285M GTX - M17xR1 - Confirmed

hi,

I am planning on getting two 285m in SLI to replace my 260m SLI config.
I am wondering if it will actually work at all.

does anybody know?

I already contacted a reseller and will probably make the transaction tomorrow, unless anybody knows better.

we already checked the cards and they match 100% PCB look identical and of course the connector is the same, MXM 3 type B.

will this really work?

please don't waste time saying what a bad upgrade it is and why I should get ATIs.

I just want to know if it is doable.

thanks,


SEE THIS POST:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/503352-gtx-285m-supported-m17x-r1-5.html#post6535198

 

The BIOS for the M17xR1 supports only:

NVIDIA
260M
280M

ATI
4870

 

thanks a lot!

 

I just chatted with two DELL customer support representative and both of them told mr that the 285M is part of the M17x R1 spare/replacement parts along with the 260m/280m. is this information legit at all?

why would the card be listed as upgrade/ replacement for this laptop if the BIOS doesn't support it?

I'm just trying to understand, any answer is very much appreciated.

thanks,

 

the card should work since they are G92 Arch

I will not say 100% but I would bet my shiny penny

 

Interesting, Dell never offered a 285M did they?

 

If you get the part# can you please post it thanks

 

AFAIK, the closest they've come to a 285 in their laptops is the Quadro FX3800M in the Precision 6500M. I would expect it to work in the R1 since it's just a clock speed update, but ultimately there's no knowing.

agreed, a Part number would be definitive.

 

I talked on the phone early this morning with an Alienware tech support representative and they say that the video card might work since the difference from the 280m is very little but they cannot guarantee it 100%.

also he said that card might work but they cannot guarantee that it won't have software issues with dell's drivers or drivers for the OS in general.

so he said that in the end it's up to me to risk it.

I'm actually glad I called, cause he found out that my warranty was not activated.

anyone out there know of a link of somebody trying this and failing completely? all I was able to find out so far was a link of someone trying a 280m in a M17x-R2 and not working. at least they tried and we all know now.

I guess I'll have to be the guinea pig

thanks,

 

what are the possibilities that this might not work?

just BIOS recognizing the cards or maybe, power consumption.

in the M17x driver manual it clearly says that the system will support a videocard that can provide a 75watt power consumption.

doesn't the 285m consume as much as the 280m and 260m? 75watts?

what are your guesses?

thanks,

 

yes and yes

the 285 is a overclocked 280 its the same exact card

 

what about device ID? that's probably different. would that make any difference in recognizing the cards? do you know?

my guess is that if the 285m doesn't work in the m17x is because it probably has to do with heat issues.

so maybe as BatBoy was mentioning, there is a possibility that Alienware made it not recognizable in the BIOS on purpose, so that the system does not get compromised. or maybe to not have to deal with more and more DCP latency issues.

but I aggree with you all, IMO the card should work by nature. if it doesn't is because it was purposely denied.

I will get them both and try this out.

thanks,

 

it runs less then 5c hotter

 

The only problem is that afaik there are only a few laptops that ever used the card.

 

yes, that concerns me

 

no problem the m15x never had the GTX 260 added but because it was G92 boom

same with the M9750 it got a 88GTX added

same with clevos with the 260 getting 280's

 

nvidia GTX 285 M, heat pipes, & cooling fan - eBay (item 230503923473 end time Aug-02-10 08:43:16 PDT)

that one's from a D900f, it looks like the mounting holes are the same at least.

 

MXM usually means it has the standard holes and size and fits the power requirements

 

I did not include it since (as far as I know), the BIOS does not support it. Not sure of course as I do not believe anyone here on NBR who owned/owns a 17xR1 has tried.

As for the DPC mention, its a driver issue only and has nothing to do with your card itself. NV has confirmed it being driver related and their issue - fixed and now a non-issue with current NV/Dell released NV drivers.

 

the reseller I am getting these from says that he accepts the cards to be returned in case they don't work good for me, but he'll have to charge me 20% restock fee because this is a custom order , and his supplier charges him for return of non faulty products.

I am tempted, but I don't want to pay 20% restock fee if they don't work. that's a lot!

 

just buy 4870's

 

can anyone interpret this:

Experience best online gaming laptops. Custom built powerful graphics notebooks. Compare the D900C to the Alienware M17x

I couldn't navigate further in the site about it

 

never mind... I think I get it now, it's more like a marketing strategy to make the alienware look really strong but not as strong as the M-TECH's laptop.

 

lmao i would never buy from that company based on that site

 

Can you post the link of the seller of the 285m, thanks

 

it appears that we were all wrong all along and the M17x *does* support 285s lawl!

you either can find them on ebay, or a reseller of parts for the laptops they came in. The most popular ones are sager/clevos but there are other's like the MSI laptop and origins(which are rebadges of clevo's and sagers iirc)

 

Nvidia GTX 285M mobile graphic card - eBay (item 140432108190 end time Aug-24-10 20:02:15 PDT)


I got two already they'll be here hopefully soon

 

in case the cards could not be recognized, would a BIOS flash to 280m work?

