Alienware M17 R1, upgrade and a few questions

Pretty cool forum, been going through it a while to find solutions to keeping my 2013 M17 R1 alive.

So far I've myself upgraded the GPU from the GTX 770M to a 980M, that worked fine, and after a while I figured the entire changing .ini file and stopping windows from requiring signed drivers.... that took the longest by the way, wish I had known this forum beforehand.

So, now I have this idea, wanting to pull a little more from my "Ranger", I want to upgrade to a GTX 1070 GPU, and from other threads I've found it available on eBay as well.... That must be as high as I can go on this machine, right?

Furthermore, I also figured out that I can probably upgrade the CPU a bit, I got an i7-4800MQ, but here I'm a bit more lost..... how high can I go? Without having to rebuild everything inside that is.... I think I've figured out I need a 330W adapter to run it, which is also readily available on eBay.

I do have a question on the panel on the laptop, it does give a resolution of 1920*1080, but for some odd reason not 120 Hz, could it be a 60 Hz panel I have? And as far as I can see, Windows sees it as a Generic PnP Panel, does it need a driver of it's own, or are there anything better than what windows give.. and no, it's not the 3D panel, I didn't invest in that at the time.

 

Guess I can plug in a i7-4940MX?

 

1070 will work under SG mode but peg is desirable.

4930mx is generally preferred compared to the refresh

 

SG mode?

Thanks for the advice, will look into the options.

 

SG mode is Switchable Graphics, or what Nvidia call Optimus. It allows the laptop to auto switch from the Intel graphics to the dedicated graphics depending on what's required.

PEG is just using the Dedicated card. There will be no Optimus available. You will find that the GPU will work best under PEG.

To swap these options manually you need an unlocked BIOS but as the 120hz display only works on PEG there is no need for the unlocked BIOS.

 

PEG = dGPU where the GPU is wired to the panel

SG = Intel HD drives the panel but the GPU still works for 3d applications and such. You lose about 10% performance compared to PEG.

PEG is better overall solution but also requires the 120hz panel due to its connection (eDP)

 

Thanks, I really didn't know that....

So technically, getting a 120 Hz panel, I can simply plop in the 1070 and it should function without any further problems?

So far I've come up with the following to purchase then:

Panel, part no. GN36T (the D-2)
New panel cable, part no. N392W
1070M, part no. N17E-G2-A1
Intel Core i7-4930MX 3.0GHz/3.9GHz 8M SR15M Mobile CPU Processor

And a 330W power adapter.

That'll bring the basket up to about $900? Including shipping. If I try something like the 5000P I may as well buy a brand new laptop.

Guess I'm gonna check out other options first, if I throw $3000 I'll get a new top notch, or over the top, laptop... so question is value of an upgrade like that.

 

Yeah you have to compare the benefits of upgrading compared to buying a new machine.
For people like me, I just don't want to buy a new laptop based on the fact that most of them have soldered components that can't be swapped out or upgraded. I also don't play games anymore so it's not important for me to have the latest and greatest CPU/GPU.
I believe I mentioned on another forum that you'll also have to get a new webcam that is compatible with the 120Hz panel cable. @MrMogwai should be able to confirm that they use different webcams between panels, for some reason.

 

Yes you did, and I appreciate it.

I kind of got things put up in 2 forums, being a little confused as I usually am when I look for questions.

I'm also looking into the webcam, looking for a part number. Or something combined with a panel? I'll dig it up.

 

What price did you get for the panel and cable? I may have a spare 120Hz assembly from a dead 17. Shipping would be the only issue as I'm in Australia.

 

$160 on eBay including shipping.... to Iceland. So I don't find that too expensive. Sellers seem good, from China, so I get the virus for free as well...

 

Haha... that actually made me chuckle. Yeah that's not too bad with the shipping. That's for the panel and cable?

 

I've got a 4930mx I could part with but I would need to see some seller feedback first as I have already been burned a couple of times now.

 

I've never heard about that webcam incompatibility thing. My Ranger originally came with a 60 Hz screen, and the webcam works perfectly with the 120 Hz panel.

 

I haven't checked it myself. I'm just going by what MrMogwai said as he asked me to send him over a webcam for his 120Hz display after he upgraded.

 

Yeah, in my case the camera from 60Hz screen would not work. System wouldn't detect the default camera, yet the one from 120Hz variant with two connectors (60Hz has only one) went plug'n'play. Although I must admit, I don't recall using it even once before the swap, so its possible that it was busted beforehand, but I can neither confirm or deny that it was working before.

Unlocked BIOS is always a nice addition, and it's not too complicated operation to install it.

You need to weigh pros and cons of upgrading laptop like this. I am more than certain that for a cost of a fully decked AW 17 R1 you can probably get a new gaming machine with better specs like a 9750HQ and 1070, but like @Maxware79 said above, and I'm going to add something from myself - they don't make them like they used to. I have a bunch of Alienwares from the golden age of the brand, when they had MXM, PCI-E, mSATA, CPU sockets and RAM ports, where you could deck it out in any way you wanted and if a component went bust you could just swap it. If your mobo went dead, you'd get a new one and keep your specs without hassle (unless it was a catastrophic failure and your machine went in flames, but those were not as common). Nowadays, if your WiFi card goes bust you have to say goodbye to your RTX 2080 and need to fork over full replacement cost for what basically is the entire machine, except for the casing and battery. We may be a bit influenced by rose tinted glasses of the older machines, but there's a method in this madness - although for example 17 R1 is locked by 4th gen Intel CPU, we can still put an RTX5000 and MXM GTX2080M in our machines and they can keep up, and there are even some experiments with putting desktop CPUs in it. If you want to upgrade a BGA laptop you either need to pay a lot for a new machine or pay a lot for a BGA reflow and pray that it works.

 

Wait what? People are trying to put a desktop CPU in the Ranger? This massively piques my interest. If only this laptop had better cooling on the CPU side, we could do some ridiculous overclocks.

I know the Quadro RTX 5000 will fit in the Ranger, but I haven't seen a standard MXM 2080 yet. Have those been released?

Alienware should have never went the BGA route. I can understand regular laptops being BGA, but BGA on performance laptops is next level stupid. The Area 51m is an attempt to go back to their roots, and I really hope they succeed with than endeavor, provided they don't decide to screw customers over on upgrades.

 

The MXM 2080 Was due to be released later this year but it looks to be the first quarter 2021 now.

EDIT: They’ve already proven they are happy to screw over the 51M R1 customers. I wouldn’t imagine things will change with the R2


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

One can hope, but yeah I don't put much faith in Dellienware anymore. Still, at least the 51m blows all thin and light craptops out of the water.

Do you have any links to those aforementioned experiments with desktop CPUs on the Ranger?

 

There were attempts, I believe they tried to put is something like 4xxx CPUs, there is something about it on the forum, no luck yet though.

We'll, DGFF was a good Idea, the only problem is that there are only like 3 cards in it, 2060, 2070 and 2080, so the choice is limited. Also from what I've read a while back, the system is rigged, and nobody's making cards :/

 

A monopoly on production always leads to a rigged system .

Dell tried to get other companies to adopt their DGFF cards, but understandably nobody else really wants to jump on it.