rjtnag

Hi

i had the same 8 beep issue albeit with my 1060

The seller just advised me to change the PEG only setting to auto

then my laptop booted just fine

Other benchmarks

M17xR4 upgrade 680m to 1060

I kindly apologise for my atrocious formatting, I have never written such a long thread before.

Hey everyone, this is my experience regarding upgrading my m17xR4(2012) with a 680m and a 3D 120hz display to a GTX 1060. Please bear with me as it will be a long story.

A little bit of background, on May 11, 2017, my laptop suddenly shut itself down when playing some Witcher 3. No response, no power, no lights, certainly dead.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...t-motherboard-replaced-but-still-dead.805508/
Called Dell India, they recommended motherboard replacement (not quite as much as a recommendation but as an only option.) 15000INR for that. (~235USD)
Still not resolved, no light, no post, no power. But if I remove the 680m, the laptop boots but gives 8 beeps, indicating a GPU or LCD failure. Putting the gpu back in causes a short circuit and no power to system.
Dell technician recommended GPU and LCD replacement. Will cost about 15000INR(235USSD) for GPU and 8000INR(125USD) for the LCD.

Sure, why not.

New GPU time. And boy oh boy, I was in for a headache.
Initial plan was for GTX 980m, easy and simple upgrade, tried and tested.
I contacted @woodzstack, he suggested me the 1060, approx. 30% more performance for the same price. I went ahead with that.
He is a well-known and an excellent seller here on NBR and other forums.

So I got myself a 1060 with a heatsink. The heatsink on my 680m had worn out screws and I couldn’t remove it to reuse it (tried a Dremel to make grooves). The 1060 was available and ready to ship, the heatsink was on back order which caused some delay. Thankfully, woodzstack provided me with a free upgrade to faster shipping. Thanks!

Then came the headaches. As I didn’t have a backup or fall back gpu (680m died), I wasn’t able to change the settings in bios required for 1060 and the system won’t boot with a 1060 ass the settings were incorrect. Also, I had the motherboard replaced which had stock bios. Got 8 beeps with 1060 installed, indicating gpu or LCD failure, which it wasn’t. Also, being a 120hz 3d display, I couldn’t use the intel gpu, as it won’t be able to run the display.

Stuck in catch22 situation there. I contemplated returning the gpu as I hadn’t gotten it to work, and it had gotten quite expensive(motherboard+gpu+heatsink). I posted on various forums for 2nd hand 680Ms or even lower gpu. Woodzstack offered a 680M but shipping was quite expensive.

Then @maxslo came to my rescue, he offered a used Quadro K1000M. Just pay for shipping and its mine. Notebookcheck states that its equivalent to a GT 630M, so it was from my series of gpu. I didn’t know if it would work or not, I took a gamble, if it didn’t work I would return all the stuff and get a new laptop (or a desktop maybe?)

It took its own sweet time to come as it was via national post (can’t complain, got the card only for shipping cost)

And when it came, I installed it, hit the power. I TURNED ON. It was alive!
I quickly got into bios, changed the settings and installed the 1060.
But alas, it didn’t start. 8 beeps again. Woodzstack helped here again.

The issue was default display setting in bios and the uefi settings. Uefi needs a compatible gpu to save that setting and boot with that gpu. As k1000m wasn’t a uefi compliant gpu, I was stuck again. But changing the graphics settings to auto and then it let me disable the legacy settings.

After applying these settings and installing the 1060, it let me boot.
Somewhat.
No bootable media detected. Press any key to restart.
Turns out that the gtx 1060 is fussy even about bot drive partitions. Had to reinstall windows on a GPT partition. MBR to GPT conversion did not work. Needed a fresh install.

Finally, after 3 months of patience, I could revive my laptop.

II would like to thank these threads and their authors
https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/10982-m17x-r4-gtx-1060-upgrade/
https://www.techinferno.com/index.p...x-r4-another-socket-victory-against-bga-crap/

Note: for 680m, the benchmark was done on max overclock +300 core and +500 memory. Stock score would be nearer to 3DM11 P=6300-6500, Ex=2200-2400

Unfortunately, I don’t have 3dmark scores for 680m

Note: This is same as my thread on NBR. Posting here as well for people not on NBR.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/m17xr4-upgrade-680m-to-1060.808327

Some benchmarks

hello everyone

would anyone be kind enough to update me on status regarding 980m on 120hz m17x r4?currently on 680m and unlocked bios and vbios both(all thanks to svl7!)

last i heard it didnt go quite right and laptops were not booting

please direct me to the post or update me

i couldnt find the post(skimmed 10-15 pages or so)

thanks in advance

Quote

I used this procedure:

Backup (Dump) Primary GPU:	nvflash -b backup0.rom
[RIGHT]Backup (Dump) Secondary GPU: [/RIGHT]	nvflash -b backup1.rom
[RIGHT]Flash Primary GPU: [/RIGHT]	nvflash -i0 -5 -6 FILENAME.ROM
[RIGHT]Flash Secondary GPU: [/RIGHT]	nvflash -i1 -5 -6 FILENAME.ROM

Both Windows and DOS version have the same commands. On windows you have to run cmd as administrator.

