HP Elitebook 8570W - Help to failed MXM upgrade

[CaptainsWorkspace]

Hello
We have 8 pcs of HP 8570W Elitebooks we use as LAN party computers. All of them have Quad core I7 and 20GB RAM or more and a mix of K1000m and K2000m GPU's.

However we are looking to (have allready bought) 32GB kits and i7 3840QM's for all of them, and Quadro m2200 with HP VBIOS (came from HP ZBook 15 G4). But...


 

When we upgraded the first PC ("UEFI Native" and modified heatplate) couldnt we get any image on the monitor or external display.
I've known people have had problems with backlight before driver install. But here there's no output what so ever. Thoe the PC clearly is alive and can start OS (Start sound and it can be pinged). But no display output.
So we have thought about upgrading to a worse card, most likely the GTX965m that is confirmed to work, or maybe switch from HP8570w to HP8770w to use GTX980m while still being able to use all the CPU and Memory we bought for the upgrade.

But then i saw a bright light shine down from the heaven and amidst the god rays was GuitarG who stated to have tried Quadro P5200 in a 8570W. And suddenly the GTX 965m became less interesting. So had to join NotebookTalk as maybe there's some hope in here for non supported cards/finding some unicorn of a VBIOS.
The thread from GuitarG was an amazing read. But looking for a little more modest solution, thoe i have experience with custom heatsinks/cooling solutions, is it taking it to the next level, if it has to be replicated on 8 PC's or more.
So it has to be somewhat doable, taking it to way less extremes than GuitarG.
But totally worth special tools or programmer, already have rework station if needed.

So before we either invest in 8 pcs of mediocre GTX965m or a slow tedious switch to now somewhat rare 8770w's, would i LOVE to know of any alternatives that might work with little modification or be better investment?
Also somebody mentioned DreamColor LCD's giving some form of trouble with some MXM cards. Maybe somebody can enlighten me?
Anyone in here managed to upgrade 8570w? or any ideas of what cards to try out that might work better than our "failed" M2200 upgrade?

[GuitarG]

Hi there!

Nice LAN party there ! I definitely would love to play some old LAN games, haha. And that is nice to hear, helping people out was my goal 🙂

I would try out vbios programming on that m2200, begin with that one 

I recommend checking out P1000 and P2000, I had tried both P5000 and P5200 and those worked with no problems (P5200 would need notebookfan control app from github with 8560w profile set to "auto"). Px200 series need only to buy flash IC and solder it after programming.

Not sure about Mxxxx series GPU, but P1000 and others would need DC displays, UEFI only bios mode with Windows installed on GPT style partition. Fastboot turned off helps too.

Good luck!

[CaptainsWorkspace]

Thanks @GuitarG
I've downloaded the VBIOS from the thread you linked. Also bought a CH341A EEPROM programmer off ebay in hope it can do the job. Saw a guy in a YT video flash it with a clamp/clip directly on the module. So i guess no need to solder?
Not sure how people normally does it? Maybe using some sort of external MXM to USB adapter and use NVflash?

I kinda saw M2200 as a dead horse, as I would've assumed it had the right VBIOS as it came from a ZBook 15 G4, as but would be nice to get it working.

Even thoe the pictures show Minecraft, do we primary play old Source games, we are making custom maps with lots of custom models (including a HP 8570W aswell), me and my brother have spent the last 4 years making what is gonna be on of the most demanding and advanced source engine maps (A mascot horror poolrooms style LAN Party map, with built in custom gamemode and custom NPC's, thousands of custom made models and textures) pushes the Source engine to the absolute limits and beyond. And its mainly cuz of that the HP's needs to be updated.

If i can't get the Quadro M2200 to work, i might aswell try the Quadro P2000 as you say.
Have zero knowledge about what monitors the 8570W have, except they are FullHD with wide view angle.
I would deem out any mod/combo that require modifying the monitors.
 

[GuitarG]

You can check screen type by device manager and looking at monitor's hardware ID. DC is AFAIK LGD0220, others are only TN LCD (and very good ones, though). Only DC screen can go above Pascal generation cards. 

In my experience HP's vBIOSes are last to work with 8570w ^_^ even Dell's are more compatible. CH341 will do a job, but I never used clamps. Soldering flash IC off boards make better results, much less prone to errors (mostly encountered during "verify" phase) due to missmatch. You may need 5V to 3V converter, but have to check what IC GPU uses.

So until DC screen confirmed, you may use only those olders M2200.