Aw m18x R2 Dual 980m SLI upgrade!!

I don't know, bud. Probably so... looks promising and I am very optimistic. In 20/20 hindsight, I would hold off for a bit and watch what happens with [Nikos] and @kenny27 before dropping $1500 on a GPU upgrade that does not (yet) have a good track record to brag about. It certainly looks like everything is fixed, but it won't hurt to hold off a bit just to see what happens in the next 2 to 4 weeks to be safe. At least see if the problem stays fixed after the next driver release. There's no telling what kind of dirty driver shenanigans NVIDIA might pull, and we know at least one of their spies lurks around the threads here.

 

If you don't overclock a single psu is totally adequate, if you do 135/300 is probably the around where I would stop so that I'm not right on the edge of what the psu is cable off, it is a little bit hard to tell at this stage though as only nikos has a 100% throttle free m18x r2 so I haven't been able to do any consistent throttle free testing. Stock 980m sli draws about 300-310w depending on cpu usage so that should give you an idea of the head room if the 330w ac adapter trips above 360w

Yes the new NVFlash works a treat in the R2, so it should in theory be equally successful in the M18....

I'm sure something more noob friendly can be collated, the bright side is it is getting easier with changes like this new NVFlash

 

I think the main problem are my cards, the fix works and tomorrow I am going to be 100% sure if my Dual PSU was working right or it wasn't. Maybe the ones I have doesn't like very much to go high. I don't have any other friend or buddy who can change his 980M with mines to test with other cards. Sorry for not posting more info I'm dealing with the power issue right now. I ordered the best thermal pads also to be sure temperature is not also a problem. I will tell you as soon as the issues are gone.

Also is it possible someone make a pack with the best drivers so far? I mean best for 980M and Alienware. I am testing 347.9 right now no throttling at stock speeds I will test later the overclocking with those ones.
I feel we are so close, thanks to the outstanding work Prema did.

 

I guess you are putting a fair amount of extra voltage though to hold those higher clocks so it could be your cards... but the dual PSU tripping at 510w doesn't sound right either, can you check the power draw of each PSU?
I know I had problems when I made a dual PSU setup for my M17x R2; that one psu would only supply 80w and the other one would do the rest, so if one psu is maxing out and tripping the other one will also instantly trip as well...

The only drivers I had any form of success overclocking with with are: 350.12 (J95 modded), 347.90 and Mr. Fox's 344.75 modded drivers
The other 347.XX drivers worked well apart from not being able to overclock with but that aint gonna fly around here

 

I swapped both cards one for the other. And I think temperature is very important in every small place of them. I think I make them a little bit more stable than before.
I have to ask some questions to all of you maybe someone can help me.
Do I have to put thermal pads on the backside of the card?
My X-bracket doesn't have a black plate for that so I thought maybe the memories that are in the other side doesn't need to be refrigerated, but I'm starting to think that maybe I could go higher if I do that.

Is there any pic or a guide to perfectly put the thermal pads? This is making me crazy. Also my cards are not very high ASIC quality :S less than 68% both of them.
I am using Liquid Ultra but maybe I need to get a new heatsink there is no way to erase the liquid ultra from there, does anyone know how to do that? Thanks!

PS: I am more or less like a terminator I can teardown the laptop even in the darkness. 6th time I do that this week haha

 

If the vram is getting hot then yes the other x-bracket or thermal pads will help, but I think most the heat is transferred to the other side of the card and though the heatsink anyway... The m17x R3 I have taken apart had a large, thin, soft thermal pad between the graphics card and the motherboard which I think is worth a shot if you have extra thermal pads.

Thermal pads are a low grade heat transfer method and are not critical provided there is contact from both the heatsink and the chip you are cooling without excessively crushing the thermal pad or affecting the contact made by the gpu on the heatsink (which is very critical to cooling)
The reason I say they are low grade is because thermal pads typically have a thermal conductivity of 5-11W/mK while materials of the heatsink; copper has a conductivity of about 401W/mK and Aluminum 237W/mk, I think Liquid Ultra has thermal conductivity of around 40W/mK but it is very thin.

So someone correct me if i am wrong but so long as you have full coverage of the chip and a reasonable contact with chip and heatsink your doing it right, I usually use the thermal pads already on the card as a guide for the application of new thermal pads and then just check the gpu and heatpad contact by assembling and then disassembling the the card and heatsink.
I think there is no real guide for thermal pads because there are just to many variations of card layouts and heatsinks to write a guide on something that usually is not critical.

