Upgrade Graphics Card on HP Elitebook 8540w

[Notebook-Hardwa]

Hi Folks
I have a HP 8540w elitebook, with the Nvidia Quadro FX 880M, Win 7 x64 Pro, Core i7 620M.
My question is: is it possible to upgrade the graphics card to a Nvidia Quadro K1100M or K2100M?
At the level of standards connector boards and architecture seems everything is compatible. Standards of PCI-E 2.0 and 3.0 write compatible in both directions. But I have heard that HP as it blocks the BIOS setup other devices if they are not supplied by the plant. is this true? If so then it turns out that the maximum that you can put it FX1800M he enters one of the options set .. Or perhaps take K1100M / K2100M from new generations of HP 85XX, or can be of laptops from other manufacturers ?? Another alarming fact that K2100M consumes 55W, while the card installed HP in particular FX1800M consume 45W. With the cooling system is quite clear that to do, but is there enough electrical power?

Thank you.

[Notebook-Hardwa]

I look in service manual , there suggested 4 options - Nvidia Quadro nvs5100/fx880m/fx1800m and ati m5800.

When creating service manual, K1100M / K2100M did not exist in nature.

The main question - is there a ban on the BIOS setting other cards? (I do not know how it is properly called, white list, or still something) If the BIOS is no explicit prohibition on the installation of other devices, it seems to me it should work.

oftop bit. About the service manual .. It says that the maximum that will be supported by this RAM  DDR3 10600 .... When I changed the RAM, I forgot to read the manual 🙂 and put  DDR3 12800, probably because she does not know that should not work, it works perfectly. 🙂

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

1. The memory simply downclocked and is running at 1333 speed. 

2. There is no video card whitelist but you have to be really careful with MXM video cards. Be sure the heatsink is in the same location as the original and you have the same kind of MXM card; i.e the insertion edge is the same. If all that is true you can swap out video cards but it is a major job. 

[Notebook-Hardwa]

Thank you very much. This is the answer I wanted to hear. Thank you. I would check that the cooling system coincided with a new card. Yes, and I think that it will be enough power. It is designed for general TDP 90w (45W CPU i7-840qm and 45W GPU (top.comp.)), In my complete i7-620M TDP 35W (total together with integrated GPU, but with MXM GPU, integrated GPU is turned off and hence TDP CPU is about 30W), on the basis of this we can calculate how much heat can be taken away from the GPU => 90W (total) -30W (CPU) = 60W (GPU), this is enough - TDP K2100m 55w, and TDP K1100m 45w. But if suddenly the system will still be too hot, I will add a radiator, there will be enough.

..memory downclocked I thought so. but I'm not chasing owerclocked, I just have had extra 2x4gb, and I put them in place of those that are installed 2x2gb, I got 8gb, 4gb instead and not spent a penny.

It  remains to find a cheap GPU K1100m / K2100m and put on my seat.

Thank you !!!

[laurencej]

Hi,

I'm planning to upgrade my laptop (8540w fx 880m) with a new graphics card. Did you succeed in your upgrade? 

Thanks for your help

[hp_refurb_user]

Hi,

is there any progrees on the issue of swapping the default nvidia graphics card of a 8540/8560w series elitebook?

I tried a K2000M, but my hp elitebook 8540w does not post (it starts though). Please bear in mind the "K" cards are newer than non-"K" cards, so there may be an incompatibility by default.

I do not think that "TDP" values can be simply added together - it is merely an indicator on how much heat the whole machine must be able to ablate per time - but I may be corrected by this.

It would be great if an HP tech could veryfy that the board of an 8540w, 8560w is not damaged by using a 55 W TDP graphics card due to higher voltage demanded from the MXM version 3 interface.

On a related note, did anybody swap sucessfully the normal 1000M of the newer 8570w model with a K2000M?

Thanks.

[hp_refurb_user]

Hi again,

I tried a Nvidia Quadro 1000M (non-Kepler) which has a TDP of 45, but the laptop does not boot (turns on as indicated by the front LEDs). So either I did not receive HP MXM cards (both 1000M and K2000M) or the 8540w/8560w is simply not compatible with newer cards other than those from the service manual (maximal a Quadro 1800M with its 72 pipelines and sm_13 -  btw. the 1000M is actually newer, has 96 pipelines and sm_3x capability).

Maybe the laptop's BIOS needs to be reset after the switch, but I cannot find any information how to do that.

If anybody has some updates, please post.

Thanks

[Matthew_Popovich]

My understanding is some of the HP mxm cards lack the vbios chip on them and instead its in the actual bios (you can see its missing on the picture).  From what I've read, you want a card with the vbios chip on it, which you can then flash to make it work.  I believe people have success with Dell\Alienware\Clevo\MSI (but NOT ASUS) cards, and I *think* 60 and 70 elitebook series lack the vbios chip.  I've seen some posts on eBay where the guy will even walk you through flashing the vbios.  I'm still researching the issue, but I know for sure some video cards dont have the bios chip and that's how HP limited our options instead of using a whitelist.  I will post an update when I'm successful with an update.  I do believe there's a list on one of the online forums what do and do not work.  Also please note, there are two MXM standards, A and B.  The 8540W only will take the smaller card, while the 8740W will take either size, the larger being the better cards obviously.  Hence why the 8540W comes with either the 880 or 1800 and the 8740W comes with 2800, 3800 or 5000.  I have both 8740w's and 8540w's, in both Dreamcolor and non Dreamcolor.

[ekendraed]

Hello. I have a HP Elitebook 8540w running with the Nvidia Quadro FX 880M and I have realised that it does not have control over the colour adjustments on the 8540w.

I have installed updated drivers but that too does not help.

I upgraded to Windows 10 pro 64 bit and I had to roll back as I was not able to adjust the brightness and contrast. I had dificulty in reading verify codes that were coloured.

Is there a solution to this issue?

[ekendraed]

Found a way to take control of desktop colour adjustment on both monitors through the SET PhysX Configuration in Nvidia Quadro FX 880M.

I have set it to auto mode and now I am able to adjust the DESKTOP colour settings.