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  • 4 weeks later...

No, support for any of the 10 series cards isn't in the BIOS so modded drivers are required. I believe the only MXM 1080 that will fit in the M18x is the Zotac card (due to the die placement). It's power draw is still too much for the MXM slot though so it will be throttled. It is quite rare to find as well. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just looked it up and your right it is very rare. But you gotta keep trying regardless. It is still an amazing machine. The gtx 1070 is rock solid gpu still. I have a gtx 1070ti in my desktop. How about the rtx mobile series did they work at all? 

Edited by freedomofthedarkendheart
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5 minutes ago, freedomofthedarkendheart said:

I just looked it up and your right it is very rare. But you gotta keep trying regardless. It is still an amazing machine. The gtx 1070 is rock solid gpu still. I have a gtx 1070ti in my desktop. How about the rtx mobile series did they work at all? 

 

There is one guy who looks like he got an Quadro RTX 5000 to work in his R2. It's pretty exciting but the cost for the card is pretty extreme. His thread is on NotebookReview

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35 minutes ago, MattyB said:

 

There is one guy who looks like he got an Quadro RTX 5000 to work in his R2. It's pretty exciting but the cost for the card is pretty extreme. His thread is on NotebookReview

Yes I did see that on there. It is definitely exciting but a lot of modification. Not easy and isn't there the issue with the screen won't work with newer graphics cards? How about using an external display? I will definitely will be doing something like that in the future. Money won't be an objective I just am not good with fixing hardware. Have to get someone to do it for me. Also I'd love to join notebookreview again but they are just so ban happy. 

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Yeah I meant the ban. 

No problem using the internal display with the 10 series, if you mean the laptops LCD. Everything works pretty well. Nobody has managed to get SLI working with the 10 series but I'm not sure how many have tried. Some cards don't even have an SLI connector but I hear the MSI ones do. 

The only issue with the 1070 (and possibly the 1060) is that sometimes the laptop won't use the cards full power. For some reason it power throttles and you have to go into the BIOS and switch to iGFX, restart and then switch back to SG mode. Then it works perfectly again. I'm assuming it's a vBIOS issue. They never planned on using cards like this when they built the machine. 

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16 hours ago, MattyB said:

Yeah I meant the ban. 

No problem using the internal display with the 10 series, if you mean the laptops LCD. Everything works pretty well. Nobody has managed to get SLI working with the 10 series but I'm not sure how many have tried. Some cards don't even have an SLI connector but I hear the MSI ones do. 

The only issue with the 1070 (and possibly the 1060) is that sometimes the laptop won't use the cards full power. For some reason it power throttles and you have to go into the BIOS and switch to iGFX, restart and then switch back to SG mode. Then it works perfectly again. I'm assuming it's a vBIOS issue. They never planned on using cards like this when they built the machine. 

Just I was joking around about one person I was feuding with, this is a very long time ago 10 years lol. I did make a new account once but they banned me again for double accounts they are so terrible. Super dictatorial, I emailed them last year and they didn't even answer me. They even wanted to ban mrfox for saying stuff like he doesn't use any sort of virus protection and neither do I. Even my friend that works in IT for a community college doesn't lol. I'd love to be back on there I have the Asus Zephyrus Gx 501 too and since I still have the machine and I plan too be getting even older alienware machines and maybe the alienware m15 r3 oled screens are amazing in laptops. I have an oled lg tv for the last five years. So have you tried like 2tb or lower msata does it work? I have the red chassis. You have the gtx 1060 right?  Do you have the same problem with the power losing with your gpu? How does it run with newer 2019 and 2020 games?  I really wanna upgrade the graphics card and It has been overheating the cpu it shut down recently when I was playing and recording Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Remastered.  I am horrible with taking computers, electronics apart I break things very frustrating. Also how about gtx 970 or 980 sli?

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Yeah I don't use any anti-virus either. I used to use Malwarebytes and Spybot but I don't usually bother with it much these days. I just don't go to weird websites and download random files. 

I broke my HDD ribbon cable so while I'm waiting for a replacement I have been using a 512GB mSATA. It does ok but the mSATA slot is only SATAII. Before I broke the cable I had RAID0 SSD's in the two SATAIII slots and it was much faster. 

I have the 1070 and yes I have to switch video modes in the BIOS before starting a game to get the full power from the card. It really only takes a minute to do. If your CPU is overheating then I'd look at upgrading the CPU heatsink. The lower grade CPU's only came with a 1-pipe heatsink while the higher end came with a 2-pipe and there is also a 3-pipe for the extreme CPU's. I have an overclocked 3920XM but only the 2-pipe heatsink so I can only overclock to about 4.1GHz before I start having issues. 

I don't really play many games these days as I have 2 small kids and work 50+ hours a week. BL3 plays really well and I get around 70-80fps with everything set to high. I just capped it to 60Hz since I only have a 60Hz display (don't use and external monitor). I downloaded RDR2 a while back but haven't given it a good go yet. The intro to the game was taking forever and I lost interest. 

SLI is a good option if you like playing older games but newer games aren't optimised for SLI so a decent single card is better. The 980M draws a bit of power so some people have found that putting two in their M18x causing some throttling issues. 

