GPU replacement for HP Zbook 15 G1?

[nthanhha26]

Hi all, I have an old HP ZBook 15 G1 at home; my younger brother gonna need it this autumn for online classes. His major is Machine Learning/Deep Learning. I am also an AI engineer, and as I know, the default Quadro K1100M in this laptop cant run some heavy model. So I am looking for a replacement.
Can you please suggest some MxM 3.0 type A GPU that can perform well on this laptop? I prefer a Geforce card with 4GB or more VRAM, thank you!

[Peestain37]

U asking bout a laptop that is an upgrade to what u have or a gpu upgrade to your existing laptop?

[nthanhha26]

Just now, Peestain37 said:

U asking bout a laptop that is an upgrade to what u have or a gpu upgrade to your existing laptop?

I am sorry for not saying it clearly. I am looking for a GPU upgrade for my existing laptop.

[Peestain37]

Laptop gpus generally aren’t upgradeable in any capacity & you’ll need to use some janky adapter previously featured on Ltt & a pc psu To power it

Edited August 3, 2021 by Peestain37
Left out details

[nthanhha26]

5 minutes ago, Peestain37 said:

Laptop gpus generally aren’t upgradeable in any capacity & you’ll need to use some janky adapter previously featured on Ltt & a pc psu To power it

Yea, in most cases, its impossible. But for this laptop, it can be done because of the graphic card is modular.
Watch this video I found on Youtube:

 

[Peestain37]

That is really cool never knew there were laptops other than some old dell latitude I dismantled

[nthanhha26]

2 minutes ago, Peestain37 said:

That is really cool never knew there were laptops other than some old dell latitude I dismantled

ikr, insane features from HP and Dell. They are producing top of the line workstations

[Peestain37]

Apparently so

[jaslion]

The hp has a VERY LIMITED LIST OF GPU SUPPORT. That and you need to make sure the heatsink even fits.

 

You basically need a original hp zbook g1 gpu it came with and the best one is the k2100m. Which is about 20% faster or basically has the performance of current intel integrated graphics.

 

This is basically the only 100% supported card by the laptop and pretty much your limit. So I doubt that card will allow your brother to run what he needs when a 1100m can't.

 

I've looked and looked but hp simply limited the bios to only the cards it came with and that is it. Anything else just does not work. So yeah the hp k2100m is the limit of this laptop and that card is only a little better.

 

I'd say you'd be far better off selling it for around 600$ and getting a used gaming laptop at that point for the same money with better specs (build quality will quite obviously be less normally).

[nthanhha26]

8 minutes ago, jaslion said:

The hp has a VERY LIMITED LIST OF GPU SUPPORT. That and you need to make sure the heatsink even fits.

 

You basically need a original hp zbook g1 gpu it came with and the best one is the k2100m. Which is about 20% faster or basically has the performance of current intel integrated graphics.

 

This is basically the only 100% supported card by the laptop and pretty much your limit. So I doubt that card will allow your brother to run what he needs when a 1100m can't.

 

I've looked and looked but hp simply limited the bios to only the cards it came with and that is it. Anything else just does not work. So yeah the hp k2100m is the limit of this laptop and that card is only a little better.

 

I'd say you'd be far better off selling it for around 600$ and getting a used gaming laptop at that point for the same money with better specs (build quality will quite obviously be less normally).

Oh, I dont aware of the limit in BIOS, luckily you reminded me about this problem.

Yea I dont think the K2100M be able to solve the performance problem, how unfortunate. But how about external GPU? will it be the way?
I really dont want to sell this laptop, this is my first, and it still look good, sturdy build, ...

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, nthanhha26 said:

Oh, I dont aware of the limit in BIOS, luckily you reminded me about this problem.

Yea I dont think the K2100M be able to solve the performance problem, how unfortunate. But how about external GPU? will it be the way?
I really dont want to sell this laptop, this is my first, and it still look good, sturdy build, ...

If you even have thunderbolt it will be thunderbolt 2.0 which is just too darn slow for any useful video card really.

 

Simply put this laptop is just no longer capable of doing the task you want in any way. I mean it's reaching 7 years which is old for a computer especially a laptop.

[nthanhha26]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

If you even have thunderbolt it will be thunderbolt 2.0 which is just too darn slow for any useful video card really.

 

Simply put this laptop is just no longer capable of doing the task you want in any way. I mean it's reaching 7 years which is old for a computer especially a laptop.

Not even external GPU connected through PCI-E?
I can remove Wifi card to make room, since it will not be moved anywhere, the cable will not be big problem

[Dylanc1500]

You can look for any gpu using the MXM-A (not MXM-B, which is larger) form factor. The best that I can think of off-hand for Nvidia is the Quadro M2200 or Gtx 1050Ti, and for AMD FirePro 5170M. Other people may be able to chime in on other other options made available in the MXM-A form factor.

[jaslion]

5 minutes ago, nthanhha26 said:

Not even external GPU connected through PCI-E?
I can remove Wifi card to make room, since it will not be moved anywhere, the cable will not be big problem

Will be at the same speed of a thunderbolt 2 link. Simply put it's just not cutting it anymore.

[jaslion]

3 minutes ago, Dylanc1500 said:

You can look for any gpu using the MXM-A (not MXM-B, which is larger) form factor. The best that I can think of off-hand for Nvidia is the Quadro M2200 or Gtx 1050Ti, and for AMD FirePro 5170M. Other people may be able to chime in on other other options made available in the MXM-A form factor.

As I said hp bios limited this laptop to ONLY accept their own cards and further limited it to the selection it came with at launch. There is no way possible to make the laptop work with any other cards. A lot of people tried and nobody succeeded. The best they got was to get a k5100m to boot but nothing worked and it was stuck in windows basic driver mode and crashed a lot.

[Dylanc1500]

15 minutes ago, jaslion said:

As I said hp bios limited this laptop to ONLY accept their own cards and further limited it to the selection it came with at launch. There is no way possible to make the laptop work with any other cards. A lot of people tried and nobody succeeded. The best they got was to get a k5100m to boot but nothing worked and it was stuck in windows basic driver mode and crashed a lot.

Personally, I have gotten a 8570w to work with a Quadro m2200 that was meant for a G4 Zbook without Bios issues. The laptop has the most recent bios version F71 Rev. A (May 14, 2019). That may not be the case after they switched to the Zbook naming however.

 

Edit: Also using Quadro driver 471.41

[jaslion]

Just now, Dylanc1500 said:

Personally, I have gotten a 8570w to work with a Quadro m2200 that was meant for a G4 Zbook without Bios issues. The laptop has the most recent bios version F71 Rev. A (May 14, 2019). That may not be the case after they switched to the Zbook naming however.

Ok and this is an entirely different laptop? Hp only got more restrictive and that laptop you mentioned is from a different era of hp. I already said that a LOT of people tried and the furthest someone got was a k5100m that was basically non functional. Anything else they tried be it the 900m, 1000m firepro, quadro,... whatever just did not work.

[Dylanc1500]

11 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Ok and this is an entirely different laptop? Hp only got more restrictive and that laptop you mentioned is from a different era of hp. I already said that a LOT of people tried and the furthest someone got was a k5100m that was basically non functional. Anything else they tried be it the 900m, 1000m firepro, quadro,... whatever just did not work.

There is only roughly a year of difference between the release of the 8570w and the Zbook 15 G1, since it was it's direct replacement and there is a lot of components shared between the two, so I wouldn't have known. It's good to know though, because I have a Zbook 15 G2 that I was going to upgrade.