Khelekwen

Not sure where to post this so I just added it to general. I just upgraded my M17X R4 120Hz from 675m to a 980m and I'm having a problem I hope someone here can help me with. To start: It was installed correctly and successfully on Windows 10 (I wanted to start somewhere more certain). Everything worked fine and everything read fine (as far as the graphics card goes). After I was sure everything was working properly, I reverted to Windows 7. As I read, with the current unlocked BIOS A11 (posted on this site) it's capable of running 9xxM series in windows 7. When I installed 7 on this laptop soon after buying it (reformatted old HDD, moved to bay 1, inserted 500GB SSD in bay 0 and installed 7 OS on it) I installed selecting the UEFI option and the drive is in GPT. As mentioned, I have Unlocked A11 BIOS (thank you to the maker on this site!). Anyway, once I reverted to 7 it started to boot up and said it needed to run startup repair. I allowed it and it froze once the bar filled at the bottom. Upon restarting I tried once more.. same thing. I tried to "start normally" and it starts boot looping. I then changed "Load Legacy Option Rom" from disable to enable. This causes the 8 beep post issue immediately upon power on. This problem doesn't exist when this option is disabled. I then utilized the HDMI trick (I made a separate post for this the other day. Connect HDMI out to any screen and it will cause post on the laptop screen [but not on the external device]. Can then immediately disconnect once post has occured and works fine with no error or beeps). This let it boot up and I'm able to get to the desktop and everything works fine. Can even run screen at 120Hz. I ran diagnostics on the card, checked drivers.. everything is reading correctly. This is workable, but far from an ideal solution as I need to have a cable and some kind of HDMI screen available just to boot up every time. I have two option here and I'm hoping someone can provide a little guidance one way or the other. I can either fix the boot looping issue on "Legacy Rom - disabled" (it hangs on classpnp.sys when I try safe mode if that information helps at all). OR, I need to find a way for it to post when "Legacy Rom - enable" without connecting to an HDMI device (just plugging in the cable doesn't work. It has to be connected to something on the other end). For the first, I have tried start up repair and tried repairing using my WIN 7 disc but it doesn't actually pull up the menu. It just shows the windows loading screen and then freezes after a while. For the second I have tried changing different video options in hopes it will post on boot without connecting to an external or tried to find a way to keep the HDMI port active without something being in it. I can make no progress with either of these as I'm unaware exactly what exaclty the selections change. I currently have it set to PEG. Also, I have tried bios reset through removing all power sources and the 2032 CMOS and holding power button 30 seconds. Didn't help. Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to ask any questions you have that could assist in ascertaining the source of the problem in either instance. As a last resort, I could go back to 10, but I would really rather not. The R4 (in Dell's words) isn't being tested for compatibility. Many features don't seem to work, and overall I just much prefer 7.

Hey guys, I know I've seen many forums covering this topic (including this one) but I just recently installed the 980m in my M17x R4 with the 120Hz screen. I found an interesting trick that helped tremendously. Just wanted to share in case it may benefit someone else. I won't include all of the steps to the process as those are thoroughly covered elsewhere. Okay, so you have the card (980m) installed but it doesn't recognize it yet (no drivers / need to change bios settings etc.) meaning that you immediately get the 8 beep error on startup. A lot of forums say you need to reinsert your old graphics card to access menus, then switch it back to 980m. I've found that through using the HDMI out and connecting to another screen, it will actually stop the 8 beeps and you regain post. It will post only on your laptop, not the screen connected through HDMI. I believe this is due to the 120Hz not being supported when connected to an external screen, it makes it function as a 60Hz and seems to resolve the 8 beep posting issue making it possible to change your settings and even install the (modified) drivers on the desktop. I hope this helps to ease someone else's process in the future.