Alienware 17 R1 780m change to 1070 gtx no screen

Hello all,

After reading a lot about the possibility to upgrade my Ranger to a 1070, I decided to get one.
But even after reading all the info and preparing, I sadly got stuck. After swapping and setting up I just have a black screen. It even won't let mee see the bios or alienware logo.
Also the HDMI or Mini Display output won't show anything.
There are no beeps or other signals.
The fans do turn on for a couple of seconds like they normally do. And I hear a harddrive sound starting up.

My specs are:

Alienware 17 r1
nvidia 780m
4900mq cpu
120 3d screen
a14 bios (still original)

A 1070 pulled from a zotac, I believe it is a en1070 model. It's a perfect fit.

Bios and laptop settings were optimized for the 1070 as far as I could find info.
-UEFI only
-Disable legacy
-Disable fastboot
-Windows 8.1 on GPT and UEFI setup.

Possible solutions or questions I have so far about the black screen which could help me on the way.

-Can an a14 unlock bios help me, by setting a display function (PEG)?
-Is the NVRAM reset really really necessary when installing the a14 bios unlock? (because it sounds a bit risky to do).
-Do I have to flash a MSI bios to the Zotac model? Because the Zotac bios won't display if not in a Zotac computer?
-If I need to flash the MSI bios on the Zotac, how can I do it, if the 1070 won't display a screen?
-Does the 780m 120hz screen by default have an EDP connector? Or do I have to check if it is the LVDP, which won't work with 1070?
-Did you have when putting in a 1070 always have a startup screen, logo or bios?
-Possible the GPU is broken?

Sorry for so many questions, but thanks for answering And hope it will also help other people if they are encountering the same problems.

 

If the panel is 120hz then its using an eDP panel.

The MSI vBIOS is needed for the zotac to output to eDP, as its pulled from a desktop unit that function isnt enabled.

Possibility of a dead GPU is always possible of course, but as its a first time leap for you its likely that there is a step missing, like the missing MSI vBIOS for instance.

Im not sure if PEG is required to get Microsoft Basic display adapter (basic output to screen) until you get drivers installed (of which you will need to mod the INF file to bypass the security check). I believe PEG is required to attempt this, if you have your 780m still then best to keep it so you can edit things in the sBIOS (as you lose access to it after Pascal upgrade), one such item would likely to set your system to PEG mode.

I didnt personally do the same upgrade and when I bought my card it already had an appropriate vBIOS. So I will call upon much more experienced members to guide you on your upgrade if they have the time.

@Striker1234 @EepoSaurus

Would either of you be able to explain how you went about flashing the MSI vBIOS to the Zotac cards?

 

you can flash a Zotac 1070 mxm card by putting it in a ranger and then connecting it to an external display then using the msi flashing software to flash the card. Then boom it will work on the internal screen. Here is the software. https://drive.google.com/open?id=16jokZB8qdLDcWtQ8Tre2BBSh0ii1J9tS

 

You need flash unlocked bios for the ranger is the first step.

 

Thank you for your answers, nice to see so much knowledge about the alienwares in this place!
I'm happy to see a 120 screen is always EDP.
And thanks so much for bios and flash files! Only if I connect to an external display (with hdmi or mini display) it stays black unfortunately.

But I plan this:
-I'll try the unlocked A14 bios and hope it will display a screen internal or external. (is the nvram reset necessary for this a14)?
-And the second step when a screen is available to NVFlash the MSI vbios onto the Zotac.

Are my following thoughts correct?
-If the unlocked A14 bios won't give a screen, then I must use a external hardware flasher? (I saw a brand Skypro programmer mentioned)?
-And somewhere I read something about Nvidia mxm series 9xx and lower can be flashed with NVFlash. But 10xx series have to be external hardware flashed.
Is that information which is now outdated and NVFlash can be used on any card?

 

The only way to customize pascal is tdp and via hardware programmer but a signed unaltered vbios should be able to flash according to what I can remember. I recall striker flashing it that way iirc

You can customize any vbios but the card will refuse it if it's not signed.

