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W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

W500/W510/W520 and W700/W701 Series
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RMSMajestic
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W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

#1 Post by RMSMajestic » Mon Sep 26, 2016 2:06 am

Check this video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ2qE06WJhA

===============================================
Possible explainations for the symptoms:
The screen used on W701 is 8 bit RGB-LED, which is quite rare on laptops (most laptop screen is 6 bit and the famous HP DreamColor 2 is 10 bit)
I believe the RGBWB cycle displayed is due to the HP card output not compatible with the 8 bit, as I remembered, HP 8740w used either 10 bit dream color or the 6 bit normal screen. Or it could just be that the vBIOS chip is partially locked and the EDID part is not changed when I flashed the vBIOS
(corrrect me if I'm wrong)

What is really going on in W701(ds):
With the help from Javi-Jie, we found that:
1. sBIOS checks for 4 cards, FX2800m, FX3800m, GTS 160m and an AMD Engineering sample card (supposedly to be a firepro card based on Mobility Radeon HD4870, but as we all know there was no mobile HD4870m based firepro card)
2. sBIOS itself contains 4 vBIOSes, but not corresponding to the four cards above. Infact, there are two different versions for each of FX2800m and FX3800m
3. The onboard vBIOS of FX3800m, has vendor ID 10DE (nVIDIA), and the onboard BIOS of FX2800m has vendor ID 17AA (lenovo). but all the vBIOSes contained in sBIOS have vendor ID 17AA.


more to be added
Last edited by RMSMajestic on Wed Oct 19, 2016 4:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Chobits: W701ds i7-940|32G|FX3800m|Digitizer|Calibrator
Big ones: W701 top config T63p QX9300|8G|UXGA T61p dead, please go die as well nVIDIA
Small ones: X61sp P8800X61t SXGA X201 NIB
86 airplane models/ 27 ships/ 21 computers/ 300GB databases/ 0 girlfriend
It's always happier to live in lies and delusions.

haarp
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Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2014 6:37 pm
Location: Paris, France

Re: W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

#2 Post by haarp » Tue Sep 27, 2016 1:49 pm

Very nice! I love pioneer work like this. For the longest time, the W701 only accepted Lenovo cards. Even though I do not own a W701 anymore, they still fascinate me.
W530 Quadcore @ 4.6GHz :thumbs-UP:

RMSMajestic
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Re: W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

#3 Post by RMSMajestic » Tue Sep 27, 2016 2:20 pm

haarp wrote:Very nice! I love pioneer work like this. For the longest time, the W701 only accepted Lenovo cards. Even though I do not own a W701 anymore, they still fascinate me.
your overclocked W530 fascinates me more TBH :D Could you please elaborate more on that?
Is it 4.6Ghz on all four cores or just 4.6Ghz Max turbo?
Chobits: W701ds i7-940|32G|FX3800m|Digitizer|Calibrator
Big ones: W701 top config T63p QX9300|8G|UXGA T61p dead, please go die as well nVIDIA
Small ones: X61sp P8800X61t SXGA X201 NIB
86 airplane models/ 27 ships/ 21 computers/ 300GB databases/ 0 girlfriend
It's always happier to live in lies and delusions.

el-sahef
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Re: W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

#4 Post by el-sahef » Tue Sep 27, 2016 5:25 pm

T70 15" 4:3 QXGA @ daylight LED, Core i7 7820HQ, 32 GB RAM, SSD
X62t, SXGA+ @ daylight LED, Core i7 5500U, 16 GB RAM, SSD
T70 WUXGA RGB-LED, Core i5 7300HQ, 32 GB RAM, SSD

RogerAndOut
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Re: W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

#5 Post by RogerAndOut » Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:26 pm

Hello RMSMahestic, el-sahef and fellow forum members

This is indeed some progress!
It proves in practice that W701(ds) cards are electrically/pin compatible with MXM standard.

This is very interesting and actual for me, still using W701ds at work table every day and it never let me down.

