Aw m18x R2 Dual 980m SLI upgrade!!

This is getting rediculous. I just reflashed Prema's vBios and it's now worse then ever. Clocks are constantly fluctuating while gaming.

 

@Prema has not released the official vbios to stop the throttling yet. I don't think we have a ETA for it yet.
if you have an m18x r2 try flashing back to stock vbios then run drivers 353.00 the modded version of @j95. I have been using those for months now and they work really good. the only tweak you gotta do is download nvidia inspector and match p1 and p0 (memory clocks) and apply @ start up. This works for now till prema releases his vbios.

 

@SkylineLvr @Juang1985 I have been comparing vbios's directly the last few days....(stock dell/clevo and modded premas and svl7s one after the other)
I found instead of using nvidia inspector you can use Maxwell Bios tweaker 1.36 (that's the version I used) on the stock vbios (wont work on premas or svl7s modded vbios) to match the the p1 and p0 memory clocks, worked well for me, and then no need for inspector.

You could also try Svl7's vbios from Techinferno that bios removes the boost feature totally. So far I have got my best stock results on this vbios, hopefully it lasts. Just a warning: this vbios is Overclocked by to 1202Mhz AND Undervolted to 1.00v, if you got a below average card you might have to up the voltage a bit to make the card stable or downclock with Inspector at startup. @ [Nikos] I benched this vbios today with it downclocked to 1126/1253 so I didn't get 135mhz/system power throttle.... I believe this is what stock performance should look like:

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6149045
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/10368264

@anarky321 I think N!ighthawks guide is what you are after...?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...80m-sli-upgrade.765169/page-201#post-10001947

 

Not sure why, but I'm not able to install 353.00. It keeps failing when trying to install the driver. Is this the modded version your talking about? http://forum.techinferno.com/nvidia/6307-[alienware]-aftermarket-upgrades-driver-support-modded-inf-28.html#post133900

Edit: NVM, got it working.

 

Anyone mind uploading vBios version 84.04.22.00.12?

 

This is my stock 980m backup vbios, same version as yours

 

Thanks. I seemed to have resolved my throttling issue. Not sure what it was, but reinstalling drivers seemed to fix it. I have noticed an increase in temps while gaming. Using Prema's vBios I was hitting over 80. With the stock vBios I'm hovering around the mid 70s. Before my throttling issues, I was rarely hitting 70. I'll try this vBios to see if temps are the same. I'll probably do a repaste once I get back home.

 

Yeh I have had that a few times while using the 347.90 drivers, they'd work great for a while and then start throttling, reinstalling the drivers "fixed" it. haven't had that for a while though.
Not sure about the temps though... seems a bit odd, I have not noticed any difference between vbios's.

 

i have a problem regarding the installation...the directions on page 1 make it sound like you have to install windows AFTER the card install....why is this? can i have windows 8.1 installed prior to putting in the 980m?

 

That is just the way that most people did it. A lot of people only "upgraded to 8 to get the 980m's to work". It will work fine if you install windows 8/8.1 before you install the card(s) so long as it is a pure uefi installation

 

so the 780m SLI won't have any problem running with Win8 UEFI? and yes im only switching to 8 because i have to but id like to have my windows all set up BEFORE i put the 980m since i have to wait 2 more days for it

edit: what's the deal with windows 10? is that also a green light?

edit2: ok. windows 10 is definitely NOT a green light ...just read the whole bricked LCD thread

 

so if im already running win8.1 UEFI secure boot etc etc, i can just throw the 980m in and im good to go?, do i understand that right?

 

Yes you understand correctly, All the 980m needs is a uefi installation of windows 8/8.1 with legacy support disabled... there is no special magic as to when you install it.

 

Just out of curiosity, has anybody tested the undervolting limits on these 980M cards? I'm thinking about purchasing a card, but I would like to undervolt + overclock to some degree. I've never been a fan of over-voltage mods, as they've always turned out poorly for me, whereas undervolting has been great!

