NVIDIA GTX 680M Thread - M18x R2 and M18x R1 Upgrade Discussion

Second time's the charm. Thanks a lot for the info (and the great teardown video!). Installing the second card went much smoother, and after a few BSODs using the 306.02 driver, I dropped back to 302.92, which came with the cards. First test scored a 11005 (at 854/1125).

I'll keep messing around and see how far I can get it to go - I was hoping for more based on Joker's results but maybe I need to try a different vbios. If I get anywhere good I'll post it in the benchmark thread.

 

Nice GPU score, Bradley. Your CPU is holding you back from getting a higher overall score. You can probably hit 12k overall simply by focusing on CPU performance initially. That CPU score should be closer to 10K with your 2920XM processor. You're running at least 1GHz slower on your CPU than what it can/should be. The 2920XM will run 4.5GHz without breaking a sweat and with reasonable temperatures if you use the right settings.

Here is a good starting point...



_________________________________________________________________


For those considering upgrades or switching from 7970M CrossFire, it looks like the price has dropped to $750 now at R&J Technology... (was at $800 per GPU not long ago).

Laptop Video Cards :: nVidia GTX 680M 4GB Mobile Video Card - R&J Technology, Clevo Barebone Notebook kits, Laptop and desktop system builder

Edit: I merged an older thread that was back several pages with the one on the first page. There is a lot of good dialogue about GTX 680M SLI that is relevant and being missed by folks that only bother to look on the first page and create new threads.

 

You have bought Clevo GTX680M from Upgradeyourlaptop? If yes, does HDMI works? Fan's work automatically? Thanks

 

Mr. Fox, thanks for the info on CPU benchmarking - sounds like good weekend fun.

Yes. Fans definitely work automatically, not sure about HDMI (in or out) but I can check when I get home.

 

I bought mine from upgrade your laptop and both hdmi in and out work perfectly.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

Thanks for the info, also you have bought heatsinks from them with thermal pads and backplate? (Do they send a heatsink from GTX580m?)

 

Mr. Fox,

Are we absolutely certain these will install and work in the R2 without any issues? I only ask because it specifies Clevo only on the website you linked to and I'd hate to drop $1500 for something I couldn't use. I'm assuming those heatsinks won't work with the AW as well, if anyone has a link to a page where I can order the HS and spreaders for the M18-R2 Nvidia installation I'd be extremely grateful.

 

Hey guys, just got in the 680m heatsink and support plate from dell today and though I'd give you guys an update. The 680m heatsink is a huge improvement in cooling over my stock 460 heatsink of course. The Heatsink came with the thermal pads pre-applied which was very nice. Everything runs excellent and very cool now. I was experiencing occasional throttling after putting the gpu through extended graphics intensive gaming as the original 460m heatsink was not adequate to keep it running cool enough, but I am happy to report that with the 680m heatsink that issue no longer occurs! I am very happy with my system now and grateful for all the information and support I've found here. You guys rock! Seeing as I have all the cooling I need now for my new card, I think that over-clocking will be my next adventure. :thumbsup:

 

You are using clevo version of gtx680m? How much dell asked for native 680M heatsink?

 

Yes I have the 4gb vram clevo 680m. I only paid $52 total for the heatsink and support plate and overnight shipping to Hawaii!

 

It should be the exact same graphics card people are buying from Upgrade Your Laptop and Eurocom. With a little checking, it should be possible to confirm that with SKU or part numbers if there is a concern. The "Clevo only" thing may be due to the included heat sinks. R&J Tech can probably assist with these questions. That being said, all of the upgrades I remember seeing have been on the M18x R1, but I don't expect any different results (other than slightly better performance with PCIe 3.0 bandwidth) on the M18x R2. All of the M18x R1 upgrades to 680M SLI have seemed to be a great success.

 

So i'm thinking about purchasing 2 clevo 4gb 680gtx for my m18x r1. After reading through this entire thread, just wanted to make sure. the fn+f7 works correct to switch between intel and nvidia correct? Also is there anything else i would need to do besides installing the cards and installing the correct drivers? Like messing with the bios or anything else? Does everything work the way it should with the clevo cards?