Some questions arise
1. Is it loading VBIOS from video card or just makes ID checks and load it from one of 4 VBIOSes found in system BIOS.
http://ridingtheflow.blogspot.ru/2011/0 ... nd-of.html , precisely this quote:
This prompted for deeper investigation into system BIOS, to check for any black/whitelisting for "authorised cards only". I didn't find any "whitelists for the sake of whitelisting", but I've found that the VBIOS on the actual MXM card is not even tried to being used by SBIOS. Instead, SBIOS contains 4 VBIOS files (for all variations of Quadros these Thinkpads could ship from Lenovo), the correct VBIOS being picked based on match with ID contained on card, and then it tries to use this.
So flashing HP card with Lenovo VBIOS made its device Manufacturer ID/Device ID to match and system to boot, although some screen issues (test pattern) until video driver loads.

2. If its possible to find some disassembly/Thinkpad BIOS guru to make load VBIOS from the MXM card itself and bypass these VBIOS checks on system BIOS. That should allow to install
any 3rd party MXM card to W701.

3. If I remember the schematics correctly, some GPIO (general-purpose, read, 'reserved') pins on MXM modules were used for 2nd-screen handling on DS models, that means MXM cards specifically
for W701(ds) contain additional functions in Lenovo's modified VBIOS to get 2nd LCD handling and won't be present in 3rd party cards. (That explains partially this mess with out-of-box MXM incompatibility) However, these things -- 3.1 do not make card electrically incompatible (as GPIO pins are present in all other MXM modules, just not used) 3.2 secondary LCD can still work possibly, cause its faked as a mmm (don't remember schematics closely) as a DVI screen and those pins mb just turn off other MXM ports like DP as those nvidias can only handle 2 screens (DVI port is also electrically disconnected in case of 2nd lcd open).

Sorry if post was too long.
RMSMajestic, I wish success to you!

Cheers

haarp
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Location: Paris, France

Re: W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

#6 Post by haarp » Wed Sep 28, 2016 9:25 am

RMSMajestic wrote:
haarp wrote:Very nice! I love pioneer work like this. For the longest time, the W701 only accepted Lenovo cards. Even though I do not own a W701 anymore, they still fascinate me.
your overclocked W530 fascinates me more TBH :D Could you please elaborate more on that?
Is it 4.6Ghz on all four cores or just 4.6Ghz Max turbo?
I'll make it quick, since I do not want to post large off-topic messages here :P

You'll need an XM CPU and a modded BIOS. The stock BIOS antifeature cripples the CPU by intentionally setting Bit 20 in MSR 0x194, which locks out custom turbo ratios even on XM processors. After that it's simply a matter of raising the turbo ratios, e.g. using ThrottleStop in Windows or a custom script I wrote for Linux.

It's not a full 4x4.6GHz as that would produce humongous amounts of waste heat :) I keep the TDP at 55W, which allows for roughly 4x 3.9-4.0GHz with all cores loaded or 4.6GHz on fewer loaded cores. I've since had to reduce the max clock speed somewhat (4.4-4.5GHz) as the voltage necessary for 4.6GHz simply ran it too hot.


For further details, you can have a look at my thread on the German Thinkpad forum, which el-sahef linked to. I was going to translate and post it here at some point, but haven't found the time yet.
W530 Quadcore @ 4.6GHz :thumbs-UP:

RMSMajestic
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Re: W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

#7 Post by RMSMajestic » Tue Oct 04, 2016 12:09 pm

haarp wrote:
RMSMajestic wrote: your overclocked W530 fascinates me more TBH :D Could you please elaborate more on that?
Is it 4.6Ghz on all four cores or just 4.6Ghz Max turbo?
I'll make it quick, since I do not want to post large off-topic messages here :P

You'll need an XM CPU and a modded BIOS. The stock BIOS antifeature cripples the CPU by intentionally setting Bit 20 in MSR 0x194, which locks out custom turbo ratios even on XM processors. After that it's simply a matter of raising the turbo ratios, e.g. using ThrottleStop in Windows or a custom script I wrote for Linux.

It's not a full 4x4.6GHz as that would produce humongous amounts of waste heat :) I keep the TDP at 55W, which allows for roughly 4x 3.9-4.0GHz with all cores loaded or 4.6GHz on fewer loaded cores. I've since had to reduce the max clock speed somewhat (4.4-4.5GHz) as the voltage necessary for 4.6GHz simply ran it too hot.


