Alienware M17X R4 - MSI GTX 1080 MXM

Reserved for possible upgrade guide.

 

Back in July of 2017 I volunteered as a guinea pig to try to get the MSI GTX 1080 MXM working in the Alienware M17X R4 as soon as I got the resources ( MSI GTX 1070 MXM successfully working on Alienware M17X R4 (another socket victory against BGA crap)). Well now's that time to keep that promise and I need everyone's help to make it work. I've got a list of all the guides around the internet and forums for this process, but the one thing I can't find is a good heatsink plate to use. I'd like to use a heat sink plate from a laptop that comes equipped with 1080's in order to make the process more accessible to everyone. So based on your knowledge, what laptop heatsinks can I use?

 

Possibly MSI ones, maybe GT8x models?

But I think that was tested sm time ago already by @Rengsey R. H. Jr.

 

If you are referring to the msi 1080 with the out of standard position gpu die then I've tried that in an alienware 17r1. It required hacking up my base and then trying multiple gpu heatsinks. The best i can tell you given my experience is you need a gtx1080 heatsink from an msi tornado f5 and then you need to solder it to an r4 radiator. I used solder paste and a toaster oven and was eventually successfully. The issue is the vbios and the inability of both the 17r1 ranger and m17xr4 to provide adequate power to the card. The r4 seems to be better able to power it but even still it performs at 1070 levels. It's more than just modifying the tdp as well. The card has power requirements in order to turn on parts of the core. Without meeting those requirements you are dead in the water. Good luck to you but just so you know its been attempted. If you can hard wire the mxm slot to provide enough power then you may be able to get it done. I have a zotac 1080 mxm I'll sell you if you want to go whole hog.

 

Can you provide me a screen shot of the GPU. I can assist further.

 

It's not plug n play that's for certain.

You have to splice external power as the R4 and the Ranger can't supply enough power through the mxm port.

It can be done, it's been done on the 980 DT card in ranger just figuring it out seems to be troublesome.

 

If he have the MSI GTX 1080 with the power connector, he can flash the 150 Watt bios .. or the Zotac Bios ...

 

To what effect? Those cards didnt work either unless I missed a thread about it (Which is entirely possible)

 

I never had a MSI card. The outcome might be different than my previous experimentation. We just gotta see what card he have.

 

Honestly I think the only way for it to work well is via splitting off some of that power drain to an external source. Since most of the issue stems from power requirements and not specifically what card is in use.

Just my untested theory though of course.

Maybe I might try to do something later after gaining some stability. It will be a while though, starting from 0 is pretty difficult lol.

 

The best heatplate is likely the Tornado F5 one, but the main issue aside from that is simply the lack of power that can be fed to the card. Your best bet is getting a card with a external 8 pin and drawing power from the board, I'd consult @/Khenglish for that

 

Or you could mirror the same mod that is on the Denmark Alienware site. I don't have the link handy and on mobile so can't post links anyways

 

The MSI 1080 that I'm referring to is this one. The seller posted that it came from an MSI GT83VR

 

I did try that card specifically in the alienware 17r1 and i got it to run internally but it power throttled.

 

No clue about the GT83VR, but that card is also used in the tornado F5

 

The other msi 1080 that has the supplement power connector, with external power source I believe that will likely work.

The gpu is in lil bit more standard of a location as well iirc but you will likely need to add a third fan to cool the copper heatsinks you would need to add (unless you custom fab a heatsink for that).

 

If you have that card, Just ask the seller if he is able to give you the heat sink with it. If the seller happens to give it to you, you can use the heat plate (dremel it) off that heat sink for the VRAMS and use the M17X CHIP heat sink ( Cut off from OEM ) and the offset of the GPU die , You would have to figure out where to bend .. lol ..

 

I'll ask the seller, but I doubt he'll have it. It will be disappointing if this card power throttles, but at least we'll know that this card will not work in the M17X R4. I'm still going to try. I do not plan on power modding the card by soldering wires for external power delivery. In the meantime, it looks like the Tornado F5, MSI GT83VR, and possibly some other MSI GT8X variants are valid candidate for proper heat plates. Feel free to post some links to buy some of these heatsinks as I am having trouble finding any.

 

Then get the 1070 instead, the 1080 has already been tried and will power throttle.

Plus you only need to Mod the heatsink a bit for the msi 1070

 

Get this, $543.10 shipped, no need to mod anything besides drivers:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Nvidia...f:g:VgYAAOSwNo9b0ulz:rk:3:pf:1&frcectupt=true

 

I'm iffy on that card.

I've only seen one user here use it and some weird problems. Though he did put it into a precision.

Have you seen others use it here?

 

There's a member here using it perfectly fine although I forgot which thread it was mentioned in. I think it was in an AW.

