*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 Ranger (2013) Owner's Lounge Thread

Thanks, I just installed windows 10 to my alienware.

 

Read as well Windows 10 Tweaks and Fixes (Index post #1)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/windows-10-tweaks-and-fixes-index-post-1.779394

 

So by modding and successfully swapping with a 10 series gpu like the gtx1070, upgrading to future Pascal gpu will be as easy as installing previous 3.0 cards?

I can't decide whether to sell off my 13 r3 and buy a used 17 (2014) with the 3d 120hz display and gtx880m given now the possibility to upgrade to current Pascal gpu and possibly gpu in many years to come even withour a tb3 or power amp for plug and play. As good a the 120hz display is, it doesnt have gsync.

 

Is there any one to enable gsync with the 120hz 3d panel. Does 3d only work with the buddled vision 1/2 glassess? Finally if i view non 3d content with glasses, with images look a little blurted due to the 3d technically built in to the display? How good is the display anyway. I kbow its tn but does it compare to a regular ips in terms of cobtrast?

 

I just purchased a 17 ranger and the lid seem to be slightly misaligned with the base of the unit. How easy is it to tighten and reposition the hinges?

 

Assuming the stock Blu-ray player will play 3d, what's the best 3d Bluray play on the market now, preferably free?

 

Good Afternoon!

I will apologize in advance for the long wall of text. I am looking to get my hands on a AW 17 Ranger in a couple of days provided my scenario works out.

The specs and plans are below.

i7 4800mq

• I plan to sell this for about 90-100 and purchase a 4930mx, from what I understand the 4940mx didnt really impress anyone so I will forgo it.

16 GB RAM

• At some point in the future I will snag 32GB 2133mhz, but for now this will be more than adequate for the time being.

780m

• I have my y510p that I will sell, along with my P157SM-A that I ended up not liking and selling to my brother. With both sold I may get up to 1000 USD. This will justify the 1070 upgrade in the future.

750GB HDD

• I have 2x 2TB Firecuda SSHD's (7mm) that I will use in this laptop. I will also purchase a 1TB SSD + 512GB mSATA SSD

60hz 1080p panel

• Naturally with the 1070 in mind. I will need to get the 120hz eDP panel. I desire the panel on principle so requiring it is just further justification. Can someone share the model number of the 120hz panel or do I just search 120hz alienware 17 Ranger for it?

Heatsinks

• I will be replacing the cooling system as a whole. When looking around I noticed these listings on ebay.
• 4 Heat pipe CPU cooler

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Heats-For...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

• 5 Heat pipe GPU cooler, I bellieve I will need to mod the heatsink a bit and add a heatpipe to the memory / VRM area like @loafer987 had done. I will need to do my homework and see if I can find a heatsink that will work out in a cleaner manner but that will be likely impossible.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Heats-for...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

I will also need to replace the fans with the m17x R4 GPU fan and m14x R2 CPU fan, then splice a switch to bypass the PWM control since the laptop cant actually take advantage of the faster fans.

I am curious though if I can flash the GPU (1070) for better performance. I read in a couple places that this was not possible. If so is there a reseller that would be able to flash it in advance for me?

Also which 330w PSU would I need to purchase, the same model used in the AW18 lineup?

Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts! Im looking to just consolidate all my laptops into one machine that I know will suit my tastes. I like the keyboard on the AW17 Ranger and that attribute is weighted quite heavily. Along with having abundant storage options.

@woodzstack @Ashtrix

 

if you upgrade to the 120Hz panel and eDP cable then you could use the new pascal's we have which do not have the tab and thus require no modifications to the AW17 to use, aside from heatsink being at the least triple pipe and made to fit.

I'd buy the 4800MQ off you myself haha for such a great deal.

But otherwise this laptop rocks with the pascal cards in them, basically they compete with current gen, even though the CPU is not exactly as new, these were still the top end mobile CPU's and none have come out since, that were PGA and they're not much slower then skylake/kabylake to begin with, so your pretty well set.

