Robbo

Just one noobie question:

Is possible to upgrade from an AMD RADEON 6970 to a NVIDIA GFX780?

The heatsink and components are compatible with each other?

I think so, you'll need to make sure you get an NVidia X-bracket, don't use the AMD X-bracket, and I'm not sure if the screws you have will fit an NVidia X-bracket (so you'd have to find out about that or order the screws and X-bracket as a set). Then you rearrange the pads on the heatsink to match the 780M, as well as removing the black tape on the heatsink contact plate - the bit that contacts the GPU core. You remove any traces of AMD drivers before putting in the 780M, and change any BIOS settings as necessary. Think the install procedure has been listed in this thread.

For me the .09 driver lowers the OC I can use without a crash. I have to use +220mhz and not the +230mhz the earlier driver allows...

(That's interesting, I've not noticed a difference in my OC stability with .09 driver, nor any drivers in my experience, although I know some people say the driver affects their max OC - maybe I'm not running borderline enough.)

your gpu should be 1313mhz with +275 and your mem 6200mhz with +600 ...all i really want to know can you play games without crashing or freeze with those settings especially with +50.mV voltage which is really not enough to feed the gpu...i was using 1365mhz gpu + 6000mhz mem +100mV results an overall 10197 fire strike score and 13083 gpu score

You can't really know how much voltage he needs to run his overclock, it varies for each individual chip, so you can't really say that +50mv isn't enough for him to run those settings - only he himself can test what is stable & what isn't. Of course you want to use the lowest amount of voltage possible for the overclock you want to achieve.

Until today, testing a single 980M on the M18xR1. Never tested a single anything before. Hope that makes more sense now.

Thanks yes, that makes sense. Are you going to try a single 780M in Optimus mode in your M18xR1? If a single 780M does work in that scenario, then it's less likely that a 980M will work in the M17xR3, because then the reason for the 980M not working wouldn't be that Optimus doesn't work in your M18xR1.

That is what it seems like to me. I have never attempted to use a single 780M, (or a single anything for that matter,) in the M18xR1, but there are zero compatibility issues with 780M. All of the Alienware compatibility issues started with 980M.

Yes, but I suppose you understand my point I made that if your 780M was to work in single GPU mode with Optimus in your M18xR1 & 980M didn't, then that would mean it would be less likely for a 980M to work in an M17xR3. Do you see what I'm getting at? (I appreciate that it's not 100% proof that won't work in the M17xR3 though).

EDIT: I'm a bit confused about the bit in bold, you just tried it with a single 980M, so that statement confuses me.

I spent a long time this evening trying to get the M18xR1 to boot with a single 980M and no luck. I tried every setting relating to video configuration and I get either 8 beeps or it flashes the Alien head logo on-screen for a split second and reboots before the BIOS actually loads. It should still be tested on the M17xR3 because testing with the M18xR1 may be inconclusive with respect to the M17xR3. The M18xR1 appears to not actually have a working Optimus configuration like the M18xR2 does. You can boot the R1 with SG mode and see the Intel iGPU and both discrete GPUs in Device Manager, but the M18xR2 can only boot with one GPU installed when SG mode is enabled.

Thanks for the testing Mr Fox, much appreciated! Ah right, so you think it's possibly a problem with the M18xR1 not being able to run Optimus with one card installed - I take it that goes for one 780M too (rather than one 980M that you tested)? If your M18xR1 does work in Optimus with one 780M, but not with one 980M, then that would not be a good omen for 980M in M17xR3.

@Robbo

Thanks, regarding the Nvidia site, that wasn't me asking there, it was just what I could find.

The other links were very helpful. I think my problem was Disabling the forced driver signing, and also the instructions from the Nvidia site, also my card was 05AD, found in device manager.

Anyways now the driver is installed and working. Better settings and FPS archieved, however whenever I use MSi afterburner, it's not recognizing my 880M now. Any ideas for this? I'll search around the net too.

Maybe try using a different overclocking program like NVidia Inspector, or check you have the latest version of Afterburner.

