M17xR4 120Hz with 970M & Windows 10 : my experience

I will share here with you my own and recent experience (started on October 10th 2015) into plugging a nVidia 970M AND installing Windows 10 alltogether.

Other threads are already focusing on the 970M or 980M upgrade on M17xR4 (just browse this forum) but I didn't find yet a full lessons learned regarding it. This thread will try to fill the gap - but also will raise some questions to discuss with the community.
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Sticky Section
Here the (not full) summary of the parts I will dig in further posts. Let me know by reply if it looks interesting and if you see some missing points I need to add.
Summary:
- Introduction: Why a 970M and why Windows 10
- Part 1: Preparation for upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10
- Part 2: The magic sequence for upgrading to 970M+W10 on M17xR4 120Hz
- Part 3: The nVidia (but not only) W10 drivers nightmare
- Part 4: Half Success or Half Failure ?
- Part 5: About how to improve and to stabilize the 970M + Win 10 combo...

Completed !!

Note: I started here a thread about the consequences of such drivers mess for Alienware and its users. Everyone that want to complain with me to push for an action is welcome on this thread.

end of sticky section
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Introduction: Why a 970M and why Windows 10

I originally tried to upgrade for a 680M GPU from 675M but the 680M was dead. Luckily I had also a 970M handy.
However my OS was W7 Pro and the 970M can only boot in EFI mode which is available with W8 or above. My choice was then either to upgrade OS for W8.1 or W10.
I found clues on this forum that W10 was yet not fully ready and even can generate issues with nVidia GPU - especially 970M and 980M. But things were improving and btw W8.1 is not a very sustainable choice of OS.

So I decided to go for W10 even after reading the alarming thread aboud bricked LCD stories.

Reasons:
1 - I started October 10th and at that date it seemed that some fixes were working
2 - If I went for 8.1 it would cost me a new licence ($$)

 

I did the upgrade back in June. I can't express how much I loathe Windows 8 & 10.
I'm still using 352.84, any older/newer driver causes ****** severe throttling.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience with the community.

 

Part 1: Preparation to upgrade from W7-64 to W10

The evolution to a new OS version is never a time you see coming with a smile. That's even more the case for the last gift of 'bigbroM' : replacing W7 by W10.

First of all I took a little bit time (say 6 months) before to jump. This is a usual time to be sure the first feedbacks are feeding the web and also most of the (big) fixes are done on drivers and so on. So if you read these lines and haven't yet jumped yourself I 'm sure I will get ALL your attention (because I was like you few days ago man ).

My stuff (prior upgrade obviously) is still in my signature. I had also a SSD Samsug 850 EVO Sata 500Gb - HD Western Digital Caviar Black Sata 500Gb. BIOS and bios of hardware components (GPU, HD, SSD, Optical drive) are genuine / not unlocked
Note: the funny thing is my old GPU (675M) is crippled but not dead. I promess you that upgrading in that condition is a little bit like crossing the motorway on one leg

My computer was eligible for the W10 free update (as I bet most of yours around).
I chose to update from a W10 media because:

• I hate the idea of 'bigbroM' putting my request at the bottom of a stack of millions of others
• I love the opportunity to redo a such great upgrade multiple times easily

Quite easy to create a W10 media - go to here and follow the guide instruction of the 'Downloading the Windows 10 .iso' to the 'Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive' sections (I chose to go for a USB bootable media on my side in the utility 'MediaCrationTool' so without needing to prepare by myself a bootable key - I went for W10 Pro version too. You have also a HowTo on microsoft site if you want to pay a visit to bigbroM.

Follow the above and it is a no brainer to get your USB W10 media burned after few minutes of patience - you need a 4Gb key minimum and a pen and a tiny sticky piece of paper to ID it immediately - these craps keys have quite a surnatural power to mix with their small sisters and to jump in your geek buddies' pockets.

ATTENTION PLEASE : At that stage the tricky sequence is starting but it is only the one for 120Hz LCD. It is not so difficult but you have many ways to be lost and stuck if you don't follow step by step the following process I describe in next section. Trust me : I did some mistakes on this way myself and wasted A LOT OF time and nerves... and you don't have necessarily to damage your 6xx or lower GPU just to feel the same near death moments I experienced time to time with my half alive 675M

 

Part 2: Magic sequence for upgrading to 970M+W10 on M17xR4 120Hz

STEP 0
I will go for a full and clean install. Therefore I will loose all my current stuff (system / drivers / programs) which will cost a bit of time to rebuild. However I am not a big fan of the 'lazy' upgrades of OS because they always let you with a half optimized or half dead computer. My experience is that if you don't do it properly at the first upgrade you are pretty sure you will have to do it later and often in a more painful way.
Because the clean install after, the first step is for sure to back-up all your sensitive data and customizations somewhere (I will not enter this topic here). Just in case you want later to come back from the 10th layer of hell to the 7th with a shortcut. I didn't try myself to restore my old environment so I will not guide you anywhere on that path.

