Upgrading Alienware gtx 880m to 980m?

Hi, I've been following those threads and it has become confusing. Seems some people just plug n go, othere go through nightmares with the machine not booting (POST failure) or a blank screen when windows starts.

The rules I think apply is that Optimus must be enabled. UEFI (full not compatibility mode) boot format must be installed. And finally win 8.1.

Nobody has yet posted a 120hz model. The issues is that it does not have optimus, the iGPU is hardwired out. It might not even get past an initial beep code.

If dell came out with a vbios then it might become more compatible but the fact they didn't even bother to add it to the current models makes me think there is a more inherent problem?

When Dell do release a model with the 980m the hardware may change so much that it won't help earlier users.

It's a dice roll IMO so make sure you use a reliable reseller and tell them you are buying it for a 120hz model. Should make returning it easier if it does not work.

EDIT: Forgot, you want a heatsink from a 100w model. A 680m,780m,or 880m and ask the seller for a new x-bracket meant for the card. You can reuse your one but it might not apply enough pressure to get the best temps.

 

Thanks. It sounded like folks had made it work with and without Optimus. Maybe I misunderstood.

 

Or I did . Since the hardware is so different until I actually see someone with a 120hz panel I think it's a dice roll

If it passes POST then it looks good for a result .

 

I have a 780M with a 120Hz panel.

Ordered and installed the 980M from Hidevolution.

Caveats:

I NEVER use the built-in LCD display. I have it connected to an 2560x1440 LCD via MiniDP. (FYI - my external monitor is a Late2009 iMac, how crazy is that, )

POST works fine (posts to the built-in display, switches to the external at the 8.1 login screen).

Optimus DOES NOT WORK. But it never worked with the120Hz screen, so no loss for me. (Well...Handbrake won't use QuickSync)

3D does not work. I don't care. Never used it.

980M was worth it to me since I want to game in native (2560x1440) res and the difference in games like FarCry 4 was 100%.

This is the only/last upgrade to my AW17 I will be making.

The whole 'gaming laptop' form factor was a failed experiment for me. Desktop only for gaming.

 

Agreed - 980m works in 120hz with UEFI enabled and Legacy ROM disabled. I get a little bit of throttling on mine (runs at about 100mhz lower than stock and refuses to OC).

Also can't flash VBIOS with this setup as Legacy ROM apparently must be enabled for flashing to work.

Can anyone confirm VBIOS flashing works on non-120hz screen on the AW17?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

You mind expanding upon your thoughts as to why, "The whole 'gaming laptop' form factor was a failed experiment for me. Desktop only for gaming." The reasons that are common are obviously bang for your buck with regard to equaling and/or surpassing the power of your laptop into a desktop configuration for around half the price, but do you have any other reasons besides the aforementioned, i.e. regardless of the cost savings, did your laptop fail to support playing modern games at Ultra for an example ?

The reason I ask is that I am in the market for a high-end gaming laptop and would prefer to wait a year or so prior to investing in a high-end desktop for the time being, however, I do expect the gaming laptop to support MOST games a very high/ ultra levels.

Thanks in advance.

 

Would you mind starting a new thread? This has nothing to do with the topic. It is why there are so many 980 threads with so little information. Great question, wrong place to ask it. Thanks.

 

Please send private message in cases like this from now on of which I just learned this method via the Private Message sent to me in answering to my question. A "Notebook Enthusiast" should instead be setting a good example fbo others of lessor experience versus contributing to the added discombobulation of this Thread. It is activity such as this why there are so many 980 threads, as well as countless others, with so little information. Great advice, wrong method in which to provide it. Thanks.

 

My apologies if I offended you, I did not intend to. Unfortunately, sending you a PM doesn't discourage other readers from responding to you. I made some effort to not come off as confrontational. I would suggest that you read what is written and not ascribe some emotion to it. I am only responding here because I think my approach was reasonable and I don't recommend folks dealing with this via PM. If this doesn't resolve it for you, feel free to send me a PM. Cheers.

 

Alienware 900 series notebooks are coming very soon...

