Zeht

Ah thats unfortunate, I think the video outputs don't work because the vbios is from a laptop which has a soldered gpu and probably outputs video from the igpu. I have another idea, which is to reduce the tdp of your original vbios using Pascal TDP Tweaker and then flash it with an external programmer, such as CH341A (make sure you get the 1,8V adapter, otherwise you'll fry your vbios chip). The process of modding the vbios is quite straightforward, flashing it with the programmer is the challenging part but it can be done with some patience.

Aside from trying using one of the modded versions of nvflash I can't think of anything else to do, if you manage to find anothe vbios it will probably have the same error when trying to flash.

You could try, I think that the worst scenario would be that the card doesn't output video, in that case simply flash the old vbios back using the igpu. I'm not sure if you can override the error with regular nvflash though, that's why I mentioned those modified versions in the previous reply.

You can try using nvflashk or omgvflash

I found one that allegedly comes from a Thinkpad X1 Extreme (source). Inspecting it with Pascal TDP Tweaker shows that its max power is 20W, which seems very low. You could try it and see how it performs, make sure to backup. nvidia.rom

You could try flashing a max-q vbios. To be safe make sure to enable nvidia optimus, just in case the card doesn't output video after flashing it.

Dumb question but is optimus/switchable graphics enabled in bios?, if it already is then unfortunately I got no clue

Check out this video, its in spanish but should be pretty straightforward

From what I've seen it depends on the vbios, on some the boost clock is way higher than whats advertised. On this zbook my card would normally boost to 1500-1550mhz in order to match 75W. Now I'm using a quadro rtx 3000 on a dell precision 7540 and I've seen it boost up to 1700mhz, despite the boost clock being 1380mhz.

Well case closed, I'll get a battery soon. Thanks a lot for your time, I really appreciate it.

Yesterday I tried repasting since I noticed the cpu vrm would get into the 70°s (Dell EC temp1 in hwinfo). I change the thermal pad for a slightly thicker one and now it stays in the 60°s but the issue persists. I'd really appreciate if someone could do the tests without battery, I'm going crazy with this laptop

Well I tried flashing a 65W max-q vbios but it kinda bricked the laptop, it would boot into windows but as soon as the login screen appeared the screen would turn black. I had to use the safe mode to flash the original vbios and it's working back again. Before getting a battery I want to make sure it will fix the issue. Could anyone with a precision 7540 unplug their battery and run a gpu+cpu stress test?, I want to see if the cpu throttling behavior is normal in this machine or if mine is faulty.

When I bought the laptop the seller said that he removed the battery due to "Communication error". I'm afraid that ths embedded controller might be faulty and a new battery will either not work or the issue with power throttling might continue. I updated to the latest 1.30.0 bios and the problem persists, undervolt seems to still be working. I'm tired of this machine, later I will try flashing the maxq vbios and see if it fixes anything.

I'm using a 180W adapter, unfortunately I can't get a 240W. Either way I think 180W should be more than enough, the quadro takes around 80W and the cpu 45W. If updating the bios doesn't work I will try flashing the max-q version vbios, which has a 60W tgp if I recall correctly.

It may be. I bought the machine from ebay a few weeks back, I'm not from the US so I imported it to my country, meaning that I can't return it now. So, I'm stuck with this laptop since I sold my old zbook 15 g2. I was going to get a battery eventually but now I'm not sure, I would have to spend $100 to get it into my country and the laptop may continue performing like crap.

I tried the command but it doesn't seem to work, I get the following error: "Changing power management limit is not supported for GPU: 00000000:01:00.0. Treating as warning and moving on. All done." Yes, in fact I don't have the battery plugged, but I don't think that's the issue. It may be related to how dell throttles power using an embedded controller, which apparently can fail after some time causing it to trigger a power throttle even if the temperatures are ok. If I limit the cpu to 25W then I can run superposition+cpuz for 5 minutes without any issues. I tried 30W and after 2 minutes it throttled down to 5W, despite the gpu being 72°c and cpu 78°c

Yes, I just tested changing the PL1 at 75W and ran the throttlestop stress tool for some minutes, the max temp was 98° and it didn't power throttled. However, my issue starts whenever I use both cpu+gpu at the same time, that's why I lowered the cpu PL1 to 45W but that didn't seem to help. Edit: I also upgraded to bios 1.26.1 which according to dell "improves system stability" but the issue persists.

