M17X R4 GTX980M Upgrade

The irony here. Paying for a premium LCD screen that was higher quality and brighter but is incompatible due to Dell's messed up BIOS. I might end up just buying a 60hz panel and selling this one for $300 since people are still upgrading from 60hz to 120hz. I plan on using an external 144hz monitor after all is said and done.

 

Are you guys forced to modify drivers, or can you just download them from NVIDIA's website?

 

I believe the mod they were doing was specifically to make the 980m look like 680m to avoid throttling.

 

Ah, okay. I didn't quite understand why they were doing it, lol.

Thanks for the info.

 

Just a spelling error, i know the meanings

 

The mod is required since those drivers dont support AW systems.

 

I've been using the stock NVIDIA drivers for over a year now without having to INF mod them. Ever since GeForce Experience was installed all new drivers install automatically without requiring modifications. I think people got so used to doing INF mods they didn't realize they could be installed without modding anymore.

 

I saw you saying this in another thread, and it's certainly not been the case for my system. What laptop are you talking about, which one in your sig?

 

R4 and my Blade.

 

Well, for the R4, why would you ever need a modified inf, you have a 680M in there? Also, for the Razer Blade 14 why would you need a modded inf file for that, you have a 870M in that one? They are both GPU's that are offered by the factory as an installation option. Are you sure you know what a modded inf is for?

 

Yes. Are you? Lol

It's so you can use nvidia drivers from nvidia instead of waiting for OEM to update them. I was one of the first to inf mod and distribute inf mods back in the day for newer nvidia drivers so people didn't have to use old OEM drivers on their 460's

 

Nvidia for the longest time excluded OEM hw strings from their drivers so you couldn't update using their drivers and you *had* to get them from dell for example.

 

You do realize that you're posting in the "M17xR4 980M Upgrade Thread", people here doing that upgrade have to use a modded inf to install, so I'm not sure why you bothered saying:

"I've been using the stock NVIDIA drivers for over a year now without having to INF mod them. Ever since GeForce Experience was installed all new drivers install automatically without requiring modifications. I think people got so used to doing INF mods they didn't realize they could be installed without modding anymore."

That's just not relevant because you have a standard system that is obviously supported by NVidia in their driver release. Your post at best was misleading.

 

It's not misleading. NVIDIA has never included OEM strings in their drivers for mobile. Obviously something changed within the last year so they started including them. If they aren't including any 980M strings that's different.

 

Are you on crack or just been living under a rock in the previous years?! NVidia started officially supporting laptops properly with their Verde program back in 2010! See following link:
NVIDIA VERDE NOTEBOOK DRIVERS – REDEFINING THE NOTEBOOK PC EXPERIENCE

I think you're just confused.

EDIT: and how about when you post you EDIT your previous post rather than posting a new one immediately afterwards.

 

I'm definitely not confused or on crack. I was doing INF mods back in 2011 and 2012. Their Verde program was a failure and much like OEM drivers were always outdated. I won't elaborate any more on it but you can check my earliest post history to see the dates.

Anyway, no reason to argue about it. I'll just stop here.

 

Yes, best to stop, you're creating a lot of hot air, and me too while in the process of trying to stop you causing general confusion by your misleading post about not needing a modded inf. The Verde program was actually pretty good, there were only a few laptops that weren't supported, which they mentioned on their site as being unsupported, like the Sony Vaio if I remember. Basically, so there is no confusion for anybody, if you have a non-standard GPU (as in not a configurable option from the factory), then you're gonna need a modded inf.

 

There's still tons of confusion in this thread and the 50 others relating to upgrading to a 980M outside of this little debate

 

Whats the confusion, simply post your issues or concerns and myself and others who are "currently running" the card will answer those questions. Its hard to provide an answer when one is not actually using a unsupported card in their system. Lets keep this thread on track.

As of right now i am needing to repair my MOBO so i am unable to provide updates to my OP but once i get a new or repaired MOBO i will start pushing the card again with my modded vBios that i have been working on.

background info: my motherboard will not display backlight while running any card in discrete mode, but optimus works fine for the most part.

