Alienware 17 R5 GTX 1070 MXM 3.1B

@bennyg
A company called Aetina sells MXM graphics card modules. Here is the link to their website: http://www.aetina.com.tw/
Aetina GTX 1050: http://www.aetina.com.tw/products-detail.php?i=185
Aetina GTX 1050TI: http://www.aetina.com.tw/products-detail.php?i=184
Aetina GTX 1060: http://www.aetina.com.tw/products-detail.php?i=86
Aetina GTX 1070: http://www.aetina.com.tw/products-detail.php?i=87
Aetina GTX 1080: http://www.aetina.com.tw/products-detail.php?i=201

 

From 1070 and down they have been on their site for a while; I *swear* when I looked the other day to doublecheck in response to your post the 1080 was not there, I must have been wrong.

150W TDP limit. Hmmmmm

 

I didn't see it there either until it was posted here but last I checked was weeks ago

Extended length and power connector are deal breakers for me though

 

Hey Striker, congratulations on the upgrade.

That is exactly what I was looking for. I have an alienware 17 R5 with the 880m and the 120hz display.

Now that you have more time for testing, can you tell me more about it??

The upgrade is stable?? What are your temps?? It works fine all the time??


If you can, please make a video and put on youtube with gameplay, and testing. Therefore, we can show to upgrade companies that this upgrade works, and they can create upgrade kits for us.

I already send your post to EUROCOM, let’s hope they make a upgrade kit for us.

 

I cannot be more happy!

The performance is outstanding, I have been playing GOW 4 for days and no problem at all, Also playing Resident Evil 7 on the highest settings and it runs perfect!

I recommend this upgrade!

 

WOW, Thanks man.
Just 1 question, did you have to mod your laptop in any way?? or the graphics card from zotac fits perfect??
Thanks a lot for the help.

 

The graphics card fits perfect, just have to modified a little the heatsink.

 

Hey Striker, how exactly did you modify your Alien's heatsink? Did you cut pieces off or extend it in any way?

 

Just cut it a little bit.

But I have ordered the Heatsink of the R4, maybe this one does not need any mod!

Please see the first page for pictures, there you have the modded heatsink!

 

I bought the spare 1070 from striker and it is a perfect upgrade for the 17r1! It works great in the 120hz version. I modified the heatsink i have like striker showed me and my temps never get above 70c with a 150mhz overclock. This card is amazing and i am floored by the performance. These are stock runs with a 1060 and my new 1070. The performance is crazy. I went from 42 fps in witcher 3 at ultra with hairworks to 67 fps at ultra with hairworks on.

 

Great!
Now just get the 1060 Zotac VBIOS and flash your old 1060 with it!!!

AWESOME!

 

I'll have to find it. So far I've been too focused on my laptop to worry about the zbox. haha

 

Congrats!


I went ahead and ordered mydelf a Magnus En1070 from Amazon and received it I'm currently working on dremeling my Heatsink so that it wont conflict with the Capacitors on the 1070 card right now I'm charging the drill.

My question for you and @Striker1234 is this: Where can I find the MSI 1070 non gsync vBios?

 

Nvm i found this post by Stas

 

@Striker1234 @EepoSaurus Do either of you still have your modified INF file?

 

I have it but let me point you to a tech inferno thread. j95 does a great job of supporting our old machines. https://www.techinferno.com/index.p...t-upgrades-driver-support-modded-inf/&page=66

 

From that post It doesn't seem like there any support for Pascal, also I have an HP and he seemed focused on Alienwares if I can get your Inf I can just modify the model line

 

No problem!

I will share it to you later today!

 

I always modified my INF file with each driver update...

Let me know the HARDWARE ID, I can modded it for you!

 

Thanks! I'm currently working on dremeling my laptop case so it will be awhile before the whole thing is bootable but I thought the hardware ID was the same for all Zotac GTX 1070s

 

I do not think so, when I replace the 60Mhz to a 120Mhz screen, the ID changed.

So once you have it installed, I will share the MSI VBIOS and after that please provide me the HW ID I will mode the INF for you!

 

You got a 120hz screen? did you get the B156HTN05.2 gsync screen?

 

I don't think so, that model is 15" our AW is 17"

 

Got ya

 

Question, why is a modded INF needed to run this card, and why does the heatsink need a little shave off the side?

 

nVidia laptop drivers by default only install in pre-approved configurations probably at the behest of OEMs Like HP and Dell who may have uncommon setups

 

Ok gotcha. One more thing, will the MSI vbios Striker posted allow me to use the card with my current 60HZ screen in an optimus setup, or do I need to order the 120HZ screen + EDP cable and run my Alien in SG mode?

 

No one has tested it with a 60hz screen so far. It works perfectly with the 120hz screen and honestly id recommend the upgrade but if you want to give it a shot im sure it wouldnt hurt anything. Worse case scenario you have to buy a screen upgrade which you will love.

 

which model of 120hz screen is being referred to?

 

First off I want to thank everyone in this thread for the wealth of info that was shared especially OP @Striker1234 and vBios provider @stas.b85

I finally got my zbook 15 powered up with the 1070n! but I can't get it to take over 3d duties on the laptop screen hell Unless i turn off hybrid gfx in the bios it will only see external displays and it will only render on those external displays but if I turn off hybrid gfx the device id of the laptop changes from 1909 to 197B which requires the nvidia driver to be reinstalled and last time I bothered the system was royally screwed(could have been an issue with the SSD)

Any ideas on how to get the 1070n to render to the laptop screen with Hybrid GFX on?

