: M17X R4 : Desktop GTX 980 : 120Hz Screen :

I will have this weekend testing/figuring this out.

Any thoughts on this or i'm wasting my time?

Edited: Interesting that the GPU will work in DISCRETE mode using EDP screen , but will get 8 BEEPS using LVDS screen.

* Card is running perfectly fine in PEG and on the 120Hz Screen. I can start doing benchmark once i got the heat sink to properly sit on the GPU. maybe by tomorrow.

 

Which desktop 980?

Should work fine as far as I know.

 

The MSI GTX 980.

 

Without power connector right? Don't you have two? lol, one for the M17xR4 and one for the M18xR2? LOL

It should be fine. Just use the 330w PSU. Should work in PEG mode hopefully. I think you said PEG didn't work with that card in M18xR2?

 

Yes, the card won't work in PEG in M18X R2. We can lay to rest that the M18X R2 can never run anything higher than GTX 980m in PEG. The M17X R4 / AW 17 R1 are the king of the throne.

Noted: GTX 980 Desktop and higher requires EDP Screen to run PEG.

 

Well 980M SLI > 980/1060 & = 1070

So until we get fully working 1080, M18xR2 should still be king LOL

I'm still curious why 980 SLI didn't work in PEG mode on M18xR2. It should work fine, maybe need different vBIOS?

I kinda wanna get a M17xR4 but none of the upgrades I'd do would be worth it since I can do 1070 in my M18xR2.

If we can get a 2070 or 2080 RTX MXM style card, M17xR4/AW 17 R1 will have been able to upgrade basically 5 generations of GPUs (6XXM to 2XXXM)

 

Interesting. The only laptops they where used in AFAIK (GT80) had LVDS, not eDP
Also, 980>980M SLI unless you can find something that still scales with SLI. I'd imagine that it also be on the same level as a proper 1060 unlocked MXM.

 

All along , me and everyone else thought that it was LVDS. so now it's proven wrong. When I couldn't get it to use PEG in M18X-R2 , i knew something was up with this GPU, and only on SG mode.

 

Interesting but it doesn't make sense though. 980M & 980 share the same GM104 chip. Even @Khenglish installed a 980 core on a 980M board.

I still wouldn't want to rule it out unless we've had access to other vBIOS.

I'm pretty sure the panel in the MSI was LVDS. I think the motherboard did use a converter though for newer GPUs like 10 series.

 

I tried a Clevo and a MSI VBIOS. Only Clevo was able to give out a display, while MSI bios gave 8 beeps.

The chip on the desktop GTX 980 is GM204 not GM104.

 

Depends on the TDP. The 980M is just using junky 980 cores that were not fit to be used in a proper 980, hence why almost all of them have bad ASIC quality. A 980 core will perform better at the same TDP because of that, but a 980 with an even higher TDP such as the Clevo one will blow a 980M away.

 

They are not called the same. Khenglish grafted a GM204-400-A1 core onto 980M PCB. MSI 980 MXM cards are N16E-GXX-A1 cores, they may have differences.

 

I've put both notebook and desktop 980 cores onto 980m boards and both worked fine. The notebook GXX cores even ran LVDS on m18x R2 and P570WM systems. I personally verified Optimus and eDP functionality.

 

@Khenglish , is there a VBIOS , that would allow a MSI GTX 980 desktop to run PEG via LVDS in the M18X R2? So far , I only got a Clevo Bios that work in Optimus , but not in PEG.. the MSI VBIOs does not allow to display at all in the M18X R2.

 

They were 980m boards so I just ran a 980m vbios modded to have 980 device IDs.

 

what would happened if i flashed a 980m vbios? lol

 

It might work, but probably not. If you have a programmer to revert it there should not be much harm in trying. You may not be able to flash back with software flash tools.

 

I better leave it alone. Thanks for the advise

 

Which one is the MSI 980 MXM, me actually never seen it in the wild.

When I google I only appear to find 980ms or the Clevo 980.

 

MSI has two AFAIK, one is the 120W one that looks exactly like their 1070, the other is a ~180W one that looks like a longer beefier 980M with external power

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ktop-version-gtx-1080-desktop-version.828343/

 

Ones above are the 120W versions

 

Cool stuff, never was aware of 980s without the need of external power. They also seem to be veeery rare in the aftermarket/second hand.

 

Ah I meant to write GM204

They are very similar at the end of the day. Both based off of GM204 core. If there are any differences they should be slight differences. nVidia wouldn't want to spend lots of time and wasting money designing a bunch of different chips.

Maybe @Khenglish can confirm the cores between all the cards.

Just ask I suspected, it works fine for LVDS in this regard. Wonder if the vBIOS is just the issue or something with the PCB not supporting LVDS.

You don't have a programmer? I think if you flash the 980M vBIOS and it doesn't work, you can put the 980 in second slot, put any working MXM GPU in 1st slot, boot into DOS and flash back.

But if you don't have a programmer there's no guarantee it'll work out.

 

You can look up the mxm pinout and see if there are traces on the pcb going to the LVDS pins.

NVflash is really weird about blocking flashing for very frustrating reasons. I can write multiple paragraphs about it's terribly broken safety features. Also if the flash is very wrong it may not even see the GPU to flash back.. Flashing without a programmer is certainly dangerous.