Some questions on the Alienware 17R1 1070 upgrade

New update: arrived the new screen yesterday, the innolux N173HHE-G32 rev c02 and works perfectly with the Gtx1070

 

This is a great thread. If I can get my 17 R1 to boot up then I'm tempted to give this update a try.

 

Surely it is a significant upgrade. I read your thread and can tell you that opening the R1 is not complicated. Follow the various tutorials on how to disassemble the r1 on youtube. Just a little care and a screwdriver....

 

Care is my middle name. Well maybe not but I'll take my time anyway. I will hit you up if I get it working and get the funds for a new card. I'll have to explain it to the wife which is the biggest hurdle. The Dell 1070 here in Australia is about $750AU on eBay.

 

There's no Dell 1070, just btw.

 

Ahh ok. I got that from this thread. Ebay has a few listed as Dell, HP cards

Is it possible to give me a quick tutorial on modding a driver? I did it years ago on an M15x but this old brain aint what she used to be

 

this is the best guide, if you still have some questions after following this ask and I'll try to help you

 

I'm trying to follow the guide. My brain is about to explode though. I'm at stage 6 and i'm just going through the .inf list trying to add my device id

I made the changes (hopefully correctly) but when I try to save it tells me that I don't permission

 

I suggest you do as I did:
- run the update and let it extract
- wait for it to fail to update (it's normal)
- before closing the window make a copy of the folder that was extracted
- work on the .inf file on that folder you have copied and you shouldn't need any permissions

ALSO: make sure you add your line in every section of the inf or it will not work

 

great minds think alike. That's exactly what I just did. I managed to do all that and then insert my modded inf but the launcher still failed. I must have messed up the formatting. I'm going to crash for the night but I'll have to have another go tomorrow night after work. This is actually for my M18x to update my 780M drivers. Thanks for your help. I'm just a poor student.

 

I added my device into two lines. Maybe I missed something there.

 

remember that you have to disable windows signed driver enforcement for it to complete the installation

yes this, it is not just two lines basically there are sectors on the file that are different OSs, you should put it the sector that corresponds to your system but you can skip this by adding your line in every sector and then at the end you need to change the Device String that basically tells the OS what's the name of the GPU (last part of step 6)

 

I made sure I did this. I didn’t do the permanent disable though as I’ve read previously that’s it’s not always a good idea. Should I try that next time?


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Hopefully this is the issue and it’s an easy fix tomorrow. I have to sit at work all day thinking about it though which is going to be annoying.


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permanent is not required just make sure that you do it while it is disabled I'd also make sure that you run the installer in administrator mode once you are done modding the .inf

 

Yeah I did this too. I think I missed adding my device somewhere.


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Got it working. I didn't put my ID in the right section so I just added it to all of them. Using 419.17 for now. I believe there is a more recent driver still available for my old cards but I'll see how this one goes for now. Thanks for your help.

 

Hey uugui what was the 5 pipe heatsink you used? My R1 has the original 3 pipe GPU heatsink. Will I need another one for the 1070 upgrade? I am very tempted to give the upgrade a go.

 

It's either that or you have to Mod your own heatsink to account for pascal. Cicichen on ebay sells them.

 

I had a quick look for that name on eBay but couldn't find anything. I'll do some searching. Thanks.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Heats-for-DELL-ALIENWARE-17-RANGER-M17X-R5-R6-P18E-GPU-HEATSINK-0N3P1N-0YP26V/264321972080?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Highest temp I have ever registered is 55c and its perfect for adding additional copper memory heatsinks. Generally I get around 48-52c during most gaming sessions.

 

Awesome. Thanks for the link. They are some icy cool temps. So the standard heatsink will work but I would expect the temps to be more around the 70 deg mark? The GPU will cost me about $850AU plus $100 for the heatsink. A $950 GPU upgrade is going to be tough to swallow.

 

I couldnt say I never used the 3 pipe heatsink. I got the 5 pipe as soon as I got the Ranger. So even with the 780m I also had similar temperatures since its a similar 115w TDP iirc

 

Honestly for that price I would just get a new laptop. The newer ones are plenty powerful and can have better gpus

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For me it's not really about having the latest powerful machines. I prefer to keep these old MXM machines going just for the fun of it. I just have to find the balance of cost vs reward. Buying the broken 17 last week and getting it running using parts from my other machines was great.

 

I'm gonna upgrade my M17x r4. Thanks for all the info guys.

 

Hi Friend, first sorry for my bad english I noticed in previous conversations that you use a GTX 1070 card like the one I have on my Alienware 17 R1 2014, I would like to ask if your laptop also happens to GTX 1070 card fail to complete the 3DMark Sky Diver test ?? My GTX 1070 card was upgraded to V-BIOS MSI_N17E-G2_86.04.31.00.0C_non-GSYNC However, I remember that the Original V-BIOS that came on the GTX 1070 card allowed me to plug in the Alienware normally and access Windows, but because I've read MSI V-BIOS reviews, I didn't want to test the graphics card with the original V-BIOS that came with it, so I asked a friend to upgrade the graphics card to MSI V-BIOS... now I wonder if the original V-BIOS that came in it would not be more stable than the MSI V-BIOS ??? I even noticed yesterday that in the game Mortal Kombat XL sometimes freeze white screen and restarts .. does anyone have any information to share with me ???