 

The confusion is no one has said for certain that the 980M works in the R4 w/ 120hz panel. It seems like everyone under the sun upgrading to the 980M is on a 60hz panel. I found one post between here and TI with someone that said it worked if you were in uEFI mode but was never able to find it again. Someone on this forum had their signature stating they were running a 120hz panel on an R4 and when confronted they said it was a mistake and it was actually a 60hz panel.

I just want clarification which no one has unfortunately been able to provide between here and TI

 

hello everyone

I just received a gtx 970m from HIDevolution and I need it installed in alienware m17x r4 (early 2012) version with gtx 675m old card. However the problem is when I tried to disable legacy room with UEFI mode enable, it says "can't detect mxm card gop driver" and put it back to enable. The bios version is A13. What am I missing? Any help is appreciated thank you.

 

The M17x R4 has an Unlocked BIOS so they can set the SG/PEG mode can flash the GPU on 60Hz & 120Hz (setting to SG mode in BIOS then fire up legacy option ROM) setup iirc but the tradeoff on all AW machines is to use Pure UEFI crap else machines will fail to post (for dedicated mode / PEG / 120Hz & optimus wont work on SLI) unlike the M15x which just works like Clevo machine pnp, though users on AW17 120Hz can't flash vBIOS, even the flashing on R2 is hard but the AW18 situation is awful with flashing and hectic fan issues.

Dedicated mode throttles in All single GPUmachines & M18x R2 except the M15x iirc...again due to the stupid Dell BIOS & Nvidia's gimping of maxwell they will prolly never fix these on the Ranger & Viking models, never ever on the legacy machines but the plus point is their BIOS can be unlocked....But maybe this could be the last GPU upgrade in the AW machines.

Correct If my post was wrong at any point

 

i guess that means no dedicated mode then!

 

[M14x R2] [M17x R4] [M18x R2] - UEFI fast boot / secure boot GPU issues *SOLVED*
it must be useful

 

I guess the only way for the AW17 is the hard way atm which involves greater risk, the svl7 BIOS hardmod.
Still can't conclude on this as the BIOS couldn't be completely modified on AW's like the Clevo's Prema Mod. Otherwise the M17xR4 and M18x R2 BIOS could've been fixed by svl7 alr, just speculation.

 

HidEvo is no longer selling 980m gpu's without install. You *have* to purchase install to order them.

 

It's probably due to the large amount of 980Ms they've had fail out of the box so they don't trust the user to install them..

 

Alright i ordered a new MOBO, ill be back on the grind again here in the next week to see how much further i can push the R4 system for those of you following.

 

They are selling them again.

*shrug*

 

Nope, ebay for $199

 

Err what? They are selling 980m for $200?

 

Hi all,

I've upgraded my m17xr4 from a 7970m to a 980m. Never had any issues at all before doing so.

Now that i've spent longer than I expected to reading these forums, and posts by j95, mrfox, and friends, i've ironed out most of the bugs.

One thing i've not managed to fix is occasional crashing.

I'm worried that it might be a hardware issue, and that i'm going to need to return my card under warranty. Purchased it from HIDEvolution.

Here's a piccie of the issue.

My specs:
m17xr4
3740qm
unlocked A11 bios
UEFI with legacy mode on (SDD with win 8.1 wasn't partitioned in the GPT or whatever it was needed to run no legacy)
32gb ram
240w PSU
2x1tb HDD, 1x128gb SSD
optical drive

Currently using svl7 & Johnksss vbios
Mr fox's 344.75 desktop mod drivers
previously on 347.09
tried a few times to reinstall via DDU, no change

Usually happens in BF4 or Unigine heaven benchmark.
crashes to a black screen, then random colours.
need to power off and on again.

tried: fresh windows install, DDU and new drivers, changing drivers to different ones, reseating the GPU, reseating the heatsink, changing VRAM pads, no luck.
replaced the 7970m back in and ran the same games / benchmarks, no crashes
stressed the CPU, no crashes
ran alienware preboot check, no issues
memcheck, no issues

running out of ideas here, other than faulty GPU.

here's some piccies and youtube of it happening.

