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An0npl4y

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Everything posted by An0npl4y

  1. Kudos for the great work! You just opened a new door: the good old M18x R2 is still alive and it rocks!
  2. This is very interesting, I thought 1060 could not work in the M18x since it has only LVDS display: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/gtx-1060-1070-1080-upgrade-on-m18x-r2.797282/ So it means a SLI of pascal GPUs could work this way in a M18x R2?
  3. You should really post in the 1060 thread. You need to make sure you have everything required to run this GPU: GPT partition with UEFI and primary display set to PEG. If you have same issue as I had, you can find all informations in my first post to solve it. Unlocked bios will allow you to modify somme settings you can't change now. When you'll have issue booting the 680m, it will be the right time to put the 1060 in.
  4. You should post in the 1060 thread. It's not unlocked vbios that you need, but unlocked bios which is not the same. It's not the video bios, but the laptop motherboard bios. I gave the link to svl7's unlocked bios thread in the first post here. If you have same issue that I had, then you just need to follow steps I explained and it will work fine.
  5. Hello, Sorry I don't understand what you mean. Are you trying to install the 1070 in your M17x R4? What is your issue?
  6. Hello, Yes in fact I made a modded heatsink using M17x R4 100W 3 copper stripes heatsink and a MSI heatsink same as this one: https://world.taobao.com/item/540331819333.htm When GPU was not at full load, I had temps around 70 to 75°c max while gaming, which was good. But now GPU can go up to max 99% load, it's getting hot as hell! After playing around 15 or 20 minutes, it can reach up to 85°c so I'm at hardware overheat level, this is a problem. I need to find a way to cool it down. I already swapped the 3940XM which is getting way too hot for my previous 3840QM, but it's not changing GPU temp at all. It still increase minute after minute. I don't know if I should give a try to a cooling pad, or if I'll watercool the GPU, or the whole setup. Maybe I could also try to improve my modded heatsink by adding it a pair of copper stripes. There is a real thermal problem here. I saw in hwinfo the GPU went up to 125W draw. Even whith modded heatsink, the stock radiator was not designed for that. The next challenge is to cool down the beast.
  7. You really should mod your own .inf file, this is easy and well explained for example here https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/912887/geforce-mobile-gpus/nvidia-gpu-not-detected-solved-/ or here http://null-bin.blogspot.fr/2015/08/how-to-modify-nvidia-notebook-driver.html Anyway I don't think you'll find a ready to use .inf file for the M17x R4 and the 1060.
  8. Hello, A few updates, there are some improvements. So first thing is I made the dual 240W PSU mod, but it's not giving good results. PSU is still seen as 240W by the BIOS, no change at all in benchmark or games. I installed latest Nvidia driver and had a few crashes with it, so I upgraded from vbios 86.04.2B.00.14 to latest MSI vbios 86.04.56.00.3A from GT73VR 6RE here: https://www.msi.com/Laptop/support/GT73VR-6RE-Titan.html#down-firmware It seems to fix the problem, but I saw lot of MSI users had same kind of issue even with brand new laptops: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=280126.63 So since dual PSU mod gave no results, I tried with 330W PSU. I just tried a Delta electronics 330W PSU from AW M18x. ID chip is well recognized, and it appears at 330W in the BIOS. This is good thing. Other good thing is now I could just reach my 14k FS score I was trying to achieve for a while: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/19888925 As you can see, there's not much big improvement with graphics score or physics score, in fact I'm just a little lower. But there is big improvement (around 20% better) with combined score, see 240W high score vs 330W high score comparison: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/12610633/fs/12542431 Also you can notice now my GPU is seen as GTX 1070 in bench results, it seems 3dmark updated their GPU database. Yeah 14k with a M17x R4! The fact is 240W PSU is giving enough amperage to feed CPU or GPU at full load, but not when both are at full load at the same time. Here was the bottleneck. So if you want to make the GTX 1070 upgrade on your M17x R4 you need to buy a 330W PSU, or you'll have PSU bottleneck like I had. It will work, but GPU won't perform 100% when gaming. This is good thing to know. More