Aw m18x R2 Dual 980m SLI upgrade!!

I will get my 980ms too before christmas. So i could help you a little bit out. Also have 18xR2 and will get my aw18 before christmas.

On your Picture on right top corner: svl7 Mod ? Thought there is no modded Bios for aw18? Can u access all other menus on that page? (like video configuration)

 

When dell ever decides to release the 980m s with there machines and they are mxm will we be able to call dell and buy a 980m by itself to install in our older systems or will we be forced to buy the cards from a third party vender. Reason I ask is I want to upgrade but was waiting for dell to release the 980M's so hopefully it would be plug n play but if dell won't sell individual cards I might as well by one from a third party vender like hid evolution now right.

 

If you have a warranty with Dell and they release the 980M cards, can you have them replaced your GPUs?

 

I have a alienware 17 with 770m and 60hz screen and is under warranty until June of 2017. I've just been reading so many problems with people trying to upgrade it's stopping me from doing it. I thought dell would only support the gpus that were available with your system when you bought it. Like the 980m will more than likely be sold with the 17 r2. And dell would say the 980m wasn't offered with your model sorry can't help you. That's the way I understood how they operate . Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

They resist selling upgrade parts in all cases, but in this case they cannot sell what they never sold. They have no laptops with 980M MXM modules and do not stock them. Based on what we can tell, all of the new machines will have BGA GPUs and at this point I doubt they will continue selling the 18. If they do (hopefully) they might have a GPU refresh with 970M/980M SLI, but we have seen nothing to suggest that they will.

That screen photo is an M18xR2 unlocked BIOS. Otherwise, how would I give you a photo showing an unlocked menu of what the AW18 does not have?

 

Ah sorry. my fault

 

Johnkss clear up your mailbox ya slacker

 

Kinda defeats the point of upgradability if you can't upgrade...

 

The r2 is highly upgradable and has been upgraded by many for several new GPU versions over the last few years... You can't expect to upgrade somethibg for life. I hope the r2 and ss epically the newer 18 continues to be upgraded. It will end at some point unfortunately.

 

Do i need extra Thermal Pads for a 880m to 980m change? if yes whats Pads would you recommend?

Phobya XT Wärmeleitpad 120x20x1mm 7W/mK, weiß: Amazon.de: Elektronik

 

the pad layout is almost the same just 1 extra vrm and a slight shift off to 1 side
I used stock 880m sli thermal pads and heatsink just added an extra vrm pad and away i went master card is 33degrees c idle slave 31 idle in AL18

no throttling so far 2 days running.

See my thread there is a side by side front and rear comparison 780m-980m
http://forum.techinferno.com/clevo/8480-christmas-came-early.html

 

Actually there are not as many vrms, just an extra inductor. I suspect the fully unlocked core will have all vrm pads filled.

 

try the cards in your aw18 and see if they work...

 

louis1978uk already put 980ms into a AW18 and it works.

So what Pad should i get? 1mm or 0,5mm... Favourites?

 

For the best results don't mix and match types of thermal pad, replace them all in which case buying a nice square of 0.5mm and 1mm pads usually gets you by as you can stack to get 1.5mm and 2mm if needed.

 

I got thermal pads that the specs say 2-5W/mk which is made for water cooling systems. It was the only type my local hardware shop had in stock.
Ive seen several types that are 7-11W/mk.

Is this a no go?

 

Thermal pads are pretty thick, so I think the heat transfer rates are more significant than that of thermal paste even, as it will have a larger effect the thicker the layer. If I was you I'd just buy some good quality ones from the interweb. Why handicap your expensive setup for the sake of using cheap thermal pads. When are you getting your cards Cloudfire? 980M sli?

 

Yeah take ICDiamond for example.2-2.5W/mk so I think the 2-5W/mk is good enough.
I have to order online if I want something better. I`m thinking the generic pads Dell use are probably worse than what I bought anyway so I might just use them.

The cards are under way Robbo. Not sure when they get here

 

Ah, my point was that the thicker the layer, then the greater the importance of having a high heat transfer rating, so I was advising that you should probably get the pads with a higher heat transfer rating. (Although, if you know the stuff Dell uses has the same 2-2.5W/mk then they should be fit for purpose).

 

Hmmm, ok. Then Im lost wether I should buy new ones. Bah, more waiting :/

 

Alright finally got Xmas holiday Today mornin i made Dual PSU mod.





First thing i ran Firestrike at CPU 4.9Ghz and stock 980ms, Well that high cpu clocks it didnt freeze up screen but GPUs did throttle.

 

Any other news?

 

Not really i need Win 7
I can recall from your past posts, you did manage to run both cards without throttle, isnt it?
Anyway i used connector for mod. if ever i want to use single psu then i can connect it easily.

 

You need windows 8 for firestrike.
And yes I was able to run with no throttling at mid ranged clocks.

 

Ah i think i'll install it tomorrow, got play some games today

 

Then just exactly how did you do that?

 

Peter you ran your 3940XM at 4.9GHz? How did your computer not melt?

 

VID= 70 maximum power 130W . 4.9, 4.7, 4.6, 4.6 Max temp. 93C

if it melted, i would get Clevo. Had enough trouble with Alienware

 

Im sorry Peter, there seems to be a misunderstanding.

Was talking about the part where you said you needed to install it. Unless you have windows 10 installed and thought i meant re installing windows 8? Which firestrike will still run.