The M18x is harder than other machines to tinker with as the GPU's and CPU are under the palmrest so you basically have to pull the whole laptop apart, including removing the LCD. It gets easier the more you do it. I have mastered it over the last 8 years but it's easy to make a small mistake and break something....like I did with my HDD cable (about $100-150 to replace, if you can find one). 

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Hey did you get your hdd? I am sorry for my late reply I just been taking photos the protesting and other stuff, I cannot do it, a friend of mine will do it hopefully he works in IT. My other friend who usually builds my desktop just too busy. So which is better for me then and also should I get the 700 watt power supply that Eurocom made? You ever tried it, it pricey though.  How about the throttling issues with the GTX 980m or a single one and I saw that the dual 980s the display port runs at 1.1 instead of 1.2? Very weird, with the 1060 it's 1.1. Or should I get the 1070 though it is a pain in the behind. I really don't want to restart my machine too just play games to change it in the bios lol. Compromises damn. Do you know a website I can get these things, besides Eurocom there prices are way too high, I play mostly new games, sometimes I go back play older games, like the dolphin emulator. It was weird overclocking it without throttlestop had full power, also turned off cstates, use throttlestop it was at 2.5 ghz no matter what lol. I plan to use an external monitor most likely a 144hz benq, can I use the mini dp to hdmi for full gysnc? I uderstand about your life, you'll be able too. Did Australia have a lockdown, were you stuck at home? Also Quadro graphics are they any good, I had one with my Dell Precision M6400 a long time ago. You have any plans for the new Alienware area 51m R2 or M15R3?

 

Edited by freedomofthedarkendheart
Forgot to ask some things computer related.
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That a whole lot of questions..hahaha. I'm in Adelaide, Australia and we really didn't see a real lockdown here. The pubs and restaurants closed down but they are mostly back open again now. My work didn't change at all and I went to the office at 6:30am till 4:30pm every day as usual. My wife works in childcare and they stayed open the whole time too.

There are going to be compromises with putting newer tech in these old machines. They just didn't design them for 8+ years of futureproofing. I'm just happy the MXM GPU's aren't completely dead. You won't see me buying a BGA soldered laptop. I'm disgusted that Dell thought it was a good idea to start soldering RAM to the boards.

I could never get myself to order the crazy expensive 700W Eurocom adapter. For a single card it really isn't worth it. I understand why some guys with SLI 980M's decided to get one though. My 330W seems to do just fine.

The Quadro cards aren't designed around gaming performance but they still have great power for gaming since there is little choice for us still using these old machines. I have recently heard that some proper RTX 20 series MXM cards will be hitting the market later this year so that's really exciting. If I can upgrade to a 2070 or 2080 then I will be a happy camper, considering my machine came with dual 675M's.

I was excited when the 51M R1 came out but I knew deep down that Dell would not support generational upgradeable GPU's. I was probably going to get an R2 if they proved me wrong but they didn't. This M18x will most likely be the last Alienware I own and I'll go back to a custom desktop if I ever get the time to start gaming again. There is no chance in hell that I'll get an M15 or M17 laptop.

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@freedomofthedarkendheart @MattyB Regarding the Eurocom power adapter.  I actually purchased this device, but be aware that it doesn't work for some Alienware models.  For example, my Alienware M18x R2 would not support it.  The motherboard itself has a power limiter that won't allow it to accept beyond 330 watts, even though my dual 980m cards could easily draw more than that.  Outside of that, if you have a system that will accept the power, then the Eurocom is a pretty elegant power adapter.  I wanted to give you guys a heads up just in case you were thinking about moving in that direction and hopefully you could avoid some of my mistakes. :)

Edited by godlikemouse
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That's good to know. I had heard a few M18x owners tried one but I never heard that they couldn't draw the extra power. I did see one 18 owner who seemed to have success with it. maybe they changed things from the M18x to the 18. I've never really considered it as I went from dual 780M's to the 1070.

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  • 1 month later...
On 4/12/2016 at 8:11 PM, Guest said:

Great job, Brother @Swick1981. This BIOS mod is the best thing that has happened to the M18xR2 since @svl7 unlocked BIOS mods. I can confirm that everything works exactly as advertised. I borrowed a GTX 970M from the Alienware 18 and Legacy support for Windows 7 is for real, and the 8-beep crap with Maxwell GPU is now nothing more than an unpleasant memory.

 

I have not done the separate Intel Management Engine firmware update.

 

The M17xR4 deserves to have a future as well, so I would encourage anyone that owns an M17xR4 to help with testing.

 

Sockets and slots forever... death to BGA filthbooks.

how do you load 970m drivers not picking my card up. cheers

 

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You need a modded driver and you have to disable driver signature enforcement right before installing the driver. There are guides and youtube videos showing how to mod a driver. It is a little tricky the first time but it is actually quite simple after a few times

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  • 1 month later...
  • 7 months later...

Thank you for the Update after so long. Very glad to know you are still in the scene :).

 

Curious If I could get some feedback on my specific situation, (to determine if I should under go the update from your 1.x mod.

 

-Staying on windows 10.

-i7-3920XM

-GTX 980m (2x) SLI (Personalized vBIOS - Paid)

-No further Hardware changes planned

 

"Issues"

-Fan control is bad. with HWINFO64 its either Slow or Full speed. Annoying

 

Are there any tangible benefits for my use case?

 

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  • 1 month later...
  • Klem changed the title to [Bios Mod] M18xR2 - Legacy Support now Available

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