kaeferthias Posted May 15, 2021 Share Posted May 15, 2021 Hi there! I have a M18x R1 laptop and a Nvidia GTX 980M Card. I had the hope to swap out the existing 675 with the 980, but I get 8 beeps instead. I think I installed the unlocked A4 Bios I found here on the forum. Was not able to find a working link to the A5 Version. How can I confirm that I have a unlocked Bios? I did a cmos reset witch gives me the 5 beeps until I powercycle the laptop. Then I see the raid configuration screen. Then 8 beeps instead of the bios splash screen. As it shows the raid screen with the 980m installed, I think the card basically works. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattyB Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 Hello, The R1 cannot run the 900 series cards as the R1 only has the option for Legacy mode in the BIOS while the 900 series cards need UEFI (unless it's the M15x). The 880M is the highest Nvidia card that the R1 can take. The M290x (8970M) is the best AMD card that I've heard works. If your laptop came with the 675M from factory then it's an R2. Did it originally come with a 400 or 500 series card? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaeferthias Posted May 17, 2021 Author Share Posted May 17, 2021 (edited) Well, thats a bit sad. I got the M18x used. It was advertized as M18x R2 and it had a service tag on the back saying it was an R2. So I ordered that 980 GPU from china. The description said, it would work in the R2. But when it got here, I couldn't get it working. Only then I saw in the bios, that it actually is a R1 and the service tag sticking on the back must be from a drifferent machine. Thats why I don't know, what GPU it came with originally. When I took it apart it was very obvious, that someone had been in there before. It is a R1, as it says so in the bios. I guess, I'll try to sell that 980 GPU again and look out for a differnt card that fits my R1... I only want to be able to run X4 foundations (the game) on that PC somewhat smoothly. With the 675 it does't even start. I think its because of no Vulkan support. Edited May 17, 2021 by kaeferthias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattyB Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 Yeah they must have swapped the bottom cover over at some stage or deliberately swapped it to trick the buyer into thinking it was an R2 which is a big shame. While they look exactly the same, the R2 is far superior as it can take significantly better GPU's and also has an mSata port and an additional 2.5" HDD/SSD slot. If you BIOS service tag says it's an R1 then it's an R1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaeferthias Posted May 31, 2021 Author Share Posted May 31, 2021 So. I installed an AMD 8970M card. Was a bit funky, because the x-braket didn't fit. But I rigged something and now it seems to be mostly working. I get some funny lines on startup for a few seconds before the windows driver kicks in. And the laptop won't wake up from standby. Maybe some driver issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattyB Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 On 6/1/2021 at 3:45 AM, kaeferthias said: So. I installed an AMD 8970M card. Was a bit funky, because the x-braket didn't fit. But I rigged something and now it seems to be mostly working. I get some funny lines on startup for a few seconds before the windows driver kicks in. And the laptop won't wake up from standby. Maybe some driver issue. Awesome! Good choice of card. AMD seem to be much easier to install in the older laptops Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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