than bench result, this is big change when gaming. I noticed GPU load was not high enough, it was around 50% to 80% average depending on game scenes (I'm playing GTA 5). Of course, it was same usage as firestrike combined, when there is load on CPU and GPU at the same time. Now with 330W PSU GPU load is around 85% to 95% average when gaming, so for same settings there is a huge FPS increase, this is really major change. I noticed with 240W PSU I had regular MSI Afterburner voltage limit alerts preventing to get higher GPU load before. I guess this is because power rail could just not feed more amperage, so voltage was getting low and it could not reach required voltage such as needed on frequency / voltage curve. Now there's no more voltage limit alerts anymore, everything seems to run fine. Since I could reach my 14k target with air cooling, I don't think going for water cooling is really useful and worth the money. It could allow higher CPU overclock, but it won't bring major improvement to the setup. Now I'll just try to work on finding best settings combination for stable and performing gaming, and it will be enough. This M17x R4 is now performing as well as a 2017 brand new 2.5k$ MSI GT73VR 6RE laptop with 7820HK CPU, for real, see just same FS score: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/12002833 This is enough for me, there's nothing much to improve now. If someone want to make the upgrade on his M17x R4, well it can be done and as you can see the good old M17x R4 can still be up to date against today's laptops, for much cheaper. I hope all informations here will help.
  9. Hello, I had same kind of issue when upgrading from 60Hz to 120 Hz screen. You need to plug back the 60 Hz screen , install unlocked BIOS and set primary display to PEG like I explain on my thread here: Then you'll be able to plug and enjoy your 120 Hz screen.
  10. Hello, I believe the heatsink with the copper part was for Nvidia cards, and the other one was for AMD cards.
  11. Yes you're right, this is like a chinese Ebay with all products cheaper. But buying there is not so easy as on Ebay, this is why it's not so perfect... I keep my ol girl for now, I still haven't pushed it to the max. I'm aiming for over 14k FS score
  12. Yes, of course depending of which country you're living in, you may have custom fees, usually it's around same amount as VAT. With some sellers you can negociate declared value so you can avoid having huge fees. I think we'll have to wait next gen GPUs before having a real price drop. Even 980m is still expensive nowadays, MXM cards always had high prices. Even if I found a good deal, I agree buying a GTX 1070 MXM is still very expensive, but I think it's worth the upgrade, my M17X R4 is a real beast now
  13. The reason why I chose this way is I found a 240W PSU for cheap price, and components for the mod are also cheap. So dual 240W PSU mod will cost less than buying a single 330W genuine Dell PSU. And it will also offer higher amperage if needed. There is not much room enough inside the laptop to make an efficient watercooling mod, so I think pump, tank and radiator stuff will be outside. I'm mostly using my M17X R4 as a desktop anyway. But I need to be sure power limit problem is fixed before going further in this last upgrade step. Link for Wifi mod should be OK now.
  14. Hello, You're right, I'm just pushing this good old piece of hardware to its limits Yes I also upgraded the Wifi, replacing the 802.11 n miniPCI card for a 802.11 ac one, and I added external antennas: http://www.canardwifi.com/2015/09/23/upgrade-wifi-dun-alienware-m17x-r4-avec-carte-intel-7260-802-11-ac-et-connecteurs-pour-antennes-externes/ (in french, use Google to translate). Now I get higher bandwith and range with that mod, I can also plug in a high gain external antenna letting me reach Wifi networks a few kilometers away if needed. The PSU mod I want to make is based on @Mr. Fox 330W mod here: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/3207-tutorial-dual-330w-ac-adapter-mod/ I will do the same kind of case, but with dual 240W instead of dual 330W, since I already have 2 X 240W PSU, and dual 330W would be overkill for a single GPU laptop. With a single 240W PSU, I'm really on the edge, I really feel like it needs just a little more power. I'll include a wattmeter in the case so I can check current draw. I saw GPU already reached around 115 or 120W when hitting power limit, 3940XM TDP is 55W but with a little overclock it can be much higher. With all components of the laptop powered on, I'm pretty sure it can draw around 280W or more now. Sure I give you my contact informations, no problem.
