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Going to test clevo 980m in alienware m17x R4, m18x R2, AW17


godfafa

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Not likely. Every thing was running fine with max temps of 66 degree. Was writting a report on microsoft word before my screen went blank and it couldnt be detected anymore

not sure if i should consider getting one now :P

EDIT: http://www.dell.com/support/article/ca/en/cabsdt1/SLN85593/EN

they recommend reflashing the system BIOS. not sure what good that'll do.

some are also saying to disconnect the battery and see if that will detect the GPU.

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with all of Player2's and Billyxq's issues with the 980M and discussing the idea with Mr. Fox has convinced me NOT to buy the 980M and go the same route as Player2: buying a clevo/sager.

$1300 CAD is not worth it for guaranteed hardware compatibility issues and I have a bit more experience with it than Player2...even Mr. Fox has more than me and he's also inclined to go clevo.

so that's my decision - NOT BUYING THE 980M!!!!

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with all of Player2's and Billyxq's issues with the 980M and discussing the idea with Mr. Fox has convinced me NOT to buy the 980M and go the same route as Player2: buying a clevo/sager.

$1300 CAD is not worth it for guaranteed hardware compatibility issues and I have a bit more experience with it than Player2...even Mr. Fox has more than me and he's also inclined to go clevo.

so that's my decision - NOT BUYING THE 980M!!!!

Add $800 dollars to that $1300 and you got yourself a brand new sagar were everything is compatable and works like it's supposed to.[emoji12]

besides customs or whatever shipping costs incure. But you get my point.

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Add $800 dollars to that $1300 and you got yourself a brand new sagar were everything is compatable and works like it's supposed to.[emoji12]

besides customs or whatever shipping costs incure. But you get my point.

there's reflex notebooks in canada so i'll just go there cos i don't have to worry about customs and brokerage costs.

after seeing your's and billyxq's experience as well as Mr. Fox's use of them I am inclined to think that going with clevo/sager is the better option overall.

maybe I'll buy an xbox one in the mean time and play sunset overdrive :P

as Angry Joe would say "Alienware, you had gone and F****'D IT UP!"

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My laptop was acting wierd and doing strange things the second I put the 980m in . Could of just been driver issues or some settings . I just decided to remove my card so I didn't accidently do something and ruin my card. I did get it to post proper in device manager as 980m and card seamed to be 100% functional. It's just the way my computer would act every once in a while I'd didn't feel like taking the chance of ruining a 900 hundred dollar card so I just put my old card back in and packed up the new one and I will sell it and my laptop and move on. Mr fox was experiencing random problems with his cards too.

Sorry to here about your problems. On to bigger and better things right.

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I kinda know how your feeling because I bought a 780m for mine also but it was only $450 not $900 about a month ago and I smoked it literaly. So 450 down the drain . But that was more than likely my fault from handling the card to much trying to get the three pipe heatsink I bought for it to sit flush on the die. That's why I abandoned the 980m attempt so fast. I really liked my alienware but the last 2 monthes it hasn't been to user friendly.

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I kinda know how your feeling because I bought a 780m for mine also but it was only $450 not $900 about a month ago and I smoked it literaly. So 450 down the drain . But that was more than likely my fault from handling the card to much trying to get the three pipe heatsink I bought for it to sit flush on the die. That's why I abandoned the 980m attempt so fast. I really liked my alienware but the last 2 monthes it hasn't been to user friendly.

@Player2, so you are able to confirm that the GTX 980 runs in Widnows 7 in optimus mode? I am sure that your problems only arise from non-compliance drivers. Please tell me, did you completely uninstall your previous drivers, then switched gpu's, turned on your laptop, installed new drivers and you saw gtx 980 in device manager? If you can write some step-by-step list what was your procedure and what specific problems occured - it will be helpful. You are the only one I know who installed gtx 980m in R5 with Win7. Thanks in advance.