I wanted to upgrade through dell, so they'd replace the cards themselves, so if anything went wrong its on them, but the rep I deal with just told me the 680m gtx are only for the m18x r2 and m17x r4, which is a bummer. Anyways thks in advance.

 

You will need to mod the driver INF file. That's very easy to do, so it's not a huge deal. Based on my communication with NVIDIA, they will only add the M18x R1+680M hardware ID to the INF with Dell/Alienware permission. So far, Dell/Alienware have not provided that information to NVIDIA with the request that it be added. Hopefully, they will do that before long. Until then, you will need to open the nvdm.inf in Windows Notepad and change the string information manually. Once you do, the drivers will install flawlessly.

The Clevo 4GB GTX 680M GPU is the only one readily available for upgrades at this time unless you can find a pair of used/system pull Dell 680M cards for sale some place. The SLI bridge cable and 580M/675M heat sinks are the exact same parts as what the 680M uses.

Graphics switching using FN+F7 works as long as you have 2 in SLI. I think there may be an issue with switching not working with a single Clevo GTX 680M, but I'm not sure why that is. With just one 680M the performance will be almost as good as 580M/675M SLI or 6990M CF. You can manually switch to IGFX in the BIOS. Unless you used IGFX frequently, that may not be a big deal as much as a minor inconvenience.

 

Thks for the fast response mr. fox! Just wondering after opening the .inf file, what line needs to be changed and what does it need to be changed to? Thks in again

 

The reason why there is a price difference in the 7970 vs the 680m is because AMD launched there GPU 3 months before Nvidia released there card. If I'm correct as well the 4g 690m is incompatible with the M18x due to the fact that the VRAM is both on top and bottom of the card and could cause over heating issues seeing that there is no way to cool the chips.

 

You need to change at least one of the 11A0 (680M ID) strings to the M18x hardware ID of 048F in each section. I just choose the first hardware device ID string in each section that has 11A0... [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.0], [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.2], and [Strings] are the sections. There are 4 lines of code in each section with 11A0. I change 0550 to 048F.

Updated 12/01/2012: To make the INF mod compatible with the M18x R2, you can change the lines with 0580 to 048F instead of 0550.

Code:

[B][NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.0][/B]
%NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.[B][COLOR=#006400]048F[/COLOR][/B].1028% = Section187, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_[COLOR=#006400][B]048F[/B][/COLOR]1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.0551.1028% = Section189, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_05511028
%NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.057B.1028% = Section191, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_057B1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.0580.1028% = Section192, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_05801028

[B][NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.2][/B]
%NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.[B][COLOR=#006400]048F[/COLOR][/B].1028% = Section187, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_[COLOR=#006400][B]048F[/B][/COLOR]1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.0551.1028% = Section189, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_05511028
%NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.057B.1028% = Section191, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_057B1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.0580.1028% = Section192, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_05801028

[B][Strings][/B]
NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.[B][COLOR=#006400]048F[/COLOR][/B].1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M"
NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.0551.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M "
NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.057B.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M  "
NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.0580.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M   "

Well, compatibility has already been demonstrated by at least a half dozen members of our community that have installed Clevo 4GB 680M GPUs. They don't have overheating issues. The space the higher capacity memory takes up might prevent Alienware from meetings Dell's "skin temps" spec, but that spec is designed around end user comfort and regulatory compliance in some venues. That spec is well within the safe realm and probably does not represent a concern for upgraders. Dell has to comply with the spec, but we don't have to because it's not a problem as far as safety or system reliability is concerned. Even the 2GB Dell 680M GPUs have memory on the bottom of the card. The support plate has a heat spreader and thermal pad for one of the memory banks.

 

Thks Fox for the info!

 

I just received a PM from a long time forum member looking for information on upgrading his M18x R1 to GTX 680M SLI. Here is the technical information I provided, for anyone else considering the same.

 

Nice info, Bro. Tell me.....are these 680m's being purchased direct from Dell or are they 3rd party 680m's? - I ask only because I was under the assumption that these 680m's are not available as an upgrade and that they are only available via tech support if you have issues. At least this is the story from Dell EMEA, which could be different from Dell US/Canada.

Would be good to know......

 

I got mine through replacement via Dell techs. I'm only selling it cause I went with the Clevo 4GB version already lol. As far as I know, Dell isn't letting customers buy these as upgrades or even allowing them to replace the GPUs (680M) on their own without onsite.

