Alienware mx17 r3 turns black when plugged in, but works fine on battery

Hello everyone,

I got an Alienware mx17 and some strange behaviour happens.
Everytime I play a simple game the screen turns black (I know it is properly the graphic card, 580m in this case)

But the thing is everything works fine on battery, so i thought to myself that properly the integrated graphic card is in use, when on battery. There is even a "I/D GFX" Button, which is also used for "F7".

But then again I read somewhere else that the 120hz versions of this laptop do not have an integrated graphic card.

I am a bit confused and hope you can help me. How can i check if I have a 120 hz model?
What expalins the perfectly fine performance, even if I do not have an integrated graphic card, on battery?

What graphic card replacment would you recommend, if I have to replace it?


Thank you for your time.

 

Hi,

Just look at the display properties to see if 120hz is an option. Also, in device manager there will be no Intel GPU.

simple answer, (assuming 120hz) the GPU will enter a lower power mode on battery, the same as used when in windows. The extra power draw when the PSU is used is killing the cra**y 580m. I recommend a 680m as the easiest and most robust replacement. It overclocks like a demon and (so far) is rock solid in all games.

Search out '680m in R3' threads and you should find a bunch of threads with the details. You cannot go to a 9xx card in the R3 as the bios does not support UEFI, needed for the 9xx cards.

You have to say goodbye to 3D though (but I guess you don't use it!) as the 580m was the highest supported in the R3.

HTH.

 

Thank you for the answer. 120hz is available in tthe option so I do have the model in question.
Too bad that the "I/D GFX" button will have no use. ( I guess I could upgrade that part as well, maybe?, but it is actually not worth it)
I would actually like to use 3D, as well as have a robust graphic card... I guess if I choose 580 again , the same will happen after some time, on the other hand I actually like and use steroscopic 3D...

 

I'm exactly the same with the 3D. I love it, so much better that any other 3D I have tried, and even after many hours, no eyestrain or headache!

Luckily for me the 580m failed so many times Dell gave me an R4, shame it had the 675m which is a re-badge 580m. When that died I went for the 680m as it is supported in the R4 and was plug and play.

No upgrade path for the iGPU, it cannot be used with a 120hz display .

You might find that a 580m is so cheap that it's worth a risk, but never overclock it.

With the 680m you will need to mod the driver install (know as .inf editing) to add the R3 ID and the card ID in the R3.
There used to be a web site (laptopvideo2go) that published the inf files but I believe they have necro'd.

It does appear quite tricky at first but once you have done it once it's a simple search and replace before installing the driver.

You may see lots of advice about removing and re-installing the driver. My advice when replacing an NV card with an NV card is to update the driver BEFORE removing the old card. Then replace the card with the driver still installed. It (the driver) will figure it out and you will be good to go. Leaving you needing to learn the driver installer mod when you want to update it .

Good luck.

 

Wonderful advice, thank you so much.
I actually played with the thought of simply getting the same 580 again ( also because it's cheaper), but niw that you mention so many failures with that one I guess I go with the 680 you mentioned, I have found some info tegarding the inf modification.
Hmm but even if I get it the 680 to work 3D might still not be possible, is what you said, correct?

 

Corrrect, nvidia locked down 3D on laptops to those submitted to them for (a chargeable) license. Change anything except approved combinations and it stops working. You can't even get 3D if you was to buy the receiver kit - I tried. Annoyingly, external 120hz monitor works fine.

I believe this licensing scheme was the death of NV 3D for laptops. Not a single supplier went with a 3D model last year or this. The absolutely rubbish 3DTV and 3D movies has killed all interest in 3D anyway. 3D @24hz (HDTV) is like Chinese water torture. Fine to start with but a couple of hours in you are screaming for release .

I have seen literally dozens of 580m failures here, most died around the 18 month timeframe. Overclock them and they die much faster. .

One thing to bear in mind is that the 680m is next-gen from the 580m, supports things like gpu boost and such. Way faster than the 580m!

 

How annoying, but this also turns it into a rarity ( considering you cannot find a HDMI IN in most other laptops, as well).
A downgrade would be out of question as well, I assume? I guess the name was 460 or 480 m? (Regarding the 3D matter)

But I guess I will look for a good price first and the 580m still works fine as long as I do nothing to intensive.

 

I don't know if the R3 was supplied with a 4xx card in 3D but I think the performance drop will leave you not being able to use 3D at any decent resolution anyway.

The 580m was infamous for a slow degrade into uselessness. Many people tried to see if the problem was driver specific ar something else. Just to make it more difficult, often a change would get the card working again (although many died during a driver update) for a while, then black screens again.

The golden driver version for the 580m was 314.22. Other drivers sometimes cause boost to kick in when it is unsupported on the 580m. Upshot is a voltage boost and faster card failure.