Liquid Ultra is a metal alloy so it shouldn't go "off", if you are re-applying Liquid ultra I wouldn't worry about it, I have actually taken my cards apart with liquid ultra on them and reassembled without cleaning and reapplying and still have excellent temperatures... probably not technically correct but it has worked for me.
If you want to get the Liquid Ultra off you could use the buffing pad they supply or a very fine wet-and-dry sandpaper to buff/lap the heatsink, I have used 800 grit or higher with good results.

PS: Haha yes I am the same I have easily taken my laptop apart 25 time since installing the 980m

 

GDDR5 does not get that hot so unless you are volt modding it like I was I would not worry.

 

Brother @kenny27 I edited the post above and added your name along side [Nikos]. Sorry, I keep forgetting you have 980M SLI in your M18xR2 also... I did not mean to exclude the value your experience brings to those considering an upgrade.

That is correct. The vRAM doesn't get very hot. The underside of the GPUs might even be better off without a thermal pad applied of there is a bare "x" bracket (support bracket) with no tin heat plate to wick the heat from the pad. Applying a thermal pad with no type of heat sink for the heat to transfer to may even act more like a blanket and block air flow, perhaps even raising GPU or vRAM temps.

There are other parts, like the big square inductors, that get insanely hot (hotter than the core, I believe) under even a light load. If you touch the GPU heat sinks around the inductors they can be too hot to comfortably touch, whereas the area of the heat sink around the GPU core isn't anywhere nearly as hot to the touch.

 

Hi everyone, i just installed 2 980m into my 18x r2, but it wont let me install the driver. What should i change on the nvdmi file? Thank you

 

There is a link in my signature that takes you to an index of useful posts.

This one is in that index: [Quick Tips] GPU Driver INF Modding for 'Aftermarket Upgrades'

 

Thanks for the helpful link! But somehow it went black screen..... do i have to change both hardware id in the nvdmi?

 

Both? You need to add the hardware ID (because it's not present) and add the GPU under [Strings]. You can modify an existing line of code if you find that easier than adding new lines. If you modify existing lines, the hardware ID has to be present in two places in each line of code. If you are doing it correctly, the screen going black is not a good sign. My mod was done correctly and works for others with 980M, but my mod also makes your screen go black, so I am wondering if something is wrong with your GPUs.

Rather than trying to sort it out, why not just use @j95 350.12 driver mod for the time being. You can always learn how to do your own driver mod once the GPUs are working correctly. If the screen also goes black with his known good Alienware 980M driver mod, you probably need to contact the place where you bought them to have them exchanged.

What vBIOS are you using? If it is not a Clevo vBIOS, that may be causing them to malfunction. It's going to throttle with a stock vBIOS, but that won't make the screen go black when the driver loads. If they are second-hand video cards, you probably should consider flashing @Prema vBIOS, because there is no telling what kind of modded vBIOS mess might have been flashed to them.

 

I see two 980m id under the official driver, i changed both ids to 0550 and disabled driver signature verification, but it goes black screen when its installing. I then try to go to safe mode, my computer is able to recognize the 2 980m but it keeps going to black screen when i normal boot it. Another thing is i dont have a sli cable yet, is it because of that? Thanks Mr Fox

 

No, the SLI cable not being present won't cause a problem. It will simply prevent you from enabling SLI.

You cannot have two lines of code referring to the same hardware ID under each section. That creates a conflict and messes up registry entries. There should only be one line with matching hardware ID under each section. That could be what it causing your black screen problem. Remove your drivers with DDU and use @j95 350.12 mod for now.

For future reference, you are better off not using the NVDMI.INF file for the mod with Maxwell GPUs. The NV_DISPI.INF file usually works out better. Dell/Alienware does not support MXM Maxwell GPUs, so the NVDMI.INF file is going to be missing code that Maxwell needs.

 

Mr Fox, would you mind to pm me the download link? It seems like the only play to download is under tech inferno but im not yet able to download it since im fresh joined. Thank You!

 

I would not feel good about doing that. Our friends at Tech|Inferno have those protocols in place for good reasons. Reach out to @j95 directly by PM since it is his mod and he should be able to help you get your GPU driver sorted.

If you want to have immediate access, you can pay the nominal fee and download anything you want to without having the minimum post count.

I'm still not sure why my driver mod is not working for you. That still causes me to be concerned that either the wrong vBIOS is on the GPUs or something else is wrong with them. I think @TBoneSan had some black screen issues with it at one point, but it works fine for me and a few others with 980M.

 

Under the official driver, there are 2 980m ids, one is 0685 the other one is 0688. I changed both to 0550, i guess that caused the conflict.

 

Yeah, that is very possible. I just sent you a basic mod 350.12 that should install fine. It has the correct hardware ID information, but nothing extra.

