Aaron44126

Just install the current Windows 10 driver from NVIDIA's web site. It is no surprise that there is no Windows 11 driver. Windows 11 is not "supported" on any system that came with this GPU. NVIDIA had also ended driver support for it before Windows 11 was released.

If you have hesitations, I recommend sticking to officially supported GPUs. Users installing unsupported GPUs should be ready to deal with extra steps installing drivers, potentially unexpected issues, etc. If you do go with an "unsupported" GPU... You will need a heatsink mod to install a Maxwell or Pascal GPU. You have to cut off a protruding piece so you will need a Dremel or similar tool. You can reuse the existing thermal pads. NVCleanstall can handle driver installation nowadays. You don't need to manually muck with the driver INF file. You would have to use NVCleanstall with every driver update.

A failing/failed GPU seems most likely, but it's going to require some actual (physical) troubleshooting to figure out. Removing and reseating the GPU is not a bad idea. I personally think the chances of this actually fixing anything are near-zero. But you aren't "out" anything other than your time and some thermal paste. Resetting the BIOS settings is also something that I would try. I don't necessarily expect that this will fix anything either, but I would still try it before moving on to more steps. (You could use the option to reset from inside the BIOS setup, or you could just disconnect the power and the coin cell battery for a few moments.) Do be sure to note what settings that you have so that you can put them back. We're looking at a hardware issue if neither of those help. Then the question is: is it the GPU (most likely) or something on the motherboard that is preventing the GPU from being recognized (less likely but also possible)? And the only way to figure that out is to replace one of them and see if it fixes the problem. It looks like you can get a replacement K3100M from eBay for around $30, or maybe think about using this as an opportunity to upgrade...

I have not used one personally. However, I haven't heard from anyone who seems to have an overall good impression. 😕 I mean, really the only options in this category are Dell, HP, and Lenovo. At my office, we have switched from Dell Precision to Lenovo P16 for dev workstations. I have not used of the Lenovos myself personally, though, either. I passed on the "upgrade" and I am going to be switching to MacBook Pro for work as soon as I can.

I'm also worried about physical damage. The "normal" behavior for when a GPU upgrade causes fan misbehavior is just that the fans will not turn on, report 0 RPM, and will behave when manually adjusted with a tool like this. (I seem to remember usually hearing about this when it comes to AMD GPU upgrades, though.)

No, the drive will run at PCIe 3 speed in that system. If the price is the same, though, you could pick it up with the thought of maybe using it in a newer system in the future.

Tools like SpeedFan or HWiNFO64 can manually control the fan in this system. If you use one of those, can you get the fan to turn on?

Intel AX200 should be fine. I had one of those in my Precision M6700, with an M.2 adapter, and it worked great. I would think BE200 would also be fine but I haven't tried that one. I think you can even get AX200 in mPCIe form factor (might be harder to find) so you wouldn't need an M.2 adapter. The M.2 adapter that you linked to won't work. You need an A or E key adapter, and that one is B key. (I made this mistake too.) Note that you will need adapters for the antenna cables as well. Look for "U.FL to MHF4" adapters. When I installed a M.2 Wi-Fi card in my M6700 with an adapter, at one point I pressed down too hard and it ended up causing a scratch on the motherboard, which broke a trace and led to me having to replace the motherboard. Be careful with the install. I recommend putting some electrical tape *under* the adapter, between the adapter and the motherboard, just to reduce the chance of damage to the motherboard.

Here's some that I think must be laptops because of the 14 and 16, but, probably not the high-end flagship. Dell Pro Precision 7 14 PW714260 Dell Pro Precision 7 16 PW716260

You can put a "standard" eDP display in (like a 16:9 4K panel) but these will take a bit of work to get to "fit", the M6700 was released before the "standard" form factor for these panels had materialized (which Dell started using in Precision 7710). It's possible to fit one in, though. I'm not sure what it takes exactly, but I know that @TheQuentincc had a 4K panel working in the M6700 at one point. The 120 Hz glossy "3D" panel that originally shipped in this system can be fit in without such worries. Sorry, I don't have the model number.

This seems a bit flaky to me. They don't give details of the system that these tests were run on. There are anomalies like P4200 actually winning their Vulkan test. I'll admit to not digging into the tests here too much, because I already know how it's going to shake out. I've been closely following this line of systems for 15+ years and this is something that has come up for discussion and testing, over and over and over again. There was a lot of chatter about this on NotebookReview at the time of the launch of these systems. Users who had the systems in hand tried different things. P4200 and P5200 were barely different in most cases. This really started to get a lot of attention with the Pascal generation as it started to become clear around that time how NVIDIA was putting very power-constrained desktop-class chips that could "use" a lot more power into laptops, and the power limit was the limiting factor on their performance. But the same has held true with every generation since then, comparing 4000- and 5000- series GPUs from NVIDIA in mobile workstations. It makes sense, given that the architecture and the power limit are the same. Spreading out the load over more cores is going to help with efficiency, but not to the tune of >10% performance. You're welcome to check yourself if you get one in hand.

Every benchmark that I saw when these launched put the difference at <5% if there was not VRAM pressure.

GPU ... GeForce 980M or Quadro M5000M are the best options for "hassle-free" upgrades in this system. (They perform about the same.) CPU ... only you can decide if it is "worth" the upgrade, but going from 3740 to 3840 is going to be pretty negligible in terms of performance boost, I wouldn't spend a lot on it. If you can get the better cooler for cheap, that's a good upgrade to do, these CPUs will max at 100 °C and thermal throttle under load so anything you can do to help with the thermals will increase performance a little bit. Display ... From what I recall, the original RGB IPS LCD display panel has been pretty much impossible to source for years now. You could get the 120 Hz display (Samsung I think?). It was marketed as the "3D" panel, but the 3D functionality won't work with a Maxwell GPU installed. It will still work as a nice 120 Hz 1080p panel. Note that it is glossy, not matte. It doesn't need a replacement lid or the interposer board, it just needs the "3D" eDP cable. (You will probably have to do a BIOS reset to get it to work after replacing a LVDS display.)

Cards from the Precision 7740 can be used, but as is typical with this sort of cross-generation upgrade, you will need an INF mod to load the NVIDIA driver under Windows and that can mess with a small number of games that are particular about driver signatures for anti-cheat purposes. I'm not sure about the heatsink. I don't think a swap is needed but I can't confirm. Carefully check photos of the cards and make sure that screw holes and VRMs are in the same position.

Because of the power cap, performance of P4200 and P5200 will be nearly identical in this system. The only reason to upgrade would be if you can make use of the extra VRAM.