- - - Updated - - -

Hi guys,

I need your help. Yesterday i've updated the vBios of my 780m. The system called me that the subId of the pci-adapter doesn't equal. I answered the question, if it should be overwritten, with yes. After updating the vBios the notebook doesn't see the gpu anymore and I couldn't restore the backup oft the vBios because I delete it accidently.

Is there any possibility to rescue my GPU? Who can help me?

I'm looking forward for your feedback,

Best regards Roman

I thought I remembered that there was a reservoir of stock vBIOS files listed somewhere on Tech Inferno, but I couldn't find them right now. Maybe have a look around here on Tech Inferno to see if you can find it. Or hopefully someone with the same model of laptop & GPU can post the vBIOS up for you - you'll have to list your laptop model though.

[MENTION=119]Mr. Fox[/MENTION], thanks a lot, that would be great for M17xR3 owners to know. Although I do remember when I installed this 670MX all the guides said to disable 'IGD' in the BIOS and run it as 'PEG' - I just don't know whether that means that the R3 won't work in Optimus mode with a non-standard card. Do you have any thoughts on that particular point? If I become serious about upgrading to a 980M further down the line, then I'd reconfigure my BIOS to Optimus mode first to see if my 670MX would work in Optimus mode - to check.

Good point chap, I guess it would be ideal to have some kind of infrared temperature sensor you could point at different parts of your heatsink so you could get an estimate on VRM temperatures, etc. I made a point of giving my heatsink the 'finger touch test' (my own creation!) to see how hot the rest of the heatsink was - I ran it with the base off and in a way I could touch the heatsink in different places while running Heaven Benchmark on a loop, I could hold my finger on it for about 1 second, so wasn't insanely hot - if you imagine a metal pan at 100 degC (boiling water), you could barely touch that for an instant without pain! haha, that was my reference!

@Mr. Fox, given what you know about 980M compatibility in Alienware, would you expect the 980M to work in the M17xR3? I believe it came out in the same era as the M18xR1, so I have doubts that it would be compatible. Obviously I have Optimus capability in the M17xR3, but I was under the impression when I installed my current non-standard card that it wouldn't work installing a non-standard card in Optimus mode in the R3 (so I installed it in dedicated mode)? Just wondering what kind of upgrade possibilities I might have for my laptop in the future. (I would prefer installation in dedicated mode rather than Optimus, but just exploring all the options).

Hi Everyone,

Having some problems with my 880M graphic card, I'm not allowed to OC it, even just a little, so I started reading about it and discovered some of the problems.

I'm no technician, but I can follow basic instructions, so I've tried to install the 327.23 Driver for the 780M card, but it's failing every time.

I did remove my old drivers with Display Driver Uninstaller.

Tried to edit the Nvdmn.INF in the folder for Nvidia setup of 327.23, but still failing. Editted it according to this: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/770685/gtx-880m-with-driver-327-23-need-to-mod-inf-/

I'm not sure if the instructions are correct, never the less I'm failing the installation.

Any insight of what I can do/try to install it?

Any help is appreciated.

Zombiewarpig (on Geforce.com) looks like he's given you instructions that should work, which originally came from j95. Here's a guide to modding inf files for installing drivers on non-standard cards:

http://forum.techinferno.com/nvidia/5249-%5Bguide%5D-modding-nvidia-oem-inf-files.html

Have a look at this one too:

http://forum.techinferno.com/nvidia/6307-%5Balienware%5D-aftermarket-upgrades-driver-support-modded-inf.html

This +225 is full stable on games? or benchmarks?

Because +240 that i am now to run bench,i can run with +50mv too

but bf4 multyplayer not even close...lol

Your temps playing games ov + oc?

I think you should choose an overvolt & overclock value that is stable in all situations - both in games & in benchmarks, and then use that value as your 24/7 overclock. You'll obviously want to achieve that figure with the minimum amount of voltage necessary. I think you agreed that you wouldn't go over +100mv for now, so you should just run a core overclock that is 100% stable both in benchmarks & games while at that +100mv. This is assuming your temperatures are below 80/85 degC. (Did you ask what my temperatures are, note I have a completely different card: 65-70degC depending on room temperature 20-26degC.)