You will want Grizzly Kryonot and maybe some extra grizzly minus 8 1mm thermal pads for the videocard, usually cheap OEM thermal pads or the ones from China are not that desirable.

I would also start keeping an eye out for an mSata Samsung 850, which is possibly the best buy for the cash HDD/SSD wise for this laptop, and then leaves you the other 2(3) possible SSD/HDD slots for other drives if going RAID or storage HDD etc..

usually I recommend changing the DVD for a HDD tray as well, and then you can have 4 drives, even though not all are 6G speeds, 4 drives in RAID0 with mixed 3G and 6G is still faster then 3 drives in 6G speeds. (tiny bit...)

 

I wanted the 120hz since it checks both boxes for me. I wanted something that was color accurate and I enjoy high refresh rate panels. I have my m4600 @ 90hz and would love to step up to 120hz for my gaming preferences. Plus needing it for pascal is just further justification.

If this scenario works out according to plan then ill be more than happy to sell you the 4800mq, I planned to undercut ebay for expedience. Its more cost justification for the 4930mx than lookin for profits.

Thanks for recommendation on the pads, thats also something I needed to look into. I read for a while that Fujipoly is the best but that was on r9 290x's at the time. IIRC not as suitable for laptops since it cant stack well?

I plan to get rid of the ODD as well. That way I can have 4TB Storage, which wouldnt be affected by 1.5/3 bandwidths. 1TB SATA SSD for games and future experiments with Unreal Engine and 512GB mSATA for OS. Ive got a USB ODD if I ever need it.

Do you know if flashing the 1070 while installed in the AW17 R1 is an issue or has no one messed with the vBIOS yet with this scenario?

Thanks man, appreciate the timely response I know this thread isnt exactly heavy traffic anymore.

But yeah ill for sure to hit you up provided my scenario works out. Gotta get paid first lol

 

I would recommend getting one already flashed as the procedure has changed and needs tools.

 

Do you have any recommendations for who could provide that service? It would be much easier if I just purchase the card and ship to them instead of creating more steps after the fact.

 

@TheReciever Hi man, Greetings !

Pascal TDP tweaker thread is your friend for the mods on the GTX 1070 so far the options are Eurocom which will be coming soon or the Zotac 1070 both are same looking so need same modding the HS. I believe both are offering same performance, a bit of extra from the desktop 1060 at 15K FS GPU score and more if you can raise the TDP a bit more from 100W to 125W, BUT the MSI card is robust enough for that kind of stuff, if you want to mod the TDP like that you need extra MOSFETs on the 1070 Zotac chipset or Eurocom has updated design as you may already know from the mxm3.0b thread. AND Pascal vBIOS flashing ? That's not a way as of now you can thank Nvidia for that, Need external flasher PLUS a real vBIOS mod for that stuff. I don't think Prema will help you with that upon seeing the fiasco that had happened recently with his website going locked down. All his public mods are gone along with documentation sadly.

For the 120Hz model check this thread, ebay is your friend (Samsung LTN173HT02-D02 0GN36T + the eDP cable ) & for the Fans check this thread. ALSO the sBIOS unlocked will allow your HWinfo fan table to go custom RPMs like the M17x R4 for that you need an unlocked MX chip like 4930MX or 4940MX. & Yes ! The m18x PSU will be enough, I'm using it only, purchased from Dell.com

Regarding the hard mods for fans, check this thread if you haven't. I think you may already know what I wrote but still perhaps it might help you ?, I don't know much on custom cooling HS solutions you may consult - Striker / Eposaurus / Loafer & Woodz & yeah those ones you linked are great imo & @Nomad knows well too on Ranger.

Glad to see you are picking up this machine. Please document everything as you are another person who is going for full modding the Ranger. The last true socketed Alienware.

God Speed friend

 

@Ashtrix

Way to summarize all my questions into one post on the modding scene, excellent! will rep.