 

NVflash will flash the 10xx series too, but for custom vBIOS/TDP mods, you need a SkyPro external flasher because Nvidia doesn't want users to OC their cards and buy their BS game of SKUs for OC like Turing's -A SKUs for OC and others having locked down bins. (Plus Pascal has a throttling mechanism - 13Mhz loss for every Degree rise in temp, from 43C, temp mark I don't remember exactly) that's why you see Eepo's link having only NVFlash and MSI vBIOS 1070 one works great on Zotac 1070 form the users here again this is stock MSI vBIOS and it is signed as per Ngreedia's rules. And don't raise TDP of the Zotac 1070 until and unless you add the missing MOSFETs on the top of the card (small black squares)

Also IIRC the A14+ is not needed as a mandatory step for any upgrade. But it's recommended due to the updates it has (A14+ and subsequent versions as you can see in that thread's update changelogs, please give them a read). And one more thing, first when you are running any Windows first disable the Hibernate file (Useless, and you'll lose a few convenience options, doesn't matter since UEFI boot with an SSD is very quick, been running like that since 4+ years), It gave me headache due to the BS Nvidia QC on Drivers esp on 8.1 more here, And next disable the stupid driver signing (to install INF mods easily and other stuff which YOU want control) and to remove the damn watermark as well (Included in that link, Thanks to Mr. Fox).

 

This is what you should do.

1) Pop in your original GPU
2) Flash Bios
3) Change Bios to PEG
4) Install the 1070 card.

 

Thanks for all your suggestions again!
I have succesfully setup the a14+ unlocked bios.
Set the display to PEG. And disabled the Integrated graphics (which would be disabled anyway I think with the 120hz)
My old 780m boots up fine when testing.
But when swapping it with the 1070, I get 6 beeps.
The screen won't turn on, no backligh or anything. And HDMI or Mini Display won't display anything.
After researching the beeps, I know 6 beeps mean a GPU error.
Does this by default mean the GPU is dead?
Or could it be, because it still has the Zotac vBios it can also give the 6 beeps error?
Because I had no screen, I could not execute the NVFLASH to get the MSI vBios on it.
Thinking now about getting a hardware flasher.

 

O.k. try this. remove the card, change the bios to SG mode, then install the gtx 1070 and see if it's able to boot and see if it display the card adaptor.

Edit: SG mode , you would have to swap back the non edp screen back in.

 

If he got the laptop with a 120hz panel its unlikely he/she has the LVDS panel.

 

Originally the laptop didn't have a lvds 60hz panel. But maybe that is an option which I could invest in if all else fails.

For now I ordered a hardware flasher, hopefully the 6 beeps could also mean the vBios was incompatible and only needs the MSI one.
When the flasher arrives, I want to put the MSI vBios on, fixes PEG output and restores world peace. I think it's the last thing I can do (I can think of anyway )

 

Did someone who also put in the en1070 zotac model also had to external flash it?
And also got no screen (no backlight, no bios, no logo, no hdmi)?

 

Hello!

You should be able to flash with the normal software since is not a modded firmware.

Just boot with HDMI Connected and use the external screen to flash it.

From what I'm reading, maybe the card is damage... :S

You will have to flash it with external programmer to be sure.

 

I got the equipment for external flashing and could succesfully flash the bios. But unfortunately the card still didn't work and still got error codes about gpu failure and no internal or external output. So it's definitely damaged.
But thanks for all the help. Learned and documented a lot about all the different setups and hardware of the Alienware, plus software and hardware flashing of chips.
Problably I'll give it another go with a different mxm

 

Yeah its likely to have died on the way in shipment then.

 

Never made it out of delivery ... let’s have a moment of silent...

 

I had a number of failed upgrades and each was more disheartening than the last. Almost started to think I just couldn't upgrade the gpu but this last time worked out nicely. Keep that info and try again after you get your money back.

 

Did you happen to make sure that legacy mode was turned off? I also remembered reading somewhere that windows 8.1 didnt play well with maxwell and up gpu's on our machines

Sent from my overclocked dumb phone using a smartapp

 

Sorry for my late reply, the card was broken and left the laptop alone for a while. Legacy mode was off where possible. Maybe I'll try windows 10 But the card would not even get into bios or display anything.
But I'm not giving up, I'm now going for a second try with a Eurocom