I still recommend using @j95 350.12 mod because it has optimizations beyond the basic mod I sent you.

 

How come your M18xR2 throttles, don't you have the latest Prema vBIOS that Nikos is using, I thought that fixed the throttling? (Or does your system throttle for other reasons?)

 

I do not know how many testers are around the world with latest Prema vbios but since the 3DMarks results still shows mine as the highest I guess I am still the only one around here with that vbios. I am not trying to say that I am special in anyway just my thoughts.

Link to 3DMark results.


You can see there tons of benchmark but just the valid ones you can not imagine how many times I run the FireStrike, I am able to draw every scene that appear there haha

 

Ah right, so Prema is not officially distributing the new vBIOS then? (Or perhaps hardly anyone has downloaded it, tested it, reported their findings!)

 

Is not released yet AFAIK
He is doing his best when he have time for doing so, and also I am doing my best to give him as much feedback as I can ^^!

 

All good Brother Fox I didn't feel excluded, [Nikos] is really the bloke to see at this stage to be seeing as he has the dual psu and magic vbios.
I have just ordered parts for the dual psu mod now that I know it will be worth while!

@Robbo99999 yes thats right at this stage @[Nikos] is special
I am using Premas 1.1 vbios at the moment and it works well at stock clocks just not overclocked, hopefully soon though they will be ready to share and then every one can have some overclocked fun

 

Only a guess on my part, but @Prema might appreciate having at least one additional vBIOS tester. If you have not reached out to volunteer, that might be worth it. The worst he can say is no.

 

I want to give my testimony here. So yesterday i installed 2 980m into my m18x r2(the sli cable from clevo does not match with the one on alienware, so no sli testing yet) The GPU installation was rather simple, but it took me around 2-3 hrs to slowly figure out the entire dis-ambling process. The difficult part was the driver, i didnt know how to edit the inf file and the machine kept going black screen whenever i try to install it. Then i asked for help here and Mr Fox kindly gave me his helping hand, and everything worked beautifully after that.
I was curios about the magic of brother J95's mod, so i went download his mod from Tech Inferno, so far i havent notice anything difference(mostly because i rarely do benchmark) But gaming wise,the mod from Mr Fox and J95 both ran really well.
Here are some test result (i have to use vsync on these games since i only got a 60hertz monitor)
BF4: never drop below 59
BFH:never drop below 59
Dragon age: will everything to the max i got around 40ish fps which is very playable
Assetto Corsa:never drop below 59
Im looking forward to test 980m sli on project cars and the witcher 3.
(sorry for my bad english)

 

Why would you need vsync on when your not running SLI? Nevermind, Scratch that.
And those numbers will jump once you get SLI enabled.

 

Screen tearing is not really that noticeable if i disable vsync, but that would put more load on the gpu. I dont know how sli will affect the fps in games, but i know crossfire do cause some fluctuation on fps.

 

SLI is awesome, and doesn't have as many issues as CrossFire, but you'll still be locked to 60 FPS unless you disable vsync. Having a 60Hz display doesn't mean you need to use vsync. It's a matter of personal preference. I almost never use it and prefer having vsync disabled. Screen tearing is seldom an issue. Try it both ways and go with what you like best. After you get the SLI bridge cable and have SLI enabled, try it both ways again because your preference might change.

 

When our system feels stable is just insane:
15896
vs Desktop SLI GTX 970 - i7 4790K
Just insane!

 

Damn that GPU score is right about what my desktop is pulling (see sig, 780 Ti SLI overclocked). Is that with two PSU's? I would be in heaven with one 980M pulling down 12-13k GPU! That would run every game in existence at 60FPS - 1080p no problem whatsoever, hell it would run about 80% of games in existence at 2560x1440 and 60FPS!

 

I am quite sure It is possible to go much higher with a better cards and maybe better or more stable laptop (maybe mine is hitting its top)
But anyway is just outstanding as it is.

 

Someone needs to test this 'workaround' M18xR2 PEG Win7 Legacy BIOS Mode. A possible solution for M18xR1, M17xR3 & M17xR2 which lack UEFI support.


@TBoneSan tried this and it didn't work, but back then these settings were not used "Always Enable PEG" Enabled & " Monitor/ input selection e.g. when using HDMI 1 set input to HDMI 2 >No scanning whatsoever<"

 

I tried "Always Enable PEG" enabled on my M18xR2 a long time ago and the machine would no longer boot. I had to blind flash to bring it back to life. Even pulling the MXM cards would not bring it back from the BEEP ZONE. It might somehow be different on the M17xR3/R4 or with a Maxwell GPU installed in the M18xR2, but anyone that wants to try it should have their USB stick with an M18R2.HDR file on it and be ready to blind flash just in case things go south.