One of the members in that thread, @thegh0sts had pushed the TDP up to 170w and I am hoping to recreate that in the Ranger, or at least push it to the max the platform will allow me to. Do you think 170w is achievable in this machine or is it simply too much for the MSI 1070 / Ranger to handle? I recall reading the MXM slot is supposed to be able to handle 191w but of course thats just the standard and not always put into practice. While I do have high hopes in the future in terms of overclocking I realize its a bit more of a rocky road compared to the older gen GPU's that I am used to. (755m / m5100)

As for modding, I've no problem using a dremel.

https://imgur.com/a/Twfbg

Modded my y510p for my physics project, worked nicely and I got great marks on my project. The excel spreadsheet attached is the before and after fan mod.

Man, the unlocked sBIOS is the gift that keeps giving. I wasnt aware that you could set fan tables with the unlocked bios. I plan to get the 4930mx first so I will be excited to not have to splice up cables for this. I was planning to some how make switches into the USB ports to make it clean but I knew that would present problems later when opening up the chassis for maintenance. Thank you again for all the info you provided. Its helping me source where I can get these things.

I may sit on the 780m for a bit. Since the 1070 will require a modded heatsink. I need to wrap up my IT degree in a couple months so I got to prioritize that but believe me my wallet is burning to get one. I've been speaking with woodz on sourcing a 1070 and hes been more than helpful, the perfect enabler! heh. That being said it will be easier to do all these things here in the US. I plan to leave for Japan later so I want to wrap up my experiments and have my machine solid before I do.

I would be more than happy to document everything that I do and post it up here. Its the least I can do to give back to the community that has helped me with my inquiries here.

 

It's more about whether the power circuitry in the motherboard can provide the juice than the card itself being able to handle the increase.

Sent from my SM-T560NU using Tapatalk

 

I know this laptop came equipped with the 880m later in its life cycle but I can't seem to find the tdp for it. Notebook check states more than 100w I'll have to do more digging.

 

Here we go

 

So not much change over the 780m consumption

I spent a little time looking to see if anyone with a Ranger had unlocked their vBIOS to get a reference of a 105w+ card running in the Ranger but no dice yet save for the 1070 which I suppose runs on 115w IIRC (MSI). Either I just havent found the keywords or just not documented.

The 1070 stock will still be better performance than anything I have owned previously but I still like to utilize the performance left on the table, especially if I know it exists.

Thanks for sharing! @Papusan

 

I ran my 980m at 115w before with unlocked vBios ... Had the inductors near the power socket heat up like crazy ... Never done it again

 

With that you probably saved me from burning up a Ranger board. Ill just use it as is then, like I mentioned in my previous post its still going to be more powerful than anything owned previously be it desktop or laptop lol.

Ill just focus more on seeing how far I can take the 4930mx. If I can break some records with 4.5Ghz ill be more than satisfied!

+REP

 

Better safe than sorry

 

Yeah for sure, I want this machine to be my Primary daily driver for about 5 years. Not 5 hours lol

I dont mind turning down settings but Im at the point where even that isnt enough to play games 720p90 anymore. Its time to retire the m4600 from the Primary role since the 965m/m2000m doesnt work in it outside of Windows XP. I had my m5100 running 1100c/1500m from 775c/1125m 60% power limit @ 55 watts @ 1.2v but it was a bit much lol dialed back to 1000c/1400m @ 1.150v

 

What do you mean with no 4 drives being 6G speeds? Besides the msata port (that I haven't tested yet) all the SATA ports works at 6G speeds, (including the DVD drive), that I've tested using a SSD using crystaldiskmark.

 

I think the mSata then and the DVD might be 3G, are you sure they're 6G, I'm going from memory here.
I know on the earlier models like the M18X-R2 2 were 6G and marked and one was 3G in the caddy, and the mSata and ODD/dvd one was 3G.

If I recall the two main HDD's on the AW17 are 6G. What I do not remember is if the mSata hits 6G and if the DVD is 6G

 

Is this the power supply I should order for this laptop?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AC-Adapter-...031306?hash=item283ef6760a:g:heAAAOSw9DVZsJk5

Thanks in advance!

I should be ordering the laptop and everything I need tomorrow hopefully.

 

Pulled the trigger on a Ranger 2 days ago.

Will be here on the 25th.

