Alienware 17R1 Zotac GTX 1060 Upgrade Help

Hey guys, I found this forum when searching for help after bricking the panel on two machines. That was a couple months ago and after following your very helpful guides (thank you Mr. Fox) I'm happy to say those issues are behind me now and I've been using both of my machines and they are working fantastic.

I enjoy tinkering with things and the urge to bring this laptop up to current hardware was just too much. So I decided to completely overhaul it. Started it's life with a 4700MQ, 4x4gb ram, GTX 780m, 60Hz 1080p and a measly 60gb cache ssd. It's now running with a 4810MQ, 2x8gb of 1866mhz, 2x 840EVO 500gb ssds in raid0, the 120Hz panel and finally a GTX 1060 from a Zotac Magnus en1060 that I got off ebay. Spent a considerable amount of time modifying the heatsink for the GPU as the Zotac card has ~5 VRMs where the 780m had two, but it seems to fit and according to bios diagnostics I'm not cooking the card.

That brings me to today, the issue I'm having is trying to find a suitable vbios from any 1060 card to enable eDP. I followed the guide here and it was very helpful, especially when I got stuck trying to boot into and reinstall windows 7 with full UEFI support enabled and realized he was using windows 10. However, I have searched here and used my google-fu but I can not find any info mentioning a good vbios for the 1060, although lots of info for 1070's and 1080's.
If someone could help point me in the right direction, or upload an appropriate vbios for me to try it would be greatly appreciated.

I also have some spare parts now that may be useful to someone here if needed.
Edit: forgot to mention I did the (required) screen upgrade as well.

 

Help me @woodzstack, you're my only hope!

On a more serious note though, if anyone knows how to get in contact with him it would be greatly appreciated. I haven't figured out how to private message on this forum yet and it seems he's the one to ask about my vbios issue.

 

1-Check if ssd/hhd is GPT partitioned. Bios on all UEFI
2-DDU to remove drivers
3-Flash MSI 1060n 6GB stock vbios.(If I find mine I will share)
4-Pray

edit!

here the stock msi 1060n 8GB Gsync Vbios

MSI GT72 970M to 1060 Cannot be done Said MSI Edition

 

Thank you for the reply!

But I'm on Windows 10 desktop on an external monitor already. Everything is working great:
https://imgur.com/gallery/SPJ2B

No drivers installed at all, only the Microsoft basic display adapter. I just need a vbios to enable the internal screen through eDP.
If you could find your original vbios that would be awesome, I'd even try a mild oc vbios (from a trusted source) if that was all I could get my hands on.

 

You mean 1060n *6GB* right?
And my Alienware doesn't support gsync, will that cause any issues?

 

File is attached,
For contact a people here you need 5 posts.
If you have followed the guide I don't know why the laptop screen is not outputting video signal. Also mod nvidia driver nvdisp.inf for install with no issue.

Yes 6GB ram version.
No simply Gsync will not work. (also for modding driver the gpu id is different)

 

According to @Striker1234 in his post here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-17-r5-gtx-1070-mxm-3-1b.800137/

I shouldn't expect video output on the internal screen until I flash the new vbios, because the Zotac card essentially came out of a desktop which had no internal screen, therefore had no reason to have eDP enabled.

I'll read through the thread you linked, I knew there was a post with lots of useful info somewhere, but I couldn't find it again once I had all the parts. I think with that vbios you provided I should be able to finish the install. I'll report back tonight when I get home and attempt to flash it.

Thank you very much @arronne. You've been a huge help!

 

whats up ?
Sorry I been abit under the weather, spending time on a semi vacation while trying to recover from being sick from working out too hard.

Let me know whats what in a PM if you can, I will get around to it, maybe within a day at most (sorry for being so late in reply).

Also, welcome to the best forums ever ! Cheers!

 

Hey man! Much appreciated that you got on here! Completely understand not checking up on here if you're under the weather.

