Graphics Card upgrade for M6800 ?

Heatsink and cooling pads are recycled from the GTX980M setup. The placements of the VRMs and rams are in the same locations as the GTX980M.

I'm using an Nvidia heatsink where the top copper shim is flat without a notch in the middle. There should be some on eBay. Look here. The pictures below, from the listing, will show you what I'm talking about.



I knew I've forgotten to do something! I've forgotten to take pictures when I swapping out the GTX980M for the P5000! Sorry about that @supermoth can't help you with the pictures.

 

M6800 (LVDS) Owners Rejoice! We can install the P5000 mobile card in our M6800 with Optimus Enabled!

Armed with the knowledge of what @iieeann did regarding his previous install of the P5000 in his M6800 (eDP) and his confirmation of a success with an updated vBIOS for the P5000, I went out and got myself a P5000 from fleabay.

Long story short, the P5000 replaced the GTX980M in the M6800. It was able to re-use the heatsink and all existing thermal pads from the 980M setup as the VRMs, memory and phase change chips are in the same spots. Also used the Shin Etsu X23-7921-5 TIM on the GPU and CPU while I'm at it.

Similar to iieeann, upon power up I got into continuous boot loops on my existing Win10 OS without any OS boot screen showing up; the POST screen does show up though. Attempts to use WinPE to boot up suffered the same ACPI_BOOT_ERROR message that iieeann got when attempting to install brand new Win7/Win8/Win10 OS. Diagnostics will show everything is working fine.

So I was down to a few options:

• Boot up using Linux and flash with the latest version of nvflash for Linux (hoping that it supports P5000/Pascal)
• Boot up using FreeDOS 1.2 and flash with the latest version of nvflash for Windows; if that fails use the latest version of nvflash for DOS (hoping it supports P5000/Pascal)
• Boot up using WinXP an and flash with the latest version of nvflash for Windows
• If all else fails, find someone with a laptop/system that supports the P5000 and get his/her to flash the vBIOS

I used HyperV on my spare E4310 laptop to test the first two scenarios; as the WinXP ISO is on the M6800 and I'm lazy to make the effort to get it out to test scenario 3.

Turns out scenario 1 is entirely feasible (nvflash for Linux is able to execute in the setup) but scenario 2 is limited to using the last version of nvflash for DOS (which I don't think supports Pascal).

Scenario 1 Tested
I used Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia (featuring the Cinnamon desktop) and you don't have to install it. All you need to do is to create its installation setup on a USB and boot straight in. It will eventually boot up to the Cinnamon desktop and you will be able to launch programs from there. Luckily, nvflash for Linux is one of the programs that it can run without a full blown Linux installation.

I booted straight into Linux Mint's installation Cinnamon desktop in UEFI using a USB stick; have to disable "Secure Boot" in the BIOS setup. From there I copied the latest version of nvflash for Linux and the P5000v3.rom to the desktop from another USB stick.

Switched to root mode at the desktop (you will see the root mode and terminal program options when u right click on the desktop) and launched the terminal program from desktop (if you miss the step to switch to root, the nvflash for Linux will not run).

I hadn't touched Linux for a while now and was getting extremely rusty on how to run the nvflash... a little Googling later found it out to be "./nvflash_linux" to run it without the quotes. The options available mirrors that of nvflash for Windows.

Steps I used:

1. ./nvflash_linux --list (first success, it correctly detects the P5000! The index number listed for the P5000, typically, should be 0)
2. ./nvflash_linux --save P5000old.rom (to backup the old vBIOS just in case)
3. ./nvflash_linux --protectoff (crucial step as my initial attempt to flash the vBIOS failed because of this)
4. ./nvflash_linux --index=0 -6 P5000v3.rom (assuming P5000 was listed as item 0 in first step and P5000v3.rom was provided by iieeann)
5. ./nvflash_linux --protecton (crucial step to prevent an accidental flash of the vBIOS)

You might have to flash it more than once to get it to complete successfully. Took me three times before it reported the flash as successful. However, upon scrolling through the flash process history, I found that it had already successfully flash the vBIOS on the first attempt (after --protectoff step) although it reported the flashing failed and nothing was done.

After the first flashing attempt (after --protectoff step) the vBIOS was already showing the PCI Subsystem ID based on the P5000v3.rom which was also reflected in subsequent flashing attempts .

Well better to be safe than sorry and let the program report a successful flashing right?

The rest is history! I was able to boot into my Win10 OS and got about editing the latest nvidia inf to install the drivers. I even named it "P5000 Mobile".

Pictures Galore!

P5000 Flash Attempt 1 by DynamiteZerg posted Jun 18, 2018 at 11:37 PM

P5000 Flash Attempt 2a by DynamiteZerg posted Jun 18, 2018 at 11:37 PM

P5000 Flash Attempt 2b by DynamiteZerg posted Jun 18, 2018 at 11:38 PM

P5000 Flash Attempt 3 (Success) by DynamiteZerg posted Jun 18, 2018 at 11:39 PM

Flash Success First Bootup 1a by DynamiteZerg posted Jun 19, 2018 at 11:46 AM

Flash Success First Bootup 1b by DynamiteZerg posted Jun 18, 2018 at 11:40 PM

M6800 P5000 by DynamiteZerg posted Jun 18, 2018 at 11:34 PM

Scenario 2 Untested
Might give the FreeDOS 1.2 setup a try when I get the chance and see if the last nvflash for DOS can detect the P5000. If yes, will it allow the P5000 rom to be flashed.

However, I don't have high hopes for this scenario.

Scenario 3 Untested
When I get the chance to create a WinXP boot disk, I'll see what options are available and what can be tested.

 

Congratulations on your success on P5000. The first hero who drilled this through is RMSMajestic on his M6700 PC screen. He shared a few vbios and i finally got one of them work with M6800 (the 1st ES vbios he used on M6700 PC did not work with M6800, it did work with Alienware). The problem haunted for months is solved by a vbios.

Anyway, the pics you shared are not visible...?

 

Thanks! At least I didn't have to resort to using another laptop to flash the vbios. So this method of flashing the vbios will work for all the folks here wanting to install the P5000 (vbios available), P4000 (pending working vbios) or P3000 (pending working vbios)!

Did the vbios that @RMSMajestic used to get the P5000 working on his M6700 the same one that we used on our P5000? Where did he get those vbios?

Oops... fixed the permissions for the pics... let me know if you can see them.

 

No that ES bios works on M6700 but not on M6800, I have tried. The current bios you are using works on both M6700 and M6800, donno from where he got the vbios. He has many sources i believe, he has access to all versions of precision laptop.

 

I might be missing something, but it seems like we only have a good vBIOS for the P5000, not the P4000/P3000...

 

Updated my post accordingly!

 

Wow... we must give our thanks that we have him on the forum!

 

One GPU HSF for Maxwell or Pascal cards for the M6800 on fleabay going cheap!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/K6D33-NV-g...733277?hash=item3b0c516c9d:g:OuwAAOSwF8la8UVA

 

Anyone know if the polaris wx7100 from the 7720 has the same 'no fan control' issue that the tonga w7170m has in this machine?