Should work fine, it has a 115W TDP if I remember correctly. There aren't very many options left out there for mxm 3.0b

 

It works just like a zotac 1070 and its easier to get. I bought one and used it in a spare ranger. Never had any issues. Just slightly underperforms compared to the zotac. Like a 16400 graphics score on firestrike. It's running to this day and its been 4 months since I've bought it.

 

That's good to know Thanks!

I only seen it used in a precision so my knowledge of it was very limited.

 

hmm, that card has always left me wondering if it does work well... how come it has a lot less "chips", shouldn't that make a difference?
Zotac

other

 

All reports except for one give it a glowing response, looks to be legit.

 

Ok so after patiently waiting months for parts to arrive, I finally made a heatsink and performed all the necessary modifications to get this bad boy to post! I'm at the point of driver installation and it seems like device manager is detecting the GPU as an Nvidia stereo controller. I was hoping to see something more along the lines of "PCI\VID_...". Can anyone offer some guidance?

 

You got the 1080? All attempts basically ended up the same issue, needs more power than the MXM slot can provide.

Though if you ended up getting it working I'd love to see it!

 

I feel like if I don't say this now, it's going to drive me away from this form. Long before I even joined, I followed every bit of modding progress done on the M17X R4. I kept a list of the upgrades I could do when I was in a position to do so. I watched the community grow for the love of this laptop and watched those that contributed so much. I looked up to you guys (high rep contributors). Now that I can contribute and try a specific graphics card that has never been done before in this laptop, to be greeted with "it's been done before", "it's not going to supply enough power through the mxm slot", or "just buy a 1070" is really disheartening.

Now that I've got that off my chest, @EepoSaurus perhaps you might have a few vbios that would help get this card to be recognized as an actual PCI device?

 

The bios i had the most success with is the stock msi 1080 vbios. If this is a screenshot from the desktop using the internal screen then you are good to go already. What you need are modded drivers.
Use @j95 drivers. He is hands down the best. Remember to support him if you can spare the change. https://premamod.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/j95-nvidia-inf/

Lastly, I know it may be difficult to understand but the things said were said to help not hurt. This is an expensive and low reward hobby. This forum gets by on people putting their money up with no guarantee of a reward. I have invested a lot of money into getting a 1080 mxm to work in my laptop. If you can get it to work then great you did it. Put these guys are not being negative. Just being realistic. I gave up on the MSI 1080 because the die was in the wrong place and the heatsinks I made just didn't hack it. I have a zotac 1080 MXM with the die in the right place and it fits in the 17r1.

This is the card.


This is the best I was able to do with it.


That 1080 MXM is sitting in a box in my storage shed and has been sitting for 7 months. It's essentially a $900 paper weight. It still works 100% but I have nothing to put it in.

 

Wasnt trying to kill your project, just trying to save you from wasting money, time and effort. I did things that others had already successfully done and failed, @EepoSaurus knows this well from his own efforts and my own failings.

It is a fact, the MXM slot cant supply the power the 1080 requires to function optimally. I had already theorized in some threads of the brave individuals that attempted this with different kinds of 1080 that if you supply power from an external source, just like the 980 DT card, you can very well have success.

GTX 1070 for now is the best you can get with a known path to functionality but if you can get external power to the 1080, or even wire it from the motherboard like the case of the P870DM-G then that could work also.

 

I understand everyone is trying to be realistic. The two extra pages of it just seemed excessive.... I thoroughly enjoy doing this type of work and feel like if some hardware combination hasn't been done, then it doesn't hurt to try. Heck, for all we know when the engineers over at Alienware were designing the M17 R1, they might have downsized the power delivery network from the M17X R4 feeding the MXM slot.

Since installing the 1080 with the heatsink (and yes it was a PITA to make) I have decided not to run with this card as my daily even if I get appreciable performance difference out of it over the 1070 @150W vBIOS modded. The card does not line up with the mounting holes to secure it to the motherboard and the heatsink I made is just barely too tall to fit the back cover on. I do still plan on using this computer as a laptop. Here are some pictures:

 

The m17x R4 does have slightly better power delivery compared to the Ranger. 130w seems to work when testing with the WX7100 where 120w-125w might be the limit on the Rangers MXM slot as the WX7100 performs better on the R4.

As for the bottom lid, can always cut that open. I cut mine open just yesterday, 62c load temp, 58 avg. I plan to use a 360mm radiator mount on the outside to reproduce the structural integrity but havent made it that far yet.

 

I got drivers successfully installed and ran a Firestrike test. The card is definitely thermal throttling as the hottest temperature reported from HWMonitor was 91°C

 

That was the only limit reason?

 

I'm still learning HWMonitor. I ran into Power Limit, Temperature Limit, and Reliable Voltage Limits. I just remembered that when I installed the A13 Unlocked BIOS, the instructions made me revert to default settings. Of those settings was the Power Adapter Warnings. I'm going to disable that settings and rerun the test.

