Dell Precision M4800 - Can GPU be upgraded?

Anyone?

 

@roosta
I will write what I did to succeed with nVIdia M2000M, Windows 8.1 x64 pro

Assume you have device id (I will use my "device id" below), from Device Manager:
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13B0&SUBSYS_15CC1028&REV_A2

1. Get Display Driver Uninstaller - from guru3d and unistall current nVidia drivers


2. Boot Windows with signed drivers requirement disabled

3. Extract nVIdia driver (to do it run driver installer and let it save/extract files to c:\NVIDIA...
For me it was important to do this with drivers signature requirement disabled.
If I had extracted it in normal mode, the installation would no succeed even if I started actual instalation with drivers signature req. disabled.

4. go to C:\NVIDIA\382.05(or what have you)\WinXXX\Intrenational\Display.Driver
Using for example Total Commander:
find files *.inf containing: DEV.13B0 (or what device id you have. As I wrote above for my device it was "DEV.13B0")

You please take the first file found to edit. Some people claim that it doesn't matter which file of these you modify.
I choose the first found file to edit/modify:
nvblwi.inf

5. edit above file.

find NVIDIA_DEV.13B0 (or what device id you have)
I found lines like
%NVIDIA_DEV.13B0.80D5.103C% = Section076, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13B0&SUBSYS_80D5103C

add your line :

%NVIDIA_DEV.13B0.15CC.1028% = Section076, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13B0&SUBSYS_15CC1028&REV_A2
(use device id that you have)

You asked where to add your line. I added above the line which I found. I did not delete any original content.

* Note: to have it easier add an empty line before and after the line you add, so that you can differ what you added from the original content

Edit the file to its end searching for "NVIDIA_DEV.13B0" (or what device you have) and adding lines with your device id.

At the end of the file there is a line with different format. I added
NVIDIA_DEV.13B0.15CC.1028 = "NVIDIA Quadro M2000M"
(add a blank line before and after).

* Note 2:
In one place of this file I found lines with "Section077" and "Section080":
%NVIDIA_DEV.13B0.80D5.103C% = Section077, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13B0&SUBSYS_80D5103C
(...several lines later: )
%NVIDIA_DEV.13B0.8109.103C% = Section080, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13B0&SUBSYS_8109103C

So there I added also two lines:
%NVIDIA_DEV.13B0.15CC.1028% = Section077, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13B0&SUBSYS_15CC1028&REV_A2
%NVIDIA_DEV.13B0.15CC.1028% = Section080, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13B0&SUBSYS_15CC1028&REV_A2

6. Save file and try running setup.exe
In my case it was in:
C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\382.05\Win8_Win7_64\International\setup.exe

Sorry, I know my description is not perfect. I hope it will help.

 

In my case is nvdmi.inf.
You need to get your card's hardware ID to proceed. Hardware ID can be found in Device property. My card is M5000M so from the value, extract the 4 digits after DEV_13F8 and after SUBSYS_053F. Combining them will become 13F8.053F. Other strings are not important. For 965M, the first 4 digits is 13D9. For M2000M, it is 13B0.




In nvdmi.inf, search for 13F8. There will be a few entries starting with 13F8 but after the dot is 4 digits that doesn't match my card's 053F.

%NVIDIA_DEV.13F8.06DA.1028% = Section246, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13F8&SUBSYS_06DA1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13F8.16DA.1028% = Section250, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13F8&SUBSYS_16DA1028

To make it easy, just take the first entries with 10DE, in this case it is 10DE.06DA. So just replace anything in that line containing 06DA with 053F. It will look like below:-
%NVIDIA_DEV.13F8.053F.1028% = Section246, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13F8&SUBSYS_053F1028

Use search function to locate 13F8.06DA, should be able to find 2 more entries. Just replace the 06DA with 053F.

%NVIDIA_DEV.13F8.053F.1028% = Section245, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13F8&SUBSYS_053F1028

NVIDIA_DEV.13F8.053F.1028 = "NVIDIA Quadro M5000M"

Please note that in order to install modded INF driver, you must always enable Test Mode and have these info shown at bottom right of your windows screen. I am not sure if there is anyway to hide that, i live with it for few years.