I flash too the vbios(thanks svl) my 970m plays games like bf4 multiplayer at 1280 core and 2900 mem at 1.025v or +75.0mv.

MY max temps are 64c without full speed fans.

My fps are btw 70-90 ULTRA SETTINGS

And I have clevo p377sm-a

I know I can go further but im scared....

Maybe stick at a limit of +100mv, and whatever the core is stable at with that voltage until you see other users pushing them further with no failures - assuming you don't want to be a pioneer!

Well as long as you can continue plugging MXM GPU's into it, it should hold up fairly well. The M15x seems to be still going strong after 5-6 years. The CPU on the other hand will be very outdated but given the slow progress we're making on that front, it won't be a huge problem. But more than that, I'd just like it as a collector's item, something to put on a shelf and point to when I say, "this is how gaming laptops used to be from AW".

True, but I forsee compatibility problems in the future with GPUs in older machines, particularly because Pascal seems like it's going to be quite different from previous cards - it's gonna have an ARM CPU included on the PCB for example, which makes it seem more 'different' to the GPUs that have come before it - perhaps more incompatible with old systems. Also, seems like there's a move away from MXM, so maybe in a couple of years they'll be no MXM, just soldered?

No, I don't think so, because it's only using 1.05V, and other Kepler cards like the 750M use 1.156V max (780M = 1V), and the temperatures are basically under 70 degC. Current consumption is only in the region of 90-100W anyway, which is also less than other MXM cards. It could probably handle another 50mv up to a used voltage of 1.1V and 1200Mhz, which would give me another close to 10% performance, but unfortunately the voltage control won't go higher. I don't think it's killing the card in my situation. (I've been running that overclock for all gaming I've been doing since about nearly 1.5yrs so far - there's not been any decreased stability since then.)

Good decision Steve, at the moment it looks like the M18xR1 is not compatible with Maxwell unfortunately. You'll be fine with 780M sli, especially if you (overvolt &) overclock with svl7's modified vBIOS, that's how I managed to nearly double my performance with the 670MX, here's the link to the forum where you can download the vBIOS files for Kepler:

http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/1847-nvidia-kepler-vbios-mods-overclocking-editions-modified-clocks-voltage-tweaks.html

Yep, so 670MX is only 600Mhz core at stock, and I'm able to run at nearly double that for the core with added voltage (1124Mhz @1.05V, which is only 125mv over stock) - so that's why my 3DMark11 result is nearly double of a stock 670MX. No fan or heatsink mods, apart from laptop cooler which lowers temps by 7degC (65-70degC core temp depending on room temp) vs just using it on a desk - of course I had to move the pads around on the heatsink to match the chips on the new card, but I wouldn't call that a performance mod. Alienware has always had really good cooling, so this really helps, although their new thin & light rubbish that they have coming out now will probably have worse cooling! You should be able to run your 780M's for everyday gaming at 1006Mhz (up from 850Mhz stock) - that's an achievable overclock & temperatures should be reasonable, you'll probably need maybe just 1V to achieve that figure, all depends on the luck of the draw though.

No problem Player2!

Yep, that does seem the case then. I don't know what else to suggest bar all the reinstallation procedure I listed earlier (you know: DDU to uninstall, Dell Intel GPU driver, etc).

(If after trying different things you could just do a complete reinstall of the OS or restore a working image from before, and think about resetting BIOS to default settings).

Thanks for help robbo. I tried under global settings and Set nvidia processor for prefered grapghics processor and no dice. Also set program settings for nvidia gpu for specific game and no dice either.

It loads my games with no errors it's just everything is is like 4 frame per second so it has to be using integrated grapghics.

