Alienware 18, now with Maxwell GPUs (Officially) and a new BIOS

Legacy BOOT work?

 

NEW BIOS IS OUT!!!

 

Hopefully this means my machine will come out of pre-production soon! Now I'm just waiting for an official Windows 10 release either all the necessary drivers and bios and all. I'd like to do a clean install when I get the machine, but I've had a lot of problems with drivers and all on my current machine, so I am wary until the official upgrade is made available. Do one place installs even have many issues these days? I've heard good things about Windows 10 upgrades

 

Just tried it. Can't see anything new in bios settings. Most certainly it is not 'unlocked' in the sense of what we wanted. Turbo boost power time window slider now greyed out in intel extreme tuning utility. Can't say for sure if the fan tables are any better. Benchmarking with basic preset level 1 OC in bios has exact same scores. Basically, it's very average compared to what I expected. Dell, I'm disappoint.

 

As expected... Who has believed in their wildest imagination that Dell came up with an updated "unlocked" bios for AW 18 ?

 

everyone! hoping against all odds

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Are the "new" release of the AW18 with GTX980's still operating on the same old system BIOS?
Wasn't a new BIOS promised for it?
Is this new system BIOS going to eliminate some of the issues faced previously by owners trying to install 980's in their AW18's?
I've checked several times on both the Dell USA and AU website and cannot find any "new" system BIOS updates for the AW18

A new system BIOS for the AW18 may eliminate or reduce the chance of windoze 10 herpies 64bit.

It may even allow for permanent re-programing of the eeprom without the constant reflashing Mr Fox is doing now

 

Bios is updated for AW 18 (A12). Locked as before .

 

seriously hoping someone leaks the bios tools.

 

Where did you find that I need this in my life like right now. Let's hope it serves as a potential cure for Windoze X otherwise I'll just throw my 18 out the window also I currently have A10 installed right now which I though was the latest so where did A11 go?

 

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us...de=alienware-18&languageCode=EN&categoryId=BI

 

A11 was not released. Probably had a bug of some sort. Whenever you see a skip in sequence like that, this is what it typically means. There were several skips with the M18xR2 as well. Some machines came with the skipped BIOS versions from the factory, but before the version was made available for download by the public it was updated to a newer version. Not a big deal.

 

I flashed to A12 expecting the same BIOS menus as from svl7's modded InsydeH20 bios for the M18x R2.....nope. Still the locked down POS it was just like A10. GARBAGE release Alienware, but I guess that's to be expected now.

 

So, yeah... not unlocked. I wonder if Secure Flash was removed so we can unlock it? Running the PRR2 tool from a DOS USB stick would indicate that. Will have to test that and see if it says "Ready to Flash" or an error message.

Should be interesting to see if someone like @Scanner can test to see if A12 will allow his machine to boot in UEFI with Legacy Option ROM with 980M SLI without having 8 beeps. If it does, then that's going to be fantastic, because Windows 7 can be run on the 18 with 980M SLI.

 

Two of the main things I was hoping for with the new BIOS - 980's in SLI on Win 7 and Windoze 10 herpies fix inoculation.

 

I cant understand why anyone would want to go to windows 10 with all bugs yet to be worked out not to mention all the built in privacy invasion....Sorry DX12 not worth it....

 

http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER03325272M/2/980M_SLI_Reflash_ZPE.exe
http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER03324809M/2/970M_SLI_Reflash_ZPE.exe

 

On clevo 980M 8Gb new DELL vbios working well.

Flashing using this commands:
nvflash -6 -i0 N16EGX1.rom
nvflash -6 -i1 N16EGX2.rom

 

no throttling or any other issues? any changes in behaviour compared to the previous clevo vbios on your machine?

 

On A10 sBIOS and new DELL vBIOS no throttling in The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt game, like Prema mod. In stock clevo my GPU will run 1000-1100Mhz, in new vBIOS run constant 1200Mhz (+75Mhz core).
I test more (new GPU coolers travel from china 2-5days, and A12 sBIOS + CSM and Win7 later)

 

Going to post this in the OP. Thanks.

 

New Dell 980m stock VBIOS?

 

Great, cant wait to findout if win 7 works

Not a fanboy either, but my customers are gunna ask for a dose of win herpies soon, so the quicker we can find a vaccine for the 8 beeps infection the better for everyone

 

New Alienware 18 System BIOS A12

Dell Alienware 18 System BIOS
Dell Alienware 18 System BIOS update compatible with Windows and DOS.
Fixes & Enhancements
Enhancements:
- Disable PCIe Active State Power Management of Nvidia GTX980 MXM Card.


Is this what was preventing SLI in windows 7

 

Testing Mod using the new base in other AW as we speak...if it works well will use it to build the release version of the AW MXM Mods on it.


EDIT: AW M18x R2 has massive throttle with official vBIOS.

 

Just tried the new Dell 970M vBIOS on my M17x R2 .
The display image gets so messed up that it won't even display in Windows unless I go into safemode.
I reverted back to my 860M.
:-( Blacky is sad...

 

Sorry to hear that man, which version works best for you?

 

I confirm 970m sli works in Alienware 18 with 2nd fan running as it should! with different Dell vBios for both cards

 

Did you update to A12 as well to make this work? Or was it just the vBios that was required?

 

So is there any reason for someone running 880's to upgrade to the new A12? Sounds like this is only to benefit the new machines running the 900 series cards.

 

no update fans are working better and much less throttling i have 880m's

 

If you have anything to report on the new BIOS or Dell vBIOS, also report here.

 

i did both, just updating system bios does not make 2nd fan work, i did not try vise versa.

will try legacy mode tomorrow.

 

where's the one for the 17 R1 alienware??!?!?

 

There's not going to be a new BIOS for the 17. There never was.

 

Boo! What a dick move alienware!

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

would be nice to have fans spinning from 500-1000 rpm constantly in idle mode.

because up till now they are still running 0rpm until temps reach 60 and then they ramp up to 2000+ in the middle of my quite night web-browsing!

 

Awesome. Thanks for the quick response. As far as the Vbios, they only released ones for the 970 and 980 correct. Just want to make sure I haven't missed anything. Would be really nice if they would throw us 880 users a bone and release a new vbios for us. Not like they are supporting these cards or would be responsible for any damage we do to them at this point anyway. Would be nice to have a new vbios that would allow us to use some updated drivers instead of having to stay with older, modded drivers just to limit throttling. Good news about the fans and less throttling with the new Bios though. Will try it soon.

 

So no special overclocking options or any new options in the bios?

 

nope

 

According to a friend, A12 + new vBIOS = Legacy BOOT work

 

I wonder if M18x R2 with 980M Dell vBIOS means we can also get legacy boot, considering the BIOS for the M18x R2 and the Alienware 18 are pretty much the same.

 

yeap, the friend confirms legacy is working perfectly

 

i wonder if the dell vbios will work for the AW17 R1? or is the vbios only works with the new AW18 A12 BIOS?

 

Hopefully works independently (at least as far as booting is concerned). I don't think A12 introduced anything new other than updated/different fan tables for the AW18.

 

How is this guy getting such great fps with 880m's on GTA V I dont know

 

We should ask Dellienware to release the BIOS to M18X-R2 as well

 

We have..

 

Sorry buddy do you mean the BIOS is compatible with R2?

:S

 

No he means that we have asked before, but its nit going to happen.