 

Yes, what Dell EMEA is telling you is totally accurate. It is the same situation with Dell US/Canada. They still do not have any available for upgrade sales, only hardware warranty support. The Clevo 680M works perfectly in the M18x R1/R2, and it has double the video memory. So, the Clevo GPU is probably the better performance option even if the Dell 2GB 680M video cards were available for upgrades.

 

So what, if any, upgrade path will be available beyond the gtx680m, do you guys think will be available to us m18xr2 owners? Are we at the top of the game, so to speak, before Alienware unleashes the r3?

 

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum and I was looking to upgrade my m18x r1 to 680m and I understand Dell doesn't sell the card directly. So I went ahead and looked around on ebay and found this card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M 2GB DDR5 MXM 3 0B VGA Module | eBay

It looks like it's a dell card with 2GB of memory, but when you take a closer look it doesn't have the chip number N13E-GTX-A2 written on it. So I asked the seller if it's a dell card and he said it might be a dell pull, but not sure of it. Can anyone comment on the legitimacy of this card? Has anyone bought the card from this seller GFSI and had any trouble? Thank you so much.

 

I'm fairly certain that this isn't a Dell card though I have never seen a Dell 680m if you look really closely you will see the absence of the SLI connector on the board, if this board were from Dell it would have that connector as they can be used in SLI and wouldn't have a different part number for single card vs. an SLI capable one.

This card might work fine, but you would never be able to run it in SLI with a second board due to the lack of that connector.

 

Hmm... I thought there were only two types of 680M... the one from Dell and Clevo. I know Clevo card is blue and has 4GB of memory and Dell is green with 2GB, but how can there be a 680M 2GB for sale that is not from dell?

 

There are a couple emasculated "680M" video cards out there that are being used in cheap "gaming laptops" some of the off-brands are selling. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the MSI laptop version also has no SLI connection.

 

Will this work in the m18x? They sell them on ebay and i previously bought a pair of clevo 7970s but the cards almost refused to work in my system so i had to send them back. Was thinking about paying the difference for the 680s. Any input?

 

Yes the Clevo 680M will work fine in your m18x. These were all you could really find for a while as the Dell 2gb 680M's were in short supply. Keep in mind since you currently have AMD cards you will need to get additional parts (heatsinks, sli cable, etc). There are some really good threads already on this forum which discuss doing an upgrade like this as well.

 

Chewy is right, there is a thread dedicated to this discussion. Did you search before posting a new thread? I'll move this there for you, as I think you will find the information in it very useful.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...hread-m18x-r2-m18x-r1-upgrade-discussion.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...md-radeon-hd-7970m-crossfire.html#post8903055

 

I know this is relatively subjective and I don't NEED to upgrade but the 680s are quite a step up from what I have read. My only conundrum is that my rig plays everything pretty well. If I upgrade, everything will play perfectly. However, with this being a year new consoles drop, there tends to be pretty rapid antiquation of computers. Usually top of the line desktops at the LAUNCH of new computers will tend to hold for a decent while. Do you think the 680M SLI will really be able to play games 1 or 2 years from now any better than the 580M SLI? I'm grateful I have been able to enjoy these beasts for the past 1.5 years. So I am leaning on riding this out but figured I would get some other opinions. It has been awhile since I have been active here and have no idea of any new mobile GPU roadmaps for AMD/Nvida. Thanks all.

 

If you're satisfied with the performance of your 580's then I would say no, save your money and wait until the next gen cards and processors come out within the next 6 months to a year and upgrade your entire system.

I do believe that the 7970m Crossfire and the 680m SLI setup will both be more than capable of playing anything that comes out in the next couple of years at maximum or near maximum settings though so that's the only performance criteria you're looking at then it may be a worthwhile upgrade for you.

 

I would upgrade. The 680M can play any game at its highest settings for at least two more years, and three years with dual 680's.

