Installing a Tesla P6 into a Laptop

[bagster]

Hello world...

 

I was wondering if anyone tried to install a tesla p6 mxm gpu in a laptop. I am looking to doing this - modification- not quite an upgrade  - because I will have to accept optimus - if it will work - nvidia states there is no optimus support, as well as no video output - but I am optimistic - i will try the flash a hex modified bios of a p5000 on it - via spi flasher and see if it will do the trick - the specs and the card itself seem to be identical... but I was just wondering if anyone did this before.

 

[drawKward]

TLDR: Use 1.8v flashing for Pascal GPUs

 

@bagster Please keep us informed on your endeavor. In the US we have Thanksgiving break coming, so hopefully that means tinkering time. I have seen eB@y resellers advertise Tesla M6 and miner cards like P106M in Dells, HPs, and Clevos using optimus and the iGPU, so what you are attempting is not complete nonsense. IIRC, Pascal might require 1.8v clip flashing to bypass some encryption nonsense that you might encounter using a software flash method. USE 1.8 volts!!! There were reports of BIOS damage from improper flashing. The hardware ID may be physically unchanged even after the flash, so modification of the driver INF can be performed to recognize the card in Windows. Linux is more forgiving of hardware ID mismatch so you may want a linux installation as another option to verify the card is functional.

[bagster]

Ok, so I have recieved the card, inspected every little solder pad and it seems that compared to the gtx 1070 mxm and the Quadro P5000m, there is a slight difference, meaning that some small ic chips are missing. Therefore if anyone should have a  high quality photo of the card, the lower part close to the mxm pins, front and back, where I could read the codes on the IC chips, that would be really helpfull.  I am getting a defective Clevo gtx 1070m next week, and might be able to identify some components but just want to double check.

Will keep you up to date.

Cheers!

[Meoleo91]

Hi there! 

Did you ever have any luck? 

 

If the pinouts are the same, and your laptop meets the voltage requirements then there's a good chance it will work. 

There is a link to the specs here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiHyaLI_Iv1AhUFHc0KHcMfARcQFnoECDMQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.nvidia.com%2Fcontent%2Fpdf%2Ftesla%2FTesla-P6-Product-Brief.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3ABkbWe3XXBETbOd2wxrFI

 

There will be a difference in the board layout and presence of components on the pcb as this is a different gpu card module. 

 

As Drawkward has stated above, software would be the barrier. 

[bagster]

Hello @Meoleo91,

 

Sorry for the delayed response. 
I did not try it on the alienware, but I got the chance to test it on a MSI gt72.
The good part is, that the laptop boots up.  the card is being recognized under linux as being a p6, and i can  install the drivers, but can't control the gpu and i get no nvidia crtl panel.
Under windows 10 it throws an error under device manager, but with a bit of modding of the inf file I kinda installed the quadro p5000m drivers, via nvclean install, i got the card to get halfway recognized under gpu z, but i can not enter the nvidia dispaly adapter settings or anything else, and optimus does not work.

I have to mention that I have not hard modded the card yet, because I do not seem to find a good quality picture of a quadro p5000m to see what are the missing components. and there are a few. I could solder them with no pb. but I need a bit of help from all other users.

I do not know if the gpu id  is hard modded on a chip level or on a components level, but I tend to belive that the missing components are the difference and the bios.
The Vbios on the tesla has 512K, and the one on the quadro only 256k.
I could, without an issue, flash the bios of the quadro on the tesla via spi programmer, but as long as I don't have the needed pictures, it would be in vain. 
So please, if you know any other useres that might have this card on hand and are willing to take some high quality photos of the lower part of it, front and back,  and send them to me I would much apreciate it.

Thank you for your help and interest in my small project, and sorry again for the late response.