 

You might just need to increase the voltage to get your 980M stable using svl7's vBIOS. The reason being, is that svl7's vBIOS puts the default clock at the boost clock, I believe without raising the voltage in the process - therefore some cards can be unstable using the svl7 vBIOS without adding a little core voltage. Try increasing the core voltage one or two notches, see if that stops the crashing, it could be just as simple as that hopefully!

 

Thanks heaps for the reply. Unfortunately was crashing on stock vbios as well. Just installed the latest nvidia drivers and inf mid from j95. Next time it crashed I'll change the voltage. Cheers.

 

Ah, I see, might be worth seeing if a voltage increase stops the crashing, although if it was crashing at stock vBIOS and a voltage increase does fix it then this proves you have an unstable 'faulty' card - it should be stable at stock voltage & stock vBIOS - at least if this happens then you know you can RMA it with confidence.

 

nope. crashed again. changed voltage, again crashed.
have emailed HIDEvolution. will see what they say.

 

You could try reseating your GPU in it's PCIe slot, you could use a can of compressed air to clean any dust out of the slot, clean off the gold contacts & reseat in the PCIe slot. That would rule out any connection issues. You could also check that the card is padded up properly, nice & level so that the card isn't bent when you screw the heatsink down, and so that all chips are contacted. (Although PC normally beeps at you when it fails to post if not connected up right, could be worth a try though.)

 

The same thing used to happen with my Throttle-Fried GTX 260M in my M15x, I bet this card is faulty,Better get it replaced ASAP...
Still It's worth a shot to try the above^ post..

 

Good luck with the replacement. HIDEvo is slow to respond to anything after you get the card to them.

 

What drivers are you using?

 

hey all.
still crashing
underclocked the memory in msi afterburner and didn't crash, but not sure if that's just luck or related.
then put it back to stock, and ran it for a while.
bit later, plugged in my ipad to the esata / usb port to charge it whilst running unigine, and crashed almost immediately.
haven't been able to recreate that, so not sure if it was just chance.

now using the latest nvidia drivers. 47.88.

still waiting to hear back from HIDe


thanks again for the reply robbo, have done that a few times now. connection's clean, and padding is perfect.

 

Good good, looks like you need to get that card replaced!

 

interesting.
crashed again, shortly after plugging in my ipad to the esata port.
was running unigine and a video at the time.

makes me think it might be related to power supply?

going to let it run unigine without peripherals plugged in for a few hours and see if i get any crashes.

 

The more crashes happen the failure rate of internal components increases at-least that's what I had experienced with my old M15x, Just pressure the HID guys and get that faulty GPU replaced ASAP.

 

yep, crashing without anything in the e-sata
still haven't heard anything back from HIDevolution.
not impressed

will go back to the 7970m for the time being.

 

Call them up.. Don't bother emailing them etc.. Fastest way to get a response is calling them.. They have local numbers which connect you to their US office for Australia/UK too...

http://www.hidevolution.com/contacts/

 

just an update.
they ended up getting in touch.
were pretty helpful once you get through to the tech support folk
tried a few other things
ended up crashing more and more
went back to the 7970m, and no crashes.

they've agreed to replace the card, though i'm having to cough up for the international postage there, they're paying for it back to australia. i think that's pretty reasonable.

so now to wait for ages again.

oh well.

 

I've been lucky. Out of 30 cards sold so far, none of the 980m GTX I've gotten from my suppliers have ever had a single issue. Not a single customer has contacted me for anything, save one guy for the best driver advice. But, this is like the tenth time I've heard of issues coming from the cards HIDevolution are selling. I wish I could get a sample to see if there's are different.

 

Hi Guys,

Anybody with unlocked A11, can you please upload somewhere the PRR tool and
[FPT] A11 unlocked sBios. I tried to register on TechInferno but they are not sending me the activation email and then it would require 5 posts before any download. Just in case the thread there is this:

http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m17x-aw-17/1964-[m17x-r4]-unlocked-bios-versions.html

Thanks in advance!

 

Hi everyone, I am going mobile again and am exploring 3D Vision options, does 980M and 3D Vision work together in the M17x R4?