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(A17, not R5)

M17xR3 > M17xR4 > A17 > A17 R2

Installation procedure in Optimus mode is simply physically installing the new card & reinstalling the NVidia driver using a modified inf (doesn't matter if you have Windows 7 or Windows 8) - that's what I've learned from reading these forums.

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My laptop was working perfectly in optimus mode with my old gpu.

I used ddu to Uninstall original drivers and when I rebooted my computer it froze up and wouldn't work .that was before I even swapped gpus. So I did a complete restore with old gpu and it was functioning normal again with original gpu in optimus mode. So I simply turned off laptop and installed 980m . When I rebooted I went to device manager and it showed intel gpu and VGA graphic card or something like that. Then I installed the modded driver from Eurocom and then it showed intel gpu and nvidia gtx 980m in device manager. So everything seemed ok but my computer would do wierd things like my desktop would freeze every once in a while. Or when I tried to launch an application it would sometimes load and sometimes not. So I'm pretty sure it would work I was just afraid I was going to damage card so I just abandoned my mission and reinstalled my original gpu. I'm not super savy with this kind of stuff and as much as the gpu cost I would just rather sell it to someone who knows what there doing.

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OK guys... the magic number for the 980M SLI in the M18xR2 is 324W. The moment you go above 324W for more than a second (maybe less) these suckers drop like a rock. Run Test 1 to 4 at 3.1GHz and it will stay at or below 324W and not throttle. I used ThrottleStop profiles for this and ran the Physics Test and Combined Test at 4.6GHz and the Combined Test stays unders 324W. With a heavy overclock on one 980M and 4.5-4.6GHz it exceeds 324W in Tests 1 to 4 without even trying hard.

Anyhow, I completed about 6 runs this way and it was consistent. I also modded my P-states with NVIDIA Inspectors and clocked each P-state to the maximum core and memory clock the P-states can handle without crashing. For the most part is stays in P0 mode with the batch file (see below) as long as you don't exceed 324W. This is using the stock vBIOS.

The way I see it, 980M SLI will never, ever be all it should be this way. Nothing short of a miracle from @svl7 or @Prema or @JohnKss in terms of firmware, drivers, something has to change for it to be worth a crap in an Alienware. I do not believe the best vBIOS mod on the planet will fix it unless it can tell lies to the BIOS. Something is broken at an engineering level and it isn't 980M from what I can tell. If you have a UPS with a watts meter or a Kill-A-Watt, feel free to prove me wrong on the 324W threshold. It's probably lower than 324W on the M17xR4 and AW17.

Apparently, these video cards are on a first-name basis with the BIOS and the BIOS tells them how much they are allowed to have. The moment they ask for more, the BIOS puts the smack-down on them. I guess the BIOS minds its own business on a Clevo and lets the GPUs do what they want to. Wish it were this way on the Alienware systems, but it ain't.

Here's the code for the batch file... have fun trying to make these GPUs work right. I think I am probably done. It's too messed up to burn any more calories on it.

D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setBaseClockOffset:0,0,135 -setMemoryClockOffset:0,0,400 -setOverVoltage:0,25000 -setTempTarget:0,1,101 

D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setBaseClockOffset:1,0,135 -setMemoryClockOffset:1,0,400 -setOverVoltage:1,25000 -setTempTarget:1,1,101

D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setGpuClock:0,2,1050 -setMemoryClock:0,2,1600

D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setGpuClock:1,2,1050 -setMemoryClock:1,2,1600

D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setGpuClock:0,1,980 -setMemoryClock:0,1,950

D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setGpuClock:1,1,980 -setMemoryClock:1,1,950

D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setGpuClock:0,0,950 -setMemoryClock:0,0,804

D:\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setGpuClock:1,0,950 -setMemoryClock:1,0,804

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3920XM Processor Extreme Edition,Alienware M18xR2

QwUxVZkh.jpg

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That batch file is only gonna work for you though, not necessarily other users right? What I mean to say is that everyone's stable overclocks are going to differ, so your batch file is tailored to your particular 980M's. Just saying that so people don't just go ahead and use your clocks and it might not be stable.