I was just finishing up the whole install process when I realized I never bookmarked the thread I saw a couple months ago detailing how @aaronne upgraded from a 970m to a GTX 1060. When going through the forum looking for that thread, or mention of any suitable vbios, it seemed all roads led to you when it came to putting graphics cards in laptops they were never intended to go in. So I figured since I didn't have pm permissions yet I might as well make a post and see if I could get some responses.

I also realized I couldn't find any evidence that anyone had successfully used a *GTX 1060* from a Zotac Magnus, there was only the one thread confirming the 1070 from Zotac worked in a similar Alienware 17. So I felt this thread could possibly help others interested in doing the same.

I'm very glad I found such a helpful forum, and kicking myself a bit for not buying the card directly from you. I'll be sure to go to you first if I need anything in the future and will point anyone else I know in that's the market in your direction.

 

ah no worries, thanks for understanding and maybe in the future you come directly to us, we specialise in this specifically (after market upgrades)

 

So I thought I was really close to finishing this up but it seems I've hit another snag. I'm unable to rewrite the vbios on this GPU with nvflash. I've tried multiple versions of the program, from current to one from April of 2016 based on a random forum post suggestion, with lots of conflicting instructions and guides. On newer versions of nvflash I can get it to recognize the Nvidia GPU, remove protections and even successfully backed up my current vbios, but when I go to update the new vbios it fails with the error: GPU mismatch.

This is using the command:
nvflash64 -6 1060backup.rom
This "-6" should be removing the very check that it's failing on, "Allow firmware and adapter PCI subsystem ID mismatch." I can't see a way around this. I found a couple guides recommending a bootable USB method, but seeing as the bootable USB is ms-dos or freedos based I can't boot from it with my bios settings on UEFI only mode, and I can't switch that to anything else without losing video output to my external screen.

The one thing I can't seem to follow on these guides is that they want the display device disabled in device manager, but I don't believe that is possible in this case as I would lose all video output since the iGPU will not work with the eDP 120hz panel, and from my understanding it's completely disabled when that panel is connected. It certainly doesn't show up under display devices.

I'm really curious if @Striker1234 did anything special to get his card to flash or if it was as simple as all the guides make it out to be.

I'm starting to think I need to find someone with an M17x Rx/ M18x R2 that can boot in UEFI+CSM mode to flash the card to an appropriate vbios and then I would be able to continue with modified drivers in my machine.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

Please download this firmware, and replace the VBIOS with the 1060 you have, this should allow you to rewrite it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachments/msi_n17e-g2_86-04-31-00-0c_non-gsync-zip.141323/

Best Regards!

 

So I tried it, but it seems like nvflash just will not force the install with this GPU mismatch error. Is there any other way to force the update?

BTW, did you have to disable the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter in Device Manager before you ran nvflash?

 

the surefire way to do it is to get this programmer http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-TL866CS...454390&hash=item1c59ee0cc3:g:lR0AAOSw4DJYmtMy

youll need this clip http://www.ebay.com/itm/SOIC8-SOP8-...668772?hash=item44080a4c64:g:5NEAAOSwruhZitBW

and you should have this 1.8v adapter just to be safe. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-8V-Adapte...788263?hash=item3aea1bb7e7:g:giwAAOSwUIhZYYx0

you can flash the bios with this programmer. I do it all the time. requires you remove the card and physically attach the programmer. aside from the mad scientist 80s hacker feel its actually quite simple

 

Say no more, this is exactly what I need. Thank you sir, I'm going to order these up right away.

Also, This tool wouldn't happen to aid in reprogramming a dead panels EDID now, would it?

 

It is a general programer so if you can connect to it and it has a bios or something to that effect you can flash it

 

That is awesome, maybe I can save the 1080p panel I killed in my Precision with it too! Best of all, I now have the tool I need in the event that damn EDID corruption bug crops up again.

Thanks a lot EepoSaurus!