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

[Daedalus]

Noooo, thats not good news. was yours a 980M??

Were all "hot" chips cooled ok? the copper plate is flat (obviously) whereas the aluminium 8770W one has recesses to cater for different heights. (i'm looking at full copper but got to wait until my slide table turns up so i can convert my drillpress into a milling machine arrives, so its the 8770W sink until then) 

i assume the GPU core wasnt contacting the sink as if i recall VRAM is a tiny bit higher off the PCB (i could be wrong, i used the thicker blue heat pads which squish a bit more, although i may change to upsiren paste next)

this is the issue i found when creating an "undercooler plate" for the 980M VRAM on the other (under)side of the PCB that sit next to Mobo and dont get cooled enough.

was your card a "low mileage" one? might have been slowly dying and the mod pushed it over the edge. 

However we learn and upgrade. 

 

Will share the underplate on here shortly once i get a chance to take a pic this weekend (if it works i'll convert into a printable template). 

[MODDER1]

On 9/14/2026 at 10:50 PM, Vladka76 said:

It would probably be best to realign the heatpipe(s) using a non-functional, "dummy" graphics card?..

true! but how tho? i would need the mobo at the same time i think

[Vladka76]

2 hours ago, MODDER1 said:

i would need the mobo at the same time i think

Of course.

[MODDER1]

13 hours ago, Daedalus said:

Noooo, thats not good news. was yours a 980M??

Yes unfortunately🥹

 

13 hours ago, Daedalus said:

Were all "hot" chips cooled ok?

I would say yes, as i'm using thermal pads with different thickness so everybody can access the plate.

 

13 hours ago, Daedalus said:

was your card a "low mileage" one? might have been slowly dying and the mod pushed it over the edge. 

However we learn and upgrade. 

Could be if being honest, but the general state of the card was and is good actually, but yeah GPU are not like RAM for examples that lives forever ahah

Still on test to understand the issue, will try tomorow

[Daedalus]

On 9/18/2026 at 8:38 PM, MODDER1 said:

true! but how tho? i would need the mobo at the same time i think

this is why i now have a junker dual core 8570W (only difference is no RAM slot 1&3 under keyboard from what i can see) in a half chassis for my heatsink work, all i need are CPU and GPU bolt points to align. i can prep all i need without killing anything (fingers crossed) plus i can mod the chassis for cooling and swap items across as proven. no spare 980m though (eek)