Very interesting about the 324W threshold.

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OK guys... the magic number for the 980M SLI in the M18xR2 is 324W. The moment you go above 324W for more than a second (maybe less) these suckers drop like a rock. Run Test 1 to 4 at 3.1GHz and it will stay at or below 324W and not throttle. I used ThrottleStop profiles for this and ran the Physics Test and Combined Test at 4.6GHz and the Combined Test stays unders 324W. With a heavy overclock on one 980M and 4.5-4.6GHz it exceeds 324W in Tests 1 to 4 without even trying hard.

lol that's what i said long time back, i quote 335W (Driver 344.75). Have you tried driver 347.25? As i noticed my dual psu power consumption went beyond 465W, at CPU 4.6Ghz and both GPU 1350Mhz. Well it did throttle memory clock. Unfortunately on second day it start throttlin GPU to 1126Mhz. (You can OC it with 347.25 driver but clocks only apply at start up. I mean first install 344.75 driver and OC GPUs as required with Evga X, select apply at start up, uninstall driver then install v347.25. Now clocks will apply at start up ).

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From what I've read so far, in my M17x R4 with Win 8.1, Optimus and a modded driver the 980M will work without issue including overclocking?

Yes they never throttle with optimus mode (you might not need a Win8.1 for this job but it's a safe bet for using dedicated mode, optimus really sucks ) in the M17x R4 and AW17 but they throttle in 120Hz/ PEG / SLI modes on Alienwares :06:.

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Yes they never throttle with optimus mode (you might not need a Win8.1 for this job but it's a safe bet for using dedicated mode, optimus really sucks ) in the M17x R4 and AW17 but they throttle in 120Hz/ PEG / SLI modes on Alienwares :06:.

Thanks, I've been using Win 8.1 for a long time and I like them so that's not a problem for me. Optimus hasn't caused me many problems except when not playing nice with a handful of games, so having the option to switch to dedicated with 8.1 is welcome but I've seen there are issues with throttling with the 980M when in dedicated mode.

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That batch file is only gonna work for you though, not necessarily other users right? What I mean to say is that everyone's stable overclocks are going to differ, so your batch file is tailored to your particular 980M's. Just saying that so people don't just go ahead and use your clocks and it might not be stable.

Very interesting about the 324W threshold.

The batch file should work the same for anyone. The "stable" part is not a max OC that varies by GPU, it's simply the maximum clock speeds each P-state will support based on the voltage that P-state allows, all of which are a lower clock state than P0. The stability and variance between GPUs part would relate to P0 overclocking, and as I mentioned those results were with a stock vBIOS and +135 is all you can do no matter what.

- - - Updated - - -

lol that's what i said long time back, i quote 335W (Driver 344.75). Have you tried driver 347.25? As i noticed my dual psu power consumption went beyond 465W, at CPU 4.6Ghz and both GPU 1350Mhz. Well it did throttle memory clock. Unfortunately on second day it start throttlin GPU to 1126Mhz. (You can OC it with 347.25 driver but clocks only apply at start up. I mean first install 344.75 driver and OC GPUs as required with Evga X, select apply at start up, uninstall driver then install v347.25. Now clocks will apply at start up ).
Yes, I did that but was not satisfied with the outcome seeing the memory throttled. Using my dual PSU does not really provide any value because the throttle is triggered at a power consumption level that is well within the capacity of a single 330W AC adapter. Whatever is triggering it from the BIOS or EC does not recognize that +600W of power is on tap.

I am at the point of not wanting to mess with it any more. I'm enjoying playing with my M18xR1 with 780M SLI more than I am my pride and joy R2 with 980M SLI and that is pretty sad when you stop and think about it. I'll settle down after I get my P570WM so I can enjoy owning 980M SLI. This was the worst use of $1500 that I can remember spending my money on in recent history, LOL.

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