P170EM

Hi

This is my first post and I just need some advice please. I just bought a P170EM and am wanting to upgrade it. I looked at the official P170EM lounge and saw a post by Meaker@Sager stating that the max upgrade the motherboard can handle are

3840qm/3920xm
GTX 1070
32GB ram
SSD raid
1080p overcooked to 90-100hz

I wanted to post on that thread but it was locked. I currently have a 3610qe, i wanted to query the 3840qm if this is still the max upgrdade as the 3940xm maybe compatible because the price difference between the two processors isn't to much. The motherboard has four memory slots so how much can each memory slot handle as i'm thinking of buying two 16gb modules. Currently I have a ati 7970 would it be difficult to upgrade to a 1070? would I have to mess about with changing the cooling or flashing the bios?

Thank in advance

 

16GB modules need special bios support due to intel chip limitations. Seems like a lot to invest in the platform at this point.

 

I don't want to spend to much but I can get a 3840 for about £110 which isn't too bad, it would be a big step up from the 3610qe I got at the moment. I can sell the 3610qe on eBay to recoup some money. I managed to pull some ram out of some broken laptops that I had lying around so iv got four 1600mhz 4gb modules now so 16gb total which I think it's ok for gaming.

mxm gfx cards on eBay are expensive, I'm thinking of selling my 7970 on there to recoup some of the cost and buying a 1060 for about £290 or a 980m for £200. So for these two gfx cards would I need to get a special bios? Also iv read about premabios for overclocking but I can't find any download links so I think it's no longer available ☹️

 

You don't need to flash any special BIOS. Those cards will be plug and play after a driver .inf mod. The 980m and 1060 perform roughly the same, but the 1060 uses much less power. The only thing you'll have to do is move around, possibly buy some extra thermal pads.

The best overclocking DDR3 memory happens to be very common 4GB 1600 MHz memory sticks (Samsung M471B5773DH0), so consider overclocking in XTU. 11-11-11 1600 turns into 9-10-10 2000, or 2133 with no effort.

 

The memory modules I have are all 4gb Samsung ones, not sure about the module numbers. I didn't know that I could overclock them as the bios is very limited and has no access to voltages or timings. I will try overclocking them with XTU.

That's good to hear about not needed a special bios as I was unsure because I had read that it was needed as shown on the eurocom website

https://eurocom.com/ec/upgrade(2,276,0)P170EM_XMG P702_SAGER_NP9170_OriginEON17Pro

Also one last question if I got the 3940xm would I be able to overclock it in XTU?

 

With the 900 series cards there was a series of driver releases where a modified BIOS was required. I have not heard of anyone needing to use it recently though. I run a P370EM BIOS on my P150EM board and 900 and 1000 series cards run without issue, but I did disable optimus (extensive mods required, with flashing another system bios being the most minor).

Yes you can overclock everything, even the integrated graphics in XTU. You do need to modify the BIOS, specifically the ME Firmware if you want BCLK control though. Other than that CPU, memory, and IGPU control is fully present.

 

Someone can teach ou I can mod my nvida driver 980m 8gb for my P170sm? Dont know how to mod .Inf

Enviado do meu MI 8 através do Tapatalk

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...nstall-mods-nvidia-inf-mod-with-photo.813384/

 

I have just purchased a 980m it was removed from a MSI laptop but it's a mxm card so hopefully all goes well. I will probably have some more questions later but for now thank you for your help.

 

The MSI one is oddly shaped though I thought?

 

Oh no don't say that, iv already ordered it lol please can you have a look at the eBay listing it had the gfx picture there

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Nvidia-G...861798?hash=item3fdedb6ca6:g:h3IAAOSwYxBegO9O

 

Ok it is the right shape at least.

 

I've used an MSI 980m. It's the same as the Clevo card, just no backside memory.

 

Double density chips, what does the vram clock to?

 

Same density chips just only 4 GB total. It came with Hynix memory that I swapped out for Samsung from a 980 board. With the Hynix it only clocked around 5.7 GHz before voltmod, and 6.5 after raising to 1.5V. The 7 GHz rated Samsung memory clocked around 7.3 GHz stable at 1.5V. Prema made me a special vbios that clocked about 100 MHz better, and that with external cooling to match desktop like environment made about 7.5 ghz stable. I'm not sure why 980m boards do not clock memory as well as desktop boards, despite the memory chips being much closer to the core. I'm thinking the 980m termination is set for 5 GHz and that's the issue, but I could never figure out how to change the termination. Since I put a 980 core on it and the 4GB memory matched desktop boards, I was thinking of how could I SLI it to a desktop card, but SLI requires an x4 PCI-e link minimum and I could only figure out how to do x2 at best.

I see the card mojojo ordered using Samsung memory, which I'm guessing is double density to match the seller's description. I can't see the part numbers to check chip density.

 

The memory layout is why, there is more trace noise. I got to about 8Ghz with voltage modding but adding in the extra power phases hurt that a little.

 

Bro meaker, you almost gave the man a heart attack

 

Yeah he did hahaha but thank you all for your help

 

Better to check twice then order than get the wrong thing

 

Ok, iv managed to install the gfx card into the laptop, iv uninstalled the ATI drivers in safe mode using ddu. Now the problem I'm having is installing the Nvidia graphics driver , iv tried many and it keeps giving me an error that it is not compatible? Please help

 

Use an advanced restart to disable driver signing.

 

I'm using windows 8, iv booted up without driver signing enforcement mode but it still doesn't work it says that this Nvidia graphics driver is not compatible with this version of Windows even though I have download the win7/8 installer. I'm trying to figure out how to modify the inf, but in the official driver folder there is no nvcvi.inf file for clevos

 

I managed to fix it, I had to replace the original Nvidia driver inf with a premamod modded one which I got from

https://premamod.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/j95-nvidia-inf/

I then download the same version official Nvidia drivers, extracted them to a folder and then replaced the Nvidia inf with the premamod ones and then disabled windows driver enforcement and it worked.