Note: I'm using the Non-gsync vBios that @stas.b85 posted

 

update tried turning off Hybrid and reinstalling the driver sadly same symptom gpu never comes back on after the flicker and the the system beeps until reboot

 

Better create a thread and - post link us to it here and mxm 3.0b thread, with pictures and current environment your machine is on, would help a lot

 

Good advice Thx! http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...a-g1-zbook-15-but-its-not-perfect-yet.803964/

 

Please provide me the HW ID, I will setup the proper inf for you.

 

I was able to figure it out that I needed to modify the section I chose.

To anyone else who attempts this kind of thing please learn from my mistakes lol

 

Hey everyone, I decided after doing extensive research that this upgrade for my Alien will be well worth it. However, I also am thinking of opening up my Alien's battery pack and replacing all the battery cells inside with higher capacity cells from LG, Samsung, or Panasonic to keep a long runtime on battery after my pascal upgrade. Does anyone know where I can get some good quality high capacity 18650 battery cells and how I can tell if they are fake? I saw some GIF branded 9.8 Amp Hour batteries at Walmart, but I heard that they are fake.

 

Reddit might be able to help you track down the real deal

 

Reddit might be able to help you track down the real deal

 

Just asking but why would you want to replace the cells in the battery? The stock battery is rated for 86wh i believe and it is a somewhat quality battery. Gaming on battery is not realistic considering the gaming capability of a 1070. It would be great if there was a revolution in battery cells but that is a bit off. There is a limit to what acid based batteries can do in the way of volume. It's just not capable of producing long lasting gaming. It's the reason it tries to strike a balance. On battery my 17r1 with a 1070 will do just under an hour of gaming at 30 fps from a full charge. You could try a battery pack like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IVMXW7G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Although it's not much you may be able to convert it to power your battery for a while longer. That version puts out higher voltage I think it's capable of 19 or so which is close to what the battery puts out.

 

I agree with you that the stock 86Wh battery is a quality battery. I'm not looking to game all day on battery since I know that's unrealistic with current battery technology unless I carry around an ultra high capacity external battery like an Anker Powerhouse with me everywhere. What I'm looking for is to extend the runtime of my internal battery by a significant amount so I can use it to do light tasks all day and possibly game for a bit since I like to take my Alien everywhere with me. I can currently get the battery to last up to a little more than 5 hours while web browsing, but I know this will decrease significantly when I switch to SG mode to run a pascal card, which is why I wanted to perform a custom battery upgrade on my battery pack so I could get it to last longer.

You only get an hour while gaming on batteryboost? I get about 2.5 hours with batteryboost on non intensive games and about 1.2-1.5 hours on intensive games with batteryboost enabled. I'd think that since pascal cards are more power efficient that battery runtime while gaming would be better than with my current kepler based GTX 860M.

Also, thanks for the link, I'll take a look at it. Maybe my expectations for laptop batteries are just a little unrealistic.

 

@Clamibot , this thread might help you out, t456 is one of the best Electronics specialist here, Also Khenglish (T|I thread), IF you are successful please update it in this subforum with a new thread or In the Alienware 17 R1 Lounge.

 

It lasts around 1 hour under intensive gaming. Maybe a bit more. Im not 100% maybe i could get about 1.5 or 2 hours if i drop brightness and what not. Its reasonable. If you just do web browsing with the 1070 you will get 4.5 or so hours if you ramp everything down. The card clocks down to 135 mhz. Im actually interested in a more portable option with good build quality and a better battery. The 13r3 is a great option but i hate supporting bga. Maybe one day we will get those carbon nanotube batteries and charge it once a week. Hahah

 

Dell promote portable gaming on battery. The reason for the improved battery life.

 

I know they are fine tuning battery life for newer models but i was referring to the r1.

 

It was pun by papusan showing how retarded they've gone with these new Alienwares vs the Old Real True to DNA Alienware machines...

EDIT:
This is what Papusan means below... A more powerful gimp-o-rama fest - Which is notable on almost all BGA machines
Even with a 1070/1080 I can bet neither of the Ranger / Voyager / Avenger / M15x or old machines or even new LGA/MXM machines won't do this rubbish shameful tactics...

 

Dell started with newer and (better) battery due they wanted MSI's Battery Turbo Boost tech Forgot the miserable idea with the flimsy 180W psu and Gtx 980M ? Even today with the newest BGA Echo machines, will the Battery start draining if you run the machine with fully load and 330w psu The same also for the AW Echo models with 1070 + 240w psu!! Remember the AW18 who couldn't use more than single 330w psu due power cap? Yeah, Dell know their Due Diligence!!

 

I cant believe they turned their back on performance. Dell sells plenty of those bga turdbooks. They should have stuck to their guns.

I love my r1. Pascal may be the last generation for it but it was a good ride.

 

As Alienware and XPS line Vice President Mr. Azor said...


Are not worth it in our experience!!

 

Hey everyone, look at what I found:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Nvidia-...294696?hash=item1c83dba6e8:g:NdkAAOSwT-FZBZ6d

This is a link to a standard MXM form factor GTX 1070 being sold on ebay for those of you like me who don't want to waste extra money on a Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1070 just to get it's graphics card. This 1070 MXM module is about $250 cheaper than the current price of the mini PC.

 

Is that the Gecube card?