 

followup question: the 980m i bought has the clevo version of prema vbios installed on it...i assume i need to flash the aw18 version onto it? how do i go about this with UEFI? also there is no mention of m18xr2 on the prema site and it says "A12 bios recommended" ...im running A10 on m18xr2

edit: how safe is it to flash prema straight from windows? i just bricked my thinkpad 2 days ago by flashing bios in windows so id prefer dos i think =/

edit2: also, if my 980m has clevo vbios on it right now will it even be flash-able from windows?

 

I have not tested the undervolting limits but I'm running at 1.00v with stock clocks using svl7's vbios compared to 1.05 and 1.065 on the other vbios's

There is no special need for the Aw18 vbios, the stock clevo vbios will work fine... I would recommend either of the stock vbios over prema's OC vbios at this stage, I posted the stock clevo vbios on the previous page. For the m18x r2 the A10 unlocked bios is as good as it gets... the later versions haven't been unlocked.

You can use dos if you want but its a pain with the 980m, well for the sli systems at least it requires dis-assembly, putting one card in the primary slot, booting with SG (optimus) so that you can change to legacy booting, then flash the vbios change to second card, flash, then return all the settings back....

I just use the nvflash that Prema provides with his vbios's in windows, it works well, I have flashed a lot of times in windows and never had an issue yet. Prema has made it really easy by including ModMe.bat files that flash it for you. If you want to use Premas nvflash setup to flash the stock vbios on to your cards just remove the Premas vbios from the file, copy in the stock vbios and rename it to what ever Prema had named the vbios that was originally in that file, then just run the ModMe.bat file, reboot and your done!

 

Kenny27 thanks for the tip but which values shall be altered in Maxwell Teaker?

 

In the common tab adjust your memory clock... if your going to overclock it, then in the clock states tab match the DDR value for P01 to what ever the DDR value for P00 is.
This guy goes over the other options but we cant change voltage not with the stock vbios anyway... I didn't change any power value either. The core clock settings just throttled when I tried changing them

 

With just one 330w PSU I'm not going to try an overclock in this machine although now using original Clevo vBIOS and j95's 353.06 PEG MOD my R2 is running perfectly now without any kind of throttle. This is my actual gpu stock clocks score now

 

Hello guys im having a bid issue with my alienware m18x r2 980M sli im having the worse performace, like 4 or 5 fps on any games, most of the drivers cant be installed even with sigmature driver disable, im using w8.1

3630qm
980m
330w
32gb
500 Ssd\

Please help

also have prema vbios and a11 bios

 

I like the m18x r2 more than the aw18 i dont want to give up trying with it, i see than some people get it work, will be nice if can create a manual or any kind of steps to get it fully working

 

Change back your vBIOS to the stock CLEVO, these custom vBIOS works better for the new Alienware 18 or Clevo notebooks, not for old M18X-R2, after this uses DDU and reinstall the Nvidia drivers, test your graphics performance again. For old R2 I noticed stock vBios works better. Remember to use HWInfo64 to maintain low gpu temperature.

 

@omar1000cc with regards to @Tulius 's instructions you will only need to use HWInfo64 Fan control if your secondary gpu fan isn't working... some people have this issue others do not, I have no idea why. Also are you using J95's modded drivers?

 

Hello, thanks for the answers, im unable to use the modded driver because even with the sigmature driver disable the instalation fail on the process, i will back to the stock vbios and will try again, Note: i was working better on windows 10 with 2 problems fps droping from 72 fps to 14 playing some games like the witcher 3 also than the laptop was not able to come back from hibernation mode dont know why..

My seccond fan its working fine by the way

I had no idea about modded drivers when i was using w10

I remember than fire strike was about 4000 non sli ans like 6000 with sli i see some users here running about 18000, with 660w, but i dont like that kind of electrical modification (sounds dangerouns and i dont think like the ac jack or moffets on motherboard can hold that power for too long) but i think than like 13000 will work for me hehehehe

 

Hey,

Can you post up the link for this? I want to look at your configuration.

Homer

 

Tulius, what is your laptop bios version?

I did your advice and was able to install the driver after get back the stock vbios

Not with j95 driver and stock vbios im having 11,344 on fire strike so i think its done !!!

 

This is a pretty good score. what drivers are you using ? Im going to try the slv7 vbios see what results I get

 

That's a lot better but not throttle free, your right I think you should be able to get at least 13000 depending what cpu you have, try using Nvidia inspector or maxwell bios tweaker to match the P00 and P01 memory clocks.

