HP EliteBook 8740w GPU Upgrade

[alxlab]

The HP EliteBook 8740w is still one of my favorite laptops. It's one of the last laptops with a 1920x1200 screen which is a 16:10 aspect ratio versus the more common 1920x1080 which is 16:9. I still use one with a i7-940XM processor, 32GB ram, 1TB SSD drive and Dreamcolor screen which looks amazing. Amazingly I was able to upgrade it to a new graphic cards since it uses a MXM card. The card I got was a GeForce 970M off Ebay that was marked as compatible for $111.90 USD which is not too bad. The heatsink of the orginal GPU will need to be dremeled and new thermal pads applied. It important to file down the heatsink enough or else you may short out the card on the heatsink and bye bye card and motherboard VRMs.

Off of Eurocom's website the follow cards can be used with the proper GPU bios:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M; 2GB GDDR5; 384 CUDA; N12E-GTX2; Fermi (40nm); DX11; MXM 3.0b; 100W
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M; 4GB DDR5; MXM 3.0b; 100W;
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M; 4GB DDR5; MXM 3.0b; 100W;
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M; 3GB DDR5; MXM 3.0b; 75W;
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M; 8GB DDR5; MXM 3.0b; 100W;
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M; 6GB DDR5; MXM 3.0b; 100W;
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M; 8GB DDR5; MXM 3.0b; 100W;
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M; 6GB DDR5; MXM 3.0b; 80W;
NVIDIA Quadro M1000M; 2GB GDDR5; (N16P-Q1); 40W;
NVIDIA Quadro M3000M; 4GB GDDR5; (N16E-Q1); 75W;
NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (N16E-Q3); 4GB GDDR5; 1280 CUDA; OpenGL 4.5; MXM 3.0b; 28nm; 100W
NVIDIA Quadro M5000M (N16E-Q5); 8GB GDDR5; 1536 CUDA; OpenGL; MXM 3.0b; 28nm; 100W
AMD Radeon HD7970M; 2GB DDR5; MXM 3.0b; 100W;
AMD Radeon HD8970M; 4GB DDR5; MXM 3.0b; 100W;
AMD Radeon HD69900M; 2GB DDR5; MXM 3.0b; 100W;

Eurocom mentions "Quadro Cards (MxxxxM) will have no fan auto speed control".

I've also personally used a HP Nvidia Quadro K5000M 4GB card in the past. You can see my orginal posts and pictures about that here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220125050528/http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/hp-elitebook-8740w-owners-lounge-part-2.516314/page-315

Hard to believe that was almost a decade ago.

Here's another great resource for upgrading the 8740w in general:

https://web.archive.org/web/2022012...msata-mod-gpu-upgrade-cooling-and-etc.780243/

 

[oXoXMonsterXoXo]

I recently picked one of these up for cheap to throw in my arcade machine. its a 8740w with a i5 520m and a amd FirePro m7820 I was looking to upgrade it right away so I started seeing what's compatible with the 8740w. i upgraded the cpu to a i7 720m then i came across this post and it did help but you failed to mention that the cards you mention above need a DELL vbios not just a proper one.. I picked up a m3000m(gtx1050m) from a hp 8760w and it did not post its been 6 months since ordering it and I decided to try one more time and bought another m3000m off ebay this time from a dell with a dell vbios and boom. i did have to modify the Nvida driver to install it but its working now so i just wanted to add to this just in case someone out there runs into the same issue as I. also thank you for you post it did help me a bunch.

 

[alxlab]

Glad it helped!

Yeah I didn't mention a specific bios because I don't know which bios' will work. I have no clue what bios Eurocom uses for their cards. My K5000M was a HP card and had a HP bios. The GTX 970M I have was bought from China and the subvendor of the card is marked as HP. Not sure it's an actual HP bios though since the subvendor can be edited. The same card is claimed to work also in the following laptops also:

for Alienware M17X R4，M17X R5，M17X R6，M18X R2，M18X R3;
for MSI 16F2，16F3，16F4，1761，1762，1763，16L1，GT60，GT70，GT72，GT80;
for Clevo P150EM，P170EM，P150SM，P150SM-A，P157SM，P157SM-A，P170SM，P170SM-A，P177SM，P177SM-A，P370EM, P370SM，P370SM-A，P375SM，P375SMA, P570WM，P751ZM，P751ZM-G，P750ZM，P750ZM-G，P770ZM，P770ZM-G，P751DM，P751DM-G，P750DM，P750DM-G，P770DM，P770DM-G，P870DM，P870DM-G;
for DELL：M6700，M6800, M7710;
for HP: 8740w 8770w

Here's a link to source of the above info:
https://web.archive.org/web/2022061...2251832871429163.html?gatewayAdapt=4itemAdapt

 

[oXoXMonsterXoXo]

Glad it helped!

Yeah I didn't mention a specific bios because I don't know which bios' will work. I have no clue what bios Eurocom uses for their cards. My K5000M was a HP card and had a HP bios. The GTX 970M I have was bought from China and the subvendor of the card is marked as HP. Not sure it's an actual HP bios though since the subvendor can be edited. The same card is claimed to work also in the following laptops also:

for Alienware M17X R4，M17X R5，M17X R6，M18X R2，M18X R3;
for MSI 16F2，16F3，16F4，1761，1762，1763，16L1，GT60，GT70，GT72，GT80;
for Clevo P150EM，P170EM，P150SM，P150SM-A，P157SM，P157SM-A，P170SM，P170SM-A，P177SM，P177SM-A，P370EM, P370SM，P370SM-A，P375SM，P375SMA, P570WM，P751ZM，P751ZM-G，P750ZM，P750ZM-G，P770ZM，P770ZM-G，P751DM，P751DM-G，P750DM，P750DM-G，P770DM，P770DM-G，P870DM，P870DM-G;
for DELL：M6700，M6800, M7710;
for HP: 8740w 8770w

Here's a link to source of the above info:
https://web.archive.org/web/2022061...2251832871429163.html?gatewayAdapt=4itemAdapt

I'm kind of on the fence right now as I mentioned I'm using it for my arcade machine and the upgrade is doing well but I think the m3000m is a little to much for the i7 720qm. I was looking at the i7 920xm but I'm not sure even that can hold it. should i sell it and get like a 8770w with a 3erd gen i7? does your CPU bottle neck the 970m at all?

 

[alxlab]

I think the the real problem with the laptop is if you run something that uses both the CPU and GPU to the max the system will throttle due to heat. I got a i7 940xm and that thing runs hot, like 99C hot, just just streaming videos. I don't really play any modern games so the laptop is good enough performance for the occasional game I might play on the go. I really like the 1920x1200 dreamcolor screen also.

There's no doubt the 8770w will give better CPU performance but I don't really know if it will meet your needs. Here's a comparison of the i7-940xm vs the it-3940xm:

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-X-940-vs-Intel-Core-i7-3940XM/m2801vsm7092