 

I have obtained by 4 digit DEVICE ID on my K2100M

I've completely uninstalled anything NVIDIA and rebooted using the suggested software (DDU)

I have disassembled my laptop and installed the 965M card with new arctic silver heatsinks and paste

I have rebooted into safe mode, then manually (via CMD) disabled driver signing per instructions here (as the choice to start windows in safe
mode with this disable does not appear, as soon as i hit F8, it boots into safe mode without any choices:
https://support.hidemyass.com/hc/en...ow-to-disable-Driver-Signing-check-on-Windows

I've downloaded the AUG 26th 2017 ~300MB Win 7 x64 (385.41) driver set for the 965M GEforce off the website and chosen to RUN AS ADMIN, it begins self extracting to the point the first dialogue box gets to 100/disappears, then the NVIDIA dialogue box pops up... checking system compatability...

NVIDIA installer cannot continue . The graphics driver could not find compatable graphics hardware.

WTF? The hardware is well and truly inserted in there nice and tight. I checked device manager. Under display devices, it only lists Intel(R) HD Grpahics 4600 and Standard VGA Graphics Adapter. Also, under OTHER DEVICES, there's "Broadcom USH" and "Unknown Device" listed under "!" ie unrecognised/missing drivers for hardware. The only hardware change I've made is the MXM card.

Clearly a step or steps have been missed here. Why would the system not detect a MSM card being installed??

RoOSTA

Great, thanks for this. When I find out what I've missed or done wrong, I'll be sure to make those changes to said file if i can find it.

RoOSTA

 

You cannot run the installer like that. Need to use software like 7-zip to unpack the installer file into smaller files like below.


Then find the nvdmi.inf (inside Display.Driver folder) to modify. Save the original inf file just in case. After modified, run the setup.exe to start the driver installation.

 

Yes but the PC is not recognising the 965M at all. If i can't install drivers with the correct device ID, I'm not sure how I get to the point of determining the 965M's ID.

 

You need 4 digit device ID + another 4 digit subsys ID. Get it from Device Manager, the unknown graphic card properties. Yes the photo i showed is already recognized as M5000M, but even unknown device it will show the ID too that is how i get the 4+4 digits ID.

Share the 4+4 IDs of your card here if you still can't figure out how to mod the INF. I can get your first 4 digits hardware ID because it is common through out Nvidia card, but the next 4 ID refers to for which company the card is made (Dell/HP/Clevo/Lenovo/MSI bla bla), that will show in device manager properties.

 

So I've determined the "VGA adapter" is infact the nvidia card. I was able to successfully able to edit the INF file with the correct information to the point that the setup (ran as admin, in SAFE mode, driver signing disabled using CMD prompt) and it installed successfully.

So like you said, even trying to boot normally, it boots into test mode (I'm on 7pro x64). In Deice Manager, NIVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 965M is shown under display drivers with "!" on it.... Do i need to do anything else? Or is this successfully installed with no further action required....where i will auto-boot into the test mode?

I've got 2 monitors connected via docking station (via DPort) which were both connected as FHD 1080p on the K2100M. They are plugged in still, i turn the monitors on and the laptop PC doesnt detect them. Under resolution settings, under AVAILABLE DISPLAY OUTPUT ON: I can only see the HD graphics 4600.

Can someone provide further assistance? All I'm trying to achieve here is dual 4K 60fps connected to the dock (via the switching graphics, where 965M should overtake HD graphics internally) and output as I require. Though I can't seem to get there.

Any help?

 

Hmm... the photo u attached the nvidia card is shown as Standard VGA Graphic Adapter. SMO8810 is free fall sensor for hardisk.
Either the driver is not installed properly or 965M simply not supported by M4800. The driver can be installed under non-safe mode, just need the Test Mode always on. Did you see during the driver installation, it prompted you with something red colour to confirm and proceed with unverified signature driver setup?

Have u tried install the driver with Switchable Graphic disabled in bios, so that HD 4600 is shut off?
If the card can be recognized and driver can be installed and completed successfully, but shown as 965M with ! (not standard vga), then the card could be defective. This happened to my M5000M.