120Hz 3D Screen upgrade for Alienware 17 R1

Latest drivers are arse!

OK, so i've installed these drivers into my laptop which has a 120hz panel and I was recommended to set it to 60hz before uninstalling the nvidia drivers. I did, wiped the old drivers and installed the new drivers with no issue.

BUT

as soon as I set my display back to the full 120hz and rebooted I was greeted with a black when transitioning from UEFI into Windows 10. To make sure the previous boot wasn't a fluke I set it back to 60hz and again it loads fine.

I have no idea why but now I can't use the full refresh rate of my panel and I think nvidia broke something between the 361.75 and the 361.82 hotfix driver cos I believe it is the same problem.

So now I can't use the full 120hz. Thanks Nvidia!

 

Hi, I've never messed with un-installing or changing the refresh but since you have upgraded to a 980m as well as the 120hz display it's a very different animal!

Have you tried to go back to a working driver just to confirm the cause? If that works just try a vanilla install without un-installing or changing the refresh?

Just some ideas man, saw your post over @ NV (361.91)...

EDIT: Just remembered I saw someone with the black display after win loads the drivers. His machine appeared to be turning off the panel. Have you tried an external display or toggling the 'display select' key?

 

Anything up to and including 361.75 has 120hz working for me. I think it started with the 361.82 hotfix driver.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

Check my edit above . Did you always DDU and drop the resolution on the earlier drivers?

 

I know closing and opening the lid works but haven't tried the display toggle yet.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

Yup. that points to the driver not selecting the panel. By flipping the lid you wake it up.

 

The screen wakes when I open and close the lid.

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EDIT: but why does it work for 60hz but not 120hz?

 

couldnt agree more, i actually ended up giving my 17R1 to my brother and getting my self a barebone m18xr2, way better system overall, and i have no regrets, besides having to lug it around as it weighs a ton

 

Maxwell gonna be the last upgrade for all the Alienwares, be it hit or miss. The BIOS is too much of locked down secure flash sh**, kinda hard to digest this.
Moving to Clevo is a better choice when 980M gets outdated or if any future stability issues come.. Very unfortunate. Dell is just trash.

 

Are Clevos easier to upgrade? Is it just as simple as attaching a video card that fits in the slot, and the computer will still work (AND still get 120hz) without any BIOS or software tweaks besides a driver update?

For example, could I upgrade a Clevo with a GTX 880M that gets 120hz to a GTX 980M and STILL get 120hz without anything more than a driver update?

Thanks.

 

if you read between the lines: yes. I am ditching alienware for a clevo.

 

This should all if they want to upgrade. Downturn if they choose other than Clevo now. All other brand's laptop models is useless. Or go for a desktop PC. If anyone want a laptop with soldered hardware, they might as well choose a cheap model. All are equally useless so why spend more money than necessary ? Even an Acer gaming laptop have betther performance in benchmark tests than Alienware. Why pay more for lower performance?

 

It's not just the upgrading and etc.
The point is when we are paying huge sums of money for something that's marketed as a "High end performance machine" then it should be without any strings attached. Unlike dell which is hugely anti-consumer these days with Alienware not even from now their nature was suspicious since 2013's secure flash, idea storm petition and can you believe even after an AMA stunt show they put on it backfired miserably that the companies people just left this forum....

While the Clevo laptops have everything what we need, Plus an amazing person who makes pure GG stuff, he's called as Prema, Because of him this NBR's enthusiast group is alive, An sBIOS which breaks all restrictions imposed on the machine a wonderful vBIOS for Maxwell chipsets to unleash the true hardware potential...Takes time to learn things but it's fun..& Tbh we all need to compromise right..So the only compromise of Clevo machines is the make (Cosmetic) that's all.

Rest assured, pay for what you want and you will be getting that. With this type of gesture we can just punch in the face of Dell and AW once and for all when this NBR community dries up they'll also realize the greatest blunder they made, Even Acer rekts the new AW echo models. MSI just bashes them, Clevo just vaporizes all the BGA filth so called "thin and gaming" which is not possible with current laws of physics.

TL; DR : Get a Clevo either Phoenix / Wingman or haswell - Batman & You'll know what you were missing.

 

Dont forget also... Even Apple thin extremely hot throttle machine Gigabyte(2 models now ) rekts the new AW echo models

 

Thanks for the reply!! I will get a 120hz Clevo!

 

Prema is premiere!

 

Hi!

This is murad after long time again.

Matter of sorrow is my laptop screen is giving trouble by now. I'm not understanding possible causes.

Can you please take look into this video:

I purchased my screen from laptopscreen 1 year back. Looking forward to hearing from you guys.....

 

Mine's also showing aging - Horizontal lines very faint ones in particular low contrast colors and some weird artifacts show up for a millisec, LCD / Cables at hinges anything might have gone wrong.

But I think It's the LCD in your case, It's very hard to pinpoint the cause, if backlight issues then the power cable is broken..Rest LVDS / eDP cables are too hard to notice since they are braided type and if they broke from inside, but with hinge rotation if anything effects then surely It's a cable broken inside at hinge. Else I guess It's the LCD or loose contacts at the ports.

In my case I guess It's the cable since optimus mode display is clear, HDMI out is clear, the LVDS cable might be culprit or even the panel.

 

Hmmm want to upgrade my 17R1 with an 880m to an 120Hz panel, anyone in europe know a good place to order the cable and screen ? Because I can't track it down here in Europe

 

laptopscreen.com is a good place to get the lcd. as far as the cable goes, either try with dell or on ebay.

 

getting the cable now is a bit difficult compared to september 2015 and that was quite challenging.

 

is it possible to get the cable is you just want 1080 120hz and no 3d?