 

I actually asked this same question not too long ago. Check out this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...grade-my-2760qm-2960xm-580m-sli-680m-sli.html

Note I have pretty much the exact same setup as you do. Personally, I would upgrade the 680M's for right now and upgrade cpu later down the road. Though the 580M's are still handling anything I throw at them with no problems..but might be a slight step-down about a year from now. There have been some on this forum that have upgraded their R1's along the way, including motherboard, cpu, gpu, etc...so not really a need to buy a whole new system for right now unless you have some $ to burn through.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I will check out that thread now. It's not like I have too much money to throw around and actually I may be forced to keep what I have (which is fine) if I plan to fix my Viper for the upcoming spring/summer which would be take away even a modest upgrade to my system. I guess these are all great first world problems to have. I just love technology and am not a big fan of having to turn down settings. I think if I decide to let my car sit for another season I will take a hard look at the upgrade and just sell my 580s. Until then, I am just fortunate to be able to play such awesome games on an awesome machine. We are all lucky posting on this forum. Peace.

 

I will be replacing my 6990M CFX setup with a single 680M soon and will add a second card later. It's not every day that a generation comes out with twice the power of the previous one (usually it's only 10-15%), so if you're wondering if you should double your effective gaming power? I say yes.

 

Sorry, but ignoring a viper to upgrade to 680ms is CRIMINAL.

Fix your baby, the laptop can wait

 

I swear, believe it or not, that I was writing the same post right at this very moment... incredible!

And yes, a Viper is a Viper is a Viper. Can't stress it enough. Go for that real bad baby

Jokes apart - my 680m SLI has blown my mind, never imagined a laptop could be this powerful. It's a great stepup, but with the rate at which technology is advancing - by the time the 580m's start struggling to keep up, I believe a set of GPUs twice as powerful as the 680m's will be here or well on its way here

 

LOL thanks for the input. I am in the process of figuring out if it's worth it to upgrade the viper sadly. It's the older bodystyle, which tends to be the most remembered (96-2002). It's a 2000 GTS ACR in solid red. Used vipers of this generation are actually not as expensive as most people think. I got it in 2009 for 37K. Most thought that was the rock bottom of viper pricing but the market still hasn't rebounded. At minimum it's a 2500 fix. At maximum it is 6k. But even with fixing it, there are other costs and maintenance that are due. So I may sit on it for a few years until I am better situated to properly fix it and enjoy it. That being said, it makes me feel kinda silly to even be debating spending 1200 on two GPU's. But then again....I have been known to be impulsive I agree that having two cards double the performance of pretty rock solid and still powerful 580s is VERY alluring. I have been debating this for a few months. Just had a break up, got a new and more lucrative job....and I am probably just having a midlife "CRYSIS" wanting to upgrade my gadgets

 

1. Where can I purchase the 680M's, and stuff come with them ( like SLI cable, etc ) Please give me specific links, or number ?

2. Is that possible to call Dell tech and ask them to do the installing for me? I'm not really comfortable to do the assembling stuff ( even though I have seen Mr.Fox's video )

3. Is there anyone live around LA has done this? Are you willing for help me?

Thank you.

 

1. You can try and purchase them from Dell but it's unlikely as they are in high demand/short supply - existing stocking levels tend to get reserved for new machines or tech replacements. Also, as you have an R1 like myself, Dell may not even offer you them as an upgrade path as they have not officially been offered as such. Dell have not validated the 680m for use with the M18x R1 and are probably unlikely to do so any time soon. If you can't get 'em from Dell, your next best bet would be maybe Ebay or other resellers such as Origin PC maybe.

2. Again, as for the fact that they have not been validated for use in the R1, I'd say it's highly unlikely that Dell would install them for you. I imagine it's either time to get your hands dirty and get comfortable opening up your machine or find a good friend like you said in point 3.

Anyway, the parts that you would require would be x2 680m gpu's, Left heat sink, Right heat sink, x2 support plates (or X-brackets for the back of the gpu for securing the heat sinks to the gpu's) and an Sli ribbon cable. afaik, the support plates come with the heat sinks in kit format and should include thermal pads too. The Dell part numbers you would need would be as follows (if you can't get/don't want to use the Dell 680m's, you could always look at the Clevo 680m instead - tht has 4gb vRam vs. the Dell 2gb vRam):

