[GUIDE] Disabling M17x R3 IGP

First guide so let me know if its any good.

I was having issues with my m17x and the video card including windows aero stuttering, and a delayed post time. I was able to fix the issues by flashing to the unlocked A08 bios. It gave me the ability to disable the the igp. The bios is absolutely stable and works great. It also includes better overclocking options.

ALIENWARE 17XR3 UNLOCKED A08 BIOS.rar
Here is the A08 Unlocked Bios. It was originally found here( [Unlocked] A08 w/ Unlocked Options & 580M GPU Thermal Throttle Removal) and i take no credit for the bios.

1.Flash the bios by opening the flashing utility.
2.After it is finished boot into your bios (F2)
3.Go to the second advanced menu.
4.Go down to video configuration.
5.Then change the primary video device to auto.
6.Go into the integrated graphics sub menu and disable it.

The only issue that i have experianced with this is that when i close the lid the led gets really dim. No idea what causes this maybe one of you can figure this out.
Maybe now us amd users can use a 3d screen.

Hope this helps someone out there. It helped me out.
I will be uploading screenshots later and including how to enable those better overclocking options.

Ps. I take no responsibility for any issues you may experiance. I have flashed to this bios multiple times with no problems.

 

Appreciate it man

 

Nmanfred, may you give a photo of bios, which options are selectable in "primary video device"?

In my case its basically 3 main options "Auto, IGD, PEG, ..."
If you select PEG, no need to do any changes in "integrated graphics sub menu"...
And I'm think, any problem with "close the lid" are gone away.

 

What i meant by closing the lid is waking from sleep or hibernate. It causes the screen to go massively dim and i have not found a fix for this. And switching primiry device essentially disables the igp but i would much rather just disable it if the end conclusion is the same.

Ps. I have uploaded the screenshots. If anyone wants the screenshots of the better overclocking options i will upload them. They are pretty hidden away.

 

Nmanfred - Can this be flashed from within wondows or does it need to be flashed in DOS?

 

what else does this bios allow you to do? Anything special?

 

Yeah. It has some prett cool options. You can control what the fan speed is at a certain temp. You can control what temp the cpu throtles at. And best of all you can set long term pwr above 45. Thats a great feature.

 

Yes it can.

 

Wow if the fan tables work that makes this a definate winner in my book.
Have you tested it yet? It will save me manually controlling them with HWinfo.

And thanks for the info regarding flashing within windows, I know some custom BIOS's need to be flashed from DOS

 

Yes actually. It does work. I also disabled power states. My processor is always running 4 cores at 2.74ghz unless its a single threaded application where it increases to like 2.99. I have not experianced any issues with this bios. Not one blue screen.

 

Brilliant! thanks for that! +rep.

I am flashing in a moment and will post back. Good news regarding no BSOD as I do get the odd one whilst controlling the fans manually.

Looks like you are setting yours for performance, I will be doing the opposite as I am aiming for a quieter running system. The default fan spins to 3200 @ 62c and 4000 @ 64c on my GTX560m. Although the temps are great, I know I can set the fans myself to 3400rpm and it doesnt reach 70c on desk or 65 if I raise the back.

 

OK, installed the modded BIOS. No problems or bluescreens.

Unfortunately I there is no option for the gpu fan speeds
There is options for low and high cpu fan speeds but that is it

 

Yeah i wish i could control the gpu clock. I dont know what about 90% of the stuff in that bios does. Im going to mess with it more when i get time

 

I did this mod about two months ago, however, I was wondering.. If I wanted to go back to a "default" state with the internal graphics, what settings would I enable to do so? I can't remember what they came as before I disabled it and when I fiddles with it I set the wrong primary graphics device and my computer wouldn't turn on, so I would like to not have that happen again. Also, Nmanfred, how did you make your 2630QM stay at 2.7GHz? I have that processor also and would like to do that. Thanks.

 

Couldn't you just switch it from the IGP to the GPU, and leave it that way? It reboots to the GPU anyways.

 

Just load system defaults. Always works for me. Well i set my bus speed at 105.7. The highest 4 core multiplier is 26. So in the performance section of the bios theres an over clocking option that allows you to set long term pwr to 99. It also allows you to disable short term pwr and disable p states. I will take some screen shots for you later on this evening of all the settings i tweaked and what settings i set.

 

As always, quick and helpful. Thanks guys. +rep

 

Yes but the igp is still enabled. When its enabled it controls the gpu i believe. And you cant use the 120hz screen with the igp enabled. i would like to buy the 3d screen and get it to work with amd

 

No problem man. Im about to boot into bios and upload those pics for you.

K here are my settings. Enable the overclocking feature then set long term pwr to 99. Disable short term pwr then set long term time window to 56.

Then disable p-states. I believe its in chi set config. Then just check cpu-z.

Sorry pic is sideways.

 

I enabled the performance options in the bios and everything was grayed out beneath that.

It also appears that turbo isnt functioning on my processor anymore, it doesnt go over 2.0 GHz at any time now that I can tell.

As far as I can tell, all the turbo mode options are enabled in the bios.

Any suggestions?

 

Use caution with this. I turned off the igp to get my radeon 6970 working in Linux. I was having trouble overriding the edid on a monitor and decided to turn the igp on and try it.

After that it wouldn't post. Clearing cmos didn't work. I had to take the gfx card out to fix.

You take the gpu out and turn it on and it beeps then power cycle and it posts, then replace the gpu.

 

I had the exact same problem myself when I tried enabling it, shat many bricks. Pure pitch black screen, nothing more. Had to take GFX card out like yourself and blind flash BIOS. That's only I had tried literally everything else to no luck whatsoever.

TL;DR For anyone wanting to do this: don't.

 

it works fine for me and I've done it on multiple mobos. you just gotta be careful. may not be worth it for the AMD systems.

 

what are the performance gains of having this, does it also help for ati cards?

 

None + not in the slightest.

 

I don't know why sombody with an AMD card really needs an unlocked bios unless the just wanna mess around and tweak certain settings. I use the modded bios so I don't have to deal with optimus and I'm able to play games with no problems now

 

Hey I got the driver updated just fine, but I did run into the screen dimming issue. Have you found a solution for that? If not, if I go back to the bios and re-enable the default graphics settings will it have any effect on the current driver?
thank you