View attachment 119512

 

I get like 50 trolls a day on ebay trying to offer me 4-5-6-700$ max for 980M gtx, unopened from Eurocom. Fact is, im selling, internation, charging only what it actually takes for shipping, and I'm 2-300$ cheaper then the other guys who are selling the same thing from Eurocom just like myself. Its ridiculous, I have had people threaten me, and to say bad things about me, even here on this forum, if I do not sell them for the price THEY are setting. I also have about 3 that checked out, and have never paid yet.

Anyone else have any idea what its like selling components for laptops ? Its hell. Its marginally worth it, if you get lucky, you don't make your money back considering your time invested, unless you sell like direct like HiDevolution or Eurocom does with Laptopt2go and charged 1200-1400$.

So, in retrospect, you guys would be very thankful people even bother selling these parts, because selling this stuff, we get tons of flack from people who think we are charging too much even when, you had to buy 50x cards at a time, to make 50$ ea. meanwhile, your getting second hand and refurbished from other sellers, and paying 2-300$ more...

I can sell you 850$ ea. tax AND shipping and x-bracket with warranty, and heatsink included for the 980M , with the usual thermal diamond paste and thermal pads as you would find elsewhere. PM if your interested.and 780m (if it came from dell, stock) would use 100watt heatsinks, same as the 580m/680m/675m and 7970m ..

Anyways, I have supported and sold 980M for users with AW 17, and m17x-r4 and m18x-r2 so far, and can say it works well, but can be..tricky if you think your going to be overclocking a lot. The 17's are good almost out of the box and can use windows 7, but the 18's have to use windows 8. however, in windows 8 (the 18's) you can easily stop using the HD intel graphics (turning it off/even uninstalling/disabling it) but on the 17's you keep it installed/enabled, but simply use optimus to have the nvidia processor selected , and max performance selected to keep it using it too. But, there are some small handshaking issues when using external monitors, when switching resolutions. I would say theres a 5% chance every time you start an application that would change resolutions and the screen, you end up with a black screen - UNTIL you force the handshake again, but unplugging the HDMI or mDP and replugging it in, or leaving it to use the laptops monitor. You can even get this when UAC prompts you for elivated permissions ( i.e run as administartor, the screen goes blank for a second, its doing a handshake, checking all connetced hardware to make sure no overtly obvious snifters are present and disrupting permissions).. anyways, just thought to help.

I don't offer help to anyone I'm selling to on ebay, as I'm losing 10% on my sales anyways, but if someone wants help from me on the forums, gosh dozens of you already know I'm willing to help, I can only imagine how many messages some of the other people on this forum get daily for assistance.

 

Ashtrix,

I believe I'm right now at the moment where I need to upgrade to a 980M. My 770M isn't able to keep up with my enthusiasm for 4K gaming. I just got a 4K TV and went through great pains only to be able to get a set-up with 3840x2160@50Hz, with 4:2:0 due to HDMI 1.4a limitation of the 770M. It also heats up too much in 4K. I would like to be able to upgrade to a 980M which will take more and will provide HDMI 2.0 port to send full 4K@60Hz, 4:4:4 chroma and all.

I'm still in India, so it's a little tough to get anything upgraded. Any pointers?

Thanks,
Kenshin

 

does changing card lead to the ability to upgrade the HDMI port?
sounds a bit far fetched to me. do you have a display port? that might work better bandwidth wise.

I have the 18 with dual 880m, cant wait for some confirmation that there is a reliable/easy upgrade to 980m SLI

 

Brother I don't have much knowledge about the HDMI stuff & chroma 4:4:4 but found a link explaining chroma subsampling ( here) . I understand your point there to get better quality output but the Alienware 17 has an 1.4HDMI OP and 1.3HDMI IP port capability and upgrading your GPU doesn't upgrade the port though as said by @grkstyla but I guess you should be using Display Port for 4K, though I'd say the 4K on a single 980M would pressure the card, an SLI can be much better plus the new machines shipping with the Maxwell (970Ms, 980Ms only should have HDMI 2.0 technically speaking only the 9xx series have HDMI2.0 capabilities so the new machines must ship with that but the new AW17 R2 also has a HDMI 1.4 only....Don't know when we will see a HDMI 2.0 capable machine)

