chrisbslu Posted November 27, 2014 Share Posted November 27, 2014 Hiya guys,I'm Christine and I've inherited my brother's P170 EM. It has an nvidia 675M in it but I want to upgrade since I know I'm going to be playing a whole load of Far Cry 4 and I want to do so on pretty high settings.I'm a little bit tech savvy but not a genius by any means. I can handle a gpu change though. (I just opened the P170 up and cleaned it out and reapplied thermal paste and it's running much cooler now, but still kinda high so I was gonna do the taping trick on the gpu as well.Really I'm looking to spend a bit of cash on a more powerful nvidia. How do I go about figuring which ones are compatible with the P170 EM?Thanks!Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybee83 Posted November 27, 2014 Share Posted November 27, 2014 so far the 680M is the most powerful compatible card you could upgrade to. prema, our resident bios magician is working on a mod to support the new 9xx series gpus in the EM series, although no ETA on that since he seems to be pretty swamped with projects atm. as for cooling mods, the foil tape mod is very recommendable, but also make sure to prop up the back of the machine by using plastic bottle caps for example. that helps improve airflow a lot and thus significantly lowers temps 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisbslu Posted November 27, 2014 Author Share Posted November 27, 2014 Thanks jaybee,I actually took the backplate off to see about the airflow issues and my 657m dropped from 90 degrees to 70 degrees. What should I do? Drill a whole bunch of big holes and put some grill mesh over them? Clearly the cover severely impedes airflow. I worry about letting in too much dust. I clean my machines about once every 2-3 months though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybee83 Posted November 27, 2014 Share Posted November 27, 2014 yeah i know what u mean. i did some mesh cover mods on the backplate of a previous machine but i dont like how it usually hampers the looks and overall stability of the backplate or even the whole laptop. add to that the larger dust buildup... so for my taste the propping up is a good compromise actually Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louis1978uk Posted November 28, 2014 Share Posted November 28, 2014 Best advise find a good cheap 7970-8970m plug and play there good cards and cheaper+faster overall than gtx680ms imo not in all situations thopugh however can be had for 200 or less on ebay.Where are you based sadly i only have 4 780ms or id sort you out.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisbslu Posted November 28, 2014 Author Share Posted November 28, 2014 yeah i know what u mean. i did some mesh cover mods on the backplate of a previous machine but i dont like how it usually hampers the looks and overall stability of the backplate or even the whole laptop. add to that the larger dust buildup... so for my taste the propping up is a good compromise actually Thanks. I actually have the machine about 1.5 inches off the desk. I taped a stack of 2p coins (these are quite wide) to make solid pillars. I find there is maybe a drop of 2 degrees or so. Nothing major. I'm going to look for some foil tape to do the foil mod. Still runs far cry 4 at around 90 degrees. Which is waaaay too high for my taste! Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisbslu Posted November 28, 2014 Author Share Posted November 28, 2014 Best advise find a good cheap 7970-8970m plug and play there good cards and cheaper+faster overall than gtx680ms imo not in all situations thopugh however can be had for 200 or less on ebay.Where are you based sadly i only have 4 780ms or id sort you out..I live in London. I hadn't thought of radeon cards! There is usually a lot less stock floating around the UK, since the UK is about the size of a large city, but I'll see if I can find an 8970m. It is fully compatible with the P170EM?Thanks for the advice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louis1978uk Posted November 28, 2014 Share Posted November 28, 2014 ideally you want a amd 7970m there plug and play but its extremely simple to get a 7970m 8970m r9 m290x working in a p170em ive had 3 in the house also had a p170sm a p370em p370sm and p370sm3(3d) also right now a p570wm so kinda know a little about clevo laptop quirks atm we actually have a p370sm forsale SLI 780m and haswell extreme cpu 4930xm but that another story sadly i sold my 7970 a pair of weeks ago or id have helped you out. Just so you know you cannot use a dell 7970m it must be msi or clevo as dell cards have a differnt sensor and there incompatable.. im in st neots cambridgeshire so about an hour away if you need help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louis1978uk Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 Any luck with this? always nice to hear of an issue being resolved.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CEG Team Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 Yes, exactly. Best solution for this moment is hd8970m or r9-m290x however is the same card. Look on eBay.de Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon1986 Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 GTX 980M iscompatible with the P170 EM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deadsmiley Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 GTX 980M iscompatible with the P170 EMAs of today, yes. Prema is working on it and has had some early success.OP: The P170EM is a nice machine. In my opinion, you are going to have to open up the air inlets to get good cooling with these machines. Even taking a small file and making the slits a slightly larger will yield very measurable results.Look here for Clevo cooling mods. I did some on my P170SM-A and had great results. For first link is what I did to my machine.http://forum.techinferno.com/clevo/7747-%5Bhardware-mod%5D-more-than-5-minute-mod-improve-pch-cooling-p17xsm.html#post106083http://forum.techinferno.com/clevo/5275-%5Bhardware-mod%5D-clevo-p150-p170-cooling-system-solutions-here.html#post73635What I did to my CPU heat sink, which is very similar to what I did to my GPU heatsink. Mine was very warped. From what you have stated, you just need more air flow through the system.http://forum.techinferno.com/clevo/5275-%5Bhardware-mod%5D-clevo-p150-p170-cooling-system-solutions-here-5.html#post98197http://forum.techinferno.com/clevo/5275-%5Bhardware-mod%5D-clevo-p150-p170-cooling-system-solutions-here-5.html#post98197 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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