  15. You have to deal that with him, but anyway it will be cheaper than on Ebay. Just check prices on taobao, you'll understand what's the real market price of those products in China. Obviously, Ebay prices are much higher. I changed CPU today, I upgraded to a 3940XM. It's running quite fine while gaming, but in fact even if I can improve Physics score a little when benchmarking, I'm still bottlenecked by 2 things: the 240W PSU which is causing power limit throttling when CPU and GPU are at high load, and air cooling which can't barely deal with such heat to cool down. So next step is setting up a dual 240W PSU, and if it can fix power limit issue then I'll work on the final mod, which could be a full watercooling for CPU, GPU and VRMs. I ordered all components for the dual PSU mod, it should be here in a few weeks.
  16. Hello, 980m i still selling at high price and there are buyers for it so you can easily sell it on marketplace such as Ebay. Then, if you want I can give you email of my russian contact who can get you a 1060 for interesting price, so upgrade won't cost you 500$ in the end but maybe around 200 to 300 only. If you can sell your 980m for a good price (I see it can be sold between 450$ to 550$), you can even upgrade to a 1070 for 300 to 400$ in the end, which seems interesting.
  17. Hello, I don't know where they get those values, if you take one benchmark alone you can find all kinds of results, but most benchmarks are getting best results with GTX 1060 than with 980m. On Firestrike, graphics score is around 12k with a 1060: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/11110201 (AW 15 R3) or http://www.3dmark.com/fs/11542451 (AW 13 R3). Score is around 9k to 10k for a 980m: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6964861 (AW 15 R2) or http://www.3dmark.com/fs/7358145 (AW 17 R3). You can find better scores for the 980m since this card is more common, it has been widely overclocked and there is modified vbios available. Best deal between those 2 cards is if you can find the 1060 for 500$ or cheaper. If not, you can try finding a 980m around 450$, it's still a good deal, altough it's an old generation GPU now.
  18. Yes this is OK, you can upgrade your GPU whatever CPU, RAM, SSD or HDD you're using. I explained all requirements on the thread.
  19. Hello, @naightmehr: You just need to wait a little, and you'll be promoted so you can have access to all files. @decool: Thanks, I gave lot of details in my thread which should help you, you can see all required steps so you can have a working GTX 1070 into your M17X R4. I also had a 680m before this upgrade, which was an upgrade from a 675m. If you already have the 120 Hz screen, you need to make sure you're running in pure UEFI and not Legacy (you can see that in BIOS, check my pictures). Then you just have to get a 1070, dremel the chassis and the connectors on the mobo, mod the heatsink and you can put the 1070 in.
  20. Hello, If everything is running fine, there's no reason why you have to flash the BIOS. I had to do it because in my case it was required, since I was stuck and couldn't boot with the 120 Hz screen, but it may not be the same for everybody. I think the need for unlocked BIOS will depend on production date, default settings and default GPU when the laptop was produced. I followed method 2 described in svl7's thread, so I went directly from A13 to unlocked A11 using the FPT tool, it's very well explained in his thread and you can find all files and required tools.
  21. Hello, Thanks You asked about the unlocked BIOS before editing the post, so I answer about it: I don't think it's required if you already have the 120 Hz screen. But if you have to make the upgrade from 60 Hz screen to 120 Hz screen, with stock BIOS you can get stuck because some settings are not available. This is why I had to install unlocked BIOS, and it saved me for the 120 Hz screen upgrade. Otherwise, it's not mandatory.
  22. Thanks A little work on the CPU overclock today helped improve this with even higher Firestrike score: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/19225824 Other good news of the day, my M17X R4 is fully VR ready according to steam test: I don't think I can go higher right now, but keep in mind it's a 2012 laptop here By the way, while tweaking GPU with MSI Afterburner today, I noticed when I use too high settings, there is no artifacts like I was used to with older cards. Driver is just crashing at some point when benchmarking, so I know it's too high and I need to calm it down. Is it normal behavior with Pascal GPUs? Those cards are still quite recent, I guess in the future vbios tweakers will release optimized vbioses which will allow to really use full power of this kind of GPU. I think with a 3940XM and optimized vbios it may reach near 14k FS score...