Also ordered the replacement 4 and 5 heatpipe heatsinks, Grizzly pads and LM, 4930mx, ODD to HDD cable, eDP cable, 120hz panel, 10.4CFM and 11.4CFM fans and 330w PSU.

In the future I plan to purchase a 1TB SSD, 16-32GB 2133Mhz RAM, and the GTX 1070 but for now it will have to wait until I sell my P157SM-A and Y510p w/ Desktop GPU adapter along with my M4600 w/ m5100.

My main concern is getting 32GB 2133mhz RAM for a decent price point. It seems that supply on this is getting down to just the HyperX kits and Gskill. That may be something I get first just to avoid that concern in the future.

Thank You @Ashtrix @woodzstack @MahmoudDewy @thegh0sts @Papusan @Nomad

For sharing your information on these laptops

Im also interested in if I can overclock the panel further than 120hz considering the HD 4600 is bypassed and dont have to deal with whether or not the latest driver will work at all

 

CAD 6, 1600 Mhz with the latest DDR3 you can find will be perfect, don't bash your head in trying to find this super expensive 2133Mhz and then realise it's not any faster in reality when using it - though numbers says it might have higher bandwidth, it can come at a cost to latency and thus make things feel slow or like on pause.

 

tweaking memory is much more troublesome on laptops from what I understand but I was also thinking it may be possible to flash the ram with tighter timings as I had with my m4600 with the help of the same individual that helped flash the m5100

Naturally I would want to find someone else that may have done this already to see what results they had or if its just not possible to flex the timings on those kits. I'd take higher speeds if I can just reduce the timings myself.

Otherwise Ill just stick with whats in there and look into flashing tighter timings into them. IIRC the laptop comes with 16GB 1600Mhz but dont know the rest of the info quite yet.

 

@TheReciever +rep for your new purchase on the last of the true Alienwares & Welcome aboard to the club of rarest breed of machines, Glad that all the information was put to good use.

All the very best for your Ranger project. Keep us posted


p.s - be careful of the PSU for knock off products. It should read Delta. As they are the only OEM who provide these 330W PSU bricks for all the companies, The Dell ones though have an IC chip for a functionality I forgot (It was due to checking the mobo and then PSU both handshake something like that IIRC). I'm using the one bought directly from Dell.com

 

Really thanks for all the info you guys shared on these machines.

Right when I was about to pull the trigger I started having doubts since there was some decently priced laptops in the marketplace spec wise but I just didnt like the screen size, keyboard, I/O, etc. Then went ahead with the AW 17 Ranger.

CPU is good enough, and Im going to push it as hard as I can take it. Hoping for 4.5Ghz with LM and aftermarket heatsink.

3 - 2.5 inch drive slots. Room for 4TB HDD's and 1TB SSD. It seems like a lot of newer laptops forgo this for m.2 slots...my games dont need m.2 slots and anything I need faster will suffice on SATA speeds. Plus the mSATA slot. I guess ill be using 256GB that is installed for the OS for now.

Ill be stuck on the 780m for a bit but its still better than my m5100 for sure. No complaints there.

I just checked my tracking and it looks like I will receive my Ranger today actually, how pleasant. I also got the 120hz panel yesterday but the eDP cable wont be here for a while yet.

Im really hoping the aftermarket heatsink works well...

 

Doing daily maintenance on the laptop. The previous owner had tighten the GPU screws to such an extent I believe I will have to drill out the screws because I cant seem to get enough torque to get them out and Im just slowly stripping the screw. I was able to get 2 off but the other 2 are just not coming off despite how much pressure I apply. I called it quits at 3am last night after putting my laptop on the table and applying nearly all my body weight without success.

Also they shimmed a dollar coin between the lid and the GPU heatpipes and applied it with scotch tape...sometimes what people do to their laptops surprise me. Also sealed the fan > fin array with scotch tape as well lol

It didnt look like they had done maintenance on the laptop ever. Fans were caked with dust and the paste was still OEM applied. Looking forward to how much I can drop the temps when I get the aftermarket heatsinks, LM, pads, and faster fans installed. Of course being able to get the GPU heatsink off will help, ill likely just end up drilling the screws out.

