HP ZBook 15 G1/G2 Quadro M2200 MXM Upgrade, vBIOS & Benchmarks

[Easa]

Hello,

 

Will I find a good soul that could extract vBIOS from his or hers ZBook 15 G4 equipped with Quadro M2200 ? 

Thanks in advance!

 

BIOS found, brand new HP M2200 arrived today (NOS), lets do it!

[Easa]

Found !

[ryan]

nice good job, I was wondering what the nvidia geforce equivalent of the m2200 was? 1050?

 

also maybe you could post a cinebench r23 bench. and or a timespy bench?

 

 

[Easa]

Hello,

M2200 is Maxwell generation (GTX9xx) but due to its different chip and transistor count it is way above M2000, hitting the performance level of GTX 1050 (+-3%). Plus, you can modify the BIOS and overclock. 

I did not measure the results with the original K2100M that i had prior to upgrade to M2000, but I will certainly measure the difference between M2000 and M2200. 

[ryan]

oh ok cool!! so its basically a 970m?

 

BENCHMARKS BROThER

[Easa]

M2200 should arrive today, I have original Zbook G4 vBIOS ready, hoping for the best ! 🙂

 

 

BTW@Aaron44126 IIRC you posted something a while ago regarding Maxwell BIOS mods, I have tried to mod BIOS on my M2000 but always get an error when flashing (mismatch etc.), I will try to mod bios for this M2200, do you have any tips for successful flashing please? 

[Rippchen]

On 10/28/2022 at 7:47 PM, ryan said:

oh ok cool!! so its basically a 970m?

 

BENCHMARKS BROThER

 

Not completely - the M2200 is the Quadro equivalent to a GeForce 965M but still one of the best MXM-A cards below 1050TI and T1000/T2000 out there 😉 

[Easa]

The whole story including some benchmarks. The laptop was originally shipped with Quadro K2100M (+- on par with GTX660M). I have managed to get a M2000M for a very cheap price (30$) back in September this year, so I swapped it, the difference was immediately there. After a few weeks or so I have found even better card, the M2200 on Ebay, in New Old Stock, sealed package (HP Genuine Spare Part) that cost me quite a penny, around $170, but since I sold the former K2100M for $100 and the M2000M will sell on Ebay for even more money, this was basically a free upgrade. 

 

So, two days ago I have pulled the machine apart and M2200 replaced the M2000 as my current GPU. Even though the card was a spare part for ZBook 15 G4, a flash with stock ZBook 15 G4 vBIOS was needed as my machine was not recognizing the card at all. BIOS was provided to me by a good guy on Techpowerup forums. Should anyone decide to go this road, you will find the BIOS in this thread. 

 

Next, DDU uninstall of old drivers, installation of new drivers with modded .inf file, quick basic testing, everything works fine. To add a little "finishing touch" to this, I have modified the stock BIOS a bit, going from 1036MHz to 1205MHz Core clock and from 5500MHz to 6000MHz effective memory clock. This was done without changing the TDP or voltage levels, I suppose I could go even higher with that, but I am satisfied with this. The card runs very cool, cooler than both K2100M and M2000M, staying in the 62-72°C load temperature range. 

 

Time for a little benchmarks. Just to clarify, I do not have any benchmarks with the old K2100M, but as far as I can remember, it performed pretty average, maybe a bit above the values you can find on Notebookcheck. Value B (Before): represents the former configuration (M2000M, Stock vBIOS, +135MHz via Afterburner), value A (After): represents the current configuration (M2200, modded vBIOS)

 

B: Sky Diver Graphics: 14937
A: Sky Diver Graphics: 21693

 

B: Fire Strike Graphics: 4619

A: Fire Strike Graphics: 6916

 

B: Time Spy Graphics: 1298

A: Time Spy Graphics:  1994

 

Overall, the performance increase was around 50% in 3DMark, surpassing the stock GTX965M, hitting the peformance levels of a stock GTX 1050 Mobile or Quadro P2000 Mobile. For almost a 10 year old laptop, I consider this a great success. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

vbios_hpzbook15g4_10de_1436.rom

[Blossomcrown]

Great work! 😄

A little bit curious about the screen configuration of your M2200-powered ZBook, it is working with DreamColor2/UHD+(3200x1800)/4K or normal FHD?

[Easa]

Thank you ! My ZBook is equipped with FHD IPS screen (Samsung panel) but it spends about 95% of the whole usage time docked with lid closed, connected to Dell Ultrasharp U2415. 

[Blossomcrown]

On 11/7/2022 at 3:57 PM, Easa said:

Thank you ! My ZBook is equipped with FHD IPS screen (Samsung panel) but it spends about 95% of the whole usage time docked with lid closed, connected to Dell Ultrasharp U2415. 

i see,and Hybrid Grahpics must be enabled to get internal display working?

