Upgrading GFX on Alienware m17x R3

Hi,

Been a while since i posted in here, but anyways i am looking to upgrade the GFX card on my Laptop.

I currently have the Alienware m17x R3 and it has 8GB Ram with a i7 2720QM processor. The GFX isn't that great and kinda old which is a Nvidia Geforce 460m GTX.

I do casual PC gaming and recently got Black Desert, however my machine can only run it on low which isnt surprising....and know its the GFX mostly holding me back.

I found some sellers selling a Nvidia 680m/780m GTX on eBay and wondering is this a worthy upgrade? I want something thats powerful but easy to install, i suspect the newer Nvidia models might not be compatible with my machine and is why im looking at those 2 cards mainly. My main questions and issues are:

-Will it be easy to install? I heard things about a modded driver and flashing bios which i have little knowledge of.
-Will overheating be a issue?
-Will the card even work or be compatible with my laptop?

Anything im missing or info i need to be aware of, pls let me know.

Thanks for reading guys =)

 

Hi,
Personally I would(did) go for a 680m. The reasons being that the 680m runs super cool and can be massively overclocked and overvolted to outperform a 780m. The 780m runs hotter so has less overhead and I have seen a few failures (not by any extent that I would advise against one) of the 780m and no 680m failures. The 780m also has caused a few people to have sound issues that can be a pain to fix.

You will need to get a better heatsink but may, just may, get away with the 460m one with a 680m at stock.

The most powerful card for the R3 was the 580m. The single worst card I have seen from NV. I had three fail on me and at one point in time (when I guess they had reached EOL) I was seeing failures on a weekly basis!

By going for a non-standard GPU there is going to be work to do. Basically the driver install needs modifying as only official configurations are in the standard drivers from NV. I used to get the required file (.inf) from laptopvideo2go ( http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers) as you need to replace an original file for the install to complete every driver update. A pain but after you have done it a few times it is very quick. When you attempt to run the driver install unmodified you get a 'hardware not found' error. Now that the install has expanded the files (under c:\nvidia\...) you hunt down the inf file that you downloaded from LV2Go and run the installer from the c:\nvivia\drivers\version folder.

If you do get a 680m I have a package I put together for the 680m with vbios files and instructions, PM me for details. You do not need to change the vbios except for when you want to overclock it. The stock vbios stops at +135mhz and I have mine running at +220mhz and temp never exceeds 70c . Any game older than about a year old will run pretty much maxed out. On the latest titles some settings need to be turned down but those are mainly very fine detail stuff (which I often cannot see a difference!).

The 880m had a lot of problems and a 9xx card is not compatible (no UEFI) with an R3. Maybe someone got it to work but I haven't seen it...

HTH, ask away

 

Thanks for the detailed response, I dont plan to overclock it (maybe in the future, but will worry about that later) and want almost a plug in and play lol.

I will likely get the 680m in a week or two, onto the heatsink im not too sure where to buy this but i will take a look around eBay is best bet?

Driver modding sounds fine, all I need to do is just download the driver from LV2Go and just replace the .inf file?

I will PM you and thanks again +rep

 

Yup, best to start with all stock to give you a baseline and decide if you even want to OC.

Don't use the search at the top of the link as it's just am advertising hook. Select the driver version you are trying to install and you get a choice of the full driver (unmodified) or just the .inf file. As long as you have tried the install from the original NV file the driver (where you will find the inf and the exe to run it, but in different sub-folders) will be under c:\nvidia\displayDriver\version\...

If you do download the full driver from there it will extract wherever you put it and then you have to replace the inf before running the .exe it extracted,

You will also find a pad layout for the 680m, I got my heatsink directly from Dell. I just called the alienware help line and asked for it 680m HS for an R4). I believe there are ones on ebay but they seem real expensive to me. I paid £25.00 plus shipping.

Good luck.

Addendum. Just remembered that if you have a 60hz panel you will probably need to set the graphics to PEG in the bios. You will know if you need to do this as although the 680m will be visible and installed, it will not switch to it when a game starts. If you search the forum for 60m in R3 you should get some more info on that (disabling on-board).

Unfortunately only the 580m is fully PnP and definitely not recommended! I know nothing about AMD offerings though....

 

I am trying to do the same thing. I tried pming but option is not available. Is there anyway i could get the detailed instructions on upgrading to the 680m. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

PM'd

 

I have a plug N play 4GB Radeon 8970M I could sell you, performs super well, probably will cost you a good deal less than the 680M for better performance.

 

Would I not have to go to an amd CPU in order to get the full performance out of it? That's something I have read and don't know either way tbh. I would have to find a something that says that's possible but I would be interested if I can save some money. How much are you asking?

 

No, I use it in my M18x R1 (same gen as your M17x r3) with an Intel 2920XM. It needed a special vBIOS at first because it wouldn't post, but I found the right one, flashed it, works great now. I'm asking 206 shipped anywhere in the USA 2 day priority mail.