Alienware 17x R4 970M Upgrade

Thanks for the info.. BTW, what desktop did u get?

 

I built a Mini iTX system. https://pcpartpicker.com/user/mikecacho/saved/#view=rm4J7P

 

Nice.. I was thinking of getting the X51-R2 motherboard + case and put in a 4790K + R9 290X in it.. Powering it might be a problem though...

 

The IGP frequency has no impact on display refresh rate these days though

 

Anybody have any issues with a system slow-down, and general unresponsiveness? I installed the 980 on my AW17 R1, using Mr. Fox's modded drivers. The card is detected just fine, machine mostly boots up fine. But I can't start any games, the system eventually hangs, and I have trouble re-booting.

 

Mine did after the system updated Alien Autopsy to Support Assist without my consent. The fans were kicking in and the whole system would freeze, where only way to resolve this would be holding down the power button. At that point I uninstalled it, after seeing the messages on another thread this has been resolved in the latest update, I installed it earlier today. I can confirm this is no longer the case, Support assist no longer messes the system up, there are no issues with fans going crazy.

 

I don't have support assist installed, so I don't think that's an issue.

I only experience those issues after installing the modded drivers.

 

New to the forum. New to Alienware.. New to laptop gaming... Scored a 60hz r4 on ebay with half dead 675m for a sweet deal. The 675m finally gave up on me, so now I am here.
My questions are mainly directed towards TomJGX or anyone else with around the same setup as me (also purchased from and using Hidevolutions's modded BIOS)
I would be a fool to order from anyone but Hid, have already discussed most of my questions with the rep. Have the 240w PSU along with the proper heatsink and just got done installing Win 8.1.
My only concern is, how is the card doing 2 months later? Any problems once so ever? I want to "future proof" this thing as much as I can, can afford the $850 shipped 980m but if its going to give me any problems I feel I should just grab the $600 shipped 970m that I keep reading works flawlessly. ..or hold out and see what happens with the Pascal GPUs...
Any info would be greatly appreciated. Trying to get my research sorted out to order one of the two ASAP
Thanks!

 

980m is fine even after a while (I got mine from German laptop reseller though). You might want to get 330W PSU if you are going to be overclocking GPU though as 240W PSU is not up to the task. 240W PSU is fine at stock clocks though.

 

AW 980M 'OCing' Throttling FIXED!.. AW GTX 900M Throttling FIX

 

is installing a 900m GPU still unstable as it was last year?

 

What do you mean by unstable?

 

Prone to hardware failure, blank screens - that kind of instability.

 

My 980m is about 3 months old now, never had any hardware issues.

 

i might think about getting the 970M over the 980M instead but for $820 CAD it's asking a bit too much.

Has the install process and drivers been refined since last few months?

 

was it plug and play?
does yours have a dell vbios or clevo vbios?

 

These GPU's have Clevo vBIOS... I haven't heard of any problems with the 970M... The 980Ms particularly from Hidevolution have had a few deaths probably due to a bad batch... I'm happy with the 970M since I will be upgrading to a newer system towards the end of the year...

 

I have recently purchased a 970M from HIDevolution for my Alienware 17 and the Vendor ID in GPU-Z is Dell... I wouldn't say it was Plug and Play but all I did to get it working (quickly) after physical hardware installation was to boot in Safe Mode, removed all traces of previous GPU drivers with DDU, switched to dedicated graphics (Fn+F5) restarted with Driver Signing Disabled and installed J95's modified 349.70 driver from Tech Inferno. Up till this point I have experienced no issues with any games or running 3DMARK and I used IC Diamond 24.

I have to say that I have it working perfectly with Optimus disabled - I am not an overclocker so don't ask me about any results I could get. It wipes the floor with the M290X that I had previously - 65DegC maximum with a Coolermaster Laptop cooler. It maintains Turbo Clocks continually at that temp, I have noticed that even at 1080p that my memory usage goes above 3GB although I haven't had time to crank it up to see if I can fully stress the card.

I guess it's unfortunate that the Alienware 17 (2015) are now all soldered... At least I got to replace this GPU.

 

Not plug and play, but close. I had similar experience as whiteknight2211 really, just with Optimus enabled in my case.
Removed 680m, installed 980m (clevo vbios I think), wiped all GPU drivers in safe mode with DDU, rebooted and installed the latest Intel vga driver, rebooted again with driver signing disabled and installed the latest nvidia driver at the time with J95 modded inf. Then flashed vbios from techinferno straight away. I am using Liquid ultra for both CPU and GPU, currently on 350.12 drivers, with 330W PSU and overclock 980m reaches just above 10k in Firestrike. Could not be more happy with my last upgrade for my trusty R4. I will probably build myself a desktop if aw continues to solder the parts (which they will).

 

Thanks for the info, been contemplating to get the GTX980m for a while for my r4
Its a shame that the newer alienware 15s and 17s laptops have soldered GPUs
the 13 is another big disappointment with those ulv cpus

 

PHP:

[CODE]<script>alert('Omid')</script>[/CODE]

 

WTF is this?

 

The secret to eternal life.

 

can i use my default 75w heatsink for 970m???or it should only be a 100w????

 

I'd imagine the 75W heatsink would be fine, I think the 970M is a 75W card. If you want to do some serious modded vBIOS overclocking of your 970M, then the 100W heatsink might be worth the investment.

EDIT: notebookcheck.net says its an 81W card. I think you'll be fine with your heatsink. I'd use your 75W heatsink first, and then if you need more cooling power you can always buy the 100W heatsink.

