AW M17 R3 graphics card replacement?

Currently using a Radeon 6970M, I keep reading that you have to disable audio to get a Geforce 765M GPU installed in one of these, and hardly any info at all on any Geforce 860M in one, and people are suggesting a Geforce 680M or Radeon 7970M
I just want to get this thing stable and usable with a somewhat decent graphics card in it, but paying $350-400 for a 680M is kind of nuts when $500-600 gets a 980M, and the 7970M is around $200, while a 765M is $100~ and I have two 860M's in my AW18 that I could lose one and pick up a 980M.
I guess my question for this is, is having audio on still causing systems to not boot? Or if I can mess with it enough, get it running and happy.

The reason for the upgrade is I think the graphics card is dead, Windows 7 with stock Dell drivers won't let windows 7 boot with it, in SG mode it will boot but it says error code 43 in device manager, in Windows 10 it gives lots of issues too, sometimes it will boot on a fresh install but it will eventually freeze as soon as it gets any driver other than the default windows 10 driver(Or as soon as Windows 10 connects to the internet and installs the driver), I've removed and reseated and repasted the 6970M with no change in behavior and I don't want to stick my nephew with a laptop without any GPU

 

Hi, seems the R3 is the current 'problem machine'! I've not seen any help cries for quite a while and ATM I'm helping three R3 owners and one R4 - all (but one) graphics related!

Anyhoo, I think we can safely say the dGPU is failing. Just to make sure take it out and install win 10 fresh without it. It should now be running fine so give it a test out. You should be able to run older games as well. If you have a second drive remove it before installing windows 10. It has a habit of using a second drive for hidden system files - without asking. This means that if the second drive is replaced win 10 stops booting .

Now, the restrictions on upgrading the R3 are limited and require specific steps for all. The R3 is not win 10 approved by dell as it did not support the advanced hardware win 10 supports. It still works but without UEFI bios support limits your choice (and makes it harder).

I don't know about the 765m's problems with the sound. I recently worked with an R3/780m and there is a known problem with the sound. I advised disabling the audio in the bios before installing the NV driver then turning it back on after. This worked for him and he never had any sound problems.

Your choices I can (hopefully) help with are:

580m, the best NV gpu you can use use plug-and-play. You would still need to source a 3 pipe heatsink. This GPU has a terrible reputation for failing and I would only recommend it for selling the machine on. It might last a year or so, it might fail in a few months. A real dice-roll!

680m, my favorite GPU of any NV cards I have owned. Rock solid even with a large overvolt and overclock. Mine still runs last years games fine. Upped it from 610mhz to 820mhz, temp still under 72c. I digress, you would need an unlocked bios to switch the machine to PEG graphics, this forces the NV GPU and disables the intel. Without this step it may all install OK but find it impossible to get the machine to switch out the intel GPU.
You also need a modified file for the driver installer to work (research) and to allow win 10 to accept a modified driver install (testsigning). This is needed for every driver install in the future. It might now work in win 10 via GForce Experience, which has an upgrade feature?

780m, same as 680m but can mess with audio. Fixable but a real pain if it happens to you, ton of messing basically . It also runs hotter than a 680m so has less overhead (it's a 680m core with extra cuda cores and faster clock).

880m. Again the same caveats as the 680m BUT it got such a bad rep for overheating and throttling I cannot recommend it.

After that you are SOL. The 9xx cards and above require a UEFI compatible bios and there is not one for the R3 .

You may find that dell still sell the 680m heatsink (for the R4). I got one and it came with all the pads and paste pre-applied so it was so easy to just attack it to the GPU. Not a bad price either, IIRC around £25.00. This heatsink will be good for any of the above options.

Good luck .

 

I ordered up a 765M since it's only $100 and I'll see how that does in it.

 

Gotta be worth a try at that price. Let me know how it goes...

 

Oh, it does have two hard drives, it apparently came from the factory with 1.5tb RAID 0, though I'm not 100% convinced that the HDD in 0 slot is good though, Windows 10 kept installing corrupt, and 7 gave me lots of issues too..but to be fair, on my AW18, it installed corrupt twice as well, and still is kinda funky(Photo viewer seems corrupt, have to use the mouse to zoom in/out until it renders and icons disappear and swap places, though they are still there when they clicked and do their effect). Though maybe this is my fault, because I am not using the HDD's in RAID 0 and the BIOs is still set to RAID..

 

After disabling audio and integrated gpu, I'm sitting at a black screen with no beeps at start(8 beeps at start without audio disabled)

Reseated it and cleaned the gpu connector and pins with alcohol, no differerence

 

Hmm, not sounding good. Did you run the machine without any GPU to make sure everything else is OK (after resetting the bios to default)?

 

If I remove the card and reset the CMOS it will boot and go into windows, if I disable graphics switching, it will even load into windows on just the intel gpu and the video card installed. If I play with BIOs settings, sometimes I can get the alien logo to show up but the red bar fills and it freezes and won't allow me to go into bios settings

For giggles, I swapped an 860m from my working aw18 into it and it fills the bar a little and freezes, with peg and intel gpu off it sits at a blank backlit screen on the 765m and the 860 sits at a non backlit screen

 

When you say 'disable switching' is that via a bios option or?

Are you still using secure boot?

Kinda out of ideas right now except something else hardware wise is flakey maybe?

Have you looked at a 7970m for a stock replacement? It will need messing with the heatsink screws but I have seen someone that did it.

