M17x R1- 8970M PASSES POST!

Just thought I'd share this news. Probably not many M17x R1 users left in this world. I just recieved a parts machine that has a destroyed keboard socket and power jack, so I will be buying a new board...but for ****s and giggles, I pulled out the GTX 280M SLI and replaced with a single 6990M...failed to post. For more ****s and giggles, I put a spare Clevo 8970M in there and....it POSTED!!! Incredible in my opinion, I will certainly be hunting for a new board ASAP so I can make another old legendary Alienware great again! If anybody has a spare M17x R1 board (before I go hunting on ebay..) please let me know! Just thought I'd share the good news, nobody ever bothered to try many other cards!

 

That is pretty funny. I'd be interested to see some benchmarks when you get it up and running, i'm curious as to how the old QX9300 holds up today. Nice work.

 

I'm half tempted to stuff my spare 980M in there and see if it posts with the CCFL WUXGA LCD instead of the RGBLED WUXGA panel......

 

It's pretty cool and all but I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Why shouldn't it post with a HD 8970M? Idon't really see any reasons as to why it shouldn't post. If anything I find it odd that it wouldn't post with the HD6990M.

 

People have done crazy things in the past with modifying the BIOS MXM structure, several cards not posting, another user posted the 7970M would not post either in the m17x r1: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/m17x-r1-7970m-confirmed-not-working.792488/
i'm solidstate's failure: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/1558-6970m-and-original-m17x-aka-r1/

I think the 8970M I put in here has no enduro enabled in the vBIOS to interfere with the system, so it will not cause a no-POST condition (7970M /8970M can come with enduro vBIOS occasionally...i stripped it from mine)

Unfortunately my battery that I have is kaput, dies in 10 seconds, not enough to really test. Keyboard socket damaged as well prevents any meaningful testing. But the fact the big alien head showed up for a split second and showed failed battery info without any garbled colors is a good indicator it should work.....curious what the 8970M will do with the QX9300....stay tuned while I find replacement parts, notebook was in rough condition but I bought it for the battery (which is dead, but charging now....tested with my failed m17x r2 battery) and for the qx9300 CPU, heatsinks, fans, etc...imagine 8970M crossfire in here lol.

accepting parts donations if anybody has the following laying around:
m17x r1 mobo
m17x r1 top chassis between KB and lower base
lower base...very dinged up mine is...

worst case scenario i dump another 150$ in parts to the 150$ i spent for the system, sell off some other components and maybe even get a gtx 880m or another 8970M. I'm just psyched this POSTed, nobody else has had any success past the 5870M

 

Thats quite awesome! I would save that vBIOS so other people can enjoy the HD 8970M in their older systems.

 

@Mr. Fox when A 9 year old computer has a longer upgrade path than most modern MXM equipped machines.....how silly. Why can't we have the good old days back?

 

Doesn't it break your heart? I mean The old Alienware machines were pretty solid(except for few models, look at AW18) and now look what happened to the notebooks.

 

There is absolutely no reason we cannot. The reason we do not is because the companies that manufacture notebooks use castrated designs that cater to their greed and they simply do not give a rat's ass about the well being of their products or the people that buy them. NVIDIA facilitated it by dropping support for MXM standards. The good days are behind us now. We are left with almost nothing worth spending money on.

 

I'm borderline going to do a video montage package with all my older Alienwares and send to to Frank Azor to remind him where he ****ed up...

 

To be fair this doesn't stop 3rd party to manufacturer MXM cards regardless. I mean Eurocom made their own cards because we didn't get any normal form factor.
Also I like the way you make it really dramatic.

 

Eurocom doesn't make anything, they just have better connections to manufacturing since they are Clevo resellers. The "eurocom" 1060 and 1070 are literally gecube reference designs with 3 extra MOSFETs added.
Gecube 1060:


Gecube 1070:


"Eurocom" 1060 and 1070:

 

Well then gecube, in the end my point is, that even if NVIDIA doesn't support MXM cards anymore,it doesn't stop others from making them.

 

Update on the project:
I have purchased the following:
1. Refurbished motherboard
2. New bottom black chassis
3. New black top cover
4. New RGBLED WUXGA display
5. New palmrest cover (mine was coming apart....looked like somebody didn't know how to take it off and just ripped it.)
6. New power button board/media board (same deal as the palmrest..somebody just ripped it off. screws/screw post is there...)

I'm going to piece it all together when the parts arrive and conduct a proper test. I will have nearly new M17x R1 and hopefully the most powerful one by the end of all this.