 

Hi Friend TheReciever could you please help me in this matter? Is there any tutorial here teaching how to update V-BIOS with NVFLASH ??? I am considering returning to the Original V-BIOS of the GTX 1070 Graphics Card to test if errors in the SKY Diver 3D Mark remain ..

 

I have a question for everyone, but could the R1 with the Gtx1070 support a 4k display?

 

yes, tested it myself. You will need to use the display port or a mini display port to HDMI Adapter with Active 4K60Hz and it will work. You will also be able to run many games at that resolution with the 1070

 

Hi uugui shi, hanks for your quick reply. But I meant if changing our innolux fhd with another display but 4k, it could work like for example B173ZAN01.0 LCD Display Screen Screen 17.3 '3840x2160 UHD 4K LED 40pin lkc

 

Oh sorry, I think there was a display that worked but it had some disadvantages compared to the innolux. The 1070 is not a real 4K GPU so buying a 4K display is not a good investment for the future when games will inevitably get harder to run. Also I think there is no 4K 120hz display, at least not for the ranger. Maybe someone around here has tried it, but it’s not just a matter of “same EDP pin, so it works”

 

No problem, you're right I hadn't thought of all these things. Keep in mind that also that display costs 3 times more

 

Hey @Angelom60 how did you get 2133 memory to work in your machine? Was it plug and play? I'm really starting to think I should do the 1070 upgrade on my machine but I want to be able to squeeze every drop of performance from her. Cheers.

EDIT: Was looking at this https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/HyperX-...m469ca5c18a:g:Rr4AAOSwI8hdchJq&frcectupt=true

 

Hi Max,
I bought them from Amazon and I confirm that they are plug and play. For the moment I am really happy with the upgrade made on my R1,
P.s. in any case this is the code: HyperX Impact HX321LS11/B2/8 2133 MHz DDR3L CL11 SODIMM 1,35V, (GB
Have a nice day

 

Unfortunately Amazon Australia isn't the same as the US and it's very limited and expensive. Ebay is usually the best option. The codes are almost similar except the one I linked has a K2/16 at the end which I'm assuming refers to it being a 16gb Kit with 2 sticks.

 

Hi Max,
yes I have bought 4 sticks of 8 Gb each.
Regards

 

@uugui shi Hey mate. How is that Taobao card holding up? I'm think of contacting the reseller to see what he can do but I don't have any Chinese friends. The translate feature on the website is a little funky and I'm not even sure how to contact him.
Did you have to pay extra import duties on it? Australia has 5% import duty plus 10% sales tax but I'm wondering if he can sneak it through.

 

Hi Max! The card is doing great absolutely no problems so far. When it comes to contacting the reseller I've used the Taobao's iphone app, he will help you and guide you through the process of buying the card as a non chinese customer, ask him any question you may have. Use google translator on the page when you have to insert the address and it should work just fine. If I remember correctly I didn't pay any extra duties and luckily so because here in Italy those can be pretty expensive.

Now I would have a question for @TheReciever: I have seen this modded nvidia drivers on the Gaming page are those of any use to us on a upgraded ranger? Do I still need to mod the inf if I want to install them? Are there any risks?

 

Thanks for the info! I'll try the app.

 

Just keep a backup and an external screen in case things don't work out and should be OK to test.

 

Does the M17x R4 support 2x16GB or should I run 4x8GB?

 

No, almost no laptop platform supports 16GB dimms. Those are specific to 5th Gen and up.

 

Hey man. I downloaded the app but it’s still all Chinese so I have no idea what’s going on. I think I’ll have to find a Chinese friend.


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This should be the icon you need to click if I’m not mistaken

 

So I now have two 8GB 2133mhz DIMMs. Do I put them in DIMM1 and DIMM3 since I have a quad core? Or DIMM1 and DIMM2? (R4)

 

Thanks man. I'll give it a try today.

I'm also interested in this. Hopefully I'll score two 8gb 2133 sticks later today. I'll probably just put them in the 1 and 2 slots as they are a pain to get to later and hopefully I can grab a few more sticks later.

 

I'm scratching my head at the moment. I still get 12.8k firestrike but then the Intel e-tuning util benchmark has dropped from 815 to 703. Coming from 4x4GB @ 1600mhz to the newly installed 8GB 1+3 slot @ 2133mhz. I want to eventually go to 32GB but not right now due to cost.

I would of expected a small bump in performance but perhaps I need something more memory focused or I am installing them wrong. I would assume one DIMM per memory controller would be best for quad core.

 

You need to OC the memory to really see the benefits. CL11 2133Mhz isnt much better than CL9, so you will need to push the RAM to CL9 and/or OC the speed to 2400Mhz+

 

Ah jeez really? So set the 2133mhz to CL9?

 

It requires modding the xmp profile. I haven't done it personally but the first step is r/w everything

 

Setting it to 10CL in BIOS seems to work fine. No improvement on the benchmark. Not really sure what the benchmark does though.