GPU died, need to upgrade my m17x R3 which is best/will work?

hi guys,
recently my laptop was experiencing problems booting up and it was crashing in a weird way after trying to play games, so i took it to a guy to fix, he did a reinstall eventually he realised the problem with booting up was with my GPU. so now i need to get a new GPU installed and im planning on using this oppurtuniy to upgrade the card to the highest calibre possible.

what GPU would you recommend? which will fit in my case?
so far ive looked at
Nvidia GeForce GTX 880M
Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M
but i looked around a little bit and people were saying they werent sure if they will work so i would really to get a good idea and be 100% before i purchase anything radical as im not proficient with fixing/installing stuff
i hope to buy the GPU and then get someone to install it for me

i think the previous GPU was a ATI 6000 series

 

Hi, yes the 9xx cards can be problematic in the R3 as it never got bios support for UEFI boot which the R4 did (win 8 may well be needed). Avoid the 880m card, they were a miserable failure for many who bought machines with these cards in.

I suggest you check out my recent posts as I've been working a few upgrade threads lately. Then ask again?

If we get an R3 owner with a 980m chime in then all questions may well be answered. The only sure fire upgrades I've seen on the R3 is the 680m and 780m. Both require an unlocked bios to turn off optimus and a modified driver file.

 

realistically i would like to plug and play, so which would be the latest (best) GPU available to do so
as i have no knowledge of changing bios and stuff like that
-or is it really easy to unlock the bios and turn off optimus and to modify the driver file?

 

and now ive also startedthinking about just replacing it and getting a cheap one instead: would a Radeon HD 6990M a good card to run games with?

and would it work well with my computer/install easily (like would it fit?)

 

Well, I'm afraid upgrading a laptop is rarely easy. I can only speak to Nvidia as that is all I've used for many years.

The 580m is the highest plug-and-play card card in the R3 but that was also a very unreliable card. I had 3 fail before dell gave me the R4 in my sig. That came with the 675m which turned out to be a rebadged 580m and also failed. The 680m is listed for the R4 so I put one in - easy and a great card, I overclock and overvolt it to outperform a 780m and it never gets over 72c.

You also have the problem of the heatsink and padding pasting. You need a three pipe heatsink and the captive screws for AMD are a different size. I purchased a 680m R4 heatsink (fits the R3) from dell as it comes with all the pads and paste pre-applied meaning it's a simple screw together job.

You'd need to research out upgrading the R3 for AMD as it might be much simpler - the 7970m performs close to the 680m and will play most games at high settings. I get around 60fps average in Batman AO with the 680m.

Finding and flashing the bios is not easy as it requires a bootable USB, then changing the correct settings - IIRC, PEG primary graphics and IDG (not sure of that acronym) set to disabled.

The modified installer file for the driver can be downloaded from laptopvideo2go/drivers and probably the hardest part is replacing (finding) the original .inf file.

Good luck and if you find any AMD upgrade threads link me and I'll see if I can advise.

 

thank you very much ill see about getting a bit more research done

 

The GTX 9xxM cards will not work in the M17x R3 due to BIOS incompatibility. The 780M had some sound card issues in the past, not sure if those ever got resolved. The 680M works fine after a driver modification. The 880M, as stated before, is a garbage card that should be avoided. The 6990M and 580M as well as the 675M should be avoided at all costs. The 7970M/8970M/R9 M290X work plug N play in the M17x R3, I tested it myself. If you get a 7970M, make sure it is a late revision card. Early revision cards tend to fail rather quickly, but this hasn't been the case with later revision 7970Ms, or any of the 8970M/R9 M290X cards. No driver modification needed, just install from AMD's site.

 

If you are set on a 980/970, you could always swap in an r4 motherboard. I did that with the intention of upgrading to the 980m someday.

 

Were you able to use your CPU from your R3 on the R4?

 

I didn't, but from what others have said you are able to.

 

Alright! Thanks! I am definitely going to grab a R4 mobo and go that route.

 

Could one please post some information about cost and maybe any parts I will definitely need when upgrading from an M17X R3 to the R4 Mobo, thanks.

If there is already a forum on this, I have been dumb and can't find it, please post the link to that instead, I would appreciate it, thank you all!

 

Please share your experience after swap mobo from R4 to R3.

Good idea. If you find solid info share it

 

It wasn't that difficult. I used a teardown video for the r3 as a reference. It will get you to the motherboard and then from there you have to disconnect a few other things such as the speakers and also unscrew the motherboard. I labeled where all of the screws went so I wouldn't lose any. I have a non 3d panel and all of the r3 internals reconnected to the r4 motherboard. Everything is functioning except the "ALIENWARE" on the monitor doesn't light up now. My refurbished r4 motherboard was around $250 shipped from eBay. I did not have to buy anything else since I had the necessary tools and thermal paste laying around. Your ram can be reused, as well as your cpu from what I have read. Not 100% sure on gpu if you have an r3 gpu. I had a 7970m already which was designed to work in the r4, but I would guess that anyone wanting to swap motherboards would do so with the intention of upgrading the gpu anyways.

 

Thanks Good to know its quite simple swap.

 

I installed 8970m today and it's not working plug n play at m17x r3
Gpu fan not working at all had to use hwinfo64 to start it,i cannot install amd catalyst ,two times booted with that card installed properly in device manager however after restart Code 12 in device manager , any ideas?
Vbios?

 

Did you purchase a Clevo 8970M or a Alienware 8970M? I would suggest you flash a Alienware 8970M vBIOS: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachments/dell_8970m-zip.57468/

If that is still a problem, you may have a dead card.

 

Gpu-z shows subvendor Dell
When i change in bios from sg to peg i have 8 beeps at boot,
Is there any tutorial how to flash vbios on 8970m or it just works the same way as desktop cards flashing?

 

you need a bootable DOS flash drive with atiflash on it with the the BIOS file on the flash drive. Make sure you back up your old bios first, and flash with graphics in SG mode so that you can fall back on the intel graphics in case it fails. If all else fails, I don't know what else you can do. I've had a 8970M work in the M17x R3 with no trouble, you may have a bad card.

 

Thx i will try that and update later

 

Hi, my 7970m died yesterday too (unluckily) and I would like to buy another new one from Upgrademonkey or eventually a refurbished one from Dell; but how can I be sure if it is a late revision card? I don't even know which is the revision of my card.
And again, better 1 year warranty for a Dell refurbished or 3 months warranty for a new one from Upgrademonkey?
Any other place to buy from?
Tks for the help

 

I have two later revision 7970M for sale. One is pending sale, the other is still for grabs. Both were seldom used.

 

Tks, what about the price and eventually the modality of payment/shipping? Where do you live?

 

PM sent.

 

If you still have that card available Raidriar could you PM me a price?

 

PM sent.