 

same cable im afraid, its the 120hz aspect that uses a different port on the motherboard.

 

well technically there's no 3d anyway since must of us have aftermarket GPUs anyway.

 

Has anyone tried to mod the Alienware 17 r2 with 120hz or disable the intel GPU?

I heard that the Alienware 17 r1 is supposed to be muxless, but how exactly did it disabled the integrated graphics? is it due to the display connector or due to the display or both?

I currently have an Alienware 17 r2 with 1080p 60Hz IPS matte display (LGD0459, 173WF4, Dell P/N: CV69H) with GTX 980M and i7 4710HQ.

 

iGPU Becomes by passed with 120Hz display. The screen use a different connector on the motherboard.

 

I also have an Asus G751JT and I believe it has a very similar screen (LP173WF4-SPD1) but it has no nvidia optimus.

is the eDP connector for the Alienware 17 r1 120Hz mod different from the stock eDP cable from Alienware 17 r2 60Hz IPS?

 

that would be extremely lucky if it worked but i am going on the safe side and say no.

 

anyone know how to get the video cable within EUROPE?

 

http://www.amazon.de/Dell-ASSY-AW17...ie=UTF8&qid=1461675354&sr=8-20&keywords=n392w

you can give that a try.

 

Well my laptop is dead! I don't even know what happen with it, was playing dota 2 on it then *beeppppp* it turned to black completely. Tried all the methods I know to make it post but not even a single beep.
Seems like my journey with alienware is ended here. Ha ha ha.

 

Maybe a new Aw17BGA or even a new 15?

 

time to go clevo!

 

Hi mate, are you still rocking the AW, or have you moved over to Clevo, i thought i saw a post about you moving over, could be wrong. I'm still rocking the AW17 980m and its been great for now, fingers crossed it remains that way ha ha

ps im still on win 8.1 not sure if i will move to win 10, seems like it could be problematic for me and my config...

 

no, not yet. i want to go clevo and when i get some cash flow i'll do it.

win 10 is not bad and i have a similar config. just don't use precision x.

 

Wait for 2017 then Move to Clevo, Kabylake refresh with Gen 2 Polaris / Pascal are more better than switching to Skylake now, 980M is still a good GPU, I even might upgrade this machine to Pascal, I like the looks of this machine tbh & way too early to switch over her cousin M15x, 5 years !

And to justify the thread, the 120Hz is a big problem if we stay on this machine...

 

no more option then we have to go with it but with the bga crap from clevo such as p65x series will be fine .

agree mate, contacted pcspecialist in uk already to get a quote about the Clevo P650RE6 seems like they are the 1 who has the best price in EU.

if another platform can offer the same 120hz screen on their laptop I will happy to go with them (I dont care about 3d at all) G-s still crap on laptop with 75hz.

 

when is kaby lake expected to be out? but more importantly when will clevo make laptops with kaby lake and polaris/pascal?

 

Considering the Kabylake 7700K leaks, HEDT Broadwell-E 6950X also are coming soon in this year prolly after the Pascal/Polaris once announced the things would be clearer and the Kabylake might come later in 2017 Q2-Q3.

The Batman got a refresh with Batman 2.0 right after Skylake was announced and the P870DM happened, they will make a refresh mostly same chassis or a minor redesign and the current gen 1 gpus are not worth imho considering the milking and corporate greed, the 980M can handle the load well and DX12 mainstream is not yet happening. So if you could hold until a gen 2 pascal/polaris and then invest that would be better.

 

ok hopefully it comes out in a few months

though even if i get a kaby lake + maxwell it should be easily upgradable to pascal/polaris/vega?

 

And Vega, Full GP100 Pascal are slated for 2017 so it won't be happening anytime soon, Plus I think the Kabylake with Vega and Pascal will come with fully redesigned MXM with HBM2/GDDR5X or go full BGA. My wish is only Win7 compatibility and no BGA Lol..

We might even get a non UEFI required 980Ti level AMD- Polaris 10 real DX12 GCN mobile chip, that's a sweet upgrade for our Alienwares right ? Speculation ofc..

 

so pretty much get what i can find? if there's a kaby lake + a 980M or 980 that would be a decent start.

 

I finally took the plunge and bought a 120Hz assembly ebay.
I installed it tonight , started it up and get the 8 beeps , if i close the lid and reopen it i get random color bars running verticaly.
If i hook up the old 60Hz monitor everything works fine.
Could it be that the GTX675m which is not the original for the R3 is not supported by the monitor?

 

120hz is out of stock in laptopscreen.com. Do you know where can i get one?

 

Looking at these two pictures is the screen rev C01 or D01?

 

did you get the 120hz cable? if not then that might be the cause as the 60hz cable isn't compatible.

 

Yes everything came with the screen, the sellers add stated that the unit was pulled out of an R4.

 

I would say D01 as it looks like that is what is on the sticker attached to panel itself. Where is the C01 sticker?

Make sure your using the right port on the MB, DO NOT use the same port that the LCD was originally plugged into, you need to change it over.

Double check your part numbers on the cables and what not. If all else fails put it back the way it was and make sure everything still works.

I have been out of the loop for awhile but I am pretty positive the cable for the R4 and the cable for the Alienware 17R1 were not compatible. I am almost positive they were different cables, it was one of the reasons getting them was so tough. Check the part number on the cable and compare it to what's listed in my first post, I am betting they are different.

 

I have two cables , the original that came with the screen which didn`t work (i will check the part number later) and DC02C004000 which i bought off Ali.
The one of Ali looks a little different but if it fits the monitor i will test it tonight.
I think the one mentioned in the first post DC02C004000 is for the R5 and the other is for the R4.

 

The cable that came with the screen is P/N C02C002S00 Rev:1.

P/N DC02C002S00