For those scores I used 353.00, currently on 355.98 which gives similar scores, I'm just hoping that this vbios/driver combo lasts without the need for periodic clean driver installs.

 

I

I dont know how to match that, can you upload me a pic?

 

(Excuse my crummy paint skills)

So for maxwell bios tweaker 1.36 (on the left) open your stock vbios and go to the clock states tab, in the P01 settings change the DRR value to be the same as the DDR value for the P00 settings, it should be about 2505Mhz. (I have highlighted the setting you need to change in the picture) then save as and flash your new vbios.

To do it with nvidia Inspector (on the right) open the overclocking tab, select Performance level [2] (P1), and unlock max, Then change the memory clock to match the default memory (ignore my overclocked memory), Apply settings and create a startup task (by right clicking) Do this for both cards and your done.

 

Thats pretty cool I have been wanting to update my drivers. Did you have to mod the 355.98? the 353.00 drivers that i am using were modded by J95 but i dont think he has modded the newer drivers. I am familiar modding the hardware ID but i know @j95 did some additional stuff to help throttling.

 

This is pretty sweet! Have you tried flashing with core overclocked? i know memory holds its overclocked when is matched on P0 states but the core always throttles down to 1126 sometimes even a little lower I would say 1050-1126

 

Yes my current 355.98 drivers are j95 modded

A slight core overclock was one of the first things I tried but its worse then not overclocking because of the throttle, like you said. Really need the changes in Premas 1.1.1 vbios for overclocking but maxwell bios tweaker cant open his vbios so stuck with Inspector... even if you can get the clocks to hold its not really worth it anyway because you run straight into the 325/330w system power power throttle

 

Tragically, the same thing happens to all my Alienware 780M SLI systems now, too. Having a dual AC adapter doesn't help because it's the driver crippling the GPUs. My 780M SLI throttles exactly the same way 980M SLI does unless I use 345.20 or older drivers, and it does regardless of whether I have 330W or 660W available. If you were able to max out the 980M SLI with a single 330W AC adapter without throttling the system would simply shut off, the breaker in the AC adapter would trip, and the green light would go out until you unplug it, wait a couple of seconds, then plug it back in. Ideally, that is what would happen. It would run full blast until it exhausts the AC adapter, then abruptly shut down. If it ramps up instantly, and too fast for the driver to catch it, it will still happen. If the load up is gradual rather than an instant burst, it will intervene and throttle the GPUs.

I think possibly the only way this silly nonsense is going to be defeated is by altering the hardware ID of the system (not GPUs) so that NVIDIA's driver is incapable of recognizing the system is a Dell/Alienware product. I doubt that @svl7 or @Prema vBIOS mods will be able to stop throttling like this as long as the driver can identify the fact that the GPUs are installed in an Alienware. My theory is the new machines are so pathetic and lacking in power handling abilities that Dell/Alienware had NVIDIA modified drivers to identify the systems as Alienware simply to accommodate the pathetic new machines and keep them from burning up and burning out wimpy 180W AC adapters. The timing of all the 780M SLI throttling problems is roughly the same as the release of Alienware BGA turdbooks, and by their own admission, Alienware wants them all to be crippled except for when they are tethered to an eGPU. I suspect they have hard-coded the drivers to recognize a Dell/Alienware hardware ID and throttle much like what they have done to blacklist utilities like OCCT and Furmark.

If this is true, we know Dell/Alienware and NVIDIA will never come clean with confirmation of what is causing it because it would be extremely condemning. NVIDIA says they cannot reproduce the problem, but I find it hard to believe they can create the problem and truly not know how to fix it. Rather, they will not fix it because they are doing exactly what their OEM partner (Dell) has asked them to do. If this is true, it is time to move on and find something other than an Alienware product to derive fulfillment and gratification from as a performance PC enthusiast... sticking with the brand seems to be a hopeless exercise in futility. In the case of it involving an end-of-life model, it is probably safe to bet they don't really care whether it runs right any more or not. It is no longer their problem and they do not support the product any more.