 

Can't wait to see that thing in action. Post some benchmarks =D

 

Are you going to test crossfire as well?

Also @Raidriar can you PM me?

 

Replaced the motherboard...and suddenly system doesn't want to pass POST any longer with the 8970M....I may have accidentally crushed the core, but it does with the GTX 980M (no heatsink).....I'm very confused now. Of course since it is a RGBLED 8 bit display, the colors are garbled, but amazingly it still POSTs with a 980M!

 

So turns out pulling the plug and turning on the M17x R1 enables iGPU which has been giving me false hope. After correcting that and forcing the M17x R1 to use the dGPU, with what selection of cards I had, here are the results:
1. 980M passes post and loads into windows, driver installs, but the display corruption is the same as the M17x R2
2. 880M passes POST with display corruption as well, but is never able to enter windows after installing drivers. I attribute this to IRQ conflicts involving the sound card. Similar problems have been encountered on the M17x R2/R3
3. 780M based on @flingin testing in the M17x R2, will not work in the M17x R1 either. Same IRQ issues as the 880M.
4. 5870M works as reported, passes post and drivers install
5. 6990M remains unknown, as @imsolidstate tried a 6990M, but found it was dead to begin with.
6. 7970M fails as per @ Akimitsui, wasn't sure which 7970M he had from Dell (pre 022 or 022, as 022 will not work in the M17x R2 either...)
7. 8970M does NOT pass POST, it stays black for a little while then returns 1 long beep, 2 short beeps (video initialize failure). This was a huge bummer as it worked fine in the M17x R2 and seeing how the other cards behave exactly in the M17x R1/R2, I really thought this one would work in here. Super bummed.

Where do we test from here?
1. I wanted to give the Firepro M6100 a shot, but the failure of the 8970M means this is less likely to work. 8970M was GCN 1.1 architecture, Firepro M6100 aka 8950 is based on GCN 2.0, so who knows....no native fan control in the M17x R2 or M18x R2 probably due to EC incompatibility.
2. GTX 680M (waiting on @maxslo to send me the card) will also be tested in here. Seeing as this is generally the most compatible nVidia card out there, I'm hoping this one will, seeing as the 280M, 285M, 880M, and 980M all pass POST. Downside to this, is no SLI support because the BIOS isn't SLI certified for anything higher than the 280M/285M
3. Quadro M1000M: I have ONE single report from an eBay seller that the Dell Quadro M1000M is 100% usable in the M17x R1. Relatively cheap card, better performance than 5870M crossfire, lower power consumption, currently supported architecture. No SLI this route either. Interestingly even though the M1000M and M2000M are both GM107 based, the same seller said the M2000M did not work. Anything GM204 based will not work since they all have the same display corruption problems as the 980M.

Nvidia single cards may be the only option, as AMD crossfire options so far are limited to just the measly 5870M.

 

Tried to boot a Firepro M6000 in a R1 and it didn't work even though it works in the R2 as well the M15x without issue, might give a GTX 675M a try as I already have two on hand from another machine.

 

@ nforce4max

Does the M6000 works in m17x R2 with native fan control and with RGBLED screen?
I have Clevo 8970m 4GB for my R2 but it would be nice if M6000 also works since I have few of them
CF M6000 works in m18x R2 without CFX cable so I'm wondering if the same setup could work in m17x...

@ Raidriar

This seller has M1000m in a lot of laptops, from m17x R1 to m15x...
https://www.ebay.com/str/valmarkelectronics

And the card can be found for around 100$
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NVidia-Qua...876801&hash=item4d8970e261:g:hz4AAOSws~VcP04E

 

The M6000 worked in the R2 without issues however when I installed a second one the machine posted an error I haven't seen before and was unable to get crossfire working. Has working fan control and it works as desired as a single card.

 

Tested the M6100 in the R1 today and can confirm that it does not work so it is likely safe to assume that the R1 is not GCN compatible altogether.

 

Thank you for this info, to my knowledge the best possible upgrade as of now is the GTX 680M

 

I am wondering if by chance if you can share an inf or two especially for win 10 so that maybe other users could give it a try in their machines. I've been slowly restoring one that is still pretty fresh other than some missing parts and haven't found a good replacement for the stock 4870ms. Did get one 5870m pretty cheap but sadly it wasn't shipped properly and so it was doa.

 

I don’t have win 10, only win 7. Better to not use that cancerous Win 10

 

So what would you recommend version wise for 7? Sorry if I am kinda needy as I am stressed out and had two death in my family this month.

 

I used J95s INF I can link it here tomorrow I’m away from home at the moment

Sorry for your losses