AW M18X R2 USING MSI GTX 980 ( Non M version )

Hey all so I got fed up with a GTX 970M SLI mission I was on …

And i have a few spare GTX 980 from the MSI GT80S 6QF Titan that I was saving for a project ..

So i decided to do this one and it works very well if you decide to try it .

All you need is a butter knife to make space for the GPU PCB tab that is on the GTX 980 MSI ( its the same mod that is done for the GTX1070 MSI .

Some liquid metal enough to cover the GPU DIE and the copper heatsink some clear nail polish to cover the components around the GPU DIE.. and some electrical tape around the GPU PCB tab to protect the SMD's from the heatsink.

Most important part about this adventure is there is no throttling that i had experienced before on the newer AW 18 ( the i7 4***QM/XM )

I ran heaven bench for over a hour with the CPU clocked at 4.4GHZ and the GPU at stock both the CPU and GPU hit 77 degrees

The GPU drivers needed a .inf MOD but that was very simple something like 13DA 0550

Firestrike was the other one i benchmarked and sore was over 10 000 without touching the GPU

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/24818590

Firestrikes stress tested passed with 97.7

http://www.3dmark.com/fsst/1694420


So over all solid upgrade i think but sadly i don't think the 330w power adapter will cope with this in SLI but id love to try ..

 

Awesome work!

 

I would love one of those GTX 980s lol

 

Cheers thanks I would like to try SLI may need to give it a test .

I may have one available what county are you in ?

 

USA

Are you able to use in PEG mode or only SG?

 

I have it in PEG UEFI I never tried SG mode

 

Hello @Damin, I just ordered the same card and wanted to ask you a few questions about the upgrade:
What are the thermals with the all copper heatsink.
Is the 330w enough for one card? - I am not a sli fan.
Do you have a Gsync monitor or the standard Samsung monitor that came with the laptop.

Thank you in advance. Best regards, Bagster.

 

Hello Bagster

So I never used the all copper heatsink I'm just using a 100w AMD heatsink so the all copper one will definitely be a Plus keeping it slightly cooler at the last.

I'm still using the 330w and I have not upgraded to SLI

The screen is still standard so g sync option was not available and as far as I know the MSI GTX 980 MXM never came in a g sync model .

So I'd say you are in for a treat the GPU is very powerful and will easy overtake the heavily overclocked GTX 980M GTX 1060M

 

Awsome, thank you so much. I was kinda blown when I upgraded to the 980m... i was going for a 1070...but no edp... and i will not do optimus, actually that is the reason why i gave up my msi( heavily modded gt70) and made the transition to alienware. The m18x r2 just suits all my needs, built like a tank and silent like a sleeping cat... and the borders that it keeps pushing oc wise are amazing and besides all of that ... no need for optimus- i hate that- i struggled alot back in the days of prime on linux... but not anymore- An interesting fact- on linux- nowadays no inf file mod is needed for the 980m to work natively with the m18x r2. Anyway I am also thinking about using an alienware 11 cfm cpu fan for the gpu, dunno how the mod will work out but did not see anyone do that, at least it is not stated anywere. I am really curious.Thank you for your repply and please doo keep us up to date with your further experimemts.

 

Ok, so I've recieved the card today. There was some fiddling needed to get it to work but I did it. First of all, I had to file down the left side of the mxm connector and also take out the small metal pins on the mxm connector, the ones that keep the standard gpu into place. - I felt like i was doing a heart surgery - knowing that one slip might lead to having to solder a new mxm connector. I retested it with the standard 980m as well and nothing was affected , that is because the two screws hold the card tight into place. I also had to file down the back side of the small plastic pin connector on the mobo - the one for the caps and num lock LEDs. Upon testing- everything fits snug and works as expected.
At first, I could not use the gpu in PEG mode, and the bios would not detect it, I got a bit frustrated because I thought that the GPU might be dead. After trying the sg mode, the card got detected. I was able to boot into Windows and used NVFlash to flash an other bios that I found on techpwup. That fixed the PEG issue.
Using the all copper gpu heatsink It got to a max temp of 82° upon running unigine heaven with the "built in" fan curve. I am thinking of applying some LM to see how the temps will change. I also have a cpu fan on the way that I am going to mod to replace the gpu fan because of the higher cfm.

 

Hello @Damin, if I´m not asking for too much, could I please have a copy of your vbios as well as the bios that your M18xr2 is running. I seem to have a voltage problem, not shure why but my mxm slot only recieves about 18.7 volts when idling and about 17.6 on load pushing the gpu to power throttle. Tested this with two different power bricks - 330watt and still the same. I belive it might be an EC problem - because in bios under EC version it states unknown. Any help would be apreciated . Thank you in advance.