 

Wow, yeh tragic is the right word! I never maxed out the 330w ac adapter with my 7970M CFX but back when I had a M17x R2 I made a dual 240 psu, the 6990m were pretty heavy on the single 240w unit.
It would be interesting to know what angle @Prema is taking to address the throttle with his proposed vbios... then again maybe the less we know the better, just in case our plans are foiled (if you know what I mean) but maybe a similar change can be done on the 780m vbios...

I be honest I can understand why there would be a safe guard and it makes sense from an oem point of view but it would be nice to be-able to turn the safety off with an obscure setting so there are no "accidents". If your right, that is a crummy way of going about throttling a machine, just blanket an entire brand to be software limited by the psu rating when the psu already has a safety cut off.

@j95 cant the drivers be modded so they don't detect the Alienware/Dell hardware ID? or is it hard coded into the driver...

Alienware lost my support long time ago. I wouldn't expect any support from Dell or Nvidia but going back to cripple your old hardware with new hardware "constraints" is pretty much as low as you can go. I think the R2 is still worthwhile putting effort into considering the alternatives we have to choose from and while we have people willing and able to write aftermarket code for them. Hopefully someone will be making a machine as nice as the R2 in a year or 2 when I'm ready to upgrade.

 

What kenny is doing is the same thing as just setting it manually in inspector as @j95 told everyone to do, it'll help a bit with holding stock clocks until it decides to override it and again throttle...

Problem in AW is the system BIOS (The driver only began to make use of Dell's BIOS "features" in later revisions).
There is no foul play, its just an unfortunate way they implemented things ahead of time.
They actually went "by the book" when doing so. NVIDIA later realized that their "by the book values" that they had given out in fact throttle like crazy on many systems and raised the bar via driver.
That in response broke Dells BIOS implementation as it got out of boundaries and since they didn't update their BIOS on EOL systems we are stuck with what we have.

The trick was to let the vBIOS fool the BIOS. There simply is no more throttle with my beta Mod @Nikos @j95. You can run 1500Mhz if the chip can handle it.
Problem is I'll have to make it manually for each card because of the ASIC algorithm and that takes a lot of time...

 

Yeh I like having things set at a vbios level rather then a software tweak at startup, which was why I shared that method, I did not realize until recently that the Maxwell bios tweaker worked with the stock vbios.

I'm happy that there was no foul play, although Nvidia's screw up has been a major hassel!

Its excellent that you have solved the throttle problem for good with the 980M but.... the moment we put a graphics card in our system other then the 980M we will be back to square one.
I believe that is what @Mr. Fox and others are having with the 780m's, I would also bet the 880M possibly the the 680M and 970M (if pushed hard enough) not to mention any other future compatible graphics cards will likely have the same problem.
Wouldn't it just be easier to mod the system bios to fix Nvidia's dodgy numbers and then you never have to touch another vbios especially for the Alienware's again. Tackle the problem at the source rather then overriding/tricking the problem in each configuration. To my knowledge it is only the M18x R2, M17x R4 and the Alienware 17? that is affected now (?) now that the 18 is fixed? So that's 3 bios mods vs +5 vbios mods to get all combinations running at 100% with new drivers.
I don't mean to tell you what the problem is and how to solve it but that just makes sense to me... with the little knowledge I have. Would like to know your thoughs on doing this.

 

There are many reasons against a fix from BIOS side:

- High brick risk during development, so BIOS chips need to be socketed.
- No hardware at hand (I don't even own any AW systems).
- Some of those BIOS can not be flashed with Mods without a hardware programmer.
- The systems that can be flashed can only do so by using FPT, which again can only be used to flash an owners very own BIOS dump (otherwise MAC address, serials etc will be duplicated and the originals lost). So that would mean having to make one mod for each user or building an automated "replacer".
- The first thing people do when you release a system BIOS Mod for a specific task is that they want an unlocked BIOS with more options*...I never release a system BIOS with untested options, so even more development time than has already gone into it, which already was a good month testing time just to get the vBIOS working.

*I just released a Hot-fix Mod for a system because Clevo is too slow to do so themselves...
(half of all games would crash the system because of an Intel mess-up during Broadwell development).
The only thing people are doing is crashing my inbox with requests to unlock the entire BIOS and make it a full Prema Mod. And that was a fill-the-gap-model (between Haswell and Skylake) that literally had only 1000 units ever build...