[Easa]

Yes, Hybrid Graphics Enabled, UEFI Booting with CSM Enabled for first run, BIOS Flash & driver installation, then UEFI without CSM. Works flawless.

 

BTW: Machine is now fully capable of running DOOM: Eternal FHD@60FPS. Yay!

[Blossomcrown]

17 hours ago, Easa said:

Yes, Hybrid Graphics Enabled, UEFI Booting with CSM Enabled for first run, BIOS Flash & driver installation, then UEFI without CSM. Works flawless.

 

BTW: Machine is now fully capable of running DOOM: Eternal FHD@60FPS. Yay!

Thanks for your information! Please do enjoy smooth gaming😄

[bufulo]

On 11/4/2022 at 1:18 AM, Easa said:

BIOS was provided to me by a good guy on Techpowerup forums. Should anyone decide to go this road, you will find the BIOS in this thread. 

 

To add a little "finishing touch" to this, I have modified the stock BIOS a bit, going from 1036MHz to 1205MHz Core clock and from 5500MHz to 6000MHz effective memory clock.

 

Thanks for sharing the vBIOS!  Do you know if it was a direct copy of the vBIOS from another HP card or was this created for you?  I ask because when I open your vBIOS file in the Maxwell II BIOS Tweaker, every single value exactly matches those from my DELL branded Quadro M2200.

 

Also, can you please also share the modified vBIOS?

[Easa]

9 hours ago, bufulo said:

 

Thanks for sharing the vBIOS!  Do you know if it was a direct copy of the vBIOS from another HP card or was this created for you?  I ask because when I open your vBIOS file in the Maxwell II BIOS Tweaker, every single value exactly matches those from my DELL branded Quadro M2200.

 

Also, can you please also share the modified vBIOS?

 

Hello,

It was extracted from a HP ZBook G4 with this exact card. The values may be same, but it is a HP signed vBIOS that will work with main BIOS on these machines 🙂

 

Enclosing my modified vBIOS. You will need the NVIDIA NVFlash with Board Id Mismatch Disabled to flash it. 

 

 

Zbook15_Mod.rom

[bufulo]

On 3/16/2023 at 4:12 AM, Easa said:

 

Hello,

It was extracted from a HP ZBook G4 with this exact card. The values may be same, but it is a HP signed vBIOS that will work with main BIOS on these machines 🙂

 

Enclosing my modified vBIOS. You will need the NVIDIA NVFlash with Board Id Mismatch Disabled to flash it. 

 

Wasn't the vBIOS on the card already signed?  Are you saying that NVFlash overwrite the ENTIRE vBIOS?  That surprises me because that would make it very easy to render the card unuseable, if, for example, a bad vBIOS were written that destroyed the portion that is responsible for the writing to the flash.  Unless maybe the flash is entirely open to the PCIe (MXM) bus so NVFlash can indeed wipe and rewrite the entire vBIOS?... hmmm...  So hard finding details on this MXM stuff!  Do you have any documentation or links that may help?

 

Also, is there a guide for using the Maxwell II BIOS Tweaker?  I'm finding it pretty confusing.  For example, changes don't seem to stick unless you immediately save after changing each clock setting for example.  It's odd.

[Aaron44126]

4 hours ago, bufulo said:

Wasn't the vBIOS on the card already signed?  Are you saying that NVFlash overwrite the ENTIRE vBIOS?  That surprises me because that would make it very easy to render the card unuseable, if, for example, a bad vBIOS were written that destroyed the portion that is responsible for the writing to the flash.

 

nvflash will always flash the entire vBIOS.  Indeed, if something goes wrong with the flash process then you could be in trouble.  I had a Quadro K5000M die with a BSOD during a flash once and it became unusable.  I found someone on Reddit who provided nvflash commands to re-attempt the flash and get things back in working order, and it worked.  I now generally recommend always flashing from Linux if you are comfortable with that, and having hybrid graphics turned on so that you can boot up even after a bad flash (if your laptop supports it).

 

You can also use a hardware flasher to flash a new vBIOS even if the card is "bricked" by attaching directly to the vBIOS chip, and those aren't that expensive.

[bufulo]

2 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

nvflash will always flash the entire vBIOS.  Indeed, if something goes wrong with the flash process then you could be in trouble.  I had a Quadro K5000M die with a BSOD during a flash once and it became unusable.  I found someone on Reddit who provided nvflash commands to re-attempt the flash and get things back in working order, and it worked.  I now generally recommend always flashing from Linux if you are comfortable with that, and having hybrid graphics turned on so that you can boot up even after a bad flash (if your laptop supports it).

 

You can also use a hardware flasher to flash a new vBIOS even if the card is "bricked" by attaching directly to the vBIOS chip, and those aren't that expensive.

