[Release] Improved M18x R2 Maxwell Legacy BIOS

I'm assuming you flashed the BIOS and everything went according to expectations?

 

Yes I did and it did, seamless, but even if I didn't I would still buy you a beer!

 

I guess I’ll have to give it a go. Thanks man!


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The M18x R2 is still great machine for my uses and planning to get a GTX 970M for it as it's a desent enough card for my uses so I have the 1060 or 1070 to look farward to when I can justify the price. :-D

I'm still tossing between the M18x R2 and M17x R4 as my main laptop though. :-D

It's VERY unfortunate that the MXM form factor has been stopped as the MXM format could do soo much for even small desktop systems but I suppose with newer small systems " like intels PCIE NUC" that can run full size GPU's it'll probably make MXM obsolet.

As far as I know, the Alienware Area 51M is the only latest system with a DGPU? But still no replacement for the M18x R2.

Thank you very much for fixing the logo! It is working and looks great, thank you for your work! :-D

 

The M18x had may premium feature, not limited to edge-to-edge glass display, aluminum chassis, an abundance of ports for both legacy and future tech, HDMI passthrough, three 2.5" slots, mSATA slot, DMC, stout power delivery components, etc....it really was a pinnacle of engineering. There hasn't been a proper successor to the M18x in the 8 years after its initial release, which is really quite sad.

 

If I'm currently in UEFI do I need to reset to Legacy before I can flash this? I'm assuming this will mean reinstalling Windows again.....

 

I enabled legacy, booted into DOS, did the flash, restarted into bios and set it back to UEFI and windows 10 booted no worries, so no reinstall required for me.

 

Hi @Raidriar

Hope you don't mind I've made a mod to your version of the bios to add native support for the latest Nvidia drivers on the M18x R2 so no more editing .infs etc required to do driver installs. Hopefully make life easier for those who have upgraded to 970/980m cards etc. All other mods / unlocks remain the same as contributed by their original authors.

Please note - this will only work for Nvidia 700m-900m series cards. DONT flash if you still have a 600 series gfx card as your driver then wont natively install. Also you must be running in PEG mode for this to work (no Optimus support atm).

Edit: Sadly no native support for the g-sync 900 series cards either.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnQkhyPppV58i4JrFSu-_1E_L0uRBw?e=TaLCsv

Cheers,

Javers

 

Wow, great work! I'm interested to see a few people give it a go. So no good for the 10 series cards though?

 

@Maxware79 not with that version, but I think it should be possible to achieve. I assume everyone running a 10 series in an M18x R2 is using optimus? Just need to know the pnpids / values you're changing in the nvidia inf file to get the driver to install.

Javers

 

Yeah you have to run the 10 series in SG. I don't have my hardware ID code here at work but I can post it later.

 

Awesome work @javers, I can't wait to try this out.

 

@javers I saw you altered the device id in the bios for another one, so the installer could detect a compatible hardware.

Won't that cause any gpu related problems?

 

@jerryzago yes the subvendor id has been changed from that of the M18x R2 over to the one from the AW18, which has native driver support from Nvidia for the 700m-900m series of cards, but that's why I said its important to only flash if you have installed 7/8/9xx cards as it will certainly break your drivers if you have an original 600 series card still in your laptop.

I've tested the bios with a few people I know with M18x R2s and 970/980m cards none have reported any problems with their gpus or other device drivers etc for other parts of the motherboard (looks like the subvendor id is only used for gpu drivers).

You can always flash back again if you find any adverse effects.

Javers

 

Awesome! I'll try it out once I get my 980M.

 

@javers don't get me wrong. It is a brilliant idea. I have tested it. For those that use your BIOS I suggest to use DDU and install BOTH nvidia and intell drivers. My intel drivers acted funny at the beggining making chrome crashing a lot.

Great idea.

 

@javers

I wonder would it be possible to add HWID of MSI 4GB 980M to this mod version of VBIOS? Also, what are the chances making such card boot in legacy via PEG only?
I gotta PM you about this...

 

Picked up a used M18xR2 with (apparently) two dead 675m cards. Managed to revive the cards for about 4 months with a heat gun but when they died again I decided to upgrade to a single 980m 8GB.

Despite flashing this BIOS I am unable to get it to recognize the card. It boots in IGFX and SG modes but BIOS does not list the card in the discrete graphics section, nor does my OS (tried KDE Neon and Manjaro Linux). PEG and AUTO modes result in 8 beeps, no POST. I understand there may be some issue with gsync versions of this card and that a vBIOS flash might be required? Can anyone give me more information of this, such as how to identify gsync cards? The part number listed from the seller on ebay says the card is N16E-GX-A1 but web searching this only returns shopping links. I'm currently running the machine on the igpu but it feels wasteful not to maximize its potential.

Also, are there any chassis mods that allow easier access to the MXM slots? Unplugging the wifi antenna every time is a massive pain.

 

To get to the GPU’s you have to remove the palmrest which means removing the display which means unplugging the wifi cables. Unfortunately that’s how it is. It’s a pain.


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I think you have to be in PEG for the 980M.... maybe I’m wrong though.


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Sorry, I should have mentioned that PEG and AUTO modes result in 8 beeps, no POST.

 

Some people have mentioned that the 980M requires a pure UEFI environment for the M17x R4 so maybe it’s the same for the M18x R2. I went UEFI for my 1070 but someone else I spoke to said he stayed in Legacy and it worked fine. Maybe the 980M has to be UEFI though.