All that started after looking at the 780m OC rev2 and wanted to make sure that I lower the operating temps first. I guess ill stick with +135Mhz for now. Ill be trying out +500 on the memory and see how it behaves. The 4800mq normally operates around 3.5Ghz at stock configuration, with a drop to 2.7Ghz here and there. Im not too concerned about it, likely TDP limit kicking in. Ill be swapping in the 4930mx when it gets here and sending the 4800mq to a new home.

Ive got the Liquid metal, grizzly pads, 120hz panel and ODD to HDD cable.

Still waiting on Aftermarket heatsinks, fans, eDP cable and I believe a couple more items. I need to order the HDD bracket.

I was thinking of re-using the originally installed panel with one of those controller boards. I could just buy another lid assembly which are about 25 USD on ebay. It seems it would be better than using the USB 3.0 monitor I have been using up to this point. Only because of a curious problem where if the USB monitor is connected while gaming the games only detect the USB monitor despite displaying on the laptops panel. It wouldnt be an issue if it just played normally but because the two monitors are outputting different resolutions its a bit borked on the laptops panel.

Though thats just me justifying having an alienware 17 themed second monitor.

@Nomad @woodzstack

I looked at HWINFO and every port save for the ODD is reporting 6Gb/s. I dont know if its because the ODD is currently plugged in but that particular port is reporting at 1.5Gb/s at the moment. I suppose it may be possible for that to report differently if I plug in the ODD to HDD cable though, havent tested yet.

 

@TheReciever might i suggest a thin file and some patience on those gpu screws. If you have a way to collect the filings as you do so you could put a slot in the screws so you can use a slot screwdriver to turn them loose. It will generate some filings whether you drill the heads off or file a slot in them but you would great less risk of shavings with a file if you take your time i know its a pain but you dont want to short out the main board if you miss a shaving. Also in my experience with this model disassemble the chassis as much as you can before doing this. You should be able to remove the emtire top at thw hinges and then be set to take compressed air to it to get the shavings out. It looks like you hace a clear plan just a suggestion. Either way best of luck this build sounds awesome.

 

Not a bad idea at all thanks for the suggestion.

If I dont have confidence in using the drill I may consider that. If I can just remove the head of the screw I can remove the GPU and use pliers to remove the screw from that point on. At least, in short that was the thought process.

Not sure if I have any files here.

Cant wait to get the cooling overhauled. The stock cooling is disappointing a bit in only that its marred a bit and discolored...CPU pegs 100C but thats the nature of buying a used laptop where the previous owner didnt maintain the system at all.

Which reminds me I need to order some foil tape as well.

 

Oh i just meant the filings from drilling heads off cause metal fragments on the motherboard when u turn it on can short the system and it sux. Replacing a mobo

 

Ill probably surround the area with painters tape to prevent that then blow it off with air

But yeah I agree Id rather not have to replace the mobo yet lol

 

Tried to play a round of R6 Siege and the power supply failed me. Nothing spectacular like sparks flying or fire etc just shut down. If there is any way for it to fail then I would certainly prefer that way.

I have a spare 240w brick that I use for my m4600 and so I was back up and running in a reboot amount of time. Everything is working just fine.

The panel that is currently installed has been overclocked to 100hz which is a nice improvement over the 60hz stock configuration.

Installed the 2x 2TB Firecuda SSHD's and am thinking about putting in the 1TB drive I have left over until I get the SSD later.

Ordered some foil tape from amazon, will be here in a couple of days. Loving the I/D GFX Fn key. Finally can be rid of the Intel HD intermediary which allowed me to overclock the panel to 100hz. Also resolved the issue of my USB 3.0 monitor being picked up by games as the primary and only monitor, I suspected since its USB based that the Intel HD was getting in the way of my desired operation.

Anyways the exciting stuff wont happen for a bit. I will receive the 4930mx soon but the heatsinks and fans will still be a while yet so no overclocking on the 4930mx until I get them. I only bought 1 package of Grizzly LM and dont want to waste it on the stock heatsinks.

