unforgiving thing and will almost allways result in a non working device if you make any sort of mistake and you will make mistakes that's lmost a given, but that's how you learn and gain experence, still you want to keep the bricking to a minimum right?

http://aspiregemstone.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-mod-your-laptop-vga-bios.html

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/amd-ati-flashing-guide.212849/

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/

[SpaciaSystems]

Once again, sound advice.

I refrained from doing the bios update, last thing i want is to brick a machine. Didn't get much time this weekend anyway and if I had bricked it, it really would have ruined my day.

Thanks for the links, I'll try and get to that first. In the meantime I'm waiting for the new card, then I'll install and see what happens. My hearts set on getting the quadros to work though, ill be sending the Radeons back. Always been an nvidia fan. If they dont work, I'll  sell the g1's and buy some z600's.

Thanks again buddy,

J.

[Matt_Houston]

Question for you, are you still using the stock power brick 135w, 19.5v, 6.9a ?

If so, it will NOT power a UltraSlim with an added on MXM card.

You would need to upgrade your power supply to 180w, 19.5v, 9.2a, HP 611485-002.

We've got a few of those USDT with the Radeon card, they require more juice to boot/power.

Take out the MXM card, and it'll boot just fine with a stock 135w.

[SpaciaSystems]

Hi Matt and DGroves,

Just had the chance to update the community - I finally got around to doing this at Christmas and whilst the bios update didn't do the trick, the upgraded power supply fixed all problems - really appreciate your post Matt!

Upon scrolling the net for answers, i came across a post about the larger power supply and it just clicked in my mind.

I purchased multiple 180W supplies, and now all three machines are fantastic. They boot at rapid speeds and programs like photoshop run much faster and reliably when pushed.

I also took the time to delid the cpu's and apply kryonaut thermal compound under the lid, over the lid, on the gpu heatsink, and replaced the thermal pad stuck on the heatsink for the motherboards on board gpu with thermal grizzly too. Then , used the SATA0 as the scratch disk, and boot from the mSata slot with an SSD. I'd already upgraded the ram to 16GB 1866mhz gaming ram -  these little things are now like lightning - they boot in about 6 secs flat and are extremely responsive.

However, I couldnt get the 4GB Quadro card to work which is a real shame. Still hoping to find a solution for this though.

Many Thanks.

J.

[bufulo]

I'm dealing with a similar scenario for a computer for my parents so your last post was especially helpful.  Thanks!

What is the behavior with the NVidia card?  If it's the same as the AMD, have you considered trying an even larger power supply or perhaps a slightly less powerful graphics card (if one exists between the two)?  The best I can tell, the NVidia card is rated about 20 watts higher than the AMD.

Where did you get the graphics cards?  Did they come with heatsinks?  Can the NVidia card use the same heatsink as the AMD?

Also, is the memory actually being overclocked or is it at stock DDR3 specifications?  I noticed the BIOS has no options for choosing XMP profiles or any sort of overclocking options.  Have you verified the RAM is actually running faster than stock speeds?

PS.  I too have delidded a CPU recently (4770K in a different computer) and it made all the difference in the world with cooling.  It would run over 90C with any continuous load regardless of all the heatsinks I tried.