Dell Precision M4800 - Can GPU be upgraded?

I doubt. Nvidia driver checks system for compatible hardware and says it can not find any in case of unmodified inf file.

 

However the description of abovesaid driver on nVidia website says it is for M2000M (among many cards). So this part of hardware is proper. Would the driver test laptop model or what?

BTW. Could you maybe download the driver designed for Quadro from nVidia website and test and post here result? For a start I would accept this Quadro driver if it works.

 

We have reports of the Quadro M5000M working in the Precision M6700 with unmodified INF file. I think you will probably need a card that has a Dell vBIOS to have any chance of this working. If your card does not have a Dell vBIOS, you should be able to flash it with one if you can get someone to dump it for you (or find a dump online).

...That's all I've got, never tried it myself so I'm not aware of the particulars.

 

The method of modding inf file is working.
I just had to clean up all old stuff from registery that left from old K2100M card. Free utility Display Driver Uninstaller does its work fine.
After that driver with modified inf installs like a charm.
I installed actual Dell video driver, just with additions to nvdmwi.inf file.

 

I have the M4800 with this painfully limited K2100M. I'm thinking of going to the M2000M...is this the best spec'd card of this size compatible with the M4800 mainboard chipset? Other than disassembly etc, can you then provide step by step instructions of what you did? I'm not the strongest when it comes to regedits or anything more than a couple of mild/basic BIOS changes...

I've learned the hard one regarding the K2100M limiting TWO external displays at UHD 4K can only putput to 30Hz/fps, not 60, which is really annoying...and so...the upgrade is required rather than jumping to a new PC/laptop.

Thanks in advance

RoOSTA

 

NVIDIA has kicked out a refreshed "Quadro M2200" which is the same size but about 60% faster than the M2000M. It's still Maxwell-based so it "should" work, if you can find one. I don't think that anyone has actually tried one in the M4800 yet...

(The M2000M is about 70% faster than the K2100M, so the M2200 would be roughly 170% faster (1.6 × 1.7), nearly triple the performance.)

 

I have some writings in my Evernote on this topic. I could not find anything better than M2000M or newer M1200 which is of the same specs actually. If one can find and afford M2200 or P3000 (Pascal chip) then M4800 should be on toppest score.

K2100M = 768.4 GFLOPS / CUDA 3.0 / GK106 Kepler / 55W
K2200M = 853.8 GFLOPS / CUDA 5.0 / GM107 Maxwell / 65W
M2000M = 1,317.1 GFLOPS / CUDA 5.0 / GM107 Maxwell / 55W
M1200 Mobile = 1,399.0 GFLOPS / CUDA 5.0 / GM107 Maxwell / 45W
M2200 Mobile = 2,099.2 GFLOPS / CUDA 5.2 / GM206 Maxwell 2.0 / 55W
P3000 Mobile = 3,097.6 GFLOPS / CUDA 6.1 / GP104 Pascal / 75W

Well, I try... I just followed youtube manuals, just added deletion of all stuff related to old video card.
All the dirty work made mentioned above utility.

1. Run utility Display Driver Uninstaller to delete all nvidia stuff from laptop.

2. Go to Windows 10 Settings - Update and security - Recovery - Advanced Setup - Restart now. And go to menu with 1-2-3-4-5-6-7... options. Number 7 is that you need. I found video of this

3. When you restarted with driver signing disabled go and extract Dell video driver from their web site. Do not run it, just extract. Go there it goes. Find file in c:\ProgramData\Dell\drivers\Video_Driver_FNP72_WN32_21.21.13.7654_A00\Display.Driver\Win10_x64\nvdm.inf
Add in there strings as in the video above.

These strings I added for M2000M:
%NVIDIA_DEV.13B0.05CC.1028% = Section214, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13B0&SUBSYS_05CC1028
...
%NVIDIA_DEV.13B0.05CC.1028% = Section211, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13B0&SUBSYS_05CC1028
...
NVIDIA_DEV.13B0.05CC.1028 = "NVIDIA Quadro M2000M"

4. Run c:\ProgramData\Dell\drivers\Video_Driver_FNP72_WN32_21.21.13.7654_A00\setup.exe
Done.

PS: Here is my nvdm.inf file

 

It should be noted that the Pascal chips require eDP and do not support LVDS, so you would have to have the eDP version of the M4800 to have any chance of this working. (Also, I thought the P3000 was MXM 3.0b, so it won't fit, has someone made a 3.0a version?)

 

eDP/LVDS is my weakest side, I still don't know which is mine
As for P3000 yes here its' listed as MXM 3.0a card.

 

I've seen that it is listed as 3.0a at TechPowerUp but I think that it is incorrect (until I actually see one). It would not be the first time that TechPowerUp's GPUDB has incorrect information. Currently, the P3000 is only available in 17" systems with MXM 3.0b, as far as I can tell. It also has the roughly same specs as the GeForce 1060, which is yet to be seen in any form factor smaller than MXM 3.0b (except when it is integrated directly onto the motherboard).