Wonderful work!

works just as it should be

precise and to-the-point instructions

hassle free!

though the new bios has some intimidating options i dont understand

but the cpu c states are helpful

was on stock A11

made bootable disk

put all required files

run prr.exe

make backup

and then flash

awesome work!

works just as it should work

thanks again to all those who worked really hard on these unlocked bioses

Anybody have any success overclocking dual 680m in SLI on an M18x R2? Do I need an unlocked BIOS as well as a modded vBIOS because whatever vBIOS I try the thing just sticks at stock clocks in SLI. I can only overclock with SLI off and I can't turn it off, overclock, then turn back on.

did you flash both your cards using i<card number> command?

0-for card 1

1-for card 2

if you directly flashed without card number, i think it only flashes the master card

explains why overclock limit +135mhz is not there when sli is off

i would advise you to save BOTH their vbios seperately for flashing back to stock

Rajat Roger Nag: Okay, did some research and found out that .5B has support for Secure Boot and Fast Boot while .33 doesn't. I don't really know why a GPU would affect those things, but that seems to be the case.

Do you know if your BIOS even has an UEFI option? You can check under the "boot" page and see if there's a toggle option between "UEFI" and "Legacy". I'm thinking about flashing .33 onto my card, but I know Secure Boot and Fast Boot are both UEFI things and I don't have much experience there.

thanks for the info!

i am currently on bios A11

it does have a UEFI and legacy boot option

but isnt it for windows 8 fast boot?

using windows 7 though

thanks a lot for helping me on that!

Rajar Roger Nag: I don't know the differences between them, but so far I think the 5B version may be meant for laptops with 3D screens. Thise are wired different and require that Optimus be disabled. I could use some help researching this. Is your screen 3D-capable, and what version is your stock vbios?

The limit set by nVidia is 95 C. Don't hit that. 90 C is the highest you should probably be going while supervising it. For regular use you'll wanna run less. I don't hit 90 even while running OCCT with a +240 overclock, so if you're running hotter at lower speeds something's probably wrong. How hot is your room?

thanks for the reply

i have the m17r4 with nvidia 3d vision2 with a dell 680m

here is my stock vbios

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32467782/backup.rom

i really do not know what version my vbios is.

it is pretty hot here in New Delhi, India (hitting 45C in the afternoon)

so i would say that my room would be around ~33-35C

running furmark at stock hits 80-82C(stock voltage)

it hits 90, on 1Volt vbois nonOC

the increased voltage mods somehow broke my fan control, used Hwinfo for that

but hwinfo also randomly crashes (4.1.8.0)

what is the difference between these two?

Dell 680m - 80.04.5B.00.02_'OCedition'_revised_00.zip (116.9 KB

Dell 680m - 80.04.33.00.32__'OCedition'_revised_00.zip (52.3 KB

i am also having some trouble with the overvolt vbioses

my fan control is shot, i have to use hwinfo64 to control them

and the card just starts to throttle when it reaches 90C (it shouldn't be that hot, right?)

i'll just try to clean my fans and the vent

and another problem is that, i am not able to flash to a non OV, just unlocked vbios

though i am able to flash back to my backup rom(no use though)

i always flash to stock before flashing any other rom, just to be safe

i would also like to know what is the difference between the two vbioses mentioned above

thanks a lot to the dedicated vbios editors/patchers! really helped me get my $monies$ worth ot of my machine

System: M17XR4 with dell 680M

what is the stock voltage for dell gtx 680m?

i am already reaching 78-80C on it when OC to +200/+200 on core and memory when playing farcry 3

on stock, it reaches a max of 75-76C

are these temperatures within normal limits?

what would be the safe temp limit of a 680m?

Rajat Roger Nag: It could be that as well. Like I said, not every driver will work with every vbios, even official drivers with official vbios'. Just stay with what works for you.

Odd though, I'm on an M17x and using 314.22.. You tried getting your drivers from nVidia's official site, right?

look at the link on j95's post

it looks like the problem is only with the 3D enabled M17x R3&4s

do you have a 3D or a non 3D M17x?

Rajat Roger Nag: That's normal. Not all driver versions will work with all vbios's. Some are even incompatible with official ones. Just stick with what works and be happy.

i flashed back to my backed up stock rom, it still gives me a blank screen, when installing those new drivers

maybe its the drivers, they dont look to be quite 'happy' with these 3d vision laptops

and the dell website has the archaic 314.07, its of no use now

i am having a slight problem

i flashed this vbios

Downloads

after that, i am not able to update my nvidia drivers

only stable version i found was 314.14( 314.22 also works but 'breaks' 3D)

I have a M17XR4 with a dell 680M

whenever i install the drivers (clean/overwrite), it always goes blank screen, even on restarting it goes blank just after the login screen(windows 7 Ultimate)

i have to boot into safe mode and then remove the drivers, restart into safe mode again and install 314.14

it is really irritating because i can't play newer games smoothly(tomb raider, bioshock infinite, etc) with these old drivers

Can anyone help me? Any help would be appreciated!

thanks to svl7 and all those involved in this wonderful project

i flashed the dell 680m rev01 bios

now the slider space i get is just sick!

upto +405 on core and +1800 on memory!!

here is what i got

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: P7621 3DMarks

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: X2627 3DMarks

thanks once again!

looking forward to the overvolted bioses!