 

Ok, so this time I set the power adapter warning off and raised the laptop on boxes to blow this high speed industrial fan directly on the gpu heat plate to test its limits.



If cooling can be solved, then we are roughly at the performance of a 1070 with a 150W vBIOS. I don't have a second monitor hooked up so I can't tell when I'm hitting its limits, but if I'm reading HWMonitor correctly, then according to the max values I'm still hitting power, temperature, and reliable voltage limits.

 

Well its progress!

Add more mass to the heat exchanger, and two more heatpipes.

Is your heat exchanger aluminum or copper?

 

Good job on the modding skill .......

Here is a run of Firestrike I did with a GTX 1080 in the " M17X R4 "



This is stock run, basic on start up. Nothing modified as far as Vbios or voltage change. Just bone stock .

Like @TheReciever mentioned, the M17X-R4 can run dual 330 watts , but i don't remember running the firestrike with two 330 watts power supply.

 

Try running GPU-Z, it usually shows you the limiting reason on the fly.

 

you got thats score with the card power limiting? did you ever manage to get over the limits?

also what hapened with this thread/project? no new news for 2 months?

 

I never ended up putting any more time in to this project to see if I could get past the power limitations. I got busy with work and other things. I basically wanted to see for myself the possibility of this specific MSI GTX 1080 card in the M17X R4 working and its potential. I want to use it as a laptop so I am restricting myself to a cooling solution that fits inside the case (only a little tweaking to get the back cover on) and one 330W PSU. Liquid metal would be the next step thermally, but even if I get a 20°C difference, based on my industrial fan cooling test I have a feeling it would still thermal throttle due to lack of thermal mass (lack of additional heat sink fins). I will try it because I like hard facts rather than feelings. I do not wish to add supplemental power to the card so I am left with looking into how to override the MXM slot power feed limit, which I have not done. I actually don't know who on this forum would be the most knowledgeable in this department.

 

I have the same card and I want to put it in the m17x R4 too. I am on stock Bios A14. Iirc you need an unlocked one to set the screen on PEG-Mode for 120Hz screens.
I have the unlocked A11. Is it safe to "backflash" from A14 to A11? Or would it be possible to provide me the actual unlocked one (A15)?

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A15 has CPU performance downgrades iirc due to Spectre patchs

 

What would you recommend then? If it can be done with stock BIOS, I'm fine!
If backflashing from A14 to unlocked A11 is also safe, I'm a happy camper too!

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Why would you wanna set PEG for the 120 Hz screen in the BIOS?? As far as I know that's driven by the eDP connector, so as soon as you connect the 120 Hz eDP screen, it's automatically set.

Yes, me also have read about that.

 

Because it was mentioned very often in similar threads like this one and then another one is writing that he has done the 1070 upgrade on stock BIOS. Another example: allegedly Eurocom cards are running "only" with 60Hz (LVDS?) other cards only in 120Hz (eDP) which gets me totally confused!

In general you can find a ton of information but not a single "How-To" / Guide how to set up a 1070 (AsRock) in a m17x R4. That's why I'm scraping together all the information in the forum and start asking stupid questions like this one....

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Hehe, there's never a stupid question, I was just wondering why

Normally the 120 Hz screen is the best for upgrading the r4 with nVidia cards, as it is just plug & play ( PEG is set), no need for changing anything, screenwise, in the BIOS (!), but your Asrock has "no output to internal display" iirc, thus you would need stick your r4 to a screen/TV via HDMI, to be able to have a display. Then you would need a stock vBIOS of a 1070 mobile to flash it, so you would have an internal output.

Then your r4 would rock again, like crazy

@Rengsey R. H. Jr. I think you were the one who had adapted an Asrock card, correct?

 

Tach auch

 

Juat to get an impression what I gathered so far:

GTX 1070 MXM successfully working on Alienware M17X R4

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...other-socket-victory-against-bga-crap.803637/

Step by step:

Unlocked BIOS -> Aktuell A14; verfügbar unlocked A11, stock A15

120 Hz screen -> unlocked Bios required? -> BIOS-Settings, Primary Settings to „PEG“

GPT partition and UEFI BOOT -> your boot options are set to pure UEFI, which means Load Legacy option ROM is disabled

INF.modding -> Once we're here, we can boot with the GTX 1070 inside the laptop, and it appears as something like Microsoft basic display in Windows device manager. So we need to download official driver from Nvidia, extract it and mod the .inf file. I used this howto: http://null-bin.blogspot.fr/2015/08/how-to-modify-nvidia-notebook-driver.html


Then it just installed fine after disabling Windows driver signature enforcement of course.

The GPU POWER LIMIT throttling issue -> BIOS-Settings -> „adapter warning“ - disabled



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