GTX 1070M in a Dell Precision M6800?

[BYTEHAT248]

So ive done quite a bit of research on upgrading this laptop, and from what ive found nobody has put a GTX 1070 in this device. I know for a fact that it would  need a heatsink mod.  I also know that the highest power stock card from the m6800 had a TDP of 100W, now the 1070 has a TDP of 120W. Now i was wondering if i could solve this issue with, a 330W charger, undervolting the card and maybe even limiting its power usage, and high performance thermal pads on the motherboards VRMs (at least the ones that i can connect to the chassis or heat pipes if any). I use fedora as my main operating system, so im not to worried about the bios not recognizing it. Does this sound like it could work. Im asking here first as I dont want to spend $200+ on a GPU that has no possibility of working.

[Aaron44126]

It has been tried. https://www.nbrchive.net/forum.notebookreview.com/threads/trials-and-tribulations-installing-a-1070-in-a-m6800.828000/index.html

 

There is a vBIOS issue if you wan to run Windows. You will get an ACPI BSOD no matter what, even if trying to just boot install media. For Pascal, you need an engineering sample vBIOS to get around this (...or some steps that I don't understand like @jeamn did, see link). We only have engineering sample vBIOS images for Quadro P3000, P4000, and P5000; no GeForce.

[BYTEHAT248]

3 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

It has been tried. https://www.nbrchive.net/forum.notebookreview.com/threads/trials-and-tribulations-installing-a-1070-in-a-m6800.828000/index.html

 

There is a vBIOS issue if you wan to run Windows. For Pascal, you need an engineering sample vBIOS to get around this (...or some steps that I don't understand like @jeamn did, see link). We only have engineering sample vBIOS images for Quadro P3000, P4000, and P5000; no GeForce.

Ah thanks, good to know it'll work. weird that its not more popular to try tho, ive read around so much about upgrading the m6800, but never really seen anything about a GTX 1070 upgrade

[ssj92]

12 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

It has been tried. https://www.nbrchive.net/forum.notebookreview.com/threads/trials-and-tribulations-installing-a-1070-in-a-m6800.828000/index.html

 

There is a vBIOS issue if you wan to run Windows. You will get an ACPI BSOD no matter what, even if trying to just boot install media. For Pascal, you need an engineering sample vBIOS to get around this (...or some steps that I don't understand like @jeamn did, see link). We only have engineering sample vBIOS images for Quadro P3000, P4000, and P5000; no GeForce.

Interesting, I also had that BSOD in M6600. Perhaps I should have looked deeper to see someone else experienced it. For me it was with RTX 3000. I always go the bsod. 

 

Currently I am running P4000 in M6600 and it works 99% of the time. 1% of the time, the whole PC freezes. I am confident it is due to the P4000 for some reason. 

[Aaron44126]

35 minutes ago, BYTEHAT248 said:

Ah thanks, good to know it'll work. weird that its not more popular to try tho, ive read around so much about upgrading the m6800, but never really seen anything about a GTX 1070 upgrade

 

I didn't say that it works; I tried to point out the caveats. I would say this GPU does not work in M6800 unless you plan to use it with Linux. Getting it to work with Windows requires "extreme measures" which you should familiarize yourself with before purchasing. I don't think that anyone here will be able to help you with it. The only one I know who has gotten it to boot Windows successfully is @jeamn and he did not end up using it for very long.

 

Quadro P5000 would be a better option. We've had discussion about that going on recently.

[BYTEHAT248]

57 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

I didn't say that it works; I tried to point out the caveats. I would say this GPU does not work in M6800 unless you plan to use it with Linux. Getting it to work with Windows requires "extreme measures" which you should familiarize yourself with before purchasing. I don't think that anyone here will be able to help you with it. The only one I know who has gotten it to boot Windows successfully is @jeamn and he did not end up using it for very long.

 

Quadro P5000 would be a better option. We've had discussion about that going on recently.

Good thing I use fedora then, I already had assumed that one of the main reasons nobody uses it is because it prob wouldnt work with windows. I already use linux as my daily driver. i did say something about it in my original message, my bad if i didnt make it apparent.

[Aaron44126]

Alright then, I missed that. You should be fine. You'll need a Dremel or similar tool to cut a little protruding piece off of the heatsink, most likely, where it hits one of the VRMs at the top of the card.

[BYTEHAT248]

Alr, Is there any like "general" guide for what sizes of thermal pads go where on the card. I got a general idea of where they need to go and ill experiment with different sizes in different places to see what works, but I'm asking in case theres a certain placement for the best cooling.

5 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

Alright then, I missed that. You should be fine. You'll need a Dremel or similar tool to cut a little protruding piece off of the heatsink, most likely, where it hits one of the VRMs at the top of the card.

 

[Aaron44126]

With my M6700, I swapped GPUs many times and always just reused the pads that came with the original GPU card, putting them back in the same spot. Maybe that's not "optimal" but it never caused me any problems. The higher-end GPUs will be power-limited before they become thermal-limited, you just need something that works "good enough".