Alienware 17 & GTX 880M replacement 8 beeps

Hello, I am looking for some advice on an issue I've been having. I own an Alienware 17 (2013 model), I purchased it with the gtx 780m and have been using it ever since and works fine. I recently purchased a gtx 880m from an ebay seller with good feedback.

The first card I received, after installing it numerous times would never post, the screen would remain black without the backlit. The seller then sent me a replacement thinking it may be vbios issue or something. I installed the replacement last night and would get 8 beeps, the lcd panel would come on with a backlit but not post at all. Alienware logo or bios menu never appeared. I looked up the code and it says it could indicate LCD panel failure, which had me worried.

I installed my gtx 780m again and everything worked fine like before, system booted without beeps and hasn't done the beeping since. Am I getting bad cards or is there something else going on? I am on bios A12. Thank you in advance.

 

If it helps some additional info, I own the 120hz 3D version. Also, the seller did mention that the second card I received was an MSI OEM card and was tested as working before they shipped it to me. Did not mention if it was tested in an Alienware. Thanks.

 

You diagnosed it yourself. You said when you put the 780M back in it worked fine. That means the 880M is dead/faulty. They're probably sending you Clevo/Sager 880M's and not Dell cards, or the cards themselves are dead.

Why are you even upgrading the 780M to the 880M? That's a complete waste of money. The 780M outperforms the 880M. Send it back for a refund and be happy with the 780M. The only difference you'd notice with the 880M is throttling. It's a crippled piece of junk. Many others here would agree: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...orums-about-880s-bs-there-doing-go-reply.html

 

Thanks for the response! I purchased it thinking it would provide a decent upgrade in fps, that was before browsing these forums and registering today. It is unfortunate so many are having issues with the gtx 880m, I was not aware of these issues before. So is it just the 880m that is being throttled or are other cards also experiencing similar issues?

For future reference, are sager/clevo cards generally compatible with Alienware systems or not? I remember a few years back I purchased a card from Eurocom and that worked on the first try and never had a problem with it, this was on a previous Alienware laptop.

 

They usually do not work. You sometimes need a modified video driver for it to work.

 

Thanks J.Dre, I'm just going to ask for a refund and be done with the headache then.

 

Yeah, no problem. Just FYI: the 980M is due to come out sometime in September or October. It will be a very nice boost in performance over the 780M. You should save the money and buy one of those. I'm sure it will be scarce and $1099 (full price) because it will be brand new.

The 980M will probably be the last card you can buy for your Alienware 17, but it's expected to perform about 50% better. The reason being, Pascal (2016+) is not going to support standard PCIe and will require a new motherboard.

 

I doubt that. They will rebrand the 980m at least 3 or 4 times first, each with a 50mhz clock increase

 

Or activate more units

 

Quite honestly OP, even with the minor clock speed difference , you could easily OC your 780m to reach the 880m and surpass it if that's what your worried about. As J.Dre has already pointed out this upgrade is a complete waste of money...sorry

 

780M runs around 7-8C lower at the same core speed WITH a 25mv voltage bump too (most 780M cards won't do 993MHz @ 1v) - the most plausible explanation is the 8GB of RAM dramatically increased the heat. They are a huge flop...

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