For further details, you can have a look at my thread on the German Thinkpad forum, which el-sahef linked to. I was going to translate and post it here at some point, but haven't found the time yet.
That is very very interesting.
Wouldn't have sold my W530 if I saw this earlier......
BTW is there a way to unlock the CPU overclocking on Dell M6700? Can it be achieved in a similar way?
Chobits: W701ds i7-940|32G|FX3800m|Digitizer|Calibrator
Big ones: W701 top config T63p QX9300|8G|UXGA T61p dead, please go die as well nVIDIA
Small ones: X61sp P8800X61t SXGA X201 NIB
86 airplane models/ 27 ships/ 21 computers/ 300GB databases/ 0 girlfriend
It's always happier to live in lies and delusions.

haarp
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2014 6:37 pm
Location: Paris, France

Re: W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

#8 Post by haarp » Wed Oct 05, 2016 2:26 am

RMSMajestic wrote:BTW is there a way to unlock the CPU overclocking on Dell M6700? Can it be achieved in a similar way?
Possibly. Check MSR 0x194, if bit 20 is set you'll need an uncrippled BIOS that does not set this bit to begin with. (once set it cannot be unset until shutdown)
W530 Quadcore @ 4.6GHz :thumbs-UP:

triturbo
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Location: Teteven, Bulgaria

Re: W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

#9 Post by triturbo » Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:26 am

RMSMajestic wrote:I believe the RGBWB cycle displayed is due to the HP card output not compatible with the 8 bit, as I remembered, HP 8740w used either 10 bit dream color or the 6 bit normal screen.
Firstly, Kudos for the attempt! Secondly - the 8740w's LVDS is wired for 8bit display, but all of the stock panel options were 6bit. The DC2 is indeed 10bit, but it works through DP (then goes to the ColorBoard (on the back of the display), which converts it to 10bit LVDS). My guess is that the stock HP vBIOS (and maybe even the GPU itself) is made for 6bit LVDS.

RMSMajestic
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Re: W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

#10 Post by RMSMajestic » Mon Apr 24, 2017 1:04 pm

New updates:
I tried to change the GPU to HD8970m, (a specially modified vBIOS faking FX3800m)
Unfortunately without any success
the 4 OPROM files in sBIOS, OPROM00 and OPROM02 is for FX2800m and OPROM01 and OPROM03 are for FX3800m
I replaced those for FX 3800m with the HD 8970m vBIOS, but the system refuse to boot even with FX 2800m installed. I guess there's some checksum check or content check for vBIOSes, or phoenix BIOS tool did not pack everything back correctly. I'm gonna seek professional help on this.

talking about ridingtheflow's HD6970m attempt, from his description it's merely just replacing the hardware IDs in vBIOS, which infact it's still FX3800m's vBIOS being loaded for HD6970m, which ofc will cause irregular behaviour. And I'm really surpeised that the VGA actually worked.
Chobits: W701ds i7-940|32G|FX3800m|Digitizer|Calibrator
Big ones: W701 top config T63p QX9300|8G|UXGA T61p dead, please go die as well nVIDIA
Small ones: X61sp P8800X61t SXGA X201 NIB
86 airplane models/ 27 ships/ 21 computers/ 300GB databases/ 0 girlfriend
It's always happier to live in lies and delusions.

RMSMajestic
Senior Member
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Posts: 730
Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2013 5:31 pm
Location: Shanghai, China

Re: W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

#11 Post by RMSMajestic » Fri May 05, 2017 1:55 am

Succeeded in undervolting my FX 3800m to 1.1V @ 625/1500/1000 (though I suspect that I can undervolt further more)
Chobits: W701ds i7-940|32G|FX3800m|Digitizer|Calibrator
Big ones: W701 top config T63p QX9300|8G|UXGA T61p dead, please go die as well nVIDIA
Small ones: X61sp P8800X61t SXGA X201 NIB
86 airplane models/ 27 ships/ 21 computers/ 300GB databases/ 0 girlfriend
It's always happier to live in lies and delusions.

666jet
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Dec 09, 2017 9:38 pm
Location: Cardiff, Wales, UK

Re: W701 GPU upgrade (HP version FX2800m) (partial) success

#12 Post by 666jet » Sat Dec 09, 2017 9:45 pm

Glad to see your still rocking the W701, picked one up on a whim sometime last year all i find it's lacking is graphical power hoping you can crack this and we can chuck some better gpu's.

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