Help with Alienware M18xr2 970m (Single) Upgrade steps

Hello,

I've been following the very long chain of upgrading to 980m, http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/aw-m18x-r2-dual-980m-sli-upgrade.765169/page-201
in my case I am upgrading to single GPU GTX 970m.

The company (Eurocom) where I bought the card said I need to make sure I am running:
Windows 8x. BIOS A11 required. UEFI Enabled. Legacy Boot disabled. I have the M18xr2 (early 2012 according to dell support)

I already have a bootable windows 8.1 USB stick, do I need to create a new one using Rufus for the GPT partitioning?
Can someone help by indicating what are the necessary next step to do to make the 970m GPU to work?
Based on the thread I linked, there seems to be a lot to do and just need to make sure if i need to do the same or not - specifically for the 970m
Many thanks in advance

 

Sorry to bump this up, but I have gone through all items of the 980m SLI upgrade thread, and I have some good information and have set my expectations. the only thing I really need help with is the driver for the 970m: And I am lost to what to do regarding GPU Bios flashing? Custom Driver? any got the links?
Please note that I don't intend to do any OCing.
Cheers,

 

Custom driver is created by J95... You don't really mod the driver per say, it's the inf file (install file ) being modded... You'll have to go over to techinferno, make 5 good posts (takes some time) otherwise donate $5 and you can access any file there straightaway

http://forum.techinferno.com/nvidia...arket-upgrades-driver-support-modded-inf.html

Don't get the driver from the 1st post, you'll have to look through Page 14/15 for the latest one..

 

You can try using the latest WHQL driver from nVidia. Since the card wasn't sold with the machine you may need to modify the INF file by adding the HW ID of your GPU to it. There's a guide on this forum to do that. What some people do is to use the driver already modified from laptopvideo2go.com

 

Getting an unlocked system bios can make it easy too, by selecting PEG for the videocard adapter in the NORMALLY hidden menu's, so that you can use the 900M series even in windows 7 without UEFI.
For windows 8 and 10 though, you need a modified driver of course, and to disable DSE when installing it (each time, or permanently disable it with a registry hack).
Of course for Windows 8 and 10 you need FULL UEFI and not legacy, like OP stated.

make sure you do not ever use evga Precision, as it seems to break a lot of laptops, also sometimes windows 10 can break a LCD on any laptop (mainly due to both windows 10 and faulty practices from the LCD manufacturers).
If you use SLi you of course need windows 8 or 10 and UEFI mode.
Windows 7 should be able to run a single card, even with optimus, i.e the HD Intel graphics enabled, but since its MUXLESS switching of Optimus, you always lose some performance, as all traffic goes through the HD Intel chip.