Yes, I just tried setting ultra performance, launched superposition benchmark and cpuz to stress cpu and gpu. The laptop maintains 45W for around 30 secs, then drops to 30W and after 30 more secs drops to 5W. I got the igpu version of the laptop, then I added the quadro gpu alongside the compatible heatsink. The heatsink came with pre-applied thermal pads and paste, and while I don't think it's of the highest quality the temps seem fine. The moment the laptop begins to throttle my gpu is at around 70° and cpu at 90°, both far from the limit. I really doubt the cpu vrm is overheating because if I stress the cpu alone it can maintain 45W indefinitely.

I recently got a precision 7540 with i7-9850h and quadro rtx 3000. The machine works well, but there is a big issue with cpu throttling when the gpu is loaded, I tried several throttlestop settings but the issue persists. If I run any game or application that loads the gpu, after one minute or so the cpu starts throttling from 45W to ~20W. Then, after a few more seconds it throttles to ~5W!, reducing the clock to 800Mhz. This makes the laptop completely useless. I checked my temps and they seem fine. I disabled BD PROCHOT in throttlestop, disabled Speedstep, tried several values for Speedshift and nothing seems to work. This issue only happens when the gpu is being used, if I stress the cpu it can hold 55W for several minutes without any problems, as soon as I load the gpu the throttle begins. Anyone else had this issue?, how can I fix it?. Btw, I'm running 1.25.0 bios version, which supports undervolting, but I don't mind losing it if updating the bios fixes the issue.

Amazing post! I saw that you commented on my post about modding the Zbook 15 to fit a quadro p3000, did you discarded the idea of using the Zbook 15 motherboard? From my experience the main issue with the zbook is the heatsink, the cpu simply gets too hot to handle these big gpus. I'm also not too convinced on undervolting haswell chips, my 4810mq barely does -50mv on the core and -40mv on cache, anything more than that it will randomly crash. Under a gaming load it can do 35w sustained, which is decent but not enough to fully push the p3000.

Hey, sorry for such a late response. So, I've been using the laptop for the past year, aside from the thermal issues due to the stock heatsink it works well. I had to "limit" the card by flashing a crappier vbios, which limits the clock to 1240mhz, that way it always stays under 80ºc. I tried enabling the dgpu only mode in bios but it unfortunately doesn't work, in fact I ended up bricking the bios since the screen went fully black, I had to reflash a stock bios with a ch341a programmer to get the image back. So for now it works in hybrid mode, also the display port which normally outputs from the dgpu doesn't work. The only way to output image is from the vga port, which is linked to the igpu. Fan control works well, if the gpu temps starts increasing it will spin faster, no need for additional software.

I successfully managed to mod the zbook 15 g2, which comes with a mxm type A slot, to make it fit type B gpus. The slot width is blocked by the dvd reader sata connector, so the plan was to remove it. In the picture it shows the connector, and to the right there is a lot of free space occupied by the dvd reader. First I tried desoldering it but the crappy soldering iron that was available in the place I was staying didn't work, so I ended up sawing it off. After that I reassembled the whole machine and installed the a quadro p3000 that I managed to get for around $90 new. The cooler in this notebook was designed for type A gpus, so it didn't cover two vram modules, so I glued some small heatsinks to them. After that the machine booted up fine but when I tried to install the latest drivers it didn't recognized the card. I tried to install them with the "have disk" trick in the device manager and it worked well without modding the .inf file. Here are some screenshots from gpuz and hwinfo, I can't show pictures of the hardware itself right now since I'm travelling back to my place. I haven't tested the gpu too much, just ran heaven benchmark for around 30 mins. The mxm slot can deliver up to 75w in this machine, which is the maximum this gpu can take, in this particular benchmark the clock hovers around 1500mhz, similarly to a gtx 1060 maxq. The temperatures are quite high, creeping into the 90ºc's, which is to be expected since the cooling wasn't designed for this kind of gpu.