 

So there really is no way to brick the video card because nvflash can always re-write the entire VBIOS?  If that's the case, why can't I edit the Device ID, Vendor ID, Subsystem ID, or even the VBIOS version?  Those have to be in the VBIOS unless there is other non-volatile storage on the cards (which seems unlikely simply due to cost and complexity).  There would be no need for a hardware programmer unless some portion of the VBIOS is used for this information and accessible to nvflash.  I don't get it.  Are there secret commands for nvflash not listed in the built-in help?  What commands did you use to "get things back in working order"?

 

I'm doing this on an old HP EliteDesk 800 G1 USDT running Windows with integrated graphics (Intel i7-4790S) and an MXM slot for the DELL-branded Quadro M2200.  I'm trying to figure out the difference, if any, between the DELL-branded Quadro M2200 and HP-branded before possibly purchasing a new card (DELL are much less expensive and more readily available).  My card is likely suffering a hardware failure that won't be worth repairing.

 

  I've really had no trouble with nvflash so far and have managed to make the card useless a few times along the way.  Why Linux?

[Aaron44126]

On laptops at least, subsystem ID is defined by your motherboard and not by the GPU card. It will actually change if you move the GPU to a different laptop. This is why INF mods are often needed for “unsupported” NVIDIA GPU upgrades — the subsystem ID of the card in your laptop doesn’t match any entries in the INF file for that card. A Dell MXM card inserted into your HP laptop will get the same subsystem ID as the card you’re using right now.

 

I don’t remember exactly what I had to do to get nvflash to flash the card in that case, it’s been 8-9 years ago. I do know the dGPU was showing an error in Device Manager and wouldn’t start. If the laptop didn’t have hybrid graphics then I wouldn’t have been able to boot and see anything.

 

I suggest Linux just because I think it’s less likely you’ll have a crash while flashing under Linux. I’ve personally had nvflash cause a BSOD on Windows at least twice.

 

You can most likely take the vBIOS from a HP MXM M2200 card and then flash it on the Dell card and have it work fine. I know some users have done this sort of cross-flashing with success. …The card might even work without touching the vBIOS. I’m more familiar with the Dell laptop side, where users have used cards with i.e. Clevo vBIOS and no trouble.

[bufulo]

4 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

On laptops at least, subsystem ID is defined by your motherboard and not by the GPU card. It will actually change if you move the GPU to a different laptop. This is why INF mods are often needed for “unsupported” NVIDIA GPU upgrades — the subsystem ID of the card in your laptop doesn’t match any entries in the INF file for that card. A Dell MXM card inserted into your HP laptop will get the same subsystem ID as the card you’re using right now.

 

I don’t remember exactly what I had to do to get nvflash to flash the card in that case, it’s been 8-9 years ago. I do know the dGPU was showing an error in Device Manager and wouldn’t start. If the laptop didn’t have hybrid graphics then I wouldn’t have been able to boot and see anything.

 

I suggest Linux just because I think it’s less likely you’ll have a crash while flashing under Linux. I’ve personally had nvflash cause a BSOD on Windows at least twice.

 

You can most likely dump the vBIOS from your HP MXM card and then flash it on the Dell card and have it work fine. I know some users have done this sort of cross-flashing with success. …The card might even work without touching the vBIOS. I’m more familiar with the Dell laptop side, where users have used cards with i.e. Clevo vBIOS and no trouble.

 

Thanks so much for all the useful information!  I have zero experience with laptops other than swapping a mechanical drive for SSD for a friend.

 

My HP is a desktop - sort of.  It uses mostly laptop type hardware - it's an oddball.  I originally built it up to play with stuff like this and learn a few things along the way.  It became my only computer mostly by accident and won't be for much longer.  The MXM card I have been using in it is a DELL Quadro M2200.  It's worked just fine for the most part for a few years now but was mistreated a bit early on while I found a proper heatsink/cooling solution.  It appears the memory is suffering in some way (outright or maybe just solder issues but also can't completely rule out GPU memory controller either) as a result.  I started playing with nvflash as part of diagnosing and just out of curiosity.

 

I've played with Linux a bit over the years and its nice enough when using a GUI.  The system level stuff can be really frustrating at times though.  For me a computer is mostly just an appliance but I have just enough background and interest in the inner workings to do dumb things occasionally.

[bufulo]

On 3/16/2023 at 4:12 AM, Easa said:

 

Hello,

It was extracted from a HP ZBook G4 with this exact card. The values may be same, but it is a HP signed vBIOS that will work with main BIOS on these machines 🙂

 

Enclosing my modified vBIOS. You will need the NVIDIA NVFlash with Board Id Mismatch Disabled to flash it. 

 

 

Zbook15_Mod.rom 109.5 kB · 1 download

 

Where is a good place to look for how to choose value for all the many settings in Maxwell BIOS Tweaker?  How did you decide what to change and what not to change?

[ryan]

it seems kind of in vain upgrading these days when a intel Xe igpu can score 2500 in timespy