Aw m18x R2 Dual 980m SLI upgrade!!

although the executive customer support out of cali is really good.. i had an asus g71 and they would fix it no problem.. you just have to call the executive support number in the states and not the 800 number to get good service..

 

While this may be true, it's not something most users would know, which is indeed a bit of a problem. Also if you don't live in Cali it's probably not going to work out so well.

 

It's not as nice and clean the fan and heatsink and replace the thermal grease on an Asus laptop. Not as nice as on an Alienware.

 

eurocom now did stop selling 980 for m18xxx, only m17xxxx, but I can confirm that card dd not works in aw17....

 

What's the point of selling these graphics cards to m17xxxx?

 

For people who don't know better and want to upgrade to latest nvidia card. There probably making out pretty good selling the cards because a lot of people want them. Even me but I'm not biting. And once the cards sold no returns . Oh were sorry it worked on our 17 no problem.
I yet to here from someone who actually got it working on there 17 correctly except from the ones that are trying to sell them.

By correctly I mean being able to use it without optimus or switching to dedicated graphics card mode. And even in optimus I'm not 100% sure it functions properly. I'm sure others here who have tried it will contest to that.

 

I was inside the the thought on to upgrade from gtx780m up to gtx880m but I wanted to see what others experienced with the new graphics card. Thank goodness that I waited. I had risked a crap card. It is always wise and wait an see how the products work before you going to buy a New hardware. This golden rule is very handsome to have ..

 

+1 to that brother.

I have a 770m and wanted to upgrade to 880m also. Thank god I didnt. Im playing the waiting game . Once I see the 980m works properly and plenty of people have actually did it and tested it in a system like mine and it's proven then I'll purchase a new card. The sad thing is by the time we get a fully functional 980m for the newer 17 and 18 alienware laptops nvidia will be releasing the 1080m. Lol.

 

Gtx1080m coming sooner than you think, with full DirectX12 support for new Windows 10. It is possible both Microsoft, Nvidia and Dell (Alienware) runs an event the same time with full brass band.

 

As far as I am aware the 980M/970M are DX12.

 

That's right, they are. They however can't support 3D vision... so I dunno how they'd work with occulus rift either. Meaker, can you tell me if 3D vision is a part of your nVidia Control Panel? Even my 280M had it and could support it; weird that the new ones can't.

(you're the only one who has no Optimus + 980Ms that I know of).

 

Looks like godfafa_kr has it working in the M18xR2 now. Waiting to hear more soon.

Yay! Looking forward to finding out about SLI and what needed to be done differently than what you had already done.

 

Well John got it working with 1 GPU too, but he said that SLI was the real problem.

Also, according to n=1, the 900 series has problems with voltage adjusting in SLI beyond stock, so... I dunno how well the 980Ms would work in SLI... let's hope they don't exhibit downclocking problems like the 880Ms do over time.

I'm still pissed that I'll lose 3D if I put them in my P370SM3 >_>

 

Just to clarify before I get crucified (XD)

I definitely experienced problems with differing voltages on my desktop 970s due to relatively large differences in ASIC (74 vs 66%) leading to different VDDCs at stock. nVidia has said this is normal behvaior (100% BS) so don't expect a fix from them. It's most definitely a driver issue as 700 series cards that didn't exhibit this problem previously suddenly started having issues when updating to the new 344 drivers.

All that being said, as long as the ASIC qualities are within a few % of each other, this is a non-issue. My first set of cards had 64% and 66%, and deltaV was only 6 mV.

 

^ see, he cleared it up.

Oh nVidia, I wish you get a bunch of competition soon. Inb4 intel brings out dedicated GPUs with 512-bit mem bus, 8GB GDDR6 RAM, 3000 cores and 1500MHz on 16nm process complete with HBM and is like "heyyy bruh.... $500 for this baby. Take it. Love it."