Just before to start, two last tricks :

1. Let only one (preferably SSD) drive plugged
2. Install a fresh W7 sp1 with strictly no update neither any additional driver - on my side I just used the OEM system dvd that went with the alien in 2013 to re-install. Back to the future of the VGA 800x600 pix .

If you don't want to do a clean install (...RUN FOOLS !!! … ) then you can just jump over the STEP 0 above.

STEP 1 (MANDATORY*) : DO THE 'INITIAL UPGRADING TO WINDOWS 10'
Here is the most important recommendation in all that document: don't even try a clean install of W10 direct (starting from booting your computer on the W10 media you prepared and going on) but if you are one of these few bigbroM fanatics who actually made a blood offering in buying a W10 license .

So keep you W10 media away of the computer you will upgrade and boot it as usual - ie. running its existing OS (W7 in VGA mode in my case). When done, plug your W10 media. Then just follow the steps of the guide here starting at the 'The Initial upgrade' section ( I did not updated my BIOS before but you are free to do it if it seems sounded in your case).

Now stay quiet and let bigbroM to take care of your computer... can last for close to one hour or more or less. Please stick exactly to the guide I linked above. When all is done the guide explains you how to check your W10 licence is activated on your computer. In my case a Pro one. Now you can shutdown/restart /shutdown and let a little bit of rest to you and your iCore.

* Important note : The reason why we are starting by an upgrade is that it is the only way bigbroM registers your computer and creates a key for your W10 system from your existing prior OS installation (especially when you are with an OEM install + W7 like me and millions of people).

STEP 2 : INSTALL 970M and (unlikely OPTIONAL) SET UP YOUR MACHINE BOOT
I will not explain here how to install a 970M GPU in the computer. You do have plenty of threads like this one (link to come) or this one (link to come) to learn about that funny job. Trust me, it is only the three or four first times you actually do thrill in doing that job; after 10 or 20 times (like me because of the many mistakes and dead-ends I had to experience) it is a piece of cake.

The bios setting task is only if you need to enable the UEFI system boot (i.e. : if you used legacy boot in W7 like me by the way). Anyway, if you need this, enter your BIOS set-up (key F2 at boot on M17xR4 computer) and change the stuff like that (also explained if plenty of other places):

• Boot menu -> "Boot list option" : UEFI
• "Load Legacy Option ROM" : Disabled
• "Secure boot" : Disabled
• "Windows 8 Fast Boot" : Disabled

AND at the end SAVE WITHOUT EXITING and just after POWER OFF the computer (=alienhead button) without booting further. When computer is off plug your W10 media - you recall that one key your girlfriend just tried to pick up for pasting a full set of shopping pictures (indeed your precious W10 media)

STEP 3 (MANDATORY in my opinion) : CLEAN REINSTALLATION OF W10
This step is possible because you have now a W10 licence registered (for one W10 version - in my case Pro) by bigbroM. You will not have to enter any key when prompted (twice during the process) and you can skip these key requests with no detrimental consequence.

Now start your computer and for the process to follow see again that excellent guide section here.

When all is done - again one hour or more or less - you will restart your computer with a good clean W10 on board. Note : I didn't register to the cloud of microsoft during that first install and so I have an acoount very similar to the one in W7 so far, will see later if I move on this.

During the first run of the system it will start to update itself and it is at that stage that - in my case - W10 was able to install the 353.82 nVidia driver automatically (no mod to do !). To be clear, W10 tried to install three versions of the nVidia driver and succeeded only with this one. I guess (thanks to the science of some of the big old deities travelling the outer planes of that forum) that I had the unbelievable luck to have a type of « passkey » driver of nVidia in the list of the automatic download of W10 at the dates I did my stuff.

After that step it is again time to rest a little. Remember before to do so to give plenty of time to W10 to do its upgrades (with possible shutdown reboot sequences). After you are sure nothing is no more moving then shut down - restart - shutdown and go to the bed or have one beer or two .

Next section the true bad guys are coming : drivers !

