Possible GPU upgrade for Precision M4600

Alright, new user here, been lurking a long time. I see that users here get their m5100 utilized well with stable temps on their M4600s, that means GPU fan control. -- I'm running a Dell Precision M4600, Win. 7 with an i7 2960XM CPU with some cooling mods, 210W power supply, and I just recently inserted an AMD Firepro M5100, thinking life would be good with this machine. https://valid.x86.fr/ulvw91

Initially I didn't see the GPU fan control issue mentioned, so after that issue showed up here as well, I fiddled around on my own, tried various drivers, ... Some users here wondered earlier which driver would detect the m5100 as an m5100, well the AMD driver v. "15.201.2701-151130a-297366C-Dell" detects the M5100 as "FirePro M5100 FireGL V". I haven't tried anything with that driver, however as it's ancient. The "Adrenalin" drivers I tried (Feb. 2018 and March 2018) detects the card as a Radeon R9 M200X, as previously mentioned here. M1500 is run with UEFI, vBios is 015.036.000.006.044647. BIOS of course always says "unknown graphics card" and blank on vBios version. Running the latest Dell BIOS, v. A17.

Now, I tried various fan control utilities mentioned, as well as a C# project I found online (I'm a developer & automation eng. btw), and the fan control tool from @valuxin. Nothing is able to control the fans and the tool from valuxin gave a BSOD after I did the Signed Driver settings change. This means that at the moment I can't use my M5100 GPU as it quickly heats up and throttles in games (tried Skyrim SE and Saints Row IV, got lower FPS than with Quadro 2000M). I've had my PC shutdown due to overheat (no OC done, and my laptop is wide open as I write this with an external keyboard).

Really excited to hear any news on the RX560 MXM, this machine is firmly docked under my desk with external displays and what not, so I don't mind the no LVDS issue much, but I would really appreciate some feedback on my GPU fan control BSOD problem. Is @valuxin still around? Did he and Prema ever figure things out? I've eagerly been reading this thread from page 18 today.

@TheReciever Congrats on getting your BSc! Which degree, if I may ask?

 

HWinfo is the only one that has ever worked for me on these laptops. The "respin" has to be set to 100 ms. Its kind of stop and go, but it does the job. It actually works better with the respin set to 0, but then this annoying message keeps popping up whenever the fan changes speeds. There has to be a workaround for this.

Its funny i just messaged him today about a similar issue, related to another vbios of his. He seems to be the only one with answers to some of these questions. I do know that his vbios for the m5100 worked great, vastly improved the performance of the card. My card eventually burned out, but i think its because i left the memory oced for too long while the computer was in hibernate or something.

 

It was a BSIT - no specialization as I didn't have much interest in staying in IT anyways. Too much politics involved in an otherwise key market to fill in the Dallas.

The reason your m5100 is overheating is not because of the Gpu or lack of control but the 2960xm dumping its heat into the gpu exhaust before exiting circulation.

If you can undervolt the cpu and reduce the heat dump you will see gains in the GPU temperature. Also make sure even if under the desk it will need cool air to circulate otherwise it will recycle the heat and overheat.

It's why the XM chips aren't really recommended. 2860qm holds 3.4ghz on four cores without the extra heat. Can't overclock the cpu so extra heat for 100-200mhz isn't advised. For gaming the gpu is still the bottleneck. Though it sounds like you have other uses

 

Aha, well having IT skills won't hurt no matter what you end up doing (assuming you haven't yet ).

Thanks for the tips, I'm aware of the heatsink placement issue but I should've tested the M5100 with the old CPU for comparison (i7-2720QM). The machine gets fresh air under the desk and the case is never fully closed anymore, with fans & airways physically "modded" for airflow (I know that part helped on the old CPU). I use this machine for more than just gaming, that's correct, although I do enjoy playing somewhat recent games with decent framerate and graphics settings.

@Pettiford Thanks, I'll give HWInfo another go. If nothing works for GPU control I'll end up making custom hardware as the driver instead, and then might just tweak or remove the heatsink that gets heat from the CPU as well. :') (Got a ton of various fans and heatsinks & electronics laying around)

Does anyone know how the RX 560 MXM fares compared with the E9260 MXM? I'm also puzzled by the low prices on these cards on Taobao (like, ridiculously low).

Thanks again.

EDIT: My gosh, HWInfo actually got control of the GPU fan now, and I see the issue you mentioned about setting respin time to 0 ms (nagging popup message). That can be changed as HWInfo is open source. On another note, I tested again to see if I could avoid overheating the GPU this time by setting speed to constant 4900 RPM with while the CPU stayed cool (CPU fan stood still as well). The GPU fan alone is not enough, I aborted the test before 100 deg C was reached. The test is simply the PCI-Express Render Test in GPU-Z.