Edit: By the way, I have 75.3% and 71.4% ASIC quality on my chips; how good is that?

 

If he did succeed with one 980m without optimus (iGPU), I fell kinda sad that he didn't open it out.

 

Here it is. Unless I read it wrong and he was referring to someone else.

 

I think that's John's experience of another GPU in the past. I am sure he would have opened it out if he did.
He is not that kind of person.

 

Anyways, I will reveal the magic in about 14-16 hours.
I am in my clinic doing my job now (AM10 korean time). After I go home, I need to do my homework(help my three kids to THEIR HOMEWORK) and around about 11PM I can start installing my 2nd 980m to my 18r2.

After final test, I open it up. I just want to be one who succeed SLI before HID (tHe bIg Dixxhead).

 

@godfafa thats good news, can you please provide me 84.04.22.00.10 (P04 B-oard) vBios? i can test it now in SLI.

 

You might be right about that; I think he would have probably given more advice if he knew how exactly.

Well, good luck with it! Hopefully you all will get it working soon, for your sakes XD. (Besides, that modded vBIOS needs to happen soon =3)

 

Sent PM to you.

 

Well done, keep it that way...:thumbsup: Hopefully...

 

This is what Notebook Check writes:
Features
it is also the first Nvidia chip to support the current DirectX 11.2 API. ????
Most of the features are identical to the GeForce GTX 800M series. With the GTX 980M, there can be up to 4 active displays possible, but this will likely decrease due to Optimus. Displays can be connected with a maximum resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels via DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 2.0 (no HDCP @ 4K). HD audio formats like Dolby True HD and DTS HD can be sent to a compatible receiver as bitstream . As with previous models, 3D Vision is not supported with Optimus.

The updated video processor VP6 supports the usual formats like H.264 and can also decode and encode H.265 with a resolution of up to 4K via the NVENC API. Several parallel streams, such as picture-in-picture in a Blu-Ray movie, are also possible.

Further features of the GTX 900M series, which are also partly supported by older cards, include Battery Boost (longer battery life during gaming), Shadowplay (recording of gaming videos up to 4K60p and 130 Mbit/s) and Gamestream (game streaming on Shield console). More information on these features are available here.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M - NotebookCheck.net Tech

 

Yes, but I don't have Optimus. They claimed that the 980Ms and 970Ms don't support 3D AT ALL. Period. Even with an external, or with my built-in 120Hz screen and 3D emitter.

 

How about this: It is also the first Nvidia chip to support the current DirectX 11.2 API. ????

 

DirectX 12 actually. Check the specs page haha.

 

It's DX 11.3

 

Incorrect, internal only. External will work fine, Mini-DP to DP or Dual-Link DVI.

Notebookcheck/misinformation.com...:hi2:

 

3D Vision | Supported GPUs | GeForce

Also, my ticket from customer support:


Nope, not compatible as far as nVidia says. Unless this guy is wrong and they also forgot to add them to the supported card list (as 970s and 980s don't have it under their supported technologies).

 

This gives me flashback from when I upgraded my M18 with 880M's. I can just say one thing, Im happy that I sold my M18 and went with Clevo P570WM and 980M's

 

At this point I would be willing to trade my M18xR1 with the custom paint job and my M18xR2 (both of them, two for one trade) for one Clevo P570WM with 4930K and 980M SLI. I love both of these M18x machines, but that beast would be better due to its superior CPU and GPUs. Unless something changes dramatically, I think my appreciation for Alienware laptops has been exhausted. It's looking like going forward that Alienware will offer no laptops that hold any interest for me. I'm not going down the locked down BIOS and BGA pathway leading to the laptop port-o-potty.

 

Clevo and Perma BIOS mods is in your future too from the looks of it ... 10 months and I get my 1st salary and will get the P771...

 

Speaking of locked-down BIOS crap, judging from the owner's manual for the new Area-51 BIOS settings, they are without any legitimate excuse for hiding those same BIOS settings in the Alienware 18. I don't like the games they are playing. What nonsense!

