Nvidia Maxwell & M6600/M6700/M6800 bios

I installed Quadro M3000M in my M6600.

It didn't work (see below for gory details). I thought it might work if I could install an M6700 or M6800 bios on the M6700, since these are newer. So I tried this, but there's a check in the flashing process, which says you can't update M6600 with an M6700 bios. Does anybody have any ideas to get around this / force it to accept a bios update - maybe using the bios mod tool referenced below?

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When I booted my M6600 with the M3000M in it, I observed:
- Intel Management & Security error 207 (so I turned AMT off, and the error went away)
- kernel panic booting Linux (with or without AMT)
- BIOS shows unknown video card, but did detect/report 4GB
- diagnostics show healthy video card
- nvflash (ran from dos) didn't list any card (maybe the last dos version is too old for Maxwell? I didn't check)

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http://hardware.forumsee.com/a/m/s/...recision-workstation-adding-gtx-970m-gpu.html contains a useful M6600 video card whitelist, obtained as follows:

opening the bios with andy's phoenix tools, than after the Dump map appears, opening a specific rom with hxd and seeing the following listing

.....Unknown video vendor....AMD Corp........Intel Corp......NVidia Corp.....AMD FirePro M6100 Mobility......AMD FirePro M5950 Mobility......AMD FirePro M8900 Mobility......ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6330.....ATI Mobility Radeon HD 530v.....Intel HD Graphics.......Intel GMA HD....Intel GM45 Graphics.....Unknown video card......NVIDIA Quadro 1000M.....NVIDIA Quadro 2000M.....NVIDIA Quadro 3000M.....NVIDIA Quadro 4000M.....NVIDIA Quadro 5010M.....NVIDIA N12P-NS2.NVIDIA N12P-NS..NVIDIA N12M-NS..NVIDIA Quadro FX1800M GLM4......NVIDIA Quadro FX880M GLM........NVIDIA NVS 3100M........NVIDIA Quadro FX 380M...NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M..NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700M..NVIDIA Quadro FX 770M...NVIDIA Quardo FX 1600M..NVI​

that was using phoenix tool 2.56: EFI/Insyde Bios (dell HDR)

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How much better is an M3000M than my existing 3000M anyway?

Compare my Quadro 3000M OpenCL performance results at https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/compute/801228 with
some guy running a M3000M (not in a Precision laptop though): http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/compute/368076

He is roughly 3-5 times faster on most tests.

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Anyone (preferably in Australia) like to buy an M3000M, suitable for a 7710? ;-)

 

Unfortunately, it's pretty well documented in various threads here that the M6600 can't be upgraded with any NVIDIA GPU newer than the Fermi series... Kepler and Maxwell outright don't work, and Pascal requires eDP. Your best option for upgrading is switching to an AMD GPU, as some of the newer ones will work in the M6600.

Using the BIOS from the M6700 or M6800 isn't an option. They are too tied to the specific hardware of those systems and will not "magically" work in the M6600. If you did manage to get the BIOS to install, I believe that your system would be toast.

There is another thread that begins by discussing this issue with the M4600, which has the same problem as the M6600 — No NVIDIA GPUs newer than Fermi. If anyone did find a solution, it should be applicable to both systems. (There is no solution in that thread.)

You could look into purchasing a used M6700 (or M6800) and selling off your M6600 to cover most of the cost (most replaceable components could be carried over... RAM, drives, etc.). The M6700 is more lenient with GPU upgrades and it can run the Quadro M3000M.

 

Both the M6700 and M6800 can accept the Maxwell GPUs. I have a 980M installed in my M6800. I know of others that have installed the M5000M or lower in the M6700 and M6800 as well.

 

Thanks for the replies ... I now have an M6700 I'd like to try it in. If you compare the M3000M I got from Dell (bottom) to the current card (top) in the system, it is missing the star shaped thingie that the heatsink screws into. Seems to be called a "GPU spreader X-bracket", and available on aliexpress or ebay. EDIT: ordered part to suit Precision/NVidia

Also, the heatsink has a sticker on it saying AMD (its Dell part 09MFH6). It looks like it might still work with this Nvidia card, but I guess I really need the Nvidia one (08V829)

 

For M6700, you need the NVIDIA heatsink for sure. There is a difference in the height of the GPU "core" --- the most important part that needs cooling, which is on the opposite side of the card from the center of the spacer bracket that you mentioned --- the NVIDIA one is "taller" (you can probably observe this on the two cards that you have) and the heatsink may not make proper contact if you do not have the correct one.

 

Quick update on this... the X-bracket arrived, as did the NVIDIA heatsink, and today I installed the M3000M.

All good! https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/compute/1003842

BIOS A18 setup says "unknown video card" but this it seems can be ignored.

I'm using the Nvidia proprietary driver (375.66) on Linux.

 

Congrats mate!

 

I am able to buy m3000m form HP laptop (According to sticker BIOS Ver: 84.04.8D.00.04. part number SPS 827226-001 Date Code 7J1740).
Does anyone know will it work in my M6700 without any issues ?
Thanks.

 

Most likely no. I could be wrong, but i'm quite sure i recall reading of HP's having (at least part of) the video BIOS as part of the mainboard's BIOS, so at the very least, you'll need to flash that with an M3000M BIOS from a Dell version of the video card. I'm quite certain the two cards are physically and electrically (damn near) identical, the only major difference being the contents of the BIOS.

 

Thanks for your considerstion KhronX. Propably I won't buy it. Because I have no idea how to flash the card in an appropriate way. Maybe there is some simple way to flash M3000M for/on m6700. Does anybody have any ideas how to do it ?