CPCXD GeForce GTX 680m (x2 - note that a newer part number is available with a newer vBios - that part number is 20HTK - the other is fine too, but the newer vBios works with Win 8 Secure Boot/UEFI - the previous one did not)
Y48TK Right Heatsink GeForce GTX 680m (x1)
5G1VJ Left Heatsink GeForce GTX 680m (x1)
3MHHT nVidia support plate GTX 680m (x2 but should be included with each heat sink and may not be orderable)
GDMRG Nvidia SLI Bridge Cable (x1)

Here's some reading for you on the subject anyway: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...hread-m18x-r2-m18x-r1-upgrade-discussion.html

 

I would like to add some personal experience, Dell actually offered to install 7970 X-Fire, when one of my GPU's on my previous rig, an M18x R1 (580 SLI) failed, as a paid upgraid ($1k), so they might actually install and cover them under warranty in an M18x R1, if the price is right.

It depends on the cost difference between buying these cards via ebay etc and installing yourself and having dell install and cover them under warranty. If saving less than $300 I would just go with Dell. If saving greater than $300 I would install on my own and take a chance.

 

I would upgrade, a comparison we can understand of the graphical processing difference between present gen consoles and 680 SLI/7970 X-Fire would be that the latter are at least 6 times as powerful than the former.

There is no way that the new iterations of idiot box and playstation are going to be 6 times as powerful.

You will still probably be 3 times at least as powerful as next gen consoles and be future proof throughout their lifecycle, at least the next 5 years, maybe more, with the latest GPU's.

Having owned and overclocked both 580 SLI (M18x R1, 2960xm) and 680 SLI (signature), the difference in both benches is about 16k GPU (30k vs. 46k) and about 20 FPS in the most demanding games.

Even with 4GB VRAM I am still seeing 98% memory utilization in certain games (see image below, this is after playing NS2 for 3-5 hours on recently applied IC Diamond) and a corresponding drop in frames, even down into the 30's, (Natural Selection 2, Skyrim+robust ENB etc.) I couldn't imagine keeping the graphical settings where they are with 580 SLI, would probably have to sacrifice SSAO or worse turn down resolution.

I would definitely upgrade to 680 SLI.

View attachment 90763

That is a sweet car, I used to be an automotive enthusiast myself, when I was in the Army I was making close to $70k a year, stationed in Hawaii (high cost of living) and saved a bit spending a year in Afghanistan. What did I do with it all? I bought toys! I have owned and enjoyed:

94 Camaro Z28 LT1, mostly stock

98 Pontiac Trans-Am, Vortech Supercharger, 9 PSI, Mac mid-length headers, Spohn 12 bolt rear-end, 3.73 gears, 500 RWHP/442 RWTQ, quater mile: 11.9@119 MPH, fastest traveled, 175 MPH.

1998 Suzuki Hayabusa, yosh cams, Greddy single-pipe, extended swingarm, many other goodies, 180 RWHP, quarter mile: 10.3@147 MPH, fastest traveled, 200 MPH, multiple times.

2002 Chevrolet Corvette Z06, LG Longtubes, Patriot Stg. 2 ported heads, Thunder Cam, other goodies, 415 RWHP/410RWTQ Quarter Mile, 12.1@118 MPH, fastest traveled, 170 MPH, street-weight 3050 lbs. Laguna Seca lap time: 1:45.

Not only have I owned these vehicles but I also have taken them apart (I had to tear down and rebuild my Hayabusa as unbeknownst to me a replacement frame I purchased off of ebay arrived sans VIN and now shop would work on it) and done a portion of the upgrades.

With all that out of the way, my view of car culture has changed, dramatically so, in light of gaining an understanding of our present collective predicament, that of resource depletion/overpopulation/climate chaos, all of which are interrelated. We have passed the point of peak conventional oil, globally, and now are attempting to sustain the unsustainable via Canadian Tar Sands and Hydraulic Fracturing. I actually traded in my Z06 towards my 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid and carbon footprint aside I have saved over $15k in fuel and operating expenses over the past 6 years (45 mpg avg vs. 17 mpg avg).

I am afraid if we do not consciously change our behavior the Human Experiment doesn't have another century left.

Educate yourself:

From Capitalism To Democracy

 

just curious where are you from? i used to work with a guy who had a red viper and an alienware. his name was justin. he recently left his job as well. may just be a coincedence.

