Simple question about outdated Nvidia cards

Hey what's up everyone, I just picked up an M17x R3 for a good price on eBay. I've been gaming a bit on the 460m it has installed, I re-pasted it and the i7-2360qm the other day and it runs great! I'm in the market for a better card, I'm leaning towards the 780m (the 680m prices are outrageous) lol... Does anyone know how the 770m runs? Would it be a major upgrade from my 460m? Any help or tips would be great.

 

Go for a HD 7970M.

it's a massive upgrade, you'll be able to play newest titles such as witcher 3 on medium/high settings without any lag. It's by far the best performance to price ratio card.

 

Ok ok, would it be plug and play? Modded bios of course, correct?

 

To my knowledge it should be plug and play provided you got correct bios and vBios

 

Sounds good! And just the price range I'm at! I honestly don't want to pay for a card that is more expensive than the damn computer itself lol.

*EDIT*
So I have the 120hz screen, I read on another thread that AMD cards won't work with the screen... Anyone have any info on that?

 

Gotta be an NV card only, or find a 60hz panel. Oh, and the 770m has been problematic in these machines...

 

So the 680/780m would be the best bet?

 

yeah the AMD cards don't run on 120hz screens. So I guess u're stuck to 680M.

Also as far as I know anything beyond fermi on pre optimus systems are problematic, but are possible if you're prepared to do a lot of heatsink modding, driver fiddling etc.

 

I just might have to fork out the money then...

 

You could always consider buying a 60hz screen + HD 7970M. It would likely be cheaper and selling the 120hz will get you money in again, overall u'd be probably paying little for an upgrade. 120hz screens on outdated hardware is kinda meh to begin with, not to mention that you can overclock the 60hz screen to 80-100hz anyways.

 

Hmmm let me look into that option!

 

Yup, with the 680m being my preference (but I like to push a card and those things can easily hit +220mhz with a decent overvolt!). The 780m sometimes causes on-board audio issues but the fix is to disable it in the bios and only re-enable it after the new card is installed fully. The 780m runs a little hotter so better quality paste is probably a good idea.

On the R3 you will always have to mod the driver, get the .inf file needed @ forums.laptopvideo2go.com
Good luck.

 

heatsink mod is also required, also the 3d function is also going to mess with the panel and other things. Kepler is way to much of a pain and overclocking a fermi card is only advertisable if you have very good cooling otherwise it will die rather fast due to very bad manufaturing.

EDIT: Nevermin the 680M is kelper. Good to go.

Also the card can push far beyond that. I've made a couple of vBioses letting depending on the card and cooling run it between 1ghz - 1.1ghz core clock. Kepler cards are quite OC monsters.

 

Yeah the 580m, stock top card in the R3, fails if you even try overclocking (I lost 3!).
And the 3D is not going to function as it only works on stock model cards (licensing). It is fine on the R4. Temps on a 680m with a full overvolt stay under 75c, around the same as a 780m on stock

 

Same here, had so many fermi cards burning mosfets to death and I never Oced them to begin with. I have heard that some guy managed to get 3D working with a 680M upgrade, it was with a modified BIOS tho, read that in a russian forum, so I suppose it's nothing official. Ohwell, I don't know a single person who ever used 3D features from their 3D AW panel anyways.

 

Haha, oops, I love the 3D once I got the card running at a decent speed! My all time gaming top memory was a all-nighter on Metro LL. Setup as follows, 3D, room dark, dolby headset, and the AlienFX tied into the game so the keyboard had a bunch of atmospheric colours that aided play. Approach a heat source and that side of the KB gradually glows red. Hide in the shadows and a blacked out keyboard that gradually gets brighter as you move into the light. Even nicer, no eye-strain or headache, it is so superior to TV/Cinema 3D poo.....
A Russian site would probably be the only place you would find this kind of bios mod. It breaches western copyright/licensing laws the way NV tied this down. You need a hacked 3D certificate entry, issued to OEM's when registering a 3D laptop.

 

How do you feel about the 765m? Same as the 770? Problematic?

 

anything with 7xx will be possible but also be a real headache.

 

Ok gotcha. If I was to pick up a 7xx series card, you think my heatsink from the 460m could handle it?

 

No, you need to mod it, possibly cut something off etc. The layout of those cards are very different.

 

Ahh ok, shouldn't be too hard to figure out... I'm sure there's a thread about it on here.

 

Probably, I've only worked with a few 770 attempts and they never got any level of success. Something to do with the R3 not having UEFI or a compatibility mode, introduced with the R4.

You do not need any bios mod though with a 120hz panel.

As for the heatsink I simply purchased one from Dell (the R4/680m one will suffice in all cases), complete with pads and paste pre-applied. Simple job to just assemble but it's another cost...

 

Ok so I broke down and bought a 765m for a great price(brand new).
I'm gonna just hope for the best when it gets here. If not I'll resell it and put the money towards a 680m.

 

Good luck with it, IIRC the 765m is a 50w card so only needs a two pipe heatsink.

