Windows 10 Drivers [M18xR2]

I see, might be worth trying the card in another laptop, and you have a couple of those kicking about dont you?

 

I’ve got a 7970 that should be plug and play. I’ll give it a go tonight. The Nvidia cards I have are all dead.
I’m really thinking it’s the gpedit now (or I’m clinging onto hope at least). I messed around with it before trying to install the driver and it makes sense as to why the driver installer found the hardware but failed the installation.
Even if I get it back in Device Manager there is still the Error 43 issue to deal with.
At work now so I’ll have to wait 11 hours to try again.

EDIT:
After just reading through the thread you made regarding losing your GPU in Device Manager after the Windows update I am 99.99% sure I am the cause for last nights issues. Stupidly, I disabled Windows updates before installing any driver on the card and what I did in gpedit stopped any chance of me installing one manually. I was thinking that the gpedit change only stopped auto updates but it basically locks the device away. I would have thought it would still show up as a Microsoft Basic Display Adapter but maybe not.
Hopefully when I cancel this tonight, the card will show up again.


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Yeah I got the card back in Device Manger but still couldn't get past the Error 43. I have now reinstalled Windows again in UEFI so hopefully this works.
After all these years of dismantling the machine, I finally broke the HDD Interposer. I hate my life sometimes. Luckily I still have an mSata SSD because now I'm down to one drive in this thing.

 

Glad you got it back in Device Manager. The issue I had was with the windows feature update, I restored to a past state from before the update and DirectX works fine.

With my previous post here I meant for you to try the 1070 in the ranger maybe? Rather than another card in the m18x. That way you would know whether the card is faulty or not?

 

I don’t have a working Ranger. Sold both of mine late last month. This is my only machine for now but I’ll see if another cheap Ranger comes up.

Edit: still no luck. Got UEFI installation done and all the Windows updates. Installed the modded driver and still error 43. This was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made.
I guess I’ll try a few other drivers tomorrow

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I say Ranger although I dont know whether a Ranger can take a 1070. I presume it does. I just meant another laptop, that would be one sure way of checking...fingers crossed it will work in another machine.

 

Yeah a Ranger and M17x R4 can take it. The 18 as well.


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Ughh!!! I feel for you. I've broken lots of things taking this puppy apart. The most recent is the big keyboard latch. I have to play Tetris now as the clip is in three pieces. Actually, I think I threw out part number three as nothing holds it in anymore. So I have a sliver that is about 2/3 of the slot width and one end with a bit of the wedge still on it.

I'm on the Raidriar's modified A11 bios here. The vBIOS is in the right hand picture here: 86.04.42.00.03. It came with the card.

Homer

 

Thanks. I’ll check out the vBIOS options later. I’m running out of thing la to try now. It’s a bad design with this interposer how it bends around so sharply. It has just worn out over the years and split inside the bend. It shorted and that’s what fried my SSD killing my RAID0.
I’ll have to find a parts machine one day but I wouldn’t mind so much if I could get this card working.


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I see this part on pchub.com and on AliExpress: M9T51 M18x R2 SATA interposer. Good luck!

Homer

 

Is that the one for $95USD? I think I’ll stay with one drive


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I guess my next course of action is to try to find your vBIOS and flash that one. It seems to be the only difference between our cards.

 

I flashed @Homer S' vBIOS and she's up and running!!! Oh how joyous it is!!!

 

Wooooohooooooo! Happy for you buddy, that is awesome news! Buying a new transposer will be an easier decision to make now

 

I’m still not sure about that one. I’ll have to sort something out though.


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I may grab a cheap HDD caddy for the DVD bay to give a second option. Still lose out on having sata3 though.

 

Nice work man!

Yeah I had thought it could be something with the vbios but it's hard to stay rational when a huge investment throws you error 43

 

Exactly the same score as Homer which is bizarre

 

It was my first instinct even though I don’t know a lot about vBIOS. I should have just run with it from the start and saved myself a bunch of late nights.


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Yours is a smidge faster. Do you have any increased voltages/clock speeds? I have left everything stock for the moment.

Homer

 

Mine is all stock except the CPU at 4.1


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Magic Mike told me about the trick of switching to iGFX and then back to SG to stop the power throttling. Do I have to do this every time or does it sort itself out?


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Not everytime no, mine stays ok normally, but for whatever reason when I disassemble and assemble back I have to repeat the trick.

 

Does anyone do a modded 4 or 5 pipe heatsink for the M18x? I've seen the one for the Ranger so it would be great if there's one for this machine.