Side note:
Was looking for a link to your test runs. Do they still show up as vga on 3dmark?

 

lol sorry i misunderstood
At moment i'm using Win 8.1 as many software is not compatible with Win 10. Yes i got that firestrike will not throttle cards on Win 8. So there is not point to havin dual psu mod. I just install Mr.Fox's recent 344.75 desktop driver mod, still same throttle. Actually i didn't let firestrke complete as gpus were throttling.

 

So, 93 pages later, are these finally working as they should?

 

Is this throttle happening regardless of how long ago you installed the drivers? For example i was having an issue where my GPU would only throttle after a overnight shutdown, meaning i had to reinstall the drivers once daily to avoid that while running UEFI legacy rom disabled. The card would run great all day, until the overnight shutdown. Today i just did a clean windows install with the BIOS configured correctly hoping that the issues will go away, we will see in the morning.

 

why would 980m throttle? cause of vbios?

 

Not sure, it could be a combination of both, vBios and Drivers. Dell appears to be working on a new AW 17 with the 980m so we can always get our hand on a Dell vBios and drivers once it is released to verify.

 

well thats good to know thought they gave up on newer GPUs.

there maybe hope to even OC 980m higher once vbios and proper driver are released, or by that time we may see some powerful AMD GPU never know.

 

I think I have the throttle thing figured out, and it is not far off from what Peter observed before...

I'm blaming on this retarded technology...



But, these GPUs are beasts.

 

Oh, forgot to mention... as expected, no dice on the M18xR1. It won't boot with 980M installed no matter what BIOS settings I tried.

louis1978uk has already show 980M working well in the Alienware 18, so I may not hurry up to test the Alienware 18 like I had planned to... no need at this point.

 

That battery boost perhaps would be to blame. I've been thinking about how it could be disabled. It would be drivers and vbios to make such a feature work. But if the vbios was to say the feature was unavailable from the outset then the drivers wouldn't bother with it... ? theory

 

Yeahh finally you got dual 980ms in R2 Yeah i thought it's related to power cosz i've tried all possible tricks except dual psu mod. But now we know that it is related to windows or batterboost. John did explain weird behaviour of 980ms. It may be also related to UEFI bios, as win 8 mostly take control over bios settings. Yes these GPUs are beasts. :thumbsup:
Edit**

I dont think it is related to batterboost as SLI is not supported.

 

Semi off topic semi related seeing identical behaviour with sli 880m and 4710 cpu if you add the additional 200mhz to cores leave all power settings identical the 980m's and 880m's go drop performance,utilization drops core clock remains but you loose performance its got to be power-utilisation related.

 

Well 980ms throttle is directly related to CPU clocks, if you keep your CPU at stock or slightly overclock (you will need to figure out stable clock) then 980m wont throttle. In my case, i must keep my 3940XM at 4.1X4 to avoid 980ms throttle. I'm not sure but on M17x R4 you'll able to use Win 7.

 

Is batteryboost in SLI not supported ?

 

Nope

 

This is indeed strange..

 

Thanks Mr. Fox. I was hoping some brave soul would test the R1/980M combo out so that I didn't have to. Guess I'll ride these 680Ms until the doors fall off!

 

If we can get these cards to work in Legacy mode I think R1 users are in with a chance.

 

True. And by the time the 980M is at a price I'm willing to pay all that stuff will have been figured out. Plus, sadly, I'm starting to look more and more into a Clevo/Sager with a desktop CPU. I say 'sadly' because Dell has always done right by me. No horror stories here.

 

Let me get this right your GPU throttles because of your CPU being clocked above x41... This makes no sense to me, unless your CPU is drawing more power than your brick can handle, but then again we are using unsupported hardware.

So your GPU wont throttle if you keep your CPU at x41 or lower? no matter the length of time, only when you OC it? Hmmm since non SLi allows for battery boost ill try disabling that crap (i figured it only worked when not plugged in), because you guys are running SLi and by default it is disabled and your only throttling occurs during CPU OC...

 

It does not make sense, but it seems to be absolutely true. It has nothing to do with the AC adapter. I believe it has something to do with the power saving FILTH designed for jokebooks with low-TDP weinerschnitzel BGA CPUs. Think about it... I'm pulling 100W versus 25W to 35W. If I run my CPU at 3.9GHz my stock vBIOS boosts to 1250~ and rarely drops below 1150~ in 3DMark 11. At 4.0GHz is drops randomly to under 500Mhz, albeit only for about a half second, then darts back to 1150-1250 in a cyclical way. At 4.5GHz is wants to spend too much time below 500MHz. It's trying to save power. If I use ThrottleStop for CPU overclocking the GPU Throttling is worse. It does it with one 980M or two in SLI exactly the same, so definitely not the AC adapter. There may be something in the vBIOS or driver that needs to be castrated.

But, these are still beast GPUs. I can run 3.9GHz all day and just toggle to 4.5 or 4.7GHz with my ThrottleStop profiles for the Physics and Combine tests. 3.9GHz is more than adequate for playing games.

And, 980M does draw substantially less power than 780M... at least the way I ran 780M, it was a massive power hog. A 3DMark11 run like that that I post with similar clocks on 780M SLI would be drawing about 600W and dual AC adapters it showed up 435W for 980M SLI on my UPS LCD panel, and that was even with the 18 plugged into the UPS (at an idle).