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MSI 680M in AW M18x - Help Needed.


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trying booting intel graphics first. once on intel graphics, then shut down and add the 680m. do not put the whole machine back together first.you can use a usb keyboard and only need to attach the video cable and something to insulate the power button. (for safety) then try to power it on. sometimes you may need to pull out two memory sticks. don't ask me why, because i have no clue. these are just potential work a rounds you can try before trying to flash the card

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trying booting intel graphics first. once on intel graphics, then shut down and add the 680m. do not put the whole machine back together first.you can use a usb keyboard and only need to attach the video cable and something to insulate the power button. (for safety) then try to power it on. sometimes you may need to pull out two memory sticks. don't ask me why, because i have no clue. these are just potential work a rounds you can try before trying to flash the card

works perfectly fine on intel graphics. as soon as i add the 680m, 8 beeps. i used a usb keyboard :)

if i take it out, works perfect. put it back in, 8 beeps. tried twice to confirm.

pulling memory sticks didn't help :(

i've put a radeon 6990m inside for the time being, works perfectly.

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last thing to try.

if you have the unlocked bios, then you can do this.

under the video menu in the bios is a section that says what to boot. set yours to boot sg mode.

then reboot back into bios to make sure it set. then shut down and add card one more time. then boot back into bios and see if you can see the card there. if you can see the card, then it can be flashed using this method and svl7 can help out, but if you can not see the card, then you would have to flash it from your other machine. speculation of course. provide the card is still working and all. and is still working in the machine it got pulled from. also check backplate to make sure it's insulated around the screw holes. you should have yellow tape on at least 2 of the 4 holes.

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I'm not familiar with the M18x POST codes, I assume 8 beeps is video card error?

So far I've removed the GPU several dozen times in my system, and sometimes I got an error which indicated that the GPU is preventing the system from POSTing. Seems to be the same for you as it works when using the Intel iGPU.

The MXM connector can be pretty delicate, most of the times it helps to simply remove the card, maybe clean the pins with rubbing alcohol or similar and then put it back carefully. One time I had to reseat a card about 5 times in order to get it working.

I suppose you don't have any ESD protection... so at least make sure you peform a proper power drain before you do anything inside your machine.

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sorry, still new here. didn't realise my post was made into a seperate thread. i will jump onto an unlocked bios and report back shortly as i'm on a locked A05 bios. (and i need 5 posts to download it, unless someone can pm me it, this can be done faster. many thanks :P)

@johnkssss, the card is definitely working. i still have the msi machine i pulled it from. will test it in there one more time to confirm it isnt fried but it was definitely working when pulled from it. i'll also check the yellow tape next time i fit the card.

@svl7, 8 beeps is definitely video card error. i understand what you are saying, but i reseated the card about 7 times and i cleaned the pins aswell, just wouldn't seem to work. and when i put the radeon 6990m (which was in there before) back in, it works perfectly. i take that out and put the 680m in, 8 beeps.

one other thing i forgot to mention, i have another m18x r1 in hand if it can help in any way.

thanks for the replies guys!

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chances are very good it is the vbios. but you want to be able to see the card should you flash it. once you flash it in the msi, chances are it wont boot anymore till it's put in the alienware. speculations of course.

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that's good to hear @johnksss. i checked the yellow tape, it's on all 4 of the screw holes. i put the 680m back into the msi and it still works perfectly. took 680m out to put into AW.

i unlocked the bios on the AW. set the laptop to boot sg mode, went into bios again to check if the settings were saved as you said, which they were. added the 680m, entered bios and can see it didn't pick up the 680m in bios, but it did pick up IGFX, and no more 8 beeps like before. took the 680m out and put the 6990m in, it picked it up straight away in bios in sg mode.

the 680m is now back in my msi, ready to flash. i've taken into account it won't boot anymore once i've flashed it till its put in the AW, it's a risk i'm willing to take. can you push me into the right direction as to which file i need to flash and how i could go about flashing it? i would be very grateful :)

thanks for the replies and happy new year guys! hope you have a prosperous year.

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Once you get this working, you are most likely going to need to mod the driver INF to get the driver installed. If you need help with that let us know. You will recognize the problem right away as the NVIDIA driver will refuse to be installed. This is necessary even when using a Dell 680M in the M18x R1 motherboard because Dell has not provided NVIDIA with the hardware ID that needs to be included in the driver INF file. With an M18x R2 motherboard, the INF mod is not required because the driver includes that hardware ID.

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which would you recommend? i see alot of people on this forum using the MSI one.

also, would your "[GUIDE] NVIDIA VBIOS flashing" post be the method i should use on flashing the vbios?

thanks again!

Well? Don't keep us in suspense! Did it work?? :D

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Sorry, takes me a lot of time testing this out :(

even more sorry to say that it didn't work. flashed the clevo bios as svl7 suggested, using the exact step by step method in his post using the msi laptop + 680m. as soon as the process finished, i ctrl+alt+del my machine, restarted and POST hanged on rapid storage screen (raid drives), the letters also turn from small to big. cant restart notebook using ctrl+alt+del, need to manually turn off msi and turn back on, where same thing happens again. took the card out and put the card into AW m18x, and the dreaded 8 beeps are back. i took the card out, put laptop into SG mode, put card back in, 680m didn't pick up and IGFX did. lucky me, i made the backup of the previous vbios :D

if anyone doesn't have any other ideas...wanna help me flash the old bios back...can't seem to get past the raid screen on my msi :(

if anyone does have any other ideas which they want me to try, i'm willing to try them out...but quite frankly, i got a gut feeling they won't work lol (cos it doesnt pick up the 680m in bios from the beginning which i think is the main cause of problem here)

thanks for the help guys!

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