 

Hello,
I am also planning on upgreading to a 970m in my alienware but I am still on windows 7... Can I still get the card working?

Greetings

 

Only in optimus mode. If you want to run in dedicated mode then you need to use Win 8.1 and UEFI. Win 10 in the test phase is not working.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

What do you mean with optimus mode? I am kind of a noob with the laptop GPU thing...


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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Optimus

the 900m cards will work on win 7 but only with this enabled and have the legacy BIOS enabled. if you wish to use the 900m card exclusively then you need to use Win 8.1 with UEFI.

 

Ow, but it will work in win 7? Just not all the time actually, my alienware swiches constantely between the intigrated graphics and my 675m... But I do not really care about that.
The most important thing for me is that it's on when I am playing games or I use after effects with CUDA features enabled

Do you now when the drivers for win 10 will be ready?

Thanks


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if you mean exclusively on the 900m card? no. you need win 8.1 and set your bios to UEFI. the 900m cards need UEFI if you want to run just the 900m card.

 

So actually, if I want any benefit of the 970m, I need win 8.1 with UEFI enabled...


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yes, if you have the M17x R4 then you'll need to do some modding. if you have the AW17 R1 then you don't need to do as much.

 

Okay, thanks
Is it smart to upgrade to win 10 when it's ready or will the drivers not be ready at that time?


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wait till release.

 

Okay where can I find the drivers btw?


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you need modded drivers from @j95 at techinferno forums.

 

I got a 970m from woodtockz666 to replace my 7970m in an Alienware m17x r4.

ebay link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/nVidia-970M-GTX-upgrade-for-MSI-Clevo-Alienware-NEW-ON-SALE-/181788558252?nma=true&si=qk8RU%2Bttz60nHDzyCTdo%2BWlYbig%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

First impressions using Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit:

1. Very easy replacement procedure (that's what i love from my m17x r4).
2. Only tested in Legacy mode. If you attempt to change to dedicated graphics (FN + F7 I/D GFX) and restart the laptop freezes and get BSOD with 8 beeps. Corrected taking battery and card from laptop and starting up again.
3. Drivers working with no issues: Forceware 353.30
4. Little delay when swapping applications in windows environment: BS Player, Chrome, Steam. Attributed (...I suppose) to Optimus.
5. Significantly Lower temps than 7970m.
6. Games tested with a great feeling of graphic performance improvement:

Elder Scrolls Online.
Heroes of the Storm.
Homeworld Remastered Collection.
Company of Heroes Ardennes Assault.
Total War Attila only in battles. I believe that campaign map graphics are mostly processed by CPU.




Peace.

PS: Looking forward to replace CPU to 3940XM.


​

 

Hey, awesome, thanks for the mention !
Yeah, with 900 series we have to understand they are not supporting "Legacy": anymore... though the HD Intel is still a Legacy chip.
I get a few people everyday who run into the 8 beeps thing. I could try and warn them all, individually, but there's like 50 different examples of what can cause it, depending on what laptop your using, and the setup.
There was a time when 8 beeps meant death, now we get it all the time and just shrug while we fix it.

Let me know when you try windows 10 with it, in full UEFI mode (Dedicated mode only, no SG, it won't work. Like the reverse of windows 7. lol)
My best bet is it will be amazing in window 10.

 

Find the hardware ID of that device. i.e PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D7&SUBSYS_05801028&REV_A1


go to device manager>display adapters>the videocard > details -hardware ID..


The important part is to take the 13D7 then 05801028.

The last part won't be the same for you. 1028 means DELL and 0580 is the laptop I am on. 13D7 means 980M



Go to http://laptopvideo2go.com/


go to drivers > enter the information at the top. Filter for windows 8 64


Download the drivers > there is two things >


1) is the driver from nVidia

2) is a INF file.


note on the INF, you can see the name of the file in the address bar, i.e sometimes it says something like nvdispi.inf


take note of that.


When the driver downloads, go into the DISPLAY.DRIVER folder. Search for that .INF/Config file.

Replace everything in it with what you got from the website.

Close, saving everything, go and run the Setup in the root of the driver folder now.


If on windows 8, make sure to disable DSE

 

Hello again,

i just noticed in my taskbar the Windows 10 update has been released. Do you know any working driver for windows 10 so far?

I`m really interested to install w10 with enabled UEFI, but i hope to get my 970m working properly with that OS first.

 

Got my M17Xr4 up and running with a 970m all thanks to @woodzstack for the card and @Mr. Fox for the modded driver in his thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...d-for-alienware-and-clevo-mobile-gpus.772018/

 

@woodzstack gonna need another 970m for a second machine shortly

 

Sure, sounds great, just let me know, or should I start packaging it now ?

 

Did you get this resolved? If not here is the thread that will help.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...m17x-r4-without-optimus-working-great.777145/

 

Give it through this weekend but so far I have 1 machine and possibly a 2nd machine that want the 980/970 upgrade since I showed off this one.

 

Update for you guys: Installed Windows 10, my 970M died... God knows what happened however it just died after I had to reset it as I installed Windows 10 in legacy... Hidevolution replaced it but caused me $40 in post fees... Just stay away from it... It has caused problems for a lot of people and is bricking pannels...

 

Windows 10 is either bricking panels or bricking cards, I'm really baffled by how the hell it's doing such things but it's clear that it's best to stick to windows 8.1 for aftermarket upgrades. thanks for the heads up though, I've been thinking of upgrading my GTX 880M to a 980M but I'll be holding off a bit more for now.

 

just the displays.

 

Win 10 - the alienware killer )