Is nvidia control panel always running or do I have to make it boot up with my computer

You could load up something like GPUz and run a game. Then afterwards view the Sensors Tab to see what the GPU frequencies & GPU usage was. If you're not getting any GPU usage on your NVidia card as seen in GPUz, then you know it's your integrated graphics being used instead (think you can select and view Intel GPU usage in GPUz too - on first main tab). That's just one way of double checking your understanding of what's going on, and which graphics processor is running the game.

A rubbish move from Alienware. Either a Clevo or I'll build a gaming desktop next - either way 120Hz screen with good GPU!

Yeah, I can understand why you're trying to bottom out the Optimus issues before buying a 980M, no point in buying a 980M if you can't get it to work!

You might want to try the uninstall & install procedure I listed anyway, unless you've already followed that process I listed.

Thanks Robbo, I appreciate the response. I'll just plan on getting a 780m and go from there. I'm curious though, how does your M17xR3 do with 2014 game titles like Far Cry 4 or Assassins Creed Unity? It looks like you've got a few mods in there that keep it purring.

Cheers,

780M sli will be pretty potent for you, even if it is not the latest tech - if you're gonna do that though I think it's only worth doing if you can find them really cheap, because a single 980M is not far off 780M sli performance. Just make sure that buying 780M sli is gonna be cheaper than a new 980M notebook. Actually, having said that, it's bound to be cheaper getting 780M sli, and the rest of your notebook is still good, so I think it's a good plan!

My notebook is going well with my upgraded overvolted & overclocked (thanks svl7!) 670MX. I don't have those 2 games you mentioned, but I can give you some game benchmark scores of relatively recent games, some of which are quite taxing even by today's standards, note that I use a small 1600x900 screen so that helps:

Tomb Raider (max settings apart from FXAA enabled): 67fps

Batman Arkham Origins (max settings apart from x2 MSAA): 48fps

Batman Arkham City (max settings apart from DX9 and 8CSAA): 65fps

F1 2012 (max settings, 16CSAA): 83fps

Metro Last Light (Original Vesion, Max Settings apart from Quality High, Blur Low, Tessellation Off): 52fps

Bioshock Infinite (max settings apart from no DDOF): 78fps

Titanfall: can run max settings if OK with 40-60fps, but I run reduced settings for 78fps (screen refresh rate).

3DMark11 GPU Score: 6740

Firestrike GPU Score: 4733 (6123 when run at my native 1600x900, same as 880M using 1920x1080)

(I keep a record of the results I get when new drivers come out - don't want to use a driver that gives me less performance!)

Yep, so it runs games OK at the moment (like an 880M with a 1920x1080 screen in terms of fps), so I'm not upgrading my GPU yet - in fact I'll either buy a new laptop or build a desktop in a year or two. (120Hz screen and good GPU for definite!)

I know this defeats the purpose of optimus but is there a way to permantly turn on dgpu in optimus so it would work without issues but still have optimus so one could use the 980m.

Possibly there is the same option under "Global Settings" in the NVidia Control Panel where you can select "High Performance NVidia Processor" - there's definitely such an option under "Program Settings" in the same control panel, but click on the "Global Settings" instead to find out.

- - - Updated - - -

Looks like it still crashes with precision x off. still crashes with RTSS off.

the only thing I can try when i have the time is either older intel drivers and a full reformat. but then if it is crashing without intel drivers installed then it has to be something in the operating system that's causing it.

Try the following if you like:

1) Uninstall NVidia drivers. Then run DDU to remove any remnants of NVidia drivers.

2) Uninstall Intel Graphics drivers.

3) Install Intel Graphics driver - downloaded from Dell website specific for your model of laptop.

4) Install latest NVidia graphics driver (or recent NVidia driver of your choice) from NVidia website.

5) Retest for Optimus functionality.

The idea of all of the above is that sometimes you need to use the intel graphics driver from the Dell website in order for it to work properly. It was like this with the M17xR3. It was important to install the Dell Intel Graphics Driver first.

Hey guys, I have an m18x r2 with two gtx 675m, will the vbios for the 675mx work?

Definitely not, it's a completely different card! One is Fermi, the other one is Kepler, different architectures even.