 

wOw... Thanks Prema for helping the community. it not only sounds difficult but it also sounds time consuming.
So does that means that you would probably be releasing a few versions of the vbios? for example ASIC from %50-65 one version and ASIC 65-75% another version?

 

Ok, bios mod = big, risky, time consuming job, and is less worth while for older systems with modified bios's already in use. That puts my thoughts in to the realm of idealism, it would be nice to fix a system buts it more practical to use the work that has already done.

It must be great cleaning up after all the big guys have made a mess of things... I hope you find satisfaction in solving these countless issues and meeting request's.

 

I would like to update to the 353.98... Can you be so kind to give me a link for @j95 modded version? I could not find it

thanks!

 

Let's be clear here. This "mod" is just to get them to install by changing the INF or are the drivers changed in some way? I thought we were staying off of newer drivers due to the whole Windows 10/Window 10 Ready is eating our eyes thing...

Homer

 

@Homer S - to be clear @j95 driver mods have some secret sauce that go beyond a simple hardware ID tweak that allows the driver to be installed. He doesn't fully disclose what the tweaks are, and we don't discuss them in a public forum, because we don't want the wrong set of prying eyes to identify the tweaks and block them from being effective in future driver releases. Some things like this are best kept as secrets. In part, that's probably why @Prema vBIOS mods won't open in the vBIOS tweaking tools. If everyone can see what he does, then NVIDIA (or OEMs that have chosen to follow an unethical path) can take steps to make those tweaks not work down the road.

 

First post on page 76
http://forum.techinferno.com/nvidia...et-upgrades-driver-support-modded-inf-76.html

I ain't touching Windows 10 with a 10 foot pole until I have a very good reason to make the change (Dx12 is making gains in games I want to play and the LCD issue has been resolved), Until then the newest drivers are safe with windows 8.1

 

I like secret sauce! and no problems not disclosing, I used to jailbreak so I know the pain of cat and mouse.

I'm getting to the point where I want to optimize the installation on my 980m SLI setup, between BIOS/vBIOS/NVidia drivers. Trying to determine if my crashes in Witcher 3 are system or game related. Lots of people are whinging over the 1.10 update.

Homer

 

kenny I tried 355.98 and it throttles like crazy for me. I've been using 353.00 and want to update to something newer but cant seem to find another driver that doesn't throttle.

 

im trying to put my 980m in but it has the clevo heatspreader on teh back and 2 of the screws are stripped....how does this thing come off?

i lifted it up on one side and i can see the x bracket below it and there shouldn't be any screws holding the thing on just glue right?

EDIT: i got them out by rocking a flathead screwdriver side to side in the screw until it grinded into the sides, both came right out

the x-bracket was a real pain to get off too but way easier

EDIT2: i have officially joined the ranks of the m18xr2 980m owners =)

 

am i supposed to have issues running prema clevo vbios with an m18xr2 ...do i need to switch to the aw18 ones or run stock? had a weird issue where resolution change in-game locked the computer up

EDIT1: changed to stock vbios
EDIT2: arma3 crashes hard when trying to change resolution...has anyone experienced this?

 

Yeh I just tried running Firestrike again and its throttling for me as well. I haven't really been able to test the driver over a period of time due to my studies. It was working perfectly last week, looks like its "one of those drivers", I clean reinstalled it a few times and its back to normal again, Will probably start throttling again in a few days. Might only be worthwhile installing if your going to have a big gaming session and want the performance in a newer game

No your not supposed to have issues with premas vbios. Its just an observation that the stock clevo vbios seems to give the most consistent results, I don't think that there is any real advantage using the AW18 vbios.

vbios is probably the last thing I'd be blaming for a game issue like that.

 

could somebody drop a link to the stock clevo bios that they are using for the m18xr2?

edit: nvm found it on prema' site

edit2: when using prema clevo stock vbios the cmd screen just hangs there and won't flash anything and there is no option to close it...i used prema to flash before with no problems...

i finally got it closed but now when i try to run it again it says "access denied" and im afraid to restart but i never actually did a "flash"

edit3: nvm i got it sorted out had to manually close nvflash.exe