Alienware 18 with 980M SLI by HIDevolution

Saves needing an old GPU which you have to swap in I suppose

I have an old FX1800M for that purpose!

 

I tried a number of different BIOS settings and I could not get the M18xR1 to boot correctly with a single 980M. Using SG mode it loads the Intel Option ROM, BIOS Alienhead logo appears for a split second, screen flashes and it reboots, but never gets past that behavior cycle. Setting PEG it has 8 beeps. There is a remote chance it might behave differently with two 980M installed. It's easy to test since I don't have to repaste, swap heat sinks or any of that nonsense, but I am pressed for time with holiday activity right now. I'll try more when I have more time, although I am skeptical. It's worth trying though, because I really want it to work for the R1 as well as it does with the R2.

 

Any news or luck with the M18x R1 or testing in the Alien 18 Fox?
HAPPY 2015!!! :thumbsup: to ALL!!!

 

R1 won't work.. The 18 works but fan control needs to be done with HWinfo 64...

 

Major bummers Guess I was hoping for some Fox magic!

 

Bump

Trying to keep up with all the changes. Everyone is jumping ship so quick it's hard to sort fact from vitriol.

Can the 18 be fitted with 980 sli? I was going to purchase the whole rig from HIDevolution , but that link just roots back to their home page and waiting on feedback from them.

I don't want a Sager nor a soldered, but I do want SLI and a warranty. The 18 and HIDevolution might be my last glimmer of hope.

 

Just seen post by 1Schumsta1 that the installationof 980m SLI is indeed possible. Great news.

Now the question remains whether retailers like HIDEvolution will offer the 980s as an option on new units? Fingers crossed as that's a mighty big cost to purchase the 18 with 880m SLI only to have to purchase the 980m units on top.

 

Can I ask which direction you went?

I am looking very close at the Sager and the Titan.

Why do you not want the Sager or the soldered?

I do see that the Alienware is still available and new but discontinued. If Alienware was going to offer the 18 with SLI 980M I would have bought it instantly.

What are your thoughts on all this?

 

Some people don't like the design of sager machines and soldered chips mean no upgrades.

 

For anyone looking to buy from HiDevolution I would strongly recommend you search for the thread, "HiDevolution never again." Read this thread and save your money, I have experienced everything in it, and agree with the title of the thread.

 

I've found Hidevolution to be really good in my experience with them. Excellent in fact. The only negative thing I can say is they forgot/miscounted 1 or the 8 screws I needed for my 980m SLI install. Other than that Ted has been very good.

 

I must amend my last post, unless you are dealing directly with Ted you are in for a wild ride. My bad experience is not from buying something, that went lightenly smoothly, it was the circus of getting faulty equipment replaced.

 

So what is the cost of buying the new Alienware 18 and putting new 980m sli in yourself?

 

WAY Too much. Why? Because it doesn't work right. Don't do it... HUGE mistake. The Alienware 18 is a beauty, but it has issues and Maxwell compatibility is the biggest one it has.

If you want 980M SLI, Clevo is the only decent option. The MSI Titan jokebook has a BGA turd CPU.

 

Ok. I just saw that Hidevolution had a few brand new ones left with 880M SLI. That would probably be a very nice laptop and they are discontinued. Thought I might lock one up.

But if you are saying that they are absolutely horrible with 980M I guess I'll pass.

I just thought I heard people in here getting SLI to work with 980M and Alienware 18. I thought you could mod it or something.

 

SLI works but there is random throttling when you OC.. That won't be a problem in the AW18 due to the 330W power limit... Fans are controlled by Hwinfo64 to work is the major problem with AW18...

 

To be clear, is this possible with an AW18 "R1" (my GPUs are dual 765Ms)? I honestly, don't understand much of the stuff talked about here. I chose to buy this "stripper" system because I knew the 980s would be out soon and I had a bad feeling that AW will axe off the 18 because of the next/current lineup being 13/15/17. Is the issue only relevant to OC'ers or is it evident for everyone? Are the fans the only issue? In that other thread where there's a step by step install of dual 980s, the only issue is with the fans right? How badly does the system heat up if "underfanned"?

If it doesn't work, that sucks and I should've bought a dual 880M system.

 

The M18xR1 cannot use Maxwell GPUs. The machine will fail to POST with 8 beeps because of a BIOS compatibility problem. UEFI is required and the BIOS is Legacy only.

The M18xR2 and Alienware 18 (there is no AW18 R1 because Alienware has basically retired the platform and it appears there will be no 18 R2) are able to use Maxwell GPUs with major complications. The complications are fewer with the M18xR2 than the Alienware 18. With the Alienware 18 you cannot flash the vBIOS and you have no flexibility in configuration at all because it does not have an unlocked system BIOS. Both machines have problems with throttling, and the more performance you attempt to extract from the machine through overclocking the worse the throttling problem is. Both machines require pure UEFI mode with Windows 8 to use 980M SLI. There is a problem with the BIOS were Legacy/VGA mode is not bootable with Maxwell GPUs for some strange reason, so pure UEFI allows the GPUs to boot using GOP.

In the M18xR2 you can run Legacy mode Windows 7 with one GPU and the BIOS set on SG mode (unlocked BIOS) which activates Optimus. This works because using Optimus allows the system to boot using Intel HD Graphics instead of trying to boot from the discrete GPU. Doing this is kind of a waste of the M18xR2 since it is designed to be a dual GPU system. May as well have an M17xR4 or an Alienware 17 if you are going to go the single GPU/Optimus route. You cannot use the Alienware 18 this way because an unlocked BIOS option is not available and there is no access to the menu necessary to change it to SG mode. Plus, the M18xR2 equipped with 780M SLI still outperforms a single 980M.

 

Is there any work being done to unlock the Viking's System Bios ? is it even possible (UEFI / legacy) ? Slv7 is pretty good at this isn't he?

As for overclocking, either with the Viking and the M18x R2, what happens if you don't OC? does that reduce throttling?

 

http://forum.techinferno.com/genera...digitally-signed-circumvent-secure-flash.html

 

Thanks for the link, but what is the consequence for M18x R2 and 18? are they both competely locked?

As for overclocking, either with the Viking and the M18x R2, what happens if you don't OC? does that reduce throttling?

 

M18xR2 is unlocked as far as I know. M18xR3 Viking is locked and will be locked unless someone will break secure flash.

 

I can imagine Slv7 is following all the has to do with breaking Secure Boot but we seem to be doing just fine with also the W7/W8 hacked signatures / activation just fine... Weird that we are still blocked for GPU compatibility...

http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/25425/hacking/bypass-secure-boot-uefi.html

 

I wonder - any chance that M390X might work better when it's released?

 

Possibly, hard to say. No need to throw the systems away just yet

 

So I just saw that the alienware 18 now officially supports dual 980m's, it's even on their website, and they have a bios update, A12, that- Disable PCIe Active State Power Management of Nvidia GTX980 MXM Card.