 

Forgot to mention, when it finally refuses to get to windows, safe-mode at least allows you to browse and get to your data...

 

Thank you so much.
I guess in the worst case scenario I follow your lead and try to get the r4 or maybe even mx18 (the 3D and HDMI IN part is really important for me).

Again thank you for your help

 

You're very welcome. I believe an R4 motherboard fits the R3. This adds an MSATA port for an SSD cache as well as working USB3/SATA 6gb, they were supposed to be on the R3 but after a few months of trying to get 6gb SATA/USB3.0 working reliably they downgraded the bios and pulled support.

A few smart owners called Dell out for miss-representation. They had to track down data from before the downgrade as dell even updated all their old data to remove reference to 6Gb data transfers. In the EU and US/Canada dell supplied R4's, as for the ROW, local support decides (of course refusing any claim).

 

I actually checked the prices for the mx 18 mohterboards and they seem to be quite affordable, if these are the right ones you mentioned:
https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-for-alienware-m18x-intel-motherboard-c9xmr.html

This way I could replace my r3 motherboard with an mx 18 (r1 or r2?) and thehis turns out to be quite the fun project.

 

Well, the M18x was an SLi machine with a much larger MB. Not much chance you'd be able to fit it in.

Laptops are not like desktops where parts from the same generation are interchangeable. The firmware is usually tailored for specific hardware, hence having to get an unlocked bios to set it to use the dGPU only (you don't need to be concerned with this on a 120hz panel).

The R3/4 are physically identical so you might find a small mod needed but at least you know it will work with all the existing hardware. You are looking for an M17xR4 MB - doh! just remembered the R4 also has the next-gen CPU. Yours will not work. See my sig for the CPU I use in my R4.

If you do get a 680m hit me up for overclocking info. I run mine at max overvolt and +220mhz on the core, and it never goes above 72c!!! Rock solid.

I think you might have guessed by now how I managed to destroy so many GPU's . In my defense, the last two were unmodified in any way. With so many others suffering the same I didn't feel so bad about it!

 

Oh yeah I of course wanted to look for r4 not mx18, mixed that up.
I see with the information you provided it would go as follows:
replace r3 with r4 motherboard
replace cpu with the one in your signature(3820QM)
replace 580m with 680m (includes 3D)

too bad the cpu is not compatible

 

Yup, that's it for the upgrade. There are a bunch of 3xxx CPU's you can use. That one was the second highest at the time and supports simple bios overclocking. The best would be a 3920 IIRC but that needs checking.

I have been thinking, and not to P on your parade but, 3D could still be an issue. Nvidia's greed strikes again. The panel in the R4 is different and supports NV's lightboost tech (you need V2 glasses to 'see' this).

The problem comes that your display/motherboard/GPU combination may not work in 3D after the upgrade. Leaving you to chase a panel as well (SEC5044) grr...

 

HAHAHA this is actually quite funny and I am happy to found someone who has that much experience in the matter. So for now looking around for ways this might work (with the most simple being to just buy a r4), because if I even have to replace the screen, I am better of just getting the whole thing.

I actually found some 580m cheap, so maybe keeping some spare 580m just for 3D and then a 680m for everything else might work as well.

But this is still not satysdying, o course-

 

NP . that isn't such a bad idea IF you get a spare heatsink. It takes less than 5 mins to swap out the complete unit.

I purchased the 680m/R4 heatsink from Dell/AW support. Reasonable (around £25.00) and comes with all the pads and paste in-place. Simply needs screwing together. Your 580m heatsink is OK though as the 580m is also a 100w card.

FYI, I'm still running AAA titles on mostly high settings after the O/C.

 

Oh yeah I just thought of something and maybe you could answer, if you don't mind.

Are there maybe ATi/AMD graphic cards alternatives, which are supported by the r3? Maybe the new 580m will work, both using 3D and playing games at once(doubtful).
But since I could not find a god price for the 680m, maybe I could simple go a differnt path.

Oh yeah and theoritIcally, is a an integrated graphic card option compatible with the bios/motherboard of the r3?


I faced the truth, that I really might have to go for r4 or m18x as the "comfortable" option, but I just want to make sure I am making use of all possible solutions.

 

NP .

You can't use anything other that an NV card as these are the only ones that support 120hz panels at boot. Any attempt to 'activate' the on-board will result in a brick - been there done that!

If you're not running all the bells and whistles you should get a year or so from another 580m. I found that Batman Arkham Asylum ran pretty good in 3D on the 580m

The 120hz panel is actually plugged into a different port from the 60hz model (the MB supporting both). Be sure to note which goes where if you do it as the sockets are the same.

Good luck.

 

Thank you. It fascinates me that you actually have first hand experience in the matter.
FOr now I try to keep it cheap and straight and then properly aim for the r4 or m18x.

Thnank you for everything , it helped so much, a lot.