I've done this before when trying to flash my 260m to 280m or to quadroFX and if the card does not get recognized, because we have 9400G we can still power on the pc and use nvflash to either revert or flash.

under nvflash the cards are still detected with their proper device ID and correct name. in this case I will need a lot of support especially from whoever owns a 280m.

a BIOS rom of your 280m MXM 3 type b would be very much appreciated. even a BIOS rom of a 285m would be perfect now even just for comparisons. I could not find one yet on the net.

thank you,

 

awsome, let us know! I'd be very interested in getting some and ditching my 5870s if so!

in theory it should work just fine, however if they don't boot I'm guessing it's because it's not recognizing the LCD.

 

Lozz, why do you want to ditch the 5870's? Is 285 a better card?

 

hi, do you have the SLI cable, or you going to buy it someware, b/c I want two of these card but thay do not have the sli cable b.

 

yeah, I've read about this issue somewhere, can't remember where though.

so, is it just a problem of the cards not recognizing the laptop's LCD? or does it affect the digital signal in general? like, what about HDMI? I wouln't vare about the laptop's LCD since is all the time connected to an external LCD via HDMI.

but I guess this isn't the case right?

 

they don't come with SLI cable since they are sold as single. but I have the SLI cable for the 260m which should be just fine. we already checked the pins and dimensions.

 

BTW, nvidia cards don't work for sure on M17x-R2s. it has already been tested.

at least not until a BIOS allows it. unless it's a hardware incompatibility

 

I believe it is a BIOS limitation, Dell never added the 280's to the R2 list

 

nop, the problem i believe it is an agreemen between inel and nvidia, i think/or all the problem that alienware was having with the nv card and the
R1, i thinkso

 

the cards have arrived!!!

I will check eveything when I get home from work.

 

Did you buy it from laptop monkey

 

Intel has not approved licenses for quickpath for nvidia which means essentially they can't make chipsets past core 2 processors. That has absolutely nothing to do with their cards working(or not working) in Intel chipset mainboards or Intel processors. The R1's problem was a chipset communication error with the onboard audio. it has been fixed for a while now.

 

ooh, ok thanks for the info

 

Ladies and Gentleman - Boys and Girls - IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!

first 285m SLI in an Alienware M17x-R1, I knew it would work.

sorry guys, no pics, but just like a good and breathtaking book (ecxept for mispellings) HAPPY READING



now, before some of you folks consider ordering anything on ebay or other sources, there are a few things you need to know related to hardware incompatibility.


first of all, I decided to first try only one card in it, cause I was not gonna go through the hassle of installing everything if it was not gonna work.

right away I find the first obstable:
the "X" metal bracket (that explicitly has the shape of an X) that is right on the opposite side of the GPU chip, was not compatible with the size of the screws mounted in the heatsink.

no problem for that, it took me a few seconds to realize that I could just swap it out for the ones installed in my now old 260m. so I did and installed the first card in the MXM slot.


the system turned on right away, LCD in my laptop was recognized, it just booted into win with no problems. I decided then to test assassin's creed 2 with just one card and of course realized that it was struggling to render at more than 30FPS, so even worse than my previous 260m SLI.
that is understandable.

so I shut down the system and decide to install the second card.

here is when I find the most important impediment.

when I try to plug the SLI cable, I realize that the shape of the SLI socket installed in the new GTX 285m is a good 98% the same as the one installed in the 260m but, because there is a but, that 2% is critical because on the sides, where there are no pins, the socket extends in a "V" shape whereas the shape of the SLI cable that belonged to the 260m keeps the shape square.

also the SLI socket for the 260m seems to have a certain smaill holes to allow the SLI cable to clip in it with two little wings on it. so that the cable doesn't get out of place.

I thought I would have had to order an SLI cable to maybe find out that the SLI was not gonna work in this system, so I got disappointed a bit.

then, having more that 10 years of modding PCs (and trust me, screwing up several CPU's, videocards and motherboard in the past) I decided that with my exerience, that was a fairly easy mod to perform.

so I took a sharp knife and removed cut first vertically then horizontally on both sides, not to just remove the wings (cause that's a fairly easy thing to do) but to remove a good chunk of plastic that would not allow the SLI cable to sit parallel without bein unbalanced.

so I did it for all 4 sides of the SLI cables then I thought that now the SLI cables would probably fit, but they would not stay in place, becasue they were missing of the wings and the socket of course was missing the holes as well.