Also ordered the HDD bracket for the ODD bay. Will have 5TB of storage running after I get it and will report the HDD SATA reported speed just to lay that to rest

 

Every drive reports SATA III / 6G link on this machine, there's no TDP lock, Papusan runs 110+w on his 4930MX CLU 4.3GHz chip, I never saw any downclocking in games like that to 2.7GHz. Except for 4x turbo speed and 1/2 core turbo bins are different.

& Also where did you find the 4930mx chip ? ebay or local ?

 

Awesome, either way its likely to have a HDD storage drive so its unlikely to have any major performance difference.

Im looking forward to getting my heatsink + fan + GC going and seeing what I can crank out of the 4930mx.

I picked up the 4930mx off of ebay for 270 iirc

 

I am interested in seeing the result of adding these new heatsinks. I always wanted to try them but never found an actual need for them as my temps are in check.

 

I havent really found anyone documenting before/after temps with them but it could just be a failure in keyword choices.

Needless to say Im also very interested lol. Im also curious if I should go and ahead and lap the heatsink, Ive never lapped a heatsink before but since this replacement is made of all copper I have been considering it.

EDIT: 330w AC adapter is working and reporting in the BIOS with no error messages.

EDIT II: Got my 4930mx today but will wait until I get my NTH1 Noctua paste to replace the 4800mq currently installed.

Then the 4800mq will be shipped off to a new home with woodz

 

Hey guys. So on the 4pipe and 5 pipe heatsink deal. I have been using these heatsinks for 5 months or so. I will be making a thread this afternoon on my upgrades, mods and evaluation of the current state of the 17r1. I have owned a 17r1 since 2015. Ive done lots of modifications to them.

The original 100w heatsink for the gpu will keep the 1070 at 83c under heavy load and max fan. That is with icd7. With LM it drops to 79c. With the 5 pipe and LM it drops to 75c and spikes to 79c.

The cpu with the 2 pipe heatsink and icd7 set at 4.3ghz will hit 93c and thermal throttle down to 3ghz. It will hit an average score of 560 on cinebench. LM will drop temps to 88c but i will still get vr faults and thermal throttle at 4.3ghz but performance is increased to 670 due to higher sustained clocks. The 4 pipe heatsink with thermal grizzly conductonaut will hit 4.3ghz without throttle at 83c. Average performance is 830 on cinebench. This requires extensive bios modification and use of throttlestop. There seems to be a tremendous amount of bios hurdles on overclocking and these chips run hot. My operating speed is 4.2ghz 24/7 at 1.05v and average cinebench score is 820 at 81c. This to me has been the most dependable oc setting and my most intense cpu usage in game gets to about 40%, and the average is 20% so the 4930mx has quite a bit of life left. This is all based on my cpu. Obviously there will be variance.

The heatsinks are a fine upgrade but i believe the issue to be one of thermal dynamics. The extra pipes facilitate greater heat transfer but the means by which the heat is eliminated is still a laptop fan. Whether you get a 10 cfm fan or a 1 cfm fan it is still going to work within a marginal difference of one another. Ive been looking into a way to bypass the pwm control and increase voltage using a spliced in regulator but its inelegant and may lead to premature failure. The real solution is to increase fan output through a custom fan or to increase heat capacity at the failure point of all of these heatsinks which is the finned radiator. It doesnt matter how fast the heat gets to the radiator past a certain point since the radiator can only retain soo much heat due to limited mass. Even a denser material like solid copper is just a marginal increase. Maybe if they were made of gold!? Haha The best upgrade by far is liquid metal.

Ill touch on the 1070 performance for just a bit. There is a lot of talk about tdp and correlation to performance. The misconception is that power draw is equivelant to performance. That is not true. There is variance in components used and silicone lottery but for the most part high effiency to performance is best. What use is drawing 175watts of power if your average increase is 5% to 7% over a 1070 drawing 100watts? The issue is not soo much in the methodology but in the bios limitations of these cards. The only way we can hope to increase performance is by raising the power consumption ceiling and hoping the card will ultilize it. In my experience it will not efficiently. My 1070 is tdp set at 135w and will on average use between 100w to 120w and i get a firestrike graphics score of 17200.