 

Ok, it's still not working, I managed to install the driver's ok, and windows recognises it and says it's working correctly in device manager but games crash and when checking with GPU-z it says I have 4gb memory size instead of 8gb

 

I am still on the first version laptop bios could this be the problem I'm on bios 1.00.04 EC 1.00.05 and in the bios screen VGA card shows empty instead of the 980m.also in windows the hd 4000 graphics In device manager is showing an error this device cannot find enough free resources that it can use code 12

 

Reporting as "empty" is normal and means nothing.

The code 12 is strange. The system should automatically allocate resources. Do you have a lot of SATA drives?

 

Also yes definitely update the BIOS.

 

No iv only got one sata ssd. I think its most likely a problem with Windows, going from amd to Nvidia, the driver's and registry's are probably messed up, I'll also try reinstalling it, which version do you recommend, I'm thinking of upgrading to Windows 10. I'm going to also check what memory modules are soldered onto the card as Windows is showing only 4gb vram instead of 8gb. Yes the bios definitely needs an update lol. I found a website once that had all the p170em bioses but I can't find it any more does anyone have a link. Also does any one know where I can download premabios from, because I'm sure the tweaks would also help. the links iv seen online lead to a newsletter page.

 

Iv managed to find the official bioses from

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/clevo-bios-older-models-released-in-after-2012.740492/

But a motherboard premabios would be still be appreciated so I can change memory timing to 1t amongst other things. Thanks

 

Ok iv update the ec to 1.02.12 and bios to 1.02.14. I want to upgrade to BIOS V 1.02.17 when I download the file from the link above april2013 the read me file says it's a premabios?? It has no version number in the reader. Is it safe to flash it because it maybe a lower EC/bios number to what im Currently on?

 

I uninstalled all the driver's and reinstalled them and it works but then when running 3dmark the laptop turns off and won't turn back on.

 

How did you fix it? cmos reset or did it just get too hot.

 

It just started working by itself, but now when I run in high performance mode the laptop turns off when gaming and then restarts into windows and starts beeping?

 

Sounds like EC panic of some sort, does it turn off ~1min after the beeps begin?

 

its got worse now, it now boots into Windows, a couple of seconds later the fans spin really fast, it starts beeping and then it shuts down

 

Iv taken out the mxm gfx card and the fans still fast spin it beeps then auto shutdown, even if I'm just in the bios. Do you think the bios flash caused the problem?

 

EC is in panic mode, try your old card and see if it also results in the same problem. Did you flash new EC/Bios onto the board when this began? @Khenglish

 

I put the old card in, cleaned the fans, and it seems to be working now. Does anyone know the list of reasons why it would beep and shutdown. It was still beeping without the mxm card in, relying on the hd4000, would faulty fans cause it to beep

 

EC will panic if no MXM card is detected.

 

IL try swapping them again later, maybe it was a loose connection somewhere. Is the 980m to power hungry for the motherboard? Is there a list somewhere that details the EC panic causes such as no mxm cards, no fan attached etc

 

Ok so I swapped the 980m in again, the beeping has stopped but when I start a game in performance mode and the GPU usage goes higher the laptop just hard shutdown but if I play in powersaver mode it lasts alot longer before shutting down. If I leave it idling in windows it lasts indefinitely.

Im guessing it's probably temperature related because once it shuts down I have to wait a little while before the laptop restarts and posts.

Could the gfx card be faulty? The core temps are fine though 65c GPU 55c cpu logged with gpu-z. I thought maybe the power brick is dying but I had the battery plugged in aswel. Could it be overheating vrms/mosfets?

I'm going to swap back to the ATI card tommorow and see if it does it with that aswel to rule out the 980m card.

 

It sounds like you don't have thermal pads on the MOSFETs. The 3 chips at the top edge of the card absolutely require thermal pads on them. Same with the 2 on the upper right side.

Not doing so will get you emergency GPU shutdowns like you are describing.

 

Ok I'll have a look at the thermal pads tomorrow as I'm pretty sure I covered them. Also when the laptop shuts down and I try to restart it, it doesn't start, doesn't post, doesn't even spin the fans up, I have to wait a little while would hot mosfets cause this? Thanks

 

Yes, as long as the shutdown happened while you were running a game or benchmark.

 

I double checked the vrms they were definitely padded and cooled. I put my original ATI card back in and it is running fine no problems. I am assuming that the 980m card that I bought is faulty and I am going to send it back. My guess is it's probably the GPU maybe hasn't been soldered properly or maybe it has some bad MOSFETs. The memory modules are samsung k4g41325fc-hc03 does that mean this card is definitely a 4gb card and not a 8gb as described by the seller. I know this is a stretch but could installing modded inf NVIDIA drivers be the cause of this or maybe because of not reinstalling windows, I think it is unlikely though because when it would shut down the laptop it wouldn't restart straight away and had to wait for a couple of minutes. Any way thank you all for your help and patience

 

People do tend to recommend re-installing windows flipping between and and nvidia.

 

Especially if it's a 4Gb card instead of the advertised 8Gb.

 

Those chips are 512MB each so it would need to be double sided for 8GB.

 

a 1060 is a drop in replacement

the 1070 will require modification of the chassis

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...nstall-mods-nvidia-inf-mod-with-photo.832679/


see my signature for max possible hardware

as for the 3940xm XTU overclock, i do not overclock. sorry cant help you there.

 

That's good to know. My 3940xm is coming from China so it should be here in a couple of weeks, so hopefully it all goes well and something actually works this time.