but surprisingly, I must have slice it just right, becasue I allowed a tiny layer of plastic to stick out of the pins instead of cutting that too, then the SLI cable clips in place just fine. though, when I tried to remove it, it didn't come out rith away (I had to apply some force which is good) but it didn't even take that much to remove it, whereas for the 260m I remember having to struggle just tad harder. which made me think...

though, for the second card, the one installed in the upper right hand side of the laptop when facing the screen, the heatsink mounts right on top of the SLI soclet, so there was space at all in between, the heatsink was just right above the SLI cable and therefore I did not worry about that one.

the first videocard though made me wonder that if maybe the sustem gets a little bit hot, the plastic might make the cable to pop out suddenly.

so I just folded a small piece of paper I took from my printer, and placed it right on top of it and then finally put the keyboard on it too so taht the same principle now would apply for the first card as well.

once I turned on the PC I was very much thinking I would get disappointed for some reason, in fact, as soon as I entered the BIOS I noticed that the Hybrid SLI mode was grayed out. the integrated card though was not, so the 9400MG could be enabled alone (I haven't yet tryed that).

so, when booting into windows, the second card gets recognized then it asks me to restart. although I was relieved a bit, I didn't allow myself to get exited for more than a second. reason? SLI in windows?

so after restart, I open nvidia control panel and to see that there was the option to even enable SLI made hope. then of course windows asks to restart the system then there it goes my sadness takes over (sadness...I hope you guys are enjoying the reading ahah).

so finally the moment of truth (not really, still a lot to test) I enter nvdia control panel and... have you forgotten what I mention in the beginning of the post? IT WORKED!! SLI ENABLED ALL THE WAY!

so I decide to quickly re-run assassin's creed 2 and this time I am amazed at the speed and fluency of motion.

hey!! my PC just got a very decent upgrade from it's 260m SLI.

no crashes so far, everything seems rock solid (knock on wood).

CONCLUSIONS:

I still have to run a ton of tests, casue I want to make sure these babys are running at 100%.

I then uploaded the video bios for the card on the site of the author of Nibitor, cause my intention is to undervolt the card so that it runs very cool.

right now I have to say that temperatures are very low compared to what I hear on the internet from other laptops that have these cards.

my old 260m ran at 51 and 49 celcius degrees respecively when at full load, this because they were undervolted and just slightly overclocked.

the 285Ms where at around 61 dgrees after running assasin's creed 2 for about 10 minutes. but I'm sure they can get way above that, which is why I would love to be able to undervolt them.

for all of you owners of the M17x-R1 with 260s amd 280s SLI, is it woth the upgrade?

well, think about it, if you are not sure, read the beginning of this email again and convince yourself to what is best for you.

consider the hassle of having to replace the X shape of the GPU's metal bracket, consider having only 1 chance of possibility to do the SLI cable mod with the knife right, if you do it wrong you'll have to order another SLI cable for the M17x, cause think about it, if you get the SLI cable meant for a Clevo or other laptop that officially supports the 285m, it might be too short or the shape might not go the way you need it to go, cause these SLI cables are not like USB cables, they are made just for a particular laptop brand, therefore thay create an SLI cable that fits only that model, so in the end, the SLI cable mod is a must unless, someone more informed than me, finds out another solution. I was just to eager to wait for anything.

also, consider not being able to use Hybrid SLI, if you use it regularly and would not give it up, then this is not for you.

I honestly, never used the Hybrid SLI. it dropped my performance slightly and I really am not that lazy, that I can't restart the system to turn on the 9400M if I have to use battery. so I am not sad about it at all, the reason I was in the very beginning is bacause I thought it was an early indication af failure.

all the these issue, stack them up and here you have the reason why the M17X-R1 does not officially support the 285Ms.

I will continue runnig a few tests and will post some results either tomorrow or over the weekend. (yes, 3dmark06 too)

I hope you all enjoyed this great news

thanks,

 

+rep

You can change the thread title now
nice job and good news for everyone with good manual skills, bad news for me becasue I would probably screw something up so 285m is not for me

cheers

 

Nice job bro, enjoy it

 

Heh... I thought the R1 was a MXM 2.1 machine? So it's 3.0?

Was there ever a m17x 2.1?

 

The area-51 m17x was 2.1.

 

Ah, so there was a m17x, a m17x R1 and now a R2?

 

thank you!

 

thanks.

I need to run benchmarks now.

last night I downloaded RE5 bench and 3dmark06.

I haven't done this for a while, can anyone PLEASE post common settings I should consider for these benchmarks?

like, resolution, V-sync, AA, AF ect.?

also I am currently running the 197.xx WHQL drivers from nvidia's site (not DELL's site) cause these were the ones that didn't give me trouble with the 260Ms.

should I install another set of drivers? which one?

many thanks! I am so glad this worked

 

I think that's right, but don't quote me on it.

 

The area-51 was the M17, The M17 X was the beginning of Alienware using their own chassis instead of rebranded clevo's/sagers