Alienware M17x R4 - HD7970M dead! Upgrade? Yes perhaps...

Hi guys,

My 7970D decided to die, I was lucky enough through persistence to boot holding FN + Power and disabling the AMD card and run onboard intel vga…

It has been stable and doesn't crash so I guess it is safe to say where the problem is...

I was getting 8 beeps, and strangely enough also got times with 5 beeps..

I am running A12 bios, can anyone provide the A12 unlocked or ANY unlocked version?

I am deciding between a GTX 970 vs GTX 1060, if anyone can shed some lights on the bios would be great, seems to be a closed knit community, required number of posts and so on.

Thanks guys.

 

If you have the 120hz panel you can run the 1060 IIRC otherwise if you want to stick with the 60hz panel you'll be capped at the 980m either way you have options

 

the 970m gets beaten by the 1050 ti mobile by an average of ~2%, but the 1060 is double the price IIRC. I would go for the 1060, but if you have the 60HZ screen, then the 980M is a far better option, as its only a few % worse/better

 

He has 7970M, so it's definitely the 60Hz screen. 120Hz is only an option with Nvidia cards.
The 1060 needs to be run in optimus, otherwise it won't boot on the 60hz screen and you are limited to UEFI OS.

The 980M is about 50% more expensive and about 20% faster in games.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/GeForce-GTX-970M-vs-GeForce-GTX-980M_5965_5964.247598.0.html

 

980m goes for ~350-400, and the 1060 goes for more or less

 

Yeah the 60Hz panel, I was to upgrade without spending too much, ofcourse I'd love the 10xx range, but price is still not right and I would like to keep the system in normal mode rather than optimus mode.

Does anyone can refer me to anyone that might be able to help with unlocked bios files? Thanks.

 

You wouldn't need to open, just a look at the link, and you'd see right away i was comparing 970M and 980M.

@mighty_mEx
The unlocked bios with a guide can be found here: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/1516-m17x-r4-unlocked-bios-versions/
Guide for 970M/980M install: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/m17x-r4-gtx980m-upgrade.766867/