 

Part 3: The nVidia (but not only) W10 drivers nightmare

Following this thread will help you a lot for finding some various other drivers and to find files to mod them.
When after few attempts one of my installation of 970M+W10 started running* unexpectedly with a nVidia non modded driver I didn't check its number. I have been very cautious in my discovery way so the W10 system was quite basic and I had no optimized drivers for components, no application (but the few ones to check temperature, GPU data, test performance) and no games.
* I have been experiencing with no external monitor first - that was the case all along this post
However I had quickly some first issues the day after. I noticed a boot time which became longer with an unexpected « black screen » sequence in it. It took longer and longer time (more than 2 minutes at the end). This happened with nothing more installed on the computer - I was just playing W10 and checking/waiting of any new upgrade before to test stronger. I therefore decided to do a manual nVidia driver install with a modded one.

I tried to install the 352.84 modded and I failed miserably on a stuck black screen at the very beginning of the reboot (I waited more than 15 minutes and it was not an upgrade of someting running in the background). Was it because a human mistake (mine likely) or not is not the point here.
The mess is that at this stage I found no way to reboot in a « Without failure » mode or so - thank you W10 and UEFI . If one of you have a clue on how to do this when computer hang on after 1 seconde after cold boot I am in.

So I was sentenced to 7th layer of hell (W7)... but indeed the only way to found a path to it was to get back to Legacy boot... wait wait wait, I can't do this because the 970M in my computer is only UEFI compatible … and damned ! I scrapped the crippled 675M yesterday evening !!! ... I ran like a mad guy to the bins and after a scary digging in garbage I luckily retrieved it undammaged (or at least not more than before).
The sequence is then to change the 970M for the 675M, to go to BIOS (F2) and to reset the legacy boot and to exit without change. Then reboot with the OEM W7 dvd and re-install. And back to STEP 1 of the previous Part 2 section for a redo of the W10+970M upgrade.
Lucky me this was done without major failure and some (indeed many) hours later I am exactly at the same point that at the first line of this (very long I know ) post. And I decided to try a second manual install of the most recent modded nVidia driver I could find - silly me.

The current drivers recommended by nVidia (October 11th 15') for a 970M+W10 combo are the :

• 358.50 (latest: introduced 10.07.2015)
• 355.98 (prior: introduced 09.22.2015)

I then selected the 358.50 and I tried to find a modded one. This post of Woodzstack (a lot of kudos man) is one of the best place for that. But I had indeed three different 358.50 versions on the Eurocom site (now also direct linked in the Woodzstack's post). And no way to know the one that is fit for my computer (if one). Thank you again to nVidia which takes care to initiate their customers to the funny Russian roulette game . So I chose the last one on the Eurocom page - hey why not ?
… and again a failure even if I took extremely care to follow the procedure given with no deviation.

So back few lines above to restart anything (but not running to the bin.)... Hey friends of the forum, did you never have this strange feeling your name was Bill Murray and you were stuck in your « Groundhog Day » ?
I decided then to stop my modded nVidia manual installation attempts and to try to survive with the W10 automatically loaded driver. I checked its number actually at that time : 353.82
And I was very surprised because I didn't experience the same issues - no more boot time increasing with black screen. Is that linked to W10 patchs (they are quite a lot of them coming in few days) or to the driver itself is quite a black magic mystery but it works now (and so far) !

Next post will focus on the testing I have done so far with that 353.82 driver but also on the wanted and unwanted installations of other drivers in the W10 environment.

 

If drivers mess something up in pure UEFI system (Windows 8, 8.1 or 10), access to a safe mode is somewhat inconvenient. The easiest way to gain access to safe mode is powering the laptop on, then as soon as you see Windows loading screen, power it off (with Alienhead). This might take 3 attempts, until Windows starts booting to repair mode - in this case, you can choose Troubleshoot, Advanced options, Startup settings, Restart and finally after restart hit number 4 for a Safe mode. There are easier ways to achieve the safe if the PC actually boots into Windows.

 

did you got any failure with whql drivers and the 120hz display?????

 

Nope. I mean I had no brick of the LCD . But I had one of these whql drivers (not modded) that fully stuck my computer on a black screen too - however I didn't noticed its reference at that time because it was during my very first attempts. At the end of the day I am even unsure I was not victim of another pain: the automatic update of W10. I will post more details below.

 

Part 4: Half Success or Half Failure

Note: I started here a thread about the consequences of such drivers mess for Alienware and its users. Everyone that want to complain with me to push for an action is welcome on this thread.

After some difficulties that can be linked to my learning curve in W10 first installation (see also previous sections of that post) I tried to let W10 automatically take care of the 9xxM driver (we were on October 11th, 2015). Indeed it was not a matter of a real choice because W10 try to install quickly a first Nvidia driver. In my case the process was quite ectic because two or three attempts were done in a sequence and I finally finished to have the 353.82 driver installed but without PhysX and all other nVidia optional things (I didn't select them).