I just checked in my M18xR2 BIOS and I do not see any menu option for "Set source" as you mention. It did not sound familiar at all, so that is why I just went looking for it again. Where is that? Can you post a photo of it? I also do not remember such a setting in my M18xR1 BIOS.

 

Monitor select a different source, Nikos already tried "Always enable PEG".

 

OK, maybe I misunderstood. This is not actually a BIOS setting, just connecting a different monitor source physically to bypass LVDS? Is that what you mean. If that is not what you are saying, I do not see a BIOS option to choose the display output source/port.

When I tried enabling that I did not have a monitor connected, so maybe that is why it soft-bricked my M18xR2. I don't ever use an external monitor for anything except for dual monitors for my work laptop because I need the extra real estate for multi-tasking and seeing two screens worth of Excel columns, etc.

 

I let these tests to show what could be used by everyone without a DUAL PSU needed at least the SLI (normal voltage) the CPU is heavily overclocked and its draining a lot of power so if you run it at less frequency you could easily have this kind of results, I think it is a quite good example of what you can expect of this GPUs in conjunction with the M18X-R2 at least is what I found during this test. Hope this will be helpful to you.

FireStrike:
14890
3DMark 11:
P18227

 

That 3DMark 11 graphics score is great. What was the actual core clock? It looks like your 980M cards overclock better than you originally thought. Definitely appears they are better than mine.

Did you have to tweak something on your dual PSU mod? Is that what helped?

 

Yep, monitor setting, anything else but not the plugged HDMI port. Optionally unplug the HDMI cable after desktop boot.

 

I still don't understand. How can I choose a display output port/source other than the one in use? I do not find any monitor selection setting in my M18xR2 BIOS. Where is this located? I just looked on every menu, LOL... nothing I can identify to select the display output. Is it called something different? Maybe I am not recognizing it.

Edit: Does it only appear if and when an external display/monitor is connected, and disappear when it is not? I do not use an external monitor. Is that why I cannot find the menu option?

 

It's not a BIOS setting, just set the monitor to anything else e.g. DP or HBO Games of Thrones... not the actual plugged HDMI port...
Optionally unplug the HDMI cable after desktop boot.

 

Oh, you are talking about a setting on the monitor itself? Meaning, from your monitor OSD configuration and input selection, choose an input option other than what is actually connected?

 

Yep, exactly.

 

The Dual PSU is getting better and better It is not yet finished but It is definitely much more stable, I will keep testing Dual PSU for the next two weeks improving it as much as I can and after that my father and I are thinking about selling the Dual PSU to people who might be interested. I will post the info anyway but I know there is plenty of people like me before asking my father who doesn't want to get in such a trouble so maybe we can help them.

 

Sorry I am so dense, LOL. +5 rep points for your patience

Thanks for clarifying that.

It would be nice if that works, but not good to be forced to use the M17xR3 or M18xR1 at a desk with a monitor attached, or not able to use it at all.

 

Edited Instructions. After desktop boot you'll be able to use the external monitor without issues or simply unplug the HDMI cable. @Mr. Fox do you know anyone who'd try this workaround?... ... ...

 

Hello buddy!! Glad to see you here too (Miguel from techinferno overhere ) your driver mod works soooo perfect!
Project CARS tested 60 FPS @ everything maxed out.
Please give your link to your donation page I don't have it posted back in my other post with all the info needed.

Enough testing for today I need to rest, my injured hip is killing (but not softly) me right now. Tomorrow I will try to beat my previous score.

Goodnight you all

 

No problem man, if you're using GF Experience remember to uncheck Battery Boost option.

Prema's Mod, GPU score 12978 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3940XM,Alienware M17xR4

 

I don't at the moment. If nobody else can or will, maybe at some point I might tear open my Clevo and R1 to see if it works, but I'm not in a position to do that at the moment (no time or place) having many of my belongings packed in boxes from moving. I can't even find some of the stuff I am looking for right now, LOL.

I'd really like to know if it works. Having to always using a monitor to boot would suck, but if it works that discovery might lead to a real fix rather than a poor workaround. It would be wonderful for folks to be able to use 980M in the M17xR3 and M18xR1.

Very nice score.

On a dual GPU system, the GFE Battery Boost option is totally grayed out. It does not work with SLI (thank God).

 

That's right, thinking about single gpu...that score doesn't belong here either...

 

Breathtaking! I wish I could push even one card close enough to that. Which vbios are you using? And which drivers? 350.12 right?
We owe you a big one buddy to you to Prema and to slv7 are making this machine again the king of the hill.