HP Elitebook 8570W - is it still good ? Hardware modifications

[Vladka76]

On 10/17/2025 at 3:51 PM, Daedalus said:

Well, after much work, i finally had time to put the 965M into the 8570w.  All seemed to go ok, However, No output on screen or from the VGA port on the side either. However i can hear the machine spinning up, fan goes full then slows down ( so not getting the fan full speed issue). Whilst i know it needs the driver to be present, im not getting any output. Beginning to suspect the GPU is bad, so will refit the K1000M back in.  

I verified it was in UEFI mode on Windoze before i went to dissasemble so could it have reverted in Bios?

edit: checked and it’s uefi-with CSM. tried once more with uefi-without CSM, no dice...... 

 

well much late night tinkering (this time with coffee) 😉 and k1000m back in and all works again. Ugh, so seems a 965m output/inf issue? I7-3940xm has Intelhd but it’s disabled I believe so no basic output to try and get machine to like the new card.

so next steps would be vbios update? But how when I get no GPU output to run NVinstall. I can’t run install with k1000m in surely as 965m isn’t connected to be “seen”

Should I return 965m and go 980M? But which card with what vbios that works should I order? i suspect the whitelist is kicking in as "officially" its only k2000M and FirePro4000M, therefore how did GuitarG or any of you guys get around it? Seller advised it had hp vbios (so it should "see" it) 

 

Could i send you guys my 965M to flash?? kinda loathe sending it back as seen no others since. 

 

another edit: 

sourced the 965M bios,

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/184954/nvidia-gtx965m-4096-160107

but not quite sure how to get it on card or verify card already has it on. (The 8570w doesn’t have two mxm slots so I can’t run one and flash the other) with no VGA i cant use IntelHD either. ugh......

 

further edit. I think without the ability to edit bios on 8570w I’m stuck on changing whitelist to allow 965m to work. I don’t think it’s a vbios issue. However I am intruiged how @GuitarG managed to get his 965m working before he went the 980m route.

May end up returning the 965m to seller and pausing the GPU upgrade path.

 

First of all, check your system BIOS version (the latest is F.71A). If yours is significantly older, you should update the system BIOS; this can really help recognize the new cards:
https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp96001-96500/sp96092.exe
WARNING: This operation is potentially dangerous, so please install a charged battery before proceeding. If the flasher asks you to create a "recovery disk" on a flash drive, do so. Be very careful, attentive, and read all the prompts, otherwise you'll brick your laptop!!!
I would do this operation on a clean, freshly installed Windows 7, 8, 8.1 (possibly on a temporary/test disk), because only these systems are listed as supported.

After a successful BIOS update and before removing the K1000M, I recommend to set the "Legacy" mode in BIOS. If the image doesn't appear, then after replacing K1000M again, I recommend to try the "UEFI with CSM" mode, and then - "UEFI without CSM". If after all this, no image appears on either the external ports or the screen, then this 965M won't work. Either she's faulty, or its vBIOS can't be read (GOP region issue, incompatible vBIOS, etc.).
In this situation, I would still try to flash compatible vBIOS using programmer and a solder iron. 😄

If the image appears on the external ports but not on the screen, then you need to try different video BIOS versions; this is not an easy task. This can be done:
1) by flashing the firmware on your 8570w (with output to an external monitor) using nvflash program (NVIDIA Firmware Update Utility) version 5.287.0 (modified by Joe Dirt) – I've read that this verison is best suited for Maxwell-based graphics cards, but I haven't used it;
2) on another workstation with an integrated graphics card and an MXM slot – for example, a Dell Precision M6700. If you can't find such a workstation, then
3) on any other computer or laptop with a programmer, and also with your soldering skills to desolder and re-solder the ROM BIOS chip. 🙂
Warning - If you use method 1) and flash an incompatible vBIOS and the card bricks after rebooting, you'll be forced to use methods 2) or 3). 🙂

I've read that Dell's vBIOS is very compatible with our HP models. The one you found seems to be from Dell.

Our workstations have encrypted BIOSes; I haven't seen any cracked ones (I tried searching). I haven't heard of a "whitelist" of video cards in our BIOS. HP's official website offers the same file for both the 8570w and 8770w, so there's no difference in video card support in the system BIOS.

If I'm not mistaken, the author of this thread never had a 965M, or any other Maxwell card; he wrote about that once. He installed P5200 (Pascal) and RTX5000 (Turing) cards, and both worked for him.

[Vladka76]

On 10/17/2025 at 3:51 PM, Daedalus said:

May end up returning the 965m to seller and pausing the GPU upgrade path.

Perhaps it would be better to contact a service center or a competent specialist... 😉

[Vladka76]

8 hours ago, Daedalus said:

Just been scrolling through the old NBR archives and noticed a few familiar renegades 😉

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/8770w-compatible-video-cards.795753/page-2
question with my 965m headache is why 8770w had a lot more “working” cards. It seems  bios / vbios options weren’t as bad on the bigger brother 8770?

can anyone shed any light why the 965m wouldn’t/ work on the 8570w? Or even a 950m which is type A, at this point I’m happy to try wedging the 970/980m in, but would like to know what bios/vbios mods are needed. 965m was a proper rare beast to track down, whereas 970/980 are a lot more plentiful

In my humble opinion (IMHO), as an 8770w owner who carefully studied technical forums before purchasing:
- 8770w (17.3-inch model) can use both MXM-A and MXM-B graphics cards, you just need to replace the GPU cooling system (I have both). Therefore, it's possible that the supported cards list is wider than the 15.6-inch 8570w, where any MXM-B cards can only be installed after serious modding (which is what the author of this thread, @GuitarG, started with).
- I believe the GPU's compatibility limit of the both models is the same. For cheap workstations without a DreamColor display (and its color depth converter board) these are cards with the Maxwell-2 architecture (MXM-A: Quadro M2200/GeForce 965m, MXM-B: Quadro M5000M/GeForce 980m). Of course, when @GuitarG publishes the datasheet for his final version of the eDP-->eDP cable, which will allow 8570w-8770w owners to install graphics cards of newer architectures (I hope, up to Turing), with the mandatory requirement of replacing display from LVDS to eDP, then this limit will be significantly higher.

Compatible with your 8570w (without modding!) MXM-A cards: Quadro M1000M and M2000M (both Maxwell), M1200 and M2200 (both Maxwell-2). If you can't get the 965M to work, I'd try the M2000M; I've read that it's easier to "tame" than the newest of them (M2200), and that there are more different vBIOSes for M2000, than for M2200. But vBIOS flashing is not an easy task...
---
I (personally) was lucky – I bought a new MXM-B Quadro M3000M with vBIOS for the Dell 7710, and it worked on my 8770w without any effort. I wrote about this here earlier.
But sure, I still dream of the RTX3000 from Getec in my 8770w, it's true... 😇 😀