HP Envy 23 MXM card upgrade.....continued

[GBilecki]

OK. As  I posted somewhere else here, I refurbished this computer and updated the CPU, memory and added a MXM card (even though the computer did not come with MXM card from the factory). Used a Radeon HD7450A and it's working fine.

Now, I'm thinking about turning it up a notch video wise, replacing the HD7450A with something better. Let's say that the Radeon 7450A is terrible at gaming. 

I'm considering a Firepro M4000, Firepro M5100 or even a Quadro M1000M. All of those cards are MXM-A format, and "should" work fine.

I didn't find anything on the Internet about this particular motherboard (IPISB-NK) and compatible video cards, except some very old options, not much better than what I have now on the machine. The M4000 and M5100 should work fine because they're older cards. Not sure about the M1000M. Read somewhere that I might have some BIOS compatibility issue and LVDS problems.

Anybody here has any experience or played around with this motherboard to tell me what my options are?

Just don't want to spend money and time trying different video cards until I find something decent that works.

Thanks a lot!

Update 3/17/20: Tried already an M1000M card and, as expected, didn't work (and I strongly suspect that anything newer won't work either). Just beeps at boot (video card error codes). Since then I installed a Radeon HD 7650A, which is working fine, but maxed out at 100% GPU use when playing games like X-Plane 11.

Planning on getting a Firepro M5100 (can buy one with free return on EB) and will report back if it works or not. Also considering going the EXP GDC (external GPU adapter) route, but would like any feedback if anybody tried something like this.

I simply like this computer too much just to throw it away and get a new one.

Thanks a lot!

[GBilecki]

FWIW....I tried a Firepro M5100 and it maxes up the MXM slot power rating. Overheats the power circuits on the motherboard. Computer does not start or show any picture at all....so that is a no go, even though I replaced the power supply with a 230W one.

But, upon disassembling the computer, I found something interesting. The MXM card heatsink had a thermal pad on it, just where the copper contacts the GPU chip. The thermal paste was super hard. So I removed the whole thing, cleaned the heatsink with alcohol and applied new thermal paste to the card. Now the card does not go over 70 degress C (was reaching 90 before) and the fan is quiet as it can be. No more cutouts or funky stuff while gaming. And surprisingly the GPU usage went down too...from almost 100% to 60 or 70%. I think the video card was throttling itself down due to the cooling issue.

Lesson learned...these machines are not very upgrade friendly...but with a little bit of patience and research they can be improved somehow.

Hope this helps somebody!

[GBilecki]

OK....here we go again...I don't want to give up trying to get more GPU power out of this computer.

So far, I tried another Quadro M1000M (same results, even though I had Safe Boot disabled and Legacy Support enabled).

Tomorrow I'm expecting a Firepro M4000. But at his point I don't have very high hopes about it.

If it does not work I might try an EGPU through one of the internal mini PCI-e slots.

Now, my questions is: Why is it not working? Electrically the Quadro M1000M is the same socket, same pinout, even same vendor (came from a HP Z1 machine). The TDP is almost the same, and I managed to fit the heatsink like a glove on the M1000M.

At this point I think it might be something on the BIOS not detecting an "approved" MXM card and preventing it from initializing. Once again, the machine boots up, I can hear the HDD working and the sleep button responds as it should after a minute...just no video out of the card...

So far I was not able to find much technical information here, but I'm posting this just in case somebody with the knowledge can chime in.