This driver performed fine in managing screens and basic video - also reached a 200 fps performance in OCCT 'Power Supply' test - but I didn't test it with games at all. A nice plus was the lightspeed start of the M17xR4 compared to my W7+675M previous combo (less than 5 seconds to reach W10 login screen ).

I then connected to nVidia site to check the 353.82 driver ID and found it was one for Quadro GPU and not even referenced for 9xxM ??? After one little day or two of hesitation and a PM with Micky (kudo man) I decided that this shouldn't be « normal » and that I had to find a way to install another more « suited by design » driver.

However it implied to install that driver manually and to take care to avoid any automatic overwrite update by W10 of this manually installed driver . First step is to choose the driver to install. I had already discovered that no genuine W10 9xxM driver of nVidia was expected to take into account the M17xR4 (60Hz or 120Hz). I had to choose a modded driver. At the end of the day I found only the 352.84 modded to be said compliant and stable in a W10 + M17xR4 120Hz combo. ( please if one guy on this forum owns other different proven information about a better choice please share). I then shutted down and took a beer...

Back to the computer... logged in and took care to do all the updates that could be in the W10 stack. When I was absolutely sure that no more updates were coming I just desinstalled from W10 panel the 353.82 driver. I then rebooted. Like expected W10 first move was to recall this driver in its magical automatic updates stack - even if I tuned my W10 preferences to forbid any update of drivers !

I was however suspecting that behavior and I had downloaded a W10 patch than could deal with hiding unwanted updates of W10. I used it and did a new reboot in DSE disabled mode. I was even not logged in (because answering a phone call) that I had my login screen doing a quick refresh suddenly. So when I logged in just after I checked my GPUz and... BINGO ... I had been automatically gifted of a new nVidia driver; the 353.54 that time. Again a new desinstallation from W10 panel, quick reboot and I run to login and launch at lightspeed my patch to hide the waiting nVidia driver in the stack (... again ... but I suspect this one was the 353.54 trying to raise dead). Shutdown & reboot and checking very quick the stack again shown me that no more craps from nVidia was trying to invade my computer . Then I run DDU (just to be sure) and I shutdown-reboot again ... VGA driver ... fine. I then shutted down to boot in DSE disabled mode and launched manually the 352.84 modded installation - just driver + PhysX. All started OK and installation was going on after I accepted the blabla … and suddenly a message that this driver is not a signed one ??? What's the f...!! I decided to continue the installation with the gadget choice allowing it ( but is it normal friends of the forum that I got that message ?).

The install completed successfully but didn't propose to restart the computer (strange). And I started to get some messages that « W10 has retrieved your driver after a failure » or that kind of. So I decided to shutdown-reboot. It worked but the computer was now booting quite slowly if compared with what was done with 353.82...

… BUT FINALLY IT WORKED … I however noticed that the boot is quite long (30'' to 1' ) when I do a cold start. I did use the computer and I tested it shortly with OCCT to get a 210 fps on the 'Power Supply' test but only during 5 minutes - I am tired and fed up guys . I retried three cold starts in a row, with an external monitor plugged in; the story of the long boot is always the same (so far) but I succeeded to reach W10 screen. I hope it will not degenerate...

Next section soon (I have to leave home until end of the week)

 

did you try any game??? i think in the m17xr5 i will try different modded drivers....

 

no way, i tried eurocom`s drivers from woodstockz post and any works, with DSE disabled in win10, i tried my old 353.49 from w8.1 and didnt work too... any idea???

 

Hi lechonman
If I well checked in these files I think the Eurocom drivers are more dedicated to W7 and W8.1
You can try the 352.84 modded driver but I don't know about the compatibility with a R5 - I am R4 with 120Hz screen.
If you don't find a way to get this driver I can help in providing it in a dropbox. But not before that week end. I had quite a bad time with my DSE that was apparently not willing to be disabled... Did you experienced also that mess ?

 

yeah, i think dse isnt completly disable, if any member try this with r5 or aw17 upgraded to 3d screen and 980..... please help....

thanks for all your help. spacetauren, i will look for an old modded version....