 

Depends greatly on heatpipe. If you get really big ones 2 can even cool down a 100W card.

 

I'm pretty sure I have a 3 pipe heatsink, I didn't pay too much attention to it when I was re-pasting lol. That also was the first time I opened her up too. But I'll definitely let you guys know when she comes in the mail. Not the best card but should be a lot better in performance compared to the 460 right?

 

How much did this laptop initially cost you?

 

I got it for $390 on eBay. Near perfect condition. Not a single scratch. If I knew more about AW's at the time I woulda shot for something a little newer but I'm gonna work with what I got for now. That's a good price though right?

 

For sure, at least the latest titles will be playable, with a little tuning , I'll be waiting to hear how it goes...

 

I'll have a few questions ready when it and the new thermal pads get here. I have two tubes of Arctic MX-4 in stock lol.

 

temps should naturally be low for the 765m....and its a relevant card even today. you should be able to play high-medium mixed settings at 1080p on 99 percent of games....which is nice, and besides theres really not much difference between ultra and high-medium....You will likely notice only lowering draw distance and shadows, rest of the settings are irrelevant.

edit oh yeah...Expect 30-45 fps on most new aaa games. going to be hard for you to hit 60fps

 

I'm only on PUBG for the time being. It's playable with my 460m overclocked to the max on 720p. I can't wait to see how 1080p would be.

 

That's a really good price, but final judgment comes down to seeing how much the final investment totals, versus the various brand new 1050 Ti and 1060 options.

 

Yep that's right!

 

It's HERE!!!!



Now where do I start!? Lol... Should I try this? And since I have the 120hz screen, should I bother installing the Unlocked A12 bios?

 

Not at this stage, you do not need it so keep it simple. If later you want to 'mess' with bios tuning then go for it.

 

Ok ok. My thermal pads come in today, so tonight I'll get started. I will keep you guys updated!

 

https://www.techinferno.com/index.p...m-success-i-think/&tab=comments#comment-76691
Gonna follow this guide, except the bios part. I'll be home in a couple hours. Gonna take pics and document everything. Wish me luck!

 

That looks good, only one piece of advice, if you have a working NV driver installed already do not bother to remove it. In every instance I have worked with the driver figures out the change and all you need to do is set the res.

Good luck.

 

We offer complete line of GPU upgrades for all of Alienware models including M17x R3. Check our website for details. For M17x R3 we offer up to GTX 880M. All of our cards are coming with proper VBIOS, thermal pads, X-bracket and ICD7 thermal paste.

 

Ok I swapped the cards, unfortunately I deleted the nvidia drivers before I saw your post. But I'm getting a black screen with 8 beeps. No option to hit F2.

 

Maybe you can try this...

 

I swapped the 460m back in for the time being, maybe I should try the Unlocked A12 bios? Even with the 120hz screen?

*EDIT*
Multiple websites say 8 beeps means LCD failure... After swapping the 460m back in, it starts up fine.

 

The LCD failure code is not just the panel, it's an end-to-end test of the video subsystem. Do not try the unlocked bios unless someone says it is specifically needed for that GPU in a 120hz model. You can easily end up with a bricked machine and a nightmare to get it back.

This is the problem I thought might happen in an R3. The boot code is designed for UEFI boot and the R4 includes this 'compatibility mode' in the bios, the R3 does not. It should work but as a first-generation UEFI card it might be 'unfriendly'.

You could look through the bios for something that might help. You'd need to make the change and then swap the cards.

 

Ok, I'm gonna search through the bios and see what I can come up with.

 

Here's what my bios looks like before I swap the 765m in...





Anything else I need to disable? Also when I went to bios for first time, 'Primary Graphics' was already set to PEG...

 

PEG with no integrated graphics is what I would expect with a 120hz panel. Nothing there that looks helpful, I'm guessing now you need to try an unlocked one to see what options you get, but be careful. What looks like it might help could be a disaster if it attempts to use the onboard GPU...

I'm pretty sure I've been through this before and the guy gave up but I'm hoping you beat it (hold up, what's the definition of madness?? haha)

 

Ok I'm gonna try that to see what options I can get. Anyone have the unlocked a12 bios zip file?

*EDIT*
Nevermind I paid the $6.00 for the Elite membership on T|I...

*DOUBLE EDIT*
So I installed the Unlocked A12 bios with success. It wouldn't boot at first, until I changed 'SATA Operation' to [AHCI]... (It was on RAID)

I'm gonna follow the steps I did the first time, with Display set to PEG(which it is already), HD Audio Disabled, and Integrated Graphics Disabled. Swap the cards and hope for the best. I'll let you know the outcome.

 

It's a no go... I took it out and cleaned it up real nice. Gonna send it back and put the money towards the 680m... It was a good try lol I appreciate all the help!!

 

Sorry man, been away. Oh well, you tried, hard, guess it really is a no-go GPU in some cases.

If you can find a 680m then there is so much scope for tuning as well as not needing to have the on-board sound disabled. The 780m should be fine as well.

If the 460m still works then you can save some work by installing the latest driver.

Good luck.