Some questions about M18 R2 upgrade 980m, thanks!

Hello, dudes, I wanna upgrade my M18 R2 with 980m. The current gpus are 7970cf, here are some questions about the upgrading, hope you can help me, thanks!

1. which version of 980m can fit M18 r2? Clevo, MSI, GECUBE? I can only buy Clevo or GECUBE now. I heard GECUBE can provide new card, but its quantity is not good, is that true? Or I should buy a used Clevo 980m?

2. Shall I flash the dell vbios for upgrade? Or it's ok to use default clevo vbios or gecube vbios?

3. Can I install the newest driver without changing inf file?

4. Throttling problems are still existed for M18 R2? If they are, how to avoid them?

Thanks again!

 

1.) Contact @woodzstack for the graphicscard.
2.) Always make your BIOS and vBIOS up to date with Alienware vBIOS + BIOS, preferbly modded BIOS as well.
3.) Depends on vBIOS as far as I know.
4.) Proper heatsinkmods, proper BIOS version, good power supply as well.

 

1)Sorry, I'm in China currently, so I can only choose a new GECUBE 980m or a used Clevo 980m , if they are both good, which one shall I choose?

2) My bios is A12, and I haven't bought a 980m, so I wanna make it clear whether it can fit M18 R2 or not if it's original vbios of Clevo or GECUBE.

3)You mean I need to flash vbios of dell version for installing newest driver?

4)Input power is about 330W, and I just wanna buy one 980m not SLI, so I think it's enough for one 980m, but I heard When the temperature is higher than 78C, gpu core frequency will be decreased?

Thank you again

 

With modded vBIOS the clockspeed will not be affected. When buying a GTX 980M in china be very careful which card you buy, some cards have cheap components and don't last very long.
Flashing Dell vBIOS is strongly recommended and needs to be done for the system to install the drivers without modding. Any other vBios will cause your notebook to need to mod .inf files.

 

Before anything else, flash your M18X-R2 with unlocked A11 BIOS... dont even think to install your GPU before flashing to the unlocked BIOS version.
The GTX 980M 8Gb Clevo card its the best choice(no gsync version) and once in your hands I recommend to flash it with Prema's 2.0 Clevo bios --> !!!Caution!!! ... In M18X-R2 stock bios will only work with old modded Nvidia drivers(like 2 years old drivers), newer drivers will only display a black screen in windows, so its recommended to look for Prema's GTX 980M 2.0 Clevo BIOS, and once flashed you can install newer Nvidia drivers just fine, with no mod needed in M18X-R2 like a normal desktop did.

 

Thank you, let me check the step:
1)Flash my M18x-r2 bios with unlocked A11 BIOS.
2)Buy a Clevo 980M, and flash vbios with Prema's 980M 2.0 Clevo BIOS
3)Install the newest nvidia driver
Is that right sequence? Btw, what's the difference between unlocked bios and stock bios?

 

No, Premas 980M AW 18 vBIOS

 

Buy a CLEVO 980M, and flash Prema's 980M AW 18 vBIOS?

 

exacly

 

Nice dude! Could you please provide the links of A11 unlocked bios and Prema's 980M AW 18 vbios for clevo card?

 

And what's the difference between unlocked bios and stock bios? Thanks!

 

For the BIOS you need to contact Prema himself.

https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/files/file/93-a11-unlocked-bios-m18xr2-by-swick1981-svl7/

 

Thank you! If I use windows 10 and uefi, I still need to unlock my bios?

 

Yes, unlocked BIOS is a must when dealing with modern hardware on an older notebook mainboard.

 

Somebody said using A12 bios can also accept 980M. I'm A12 now, so I still need to back to A11 and unlock? Thanks