 

moved both new threads to existing thread for discussion of 680M upgrade

 

Well I just want to say Thank you for your service to our country. Without doing what you have done, I would not be in the fortunate position to try to give back as well and help our Vets. I work with vets and am seeing so many new OEF/OIF with varying needs. I love my job and not enough people say Thank You....so...Thank You.

 

Well I'd like to say that my time spent in the Army was entirely selfless but truth be told I joined out of economic necessity, a socioeconomic conscript or poverty draftee if you will.

And yes, many young veterans are getting worn down with multiple deployments and are beginning to question the sanity of it all and are separating into an economic milieu not unlike the Great Depression, this time global in scope. Last statistical analysis I have seen concerning veterans was that a full 1 in 4 homeless men are veterans, 83% of whom having separated under honorable conditions.

But again, the truth is that the majority of those entering the service are doing so because of economic survival, and when they get worn out, they return to the same situation they attempted to escape from.

Thank you for helping veterans, the problem is very serious, I believe we need to establish some form of socio-economic safety net, not unlike that provided in Sweden, a country that is light years ahead of the American Empire in terms of social health and well being. As presently configured, "Free-Market" Capitalism is capable of only one thing: the accelerated, exponential consolidation of wealth out of the hands of the many into the hands of the few. I believe Ralph Nader summed up America best as an "Advanced Third World Country".

I dont see any end in sight and am myself presently without semi-permanent residence. I sleep in a tent by the ocean. Its not undo-able, and I have been like this for two years, three come August but constantly being in public, in libraries and cafe's is wearing on my psyche.

I read once that as we can adapt to anything, and I believe this to be true.

 

This is getting frustrating.
Finally got shiny new two 680m into M18xR1.
Can't get it to work at all.
I've gone through so many threads on this forum and tried a lot of things.

The cards show up in the bios as "Nvidia GFX"
When the windows start up, I can't change the resolution above 1024x768.
They show up in the device manager and GPU-Z as "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter"
Tried installing Nvidia driver with a modded inf.
The installation starts, hangs in the middle and stops with a "Nvidia installation failed".
Please help.

The cards are dell 2gb ones by the way.

 

I'd personally try uninstalling ALL video drivers and starting out fresh. Firstly, download the driver you want to modify (I've got 313.96 installed on my M18x R1/680m SLI right now) and then uninstall all graphics drivers and the various Nvidia components that you see in add/remove programs.

Reboot when asked to.

Once all components are removed, I would reboot into safe mode (F8 at boot) and run CCleaner for (registry entries) and DriverSweeper for Nvidia options only (no need to sweep chipset values, just the other two Nvidia checkboxes that are listed is what I do). Repeat those processes until the fields to clean/sweep using CCleaner/DriverSweeper come back with no results to clean or sweep. Reboot into normal mode. The goal of doing all of that is to get back standard VGA drivers which you can use device manager to check once you have done this procedure. Once you see that in device manager, you are ready to start with the fresh driver install.

Run the previous driver download (313.96 for example) and let it extract to the provided path. It will try and install but you will get the message saying "no hardware detected - installation cannot continue" or the like. Then it's time to mod. the driver so it recognises 680m in the R1. You can do this by doing the following:

Note: There is a tiny (very tiny lol) error in Mr. Fox's post, above (I'm sure he won't mind me saying) but there are no 11A0 entries in the first paragraph of code titled [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.0] - instead of trying to look for it in that listing, just go to the section titled [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6. 1] and follow the same instructions from there. I edited the quote on the very first line to show this.

If you navigate/locate to the nvdm file in the extracted driver (C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\313.96\Win8_WinVista_Win7_64\International\Display.Driver) you can open it and make the above changes, then save changes before exiting. Once done, navigate to the setup.exe for the driver install (C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\313.96\Win8_WinVista_Win7_64\International - right at the bottom) and run it.

The driver should now install perfectly. At least that is exactly what I have done and it has worked without fault.

 

I tried it a couple of times and after reboot, I still get two "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter"
If I install nvidia driver with modded inf over that, the installer fails.
as in, it detects compatible hardware... starts installing and fails.
So to start REALLY fresh, I clean installed windows and there it is, "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter"
Back to where I was.

Device status says:
This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)

 

Are you running win 8? - If so, you will have to disable driver signature enforcement......