 

I don’t think one was ever made. Except for the prototype water cooling that was teased about for the beloved M18X R2.

https://www.geek.com/chips/liquid-cooling-lets-the-alienware-m18x-run-at-4-4ghz-1477433/

 

Ahh yes I remember seeing this years ago. I'll have to think of another way to help cool this card down.

 

Check this item number on eBay. I think these are modified

item code: 352684584955

 

It's still a 3-pipe but it looks to be all copper which should help cooling. It's pretty expensive though. I wonder how hard it would be to throw a few extra copper strips on mine.........

 

from my experienced , by the look of the heat sink , I think that person modify the AW 18 100 watt heat sink to fit the M18X R2 laptop.

if you compare M18X and AW 18 fins and heat pipes side by side , you can see the difference.

 

Ahh ok. I'm not really sure what to do. I may have another look at my thermal pads to make sure they're all touching the heatsink properly.

I think I've unintentionally derailed this thread into a general M18x thread.

 

You should start a new thread. Name it something like , the road to superior cooling for M18X R2.

 

Back on topic. I have been meaning to share this page I found awhile back.

http://driver-laptopdell.blogspot.c...18x-r2-drivers-for-windows-10-64-bit.html?m=1

 

Hi everyone! I am very new here and I am posting to this thread because it seems like the most recently active thread involving the 1070 gpu upgrade to the Alienware 18; I've seen on some posts in this thread that a 1070 GPU upgrade was successful for the AW18. I have looked at some threads on this upgrade at least 4, maybe 5 times; they can be a bit overwhelming since almost all of them intertwine the Alienware M18x R2 and the Alienware 18 if that at all. After making comments on the Alienware 18 Facebook page, a comment came in from a FB user who upgrades the 1070 in the M18x R3's and he informed me that the upgrade works on the AW18 also, as he referred me to NBR and said that this community has very helpful and knowledgeable members.

Well, I have the Alienware 18 (R3 as it's sometimes associated as) 2015 Extreme Edition: 4940MX processor, 32GB Ram, Nvidia GPU, BIOS version A14 06/25/2018. So, I would please like very much to know of this upgrade for this Alienware 18; I would like to know what actual physical hardware is needed and where to get such hardware and also then, what modifications, hopefully, just software modifications is required. I'm hopeful that a standard MXM form factor 1070 GPU will be the goto GPU, as I've read at least with the MSI 1070 GPU, a physical modification is required at least as I understand with the Alienware M18x R2. Appreciate anyone's insight and experience with this upgrade and as most of these upgrades were quite some time ago, especially with the 1070 GPU, maybe anyone knows of some recent hardware and/or software advancements in this upgrade. Thanks everyone, I appreciate any replies. I love my AW18! Thanks again!!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/successful-alienware-18-msi-gtx-1070-mxm.818900/

This is the thread you'll need for the 18. It has all the steps required.

 

Thanks for referring me to this link. That FB user was pretty accurate; the community here is very willing to help. And your profile pic of the laptop; a pretty sharp blue....very nice!!Thanks again!

 

No problem. There are probably more M18x users that the 18 but we're here to help if you have more questions.

 

Question for you guys, when did the advice switch from running in PEG to SG? (Just brought out the old girl to see if i could get these dang Nvidia drivers past V 419.35 for the kiddo), Running Swick BIOS and Custom one off Prema vBIOS' on the 980 SLI (throttleless), Windows 10 v1909. Haven't used the old M18X R2 as a daily driver in the last few years.

Thanks for the update

 

I am not 100% certain what you are asking. Some folks found 980M to have fewer throttling problem using SG mode. You cannot use SG mode with dual GPU, only with single GPU. If you select SG mode with both MXM slots filled the system will fail to POST with 8-beeps and it sometimes requires a blind flash to recover.

 

Hey Brother Fox, glad you are still around , Yeah I was pulling out the old girl to get my kiddo setup, was having trouble getting anything newer then 419.x to install (got it fixed with the normal driver mod technique). So, it had been so long since we messed with the old laptop, I forgot what SG stood for (there might have been a few beers involved). PS, I got 5 beeps when turning on SG and artifacts all of the the screen. So i used this opportunity to tear her down, repaste with Conductonaut, thermals are awesome, and even got it stable at a higher frequency. I just pulled the cards, hooked up the power button and display panel with an external keyboard and got back in and un-screwed it . Used your old youtube video to get the setting back in the BIOS and good to go.