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Would UEFI make it visible in BIOS? I can't boot my installed OS in UEFI but I guess I could try a live session to verify. I'd really like to see the card appear in BIOS before reinstalling the OS. UEFI also makes the Alienware splash screen appear distorted for some reason.

 

Flashing this BIOS should allow the cards to work in Legacy mode. You can enable UEFI and just see if the BIOS recognizes the card.

Do you know if the card was a Dell model or was it MSI/Clevo model? Dell models do not have G-Sync and work in PEG mode. G-Sync versions require SG mode.

 

I believe it's MSI/Clevo. Can't say I did my due diligence prior to ordering but while I can boot in SG mode it doesn't appear to be using the 980m. I haven't worked much with Linux on laptops with discrete GPUs so that might be the problem at the OS level but it also doesn't appear in the BIOS list of graphics devices. This is true in both legacy and UEFI. I can't imagine this being the case, but do I need to set SG mode before plugging in the card? I've been plugging it in then switching from IGFX to SG. Should I try to run a live Win10 session to see if it recognizes it?

 

No, the card should be recognized as "nVidia Graphics Card" or something like that I think.

Perhaps something wrong with the card? Can you test in any other computer?

 

This is the only MXM machine I have access to. Is it worth plugging into the secondary slot to see if it's recognized there when running in IGFX? Could rule out the mobo slot.

For what it's worth the old 675m cards also cause 8 beeps in PEG but they are recognized in BIOS.

 

When I try to run it, it says it's not compatible with 64 bit systems. Any Ideas?

 

hint: needs to run in a USB DOS environment aka not windows 64 bit.

 

I agree, I’m by no means a computer programmer. I tried following the directions to no avail because when I tried to boot from UEFI the options to boot from usb didn’t show up. I created a new boot option and tried again, got the new Alienware logo but security is blocking it and I can’t simply disable security. There’s only a custom option to clear all security keys. I used to be proficient in all this but over the years I’ve lost my skills and am trying to learn it again so I can play the new flight simulator without buying a new computer. I’ve already spent over $500 trying this upgrade and am down to this. Just need to to flash my bios with the unlocked A11 so it recognizes my new 980m. Thanks for the reply though, I’ll figure it out soon enough.

 

I got it to work. Had to use Rufus to reformat the usb. I had assumed that even though is was a FAT32 format to begin with that it would work, guess I was wrong. Now on with the tear down to see if it recognizes the new card. Thanks!

 

You must make a UEFI compatible DOS USB, or remote the 980M, set mode to legacy BIOS (disable UEFI), then flash.


Edit: never mind I see you got it to work. Good luck

 

Yep, I just booted into Windows 10 with success! Thanks again for the bios!

 

My pleasure to give back to the community that helped me learn when I was much younger.

 

Well dang. Apparently windows 10 isn’t compatible with the 980m. Guess I’ll have to switch back to the 660 and get a new computer.

 

??? Of course it is. You must mod INF from the nvidia installer to recognize the 980M.

 

I tried that. The whole international folder keeps disappearing from the files. I was able to grab it during the install and modify it, but when I run it again it just overwrites it. I’m done with this thing, I already have a new computer on the way.

 

download the driver installer, extract with 7-zip to a custom location, then modify the nvdmi file inside of the display.driver folder. restart and disable driver enforcement, then run the setup file (within said custom location) as admin.

heres the link for the procedure:
https://null-src.com/posts/nvidia-notebook-driver-inf-mod/post.php

 

Ok I did that. It still showed a compatibility issue but now it shows up in the device manager. I’m re-installing flight simulator now to see if it works. Either way if it doesn’t work, I have a new computer on the way. Know anyone looking for an M18xR2? Thanks

 

u would have to copy the hardware ID from device manager and alter the existing IDs in the drivers to that, since a section of those numbers is ur laptop model, what i did for my r1 is change all of the 780m IDs to my ID that was in device manager (theres 4 sets of IDs per OS section and same for the String section) after that it should work no problem.

 

Ok all I did was change it in the nvdmi file, seems to be working but the driver installer still showed a compatibility issue. It’s there in the device manager now and says the best driver is installed.

 

ah ok, well as long as it works lol

 

Well, it works!! For anyone thinking that it doesn’t, it DOES. Thanks to everyone on this forum, especially raidriar! Couldn’t have done it without your help! Now that it works, I’ll be selling this bad boy. I’ve had a good few years with it but it’s time to move on to better things. If anyone is interested, shoot me an offer. Otherwise, it’s going up on eBay in a few days. THANKS AGAIN!

 

Maybe I'm blind, but whats the procedure/command line to flash this bios? Found it guess I was blind.

 

Can this be flashed first, or do you have to flash swicks unlocked version first?

 

Does someone have this Bios? I have also a GSync 980m and the GPU stuck sometimes at ~400Mhz in Unigine Superposition.

 

what would be the tutorial to upgrade to this bios? at the moment I have GTX 675M sli in my system and Dell bios A14, do I need to downgrade to original A11 bios and update to this bios? will gtx 675m work after the bios update?

 

Downgrade to A11 official then flash A11 unlocked here.

 

thanks!, will the gtx 675m sli work after the bios upgrade?

 

Yes the bios will support everything you have now fine.