What is really needed is a bios that can be flashed externally which will allow for voltage modification. On average my card will see clocks of 1670 core at 0.890v. There is tremendous room for increase if we can find someone with the knowledge and dedication to put in the work. Clocks of 1900mhz+ are possible within the thermal envelope of the 1070. Perhaps a bounty is in order!?

Lastly sorry about the long post.

 

Are you not able to get the full fan speed after BIOS unlock? I was able to drop the temperature of my y510p 4700mq by 8c by going from 6.4CFM(IIRC) to 10.4CFM.

Either way love the post, looks like I shouldnt expect a huge change in temps but still lower max temps

Ill keep an eye out for your thread !Tried to rep but I cant sadly...

 

I dont really know if bios allows for fan table modification. I think its pretty locked down. The max rpm allowed in hwinfo for the 17r1 cpu is 3400. The fan is capable of more. So a 1.74cfm fan or 10 cfm fan at 3400rpm is essentially the same.

 

For the GPU you mean. The CPU is 4,600 rpm.

 

Youre probably right i havent looked at it today.

 

Ah I was under the impression that with 4930mx CPU the unlocked bios allowed for altered fan tables @Ashtrix ? Unless I was mistaken in his communication.

If not its not a huge loss as I wouldnt be opposed to splicing a switch, I certainly intend to allow the fan its capabilities. Its been done before by hollowing out an RJ-45 connector Like so....



The reduction in temps I had were via the dust cleaning mode in the y510p software package. Essentially the only method of "Fan control" on that platform...

 

Unlocking fan table would let you control intermediate fan steps but not maximum rpm value for each fan.

 

Ah, then I had misunderstood it.

I will begin researching a hardware fan mod akin to what I witnessed in the y510p video I linked before. I know someone in the fan mod thread for this laptop had done it with his own method but I would prefer to not have a couple of switches protruding from the frame.

I really want to hit 4.5Ghz and maybe a hardware switch to allow max fan speed will allow temperatures to permit that.

EDIT:

Does the m17x R4 GPU fan have the same cable orientation? I havent received mine yet so I am unsure.

 

MahmoudDewy is correct. The fan tables are locked in EC. One cannot override them. The steps in HWInfo EC based control will be unlocked or perhaps in the BIOS even No idea whether they would read the same or cause issues like XTU+BIOS values.

Plus one wanting to get custom Fan tables (mind you not the max value but the steps) will have to use the MX CPU, else the above BIOS options (along with extra tweaking options) won't be available even with the Unlocked sBIOS.

Also there's a small nugget, when you flash the sBIOS on this machine the fans ramp up to max that's the true potential of the AW17 R1 or M17x R4 fans in R1 are capable of . I think the M17x R4 doesn't have the max fan RPM limits forget the B$ lock on the steps from the EC. It doesn't have that latter limit for sure even on the 980M upgrade.

The demand of the people Sheeple (98% of NB market) need a silent and a slim gaming machine turd book thus we are having these issues

 

I found a small voltage regulator. Ill see about splicing it into an old fan and attempting to get them running at different speeds. I may even be able to get a rudimentary software to interface with it or worse case scenario i can use a tiny selector switch. Which is kindof a goody idea to be honest.

 

Ive got my 4930mx here, because Im impatient and dont want to wait for the aftermarket heatsinks I ordered some traditional paste so I can install the 4930mx in the system as it is now. This should happen later today when the paste comes.

The only real thing I have to source is an adequate switch to fit in the RJ-45 port, everything else I believe will be relatively simple from my understanding. Since the cables needed just need to connect from the splice to the switch and back to the fan. Im no electrician mind you lol.

I wonder if this switch would suffice.
Switch
https://www.amazon.com/6x6x6mm-Mome...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=373YBVH77NW8CDB257Z6

RJ45 end
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matter...UTF8&qid=1508956807&sr=1-4&keywords=RJ45+ends

potentially use hot glue or something to fasten the switch into place.