Alienware Area-51 R2 (late 2014) Service Manual

 

Why not keep the m18xr2 and sell the m18xr1 and aw18 instead? Then you'll have two beasts. :thumbsup:

 

Ultimately, I would do everything within my financial power to keep the M18xR2. I'd like to keep all three of them forever, LOL. Having 4 beast laptops (including the P570WM3) would be borderline crazy, even for a weirdo like me.

The M18xR1 and R2 are the two most amazing laptops ever made, by anyone, IMHO. The P570WM3 is amazing because of it's core specs, but in terms of build quality and style, it's not quite as fantastic.

 

I agree, the m18x design is one of the best. The clevo doesn't look as nice or have as much metal, however, after assembling my p570wm, I do have to say the build quality is much better than I thought it would be.

 

That's good to know. Thank you for the feedback on your P570WM. It means a lot more coming from an Alienware owner since we have a perspective that someone that has never owned one simply cannot have.

Still contemplating my next course of action. The 18 is like the black sheep of the family that everyone loves dearly, but has a hard time respecting due to bad behavior and immoral lifestyle choices. I might just upgrade the M18xR2 to 980M SLI, move the 780M SLI to the R1, hang on to both machines and be done with acquiring new high-performance laptops indefinitely. I may be moving to another state after the first of the year and depending on what my cashflow situation looks like, I might thrust myself back into the extreme desktop scene and only use my 18" monster laptops for travel.

 

Omg Intel Xeon E5-2680 v2... how are those 20 threads?

 

yes finally!! able to boot up with Dual 980m. But unable to install drivers? i tried mod. inf but it just dont work can someone please help me.

 

Well i managed to mod. inf but i think i forgot to add something my graphics cards got some Alien name in device manager

 

I think the need to write a poem card with the name of the file nvdmi at the end of the table [STRINGS]

 

That's why I build my desktops..

 

yeah just fixed it

 

Sli 980's working in r2 now??

 

Yes just started workin now, i will update all details tomorrow right now its 2.30AM now and i got lecture tomorrow at 9.15am

 

inb4 HID and Eurocom start selling them again.

Also, inb4 Dell starts selling M18x R3 with 980Ms using M18xR2 shells

 

Congrats Peter! Excited to see it working in a AW...

 

There is still a problem. It only works on a system running Windows 8 and UEFI. You have to disable legacy support in the BIOS, which mean Windows 7 will not work. You cannot install or run Windows 7 with UEFI unless you enable the Legacy Option ROM and doing that makes 980M not work. This also means the M17xR3 and M18xR1 are not going to support 980M because they do not have a UEFI boot option.

BIOS must be set this way for 980M to work...



I am on the fence now, because Windows 7 is a superior OS and I'm not sure 980M SLI is awesome enough to justify putting up with Windows 8 and taking a hit on physics performance and having submissions disqualified on HWBOT leader board because of using Windows 8.

I suppose there is still a possibility that there is something missing in the vBIOS for Alienware that perhaps disabling Legacy BIOS support circumvents or side-steps. It that is the case, a vBIOS mod might fix this issue.

 

I'm certainly biased, but I'd rather wait for Dell to twiddle their thumbs than make the jump to Win 8.

Or you know, could always buy a P570WM and have the best of both worlds.

Thanks for chiming in, and I'm glad you're enjoying your P570WM and find the build quality decent. It means a lot more coming from an AW owner than me for obvious reasons lol. But yeah I do feel Clevo gets an unfair rep for bad build quality sometimes. The build quality certainly doesn't compare to Alienware, but it's not bad, not by a long shot, at least for the newer machines anyway (P370/377SM/ P570WM) It's the difference between good and excellent, instead of terrible and excellent.

Also brother pathfindercod also seems to be happy with his P377SM-A, and I will quote his OP below: