MattyB

Driver mods will work fine with Windows 7 but you'll need to use a Windows 7 driver, the recent ones won't work. I'm not sure what the last supported Windows 7 Nvidia driver is but it could be something like 425.31 or around there. If you give me your Hardware ID from Device Manager then I can make up the ID line and the String line that you need to insert in the nvdmi.inf

I believe that there can be a 5-10% impact using Optimus but I don't have a comparison available. You'd have to look at a score from an M17x R4 with the 120hz display to compare them properly. One of the main issues is that Optimus causes a weird power throttle issue and you have to put the system to sleep and wake it up to fully enable the 1070 or it will sit at really low speeds. It's not ideal but these systems were never designed to take cards like these. This isn't an issue with the 120hz panels.

Found my Fire Strike score on the NBR forum archive. I can attach this image for some reason

Yes, the 1070 MUST run in SG mode on the M18x R2 and 18 as it has to piggyback off the Intel graphics due to the LVDS display. The M17x R4 and 17 has the 120hz 3D display option which is eDP so the 1070 works flawlessly on these. There is some performance loss with using Optimus (SG mode) on the LVDS systems. Can't find my Fire Strike score but it was in the 12,000's from memory. This site won't let me load the Time Spy image but it was 5142 with a Graphic score of 5621 and CPU of 3470. CPU is the 3920XM

The 17 R1 was released with the 700M and 800M cards and the Nvidia 3D display option. Support for this was removed from the 900M series. The two 980M's will usually bench well but as newer games don't support SLI then the single 1070 will tend to rise above the single 980M that gets utilised. The 1060 is only marginally better than a single 980M. The cost for two 980M's is also usually much more than finding a single 1070 and using a single card allows for the secondary MXM slot to be used with an MXM to NVMe adapter. I was running a 1070 in my R2 for about a year but decided to sell it and downgraded to a single 970M. There aren't many success stories of getting a 1080 to work properly so I'd advise against trying that. There are RTX cards that will work but they are the Quadro variants like the Quadro RTX 3000 (~RTX 2060)

The 880M is the last card with 3D support. It's basically a 780m with more vRAM and it runs hot with a higher than usual failure rate. The 780M is a better card in my opinion.

Yes, looks like it's bricked. You can try unbricking by reprogramming the BIOS but you'll need a special programmer and the right software/firmware. I've never tried it but I also have an old M14x with the same issue. I have the programmer but haven't got around to try to fix it yet. You can also remove the BIOS chip and replace it with one that's got the right BIOS preinstalled. You'll need some micro-soldering skills or take it to a repair shop.

Most likely an issue with the GPU fan then.

Have you got Support Assist installed? If you do then completely remove any trace of it and disable any Dell services in Task Manager.

You need to switch the Video mode to SG in the Unlocked BIOS to see the 1060. It's found in the second Advanced tab You need to run a modified Nvidia driver to run any Nvidia card that wasn't released with the laptop. https://null-src.com/posts/nvidia-notebook-driver-inf-mod/post.php

Rather than doing the test mode, Disable Driver Signature Enforcement instead. If this doesn't work then the driver .inf probably isn't modified quite right.

If the card isn't detected in the BIOS or Device Manager then the chances are that it's faulty. You will never be able to install a modded driver if no card is detected.

You need UEFi switched on and disable Load Legacy option ROM. You will have to reinstall Windows when switching from Legacy to UEFI and you will have to change your drive partition type from MBR to GPT as Legacy uses MBR and UEFI uses GPT.

Are you trying to download from the downloads section? You should have enough posts now to get the downloads from free. Once someone activates your account then you can just go to the downloads section and grab the files you need.

You need to flash the BIOS. Did you get the BIOS from here? It should have the BIOS file plus a few other files for the flash. Instructions in the link below.

Yes that is what the function keys are for but that isn't SG graphics. The SG mode is swapping 'on-the-fly'. The function key swap uses the Alienware OSD driver and is a BIOS swap which is why the system has to restart after doing the change. SG mode isn't a default setting in the M18x or 18 so the unlocked BIOS is required if you have a GPU that needs SG mode to run.

SG mode is Switchable Graphics (otherwise known as Optimus for Nvidia). The M18x does not have this option available unless you have the unlocked BIOS and it's a requirement for the 10 series or RTX cards. Yes, RTX cards are available and do work in the R2 The unlocked BIOS is available here, on the first page of this thread.

Did you happen to get any before and after photos? Would love to hear more on this mod.

The 10 series cards need the system to be run in SG mode. I'm not sure if you can run SG mode with two dedicated cards. What would be the reason to run two cards not in SLI?

Awesome! Thanks, I like to respray old Alienware laptops as a little hobby. I use Noctura NT-H2 and it works really well. There aren't a lot of people on this forum these days. NotebookReview used to be the place to go but it got shut down a week ago. A new forum has taken its place and we are building it up to take NBR's place, although M11x owners are getting rarer.

That usually shouldn't cause an 8 beep error, the system should still detect the 980M and allow the system to boot. If you had another MXM laptop to test the card then that would help but my guess would be the card being bad, if you have the BIOS set correctly

I wish I never sold the ones that I had. It is such a great laptop. Honestly I was under the impression that all the i7 models had the 2gb 540M so you really must have got one of the first ones. You won't feel any difference if you had one of the other i7 options. It would make a slight difference in benchmarking scores but that's about it. The 2gb GPU makes more of a difference but still not a huge one. The 1gb is very limited once you want to try games past 2014. Many games started needing 2gb vRAM as a minimum. The biggest change will be grabbing an SSD. It will make things much faster. Both those games will probably run fine based on the minimum required specs for each of them.

980M's out of China are notorious for being DOA so I'm hoping this isn't the case for you. I've never heard that removing the memory can help but you never know. Remove all the memory and hold the power button down for 30 seconds (without any power/battery attached. This will give you a power and memory drain and it may help.

If the BIOS set to UEFI boot with Load Legacy Option ROM and Secure Boot disabled and you are getting 8 beeps then there could be an issue with the 980M. If you are getting a 5 beep code as well then your CMOS battery could have failed. It is only a C2032 battery which you can get from the supermarket for $1-2. If this is failed then it may be trying to reset your BIOS which could be the problem. I'd start by replacing this battery and go from there. If you are still getting the 8 beep error then the card could be bad.

If you have the R2 then I'd suggest the i7-3840QM. Technically you can install one of the extreme processors (3920/3940XM) but these are basically the same as the 3840 but fully unlocked for overclocking. The cooling on the M14x isn't really designed for overclocking. The R1 is limited to the 2nd gen CPU's so it would be more like the i7-2860QM