 

Part 5: About how to improve and to stabilize the 970M + W10

The status when starting writing this post is :
M17xR4 is with a 970 M and a modded 952.84 driver on Windows 10. It is working but with a quite long boot - more than 1or 2 minutes - when doing a cold start. During use the driver seams flawless but I am not confortable with these « uneasy » boot* I experiences. Not to mention the two or three times the laptop just get stuck during the boot and stop on a black screen - luckily a shutdown-reboot with the alien bouton (after 5 or 10 minutes see below) always recovered with a second sucessful boot up to W10 screen.
* Note: Windows 10 automatic upgrades may occur sometimes during the cold boot sequence - especially when you didn't powerd on the laptop for a long time (days). This can slowdown quite trongly the boot. However what I see currently with the 952.84 is not related bevause the cold boot is always long.

Just to mention all issues; I have also the SB Recon 3Di having no more able to detect the headset & micros and I have the card reader which doesn't work - that latest can be a failure/wrong reassembly of the new mobo or a realtek driver mess.

The fact is that I didn't notice clear better performances of the 970M with this modded driver than with the 353.82 that is automatically installed by W10 (see previous posts for details on that driver). I am not a player of heavy 3D games however; that conclusion has been made in using Ark, Heroes of the Storm, Diablo III, Hearthstone and Wildstar in their best available modes. I see a clear improvement regarding to my previous 675M anyway.

So I decided that I had no point to keep the 352.84 installed and I could get back to the W10 automatic 353.82. I then uninstall the first one and let W10 restore the second - it worked fine. Just be aware that W10 is not installing the PhysX driver.

So the status when I finish this post is:
I am on W10 on the M17xR4 with 970M + 120Hz laptop LCD + external monitor + 953.82 driver (auto-installed)... and it works right . I have still sometimes few cold boots that just get stuck but no more the long systematic boot I had with the 952.84. And when W10 boots it boots very fast ! (unless doing some upgrades during the sequence). I will say it is a half success : for sure the behaviour is stable but I am quite sure I didn't have the top performances from the 970M. I kept two modded drivers handy (952.84 I already tested and 958.59 I didn't test at all) for possible future trials and benchmarks.

See pictures below for the driver ID from GPUz and also the funny point that this driver is one for Quadro GPU on Nvidia site.



Regarding the SB Recon 3Di I finally found a workaround in enabling the Windows HD Audio Driver (and fully geting rid of the SB one) rather than trying to find a functional SB driver (I tried 3 / 4 of them unsuccessfully ).

By that time I didn't fix the card reader issue so if someone has an advice he is welcome .

I will post a 'short version' on how to do a « quite robust » install of W10 and M17 + 970 M on this forum.
Thank you for attention and help. I hope you enjoyed this thread and found it useful.

 

Hey .

"Fun is the umbrella of the sad" , sounds like you had a lot of it . (Sry)

I wonder, that so many people have problems with the SB Recon 3di. I just used the latest driver from the DELL FTP page ( http://downloads.dell.com/published/Pages/index.html ) , it gets updated by WU, and have no problems at all. The version that I have and that is currently running is "6.0.100.2042" from "21.08.2013" .

Hth ;(

 

Just needed to comment on this:

Yes, it is totally normal, to get a Windows message that a driver is not signed. When I still had my XPS1730M, I used modified drivers from laptop2go, I think none of them were signed, actually I think, that not even the ATI ones I used in my AW ever were, until I found lashcatlabs, which has some sort of private certificate.
The usual methods to deal with this are either to turn off user account control or to use an admin-command-prompt and disable driver signature enforcement. Ofc., this is not recommended, but neither does AW want us to install new hardware in their "old" systems, and the rate at wich AW releases new video-drivers says a lot about how responsible they feel to offer the best performance for their best performance products.

 

can u share ur modded driver with me plz, i got the same laptop but mine's 980m

i'm using M17x R4 3940xm, 16GB G.Skill, 120Hz screen and 240w PSU

and got this score any help?

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/9257466

 

Hi @sC_b4n3
For your case you will need a modded driver (I am now moved to 352.84 modded and it is quite fine with my 970M). Best is to redirect you here (also fine for 980M) and also if you need further advices after reading the stuff to post on this thread there.

The best driver depends if you are:

• Win 8.1 => I am not sure but I expect some recent Nvidia drivers modded by @j95 on Tech Inferno forum will apply but you can also stick with this one that is well proven.
  
• Win 10 => Then I expect the best you can get so far is 382.84 modded by @j95 unsure if 353.00 modded will work (see here for details and here)

another paremeter is if you want on not to OC the GPU ==> you have then to consider the Prema vbios but take care to read carefully the instructions (it is a little bit tricky to flash it under another OS than Win 7. You can find data on it also if searching for that topic on Tech Inferno (or in some of the links inside the pages I drive you to above).

Good luck.