And for buying GPUs / Electronics imported to India is hell of a trouble as the customs will bash too much of $$$ on our faces, better get it from US from friends or relatives...
Try RJ tech, Powernotebooks, HID evolution (Heard abt issues with some ppl with this maxwell upgrade kits, and Ted guy heard a lot about his rep here if going HID then contact this guy and remember only phone is better email is crap & Eurocom is good but expensive stuff, I'd prefer RJ tech as they are selling them for good value, same for Powernotebooks too, j95 himself brought his 980M from here and Meaker should help you with here at NBR regarding any questions for powernotebooks)

Regarding the Display Port and 4K / quality Output someone who did this job well should be better than me...


And @grkstyla , the AW18 cannot use Maxwell upgrades iirc, as the Fan issue plus vBIOS cannot be flashed at all in the 120Hz AW17 R1 / AW18 due to the BIOS locked down (no custom bios mods) doesn't allow us to use iGPU / dGPU switching manually. Only the M18x R2 can upgrade but that too with limitations which are better in comparision imho than upgrading M17x R4 / AW17 R1 (Optimus only else PEG throttles but j95 drivers must fix PEG throttling as he said in his thread at TI - link1 & link2)
Though Hate that Win8+ requirement for the upgrading....

It's like Alienware brand is dead, which is really sad but truth, They can just issue a BIOS patch and get over with this once and for all but they won't
The best option is to get a P377SM-A Clevo which is 100% capable with 980M SLI and a beast with Prema MOD BIOS or Clevo P750ZM (15") / P770ZM (17") powered by Z97 Chipset if you want latest and greatest or get an M18x R2, I like this machine a lot !!

EDIT: Intel / AMD iGPUs wont support HDMI 2.0, I suppose that's why there are no HDMI 2.0 machines which ship with optimus, maybe driver related things are keeping that tech off market, Speculation though. Dunno abt new Clevo 7 Series which HDMI they sport as they don't have optimus.

 

I was thinking about buying one of the 970m Cards you had up for sale on ebay to upgrade my Alienware M17x R5 and was wondering if i needed a new heatsink, my previous card was a 770m, and if i did where i could get it.
Thanks,
Wes

 

Nope, that will work just fine, I can also provide heatsinks if needed, I just don't advertise them all over. I sell them as 50$ extra on the kits, but they're brandnew and come with OEM thermal pads. I think toher vendors are in the area of like 50-70$ and not always new.

Anyways, I throw Heatsinks in, if you use Paypal, and not ebay, and are buying a SLI kit.

stupid 420 character limits WTF...these new forums suck. Used to be so much better.

derp and the timing rule, i have to wait 19 seconds before posting this...wow and now still 12 seconds.... 9 seconds..wtf..4 seconds...pisses me off, what am i supposed to type slow like some imbecile infront of a computer for the first time.

OMG, I can actually be one of those guys who's like "Hey, I remember when NBR forums were actually worth something!"

But yeah, if you would like to buy from me, sure, we can use paypal, you get all the same benifits and garuntee, and I will help you through all installation and make sure your satisfied before I am done with you. Check your message inbox for more details.

 

i've taken up on woodzstack's offer and i am looking forward to installing this puppy into my AW17.

 

I cant send PMs because im a new user; the only question i had about the install is about the drivers, once iv'e put the card in do i just download the drivers and thats that or do i have to do something special? Also is there any difference between buying the card from you with Paypal on eBay and directly through you?

 

Your display driver will not install without modded inf.. @j95 over at techinferno mods these infs... Join the tech inferno forum and pay $5 for immediate access to download any drivers ( one time fee).... Otherwise make 5 quality posts to get access which can take time..

http://forum.techinferno.com/nvidia...arket-upgrades-driver-support-modded-inf.html

 

I need to do that for the laptop I have with the most recent bios? (alienware M17x R5, bios version A14)

 

for them = no ebay seller fees per item sold. it also means it's not a business transaction so no taxes.