Is there an option in the bios for IDG, or something like that? I do recall being told that a non-standard GPU needs that setting changing - thinking about it I guess you tried this?

 

Problem with the 7970m is that everyone wants $200-400 USD for one, and from past issues, I really dislike AMD

I'm not sure on secure boot,

Switchable is a unlocked bios option, and I'm not sure, it's like there's some kind of setting that's blocking it, because it will boot with PEG mode and integrated disabled with the 6970M but it black screens when trying to install drivers

 

I'm fairly sure secure boot stops hardware being swapped out among other things. Check that and try turning it off - last gasp, install windows, no secure boot and no GPU. Add NV after and try again? First try with the internet disabled when you put the NV in so you can fresh try the NV driver - if it ever gets that far. I'm still assuming the AMD is faulty.

No AMD fan myself but it is a cheaper option, or even going for another 6970 if you can find one cheap enough.

 

I removed the card and got back in the bios, I can't find secure boot anywhere though (A12 unlocked)

 

Doh, sorry man, it was introduced with the R4. Need food! BRB

 

Haha, I went and re-did it with a 860M from a clean CMOS and it worked. On the same install of Windows no less, Windows didn't even fight and kick and scream, it just went "Oh, we have a new card here. Okay, let's just use that."

Just checked too, the iGPU is not listed under device manager.

So I guess I got a faulty 765m?

 

Sure sounds like it, although it could be just some incompatibility with the 765m. I've never seen one used but I vaguely recall someone giving up on getting one working - he didn't spend a lot of time on it and got something else.

At least we have a culprit, even though two faulty GPU's seemed too far off course

 

That's what I thought too. I would Love to just get a 980m and let him keep the 860m, but that's expensive, heh.

 

Let me know how it goes, thanks.

 

having an odd problem now, Windows 10 doesn't want to shove off on it's basic driver, and nvidia drivers from nvidia's site directly are showing 7zip errors and "Corrupt" for multiple versions.....not sure what's going on here.

Edit: I guess I have to modify the .inf, but not sure how to since everyone does 880's, 980's and so forth, but not really any 860's

 

Well, the corrupt file is not a problem at your end. I've seen a bunch of people getting this over in the NV forums. One guy said he got a 'good' version from guru3d. If your ISP uses file caching like many do you may need to wait it out.

Install Gforce Experience and see if that can upgrade it. I like it and it's very useful for seeing all your game settings on a single screen.

For ini modifying you can get your card ID from the properties of the GPU in device manager. Under Properties you select ID from the drop down. Use this to replace the ID in the instructions you found.

Remember that you need to turn 'Testsigning' on to allow the installer to run after modding.

Good luck

 

Geforce experience refuses to give me drivers, it says none detected.

file is also corrupt from guru3d =/

which section do I use? a bunch of people were saying that putting it in the wrong section makes the driver unstable and causes issues

 

I never tried modding. I always got the .inf from laptopvideo2go. They may also have a good copy of the driver. Look in their user forums and you'll find someone has posted the latest inf.

Shame about experience, I guess it also uses the 'approved combination' in the driver inf.

 

oh my god yes, their .inf let it install, woo! Now this laptop is done, now to end up working on my laptop =/

Edit: For the record, the actual extractor still has a 7zip error, however! It seemed to extract the whole driver, maybe not some of the programs and junk that come with it, but the driver at least, then I went in through Device Manager and pointed it at the driver location.

 

That is great news, two of my R3/R4 threads close out.

Can you try one thing for me please? Try experience now you have a driver installed. I wonder if it will work now it should see it. Great info if it works!

Cheers.

 

GeForce experience does indeed work now, it happily shows the system specs and wanted to scan for games and optimize them for the system

 

Excellent, thanks for that. Hopefully it will be able to install the next driver without any modding.

You should let it scan for games but not optimize them. You then see all the settings and can adjust for performance or quality by display resolution you use in-game.

It will also auto download a new driver if available and you set it to download but not install. You then decide when you are ready.

Thanks again.

 

It's for my nephew to use for college and some light gaming, if he wants to later, maybe an XM CPU and SSD, but I expect with drivers it should be fine now that it can see it, but I'll let you know if I have to repeat the process.

Also, IDT audio is working fine

 

Thanks. I had to read back and I still cant figure out if you put the 765m back in or left the 860m?

 

I just left the 860M in since it was happy and i was so tired of fighting it, logic tells me that if I set the bios up 10 times for the 765M and none would work, and I did it a single time for the 860M the same way, and the 860M worked, that obviously there was some kind of issue with the 765M

 

Yeah, I'm sure there is some basic incompatibility with that 765m. Must remember that as I seem to be getting quite a few PM's about graphic options in R3's and R4's ATM .

I reckon it's to do with UEFI and backwards compatibility. It's a bug that means you need a UEFI bios to see it correctly. R4 and up basically.

Bing! <brain-pop> Maybe you could find a user wanting to upgrade their R4 to sell it to? Of course you'd have to declair your failure and come up with a return option for the buyer. The time could be right and I'm usually around to assist. PM if you want email .

 

the odd thing is my aw18 didn't like it either, it caused freezing and black screens at post too, and 765m was an option for aw18 if I recall correctly(first gen of the new 18)

I figured since I had it apart that I'd try it, so I'm not sure

 

Oh well it seems it's a bad one. Does the AW have UEFI options (something like Compatibility mode) in the bios and win 8/10 secure boot options?

If the card was indeed a stock option then that pretty much seals the deal - unless the AW needs some bios option - unlikely.