Best Regards.
Bagster

[Captain Black]

I also have this graphics card nvidia Tesla P6 mxm 16gb got it off eBay for almost 300€’ I spotted a cut at the back of the card a line then plugged it in and got this psychedelic glitchy Colors no response from the system keyboard frozen then suddenly various shapes cubes started moving abouts  and no more than that ! After googling some info I’ve come to conclusion that u need to short the bios chip pins with tweezer both ends that got me actually to see hp screen and boot into system, before that I thought let’s try cause after first attempt I gave up put it away got refunded, as the seller apologised saying it’s their fault I was like ok fine thanx, so recently I thought let’s have another go, and after that knowing I get those glitches, I log into windows 10 out it to sleep, (my laptop: hp zbook 17 g2) removed my nvidia quadro m5000m while it’s sleeeping, and installed this one with the heat sink back fan cable plugged in and with a tweezer short the power pin and back straight to windows login screen, device manager- detected as Microsoft basic display adapter,install the driver asks for restart, so we know what happens then glitch again only no glitch if u hold the pins on bios chip! So quick boot up holding the pins and quickly install back the heat sink with fan on and screw all back nvlash —gpumode - -graphics done restart no more need to short the pin now driver installs no problem but no 3D or physx select in nvidia control panel and no wddm enabled that’s where I’m stuck! I accidentally decided to try that gpumode command out of all others that failed (nothing to lose) and it worked there the card has ko video output on lcd when I turned off hybrid mode in motherboard bios idk y but now if I can’t find how to enable 3D settings in nvidia control panel also in task manager the gpu won’t appear that’s wddm I know! If I can’t at least find a way to to enable 3D in nvcpl then I need to flash the bios as I also correctly closest match guessed would be p5000 very identical to this one by clocks and memory capacity despite having both gddr5 the p5000 is slightly higher clocked on gpu frequency than this P6 where I’m sure Tesla can take that speed easily ! I tried all possible and available bios files with 16gb unverified files from techpowerup gddr5 pcie filter of nvidia quadro P series and pascal named files all nvflash64 ID bypass version says gpu id mismatch ! That’s I wonder how to get passed that and convert this card at least to p5000 ffs ! Anyones suggestions welcome! 

[bagster]

At least you got the drivers to install, I did not, the problem is that there are some missing components and bios differences from P6 to P5000  . The spi dump of the P6 vbios is almost 2 mb if I'm not mistaken. I did not find an spi flash dump of the P5K to compare them, but I do not belive that the vbios of the P6 allows direct 3D redering or at least it has to be switched on. 

It is a strange card, Nvidia took their time to block stuff out compared to the 980m and the M5KM. 

I was really eager to get some photos of thenmissing components on the P6 so that I may solder them on, but did not recieve nor have I found any. And I've searched all the sites that had pictures of the card, or that had it up for sale. 

I gave up and ended up selling the card.

[Captain Black]

If you look into the p5000 and this Tesla P6 side by side you can see Tesla as you said got many bits unsoldered ! Now recently I tried to extract its original bios file and wanted to flash it back (who knows maybe it will do something but it’s aid your image got wrong IDs ims like huh how the fock so I had to edit them IDs with hex editor yet at launch with nvflash says no it’s still bitches about pci subsystem ids mismatch although 10DE-2255 was changed from 103C-0000 was it anyways mysterious wicked card my next move - I’ve found one man here in Gibraltar he runs mobile repair shop and such he solders stuff gonna buy P5000 bios chip and give him to solder that onto this Tesla P6 basically give flash 30£ for the job cheap again nothing to lose I shall inform you soon I also recently bought P4000 from eBay from china this one came with like 5 resistors or is it capacitors missing chopped off so I got this lad to responder them with few of old nv cards I got like gts430 1gb ddr3 mxm such I gave him so he can take them bits off them which ever is compatible still what happens even after is that windows 10-11 now running on (unsupported hw says Microsoft basic display adapter install restart - windows disabled device reported problems code 43 if you then disable and re enable it it will say ok no proba won’t show up in taskmgr and no nvcpl re flashed bios images from Lenovo and it’s original dell had to change IDs also says pci id mismatched using allow mismatch nvflash version so changed in hex ids flashed no change code43 wtf is it idk got refunded at least completely ! Got also Tesla m6 motherboard bios won’t detect its bios at all hp zbook 17 g2 ! I think that card is dead idk !