  23. Hello, Thanks for all informations, it helped me a lot. I finally went for the MSI GTX 1070, it's running fine too on my M17X R4: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/11378-msi-gtx-1070-mxm-successfully-working-on-alienware-m17x-r4-another-socket-victory-against-bga-crap/
  24. Hello, The card is latest hardware version, it's VER 1.2 as you can see on PCB: I asked for it because I wanted to have latest hardware, maybe it can make a little difference. Seller asked which vbios I wanted so I told him to put standard MSI vbios, which is working fine. But I saw some MSI users had problems with same vbios, with GT73VR 6RE laptop: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=280126.63 Also MSI released a newer vbios: https://www.msi.com/Laptop/support/GT73VR-6RE-Titan.html#down-firmware but since everything is running fine for now, I have no reason to flash vbios. I played a little last evening, GPU temps was between 69°c up to 72°c max, so it looks good. I tried little OC but I'm not getting much better FS score, best I did was this one: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/19208257 I'm only playing with MSI Afterburner settings, I don't want to install vbios which can allow to change voltage. I think this is very high performance for such a laptop, no reason to search for more. This is expensive GPU, I want to protect it. I think with 330W PSU and a 3940XM CPU, I could improve performance a little more. From what I read, Xtreme CPU can allow to use RAM at 2133 MHz max clock. I have G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 2133MHz but I have to set RAM frequency lower, at 1867 MHz in BIOS or I get a BSOD one minute after booting. Anyway, this is good enough for my 5 years old laptop
  25. Hello all here at T|I, I have good news! OK so it's a lon,g story, I'll try to make it short but I want to give as much informations as possible so it can help anyone interested about such project. The story is how to go from this (stock 675m): To this (MSI GTX 1070 MXM): I used to be a gamer when I was younger, then I worked a lot and had no time to play. I came back to gaming last year, and noticed my 2012 M17X R4 was not really up to date for gaming, so it needed to be upgraded. Before you try to do the same, you must be sure you have pretty good knowledge of computer hardware and software, because you may brick your laptop or your GPU in this process, be careful! In order to get a MSI GTX 1070 MXM fully working on a Alienware M17X R4, you need: - unlocked BIOS - the 120 Hz screen - UEFI boot with GPT partition - find a MSI GTX 1070 MXM - dremel the chassis - mod the heatsink so it can fit the GPU - make good BIOS settings so you can boot with the new GPU - install driver with modded .inf - fix GPU throttling issue OK, let's go for the big upgrade, step by step. Unlocked BIOS Eveything you need to know is here: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/1516-m17x-r4-unlocked-bios-versions/ Thanks to svl7 for this great share! 120 Hz screen You can find it on Ebay, for example here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/162380820165?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT It's required because pascal GPUs need EDP mode to run. The nice thing is there is one LVDS connector in M17X R4 motherboard, even if you have a 60 Hz screen, so you can make the upgrade. It's pretty easy to install, but you may have no boot issue with it, like I had. This is when I had to install unlocked BIOS so I can set graphic settings which let laptop boot with the 120 Hz screen. From what I remember, required setting was "Primary display" to PEG, see here: GPT partition and UEFI BOOT I had MBR partition, and since I'm using my laptop for working I didn't want to reinstall everything. I used a very nice tool to convert my system SSD parition from MBR to GPT called EASEUS Partition Master (they also provide partition and data recovery tools for years, maybe you already know this company): http://www.easeus.com/partition-manager-software/convert-mbr-to-gpt.html They offered a discount so is cost me around 30$ to convert without having to reinstall, which is cheap for the time and all datas it saved me. Then, you just need to make sure your boot options are set to pure UEFI, which means Load Legacy option ROM is disabled, here in the BIOS: I noticed it can't be disabled if you're running a GPU which vbios doesn't have UEFI compliant driver. If this is the case, you'll get the "can't detect MXM card GOP driver" error like this: Once again, thanks to svl7 you can fix this using vbios with UEFI driver for your GPU: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/2079-m14x-r2-m17x-r4-m18x-r2-uefi-fast-boot-secure-boot-gpu-issues-solved/ This is not what I did, I just enabled integrated graphics again (it's UEFI compliant), so I can disable Load legacy option. Then I could put the 1070 in, and boot successfully. With this option enabled, I had 8 beeps "GPU not recognized" error at boot, stuck with no POST like a loser. GO BUY A GTX 1070 MXM Here too, you can get headaches. It's expensive, and hard to find. I searched a lot, and I can give you a few advices. For me, you have mainly 3 choices: - contact Lee James Wood, who is member of this forum and very serious seller: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/profile/3501-lee-james-wood/ You can also check his website: https://store.alezka.com/en/ and his Ebay store: http://stores.ebay.com/woodzstack666?_trksid=p2047675.l2563 I must say I contacted him, and at one point I had no answer, so I contacted another seller. But he explained me it was because for some reason he didn't received notification from the forum so he didn't knew my message, and missed the sale. But even he was not the seller, he gave me some advices which were really helpful when I was stuck with 8 beeps no boot problem because of the Legacy mode yesterday. Thanks a lot man, maybe you missed this sale but I'm sure you'll get lot of others since you're so helpful, thanks again! - go buy directly from China, where you can find it much cheaper. You have one chinese marketplace to rule them all: it's called taobao: https://world.taobao.com/ Problem is if you don't speak chinese, you may have trouble just to get their chat software working, it's same kind as alibaba trade manager for those who knows. So buying from taobao is like entring an unknown area, sellers there mostly only speak chinese, some don't want to sell out of China, so it's really weird to buy from there. But prices are really interesting, for example around 3000 Yuans (410$) for a GTX 1060 MXM, and around 4900 yuans (665$) for a GTX 1070 MXM. If you're looking for a cheap pascal MXM GPU, this may feel like heaven: -instead of trying to learn chinese, find a way to make dropship. There are lot of companies for taobao drophip, like Yoybuy for example. I found a russian MSI forum member whose nickname is Onside182, his name is Andrew and I made the deal with him. He knows Taobao sellers, so he dealt with that for me. He was serious and helpful too, and you can chose to contact him on russian forum: https://forum-ru.msi.com/index.php?action=profile;u=1111063 (you must be registered there to see his profile), or just contact me so I give you his email address, he'll deal for your taobao order and you can pay him with paypal. Let's make some room inside Yeah know it's bad, but honestly I don't care about chassis integrity when it's time to get overkill Firestrike score. So yes, you have to dremel the chassis to make some room so the MSI GTX 1070 will fit in. First, you need to disassemble the whole laptop, so you can get the motherboard out: You need to remove little sides on the MXM connector, so the card can fit in. Before After: You must get a modified MXM connector like that: Then you also need to cut part of the chassis, here is the result: Now, you can install the card: MOD the GPU heatsink to improve cooling Here you have 2 ways: keep stock heatsink, and mod it so it can fit as explained here: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/10982-m17x-r4-gtx-1060-upgrade/#comment-155003 Or build a custom made heatsink. This is what I did, I ordered this heatsink with the GPU: https://world.taobao.com/item/540331819333.htm?spm=a312a.7700714.0.0.ZzDuN1#detail%201%20sortie%20sur%20le%20cot%C3%A9%20ok%20et%204%C3%A8me%20stripe%20pour%20cpu%20ok It was designed for a MSI computer, but it can be modified for the M17X R4 since copper stripes are soldered horizontally. You need to unsolder it, and solder the copper stripes and radiator from stock heatsink instead. You also need to cut off the part which must cover the CPU heatsink, which is not useful. This way, you have a more efficient heatsink, because it was designed for pascal GPU: Soldering heatsinks is crap, when you heat one side, you can easily unsolder the other side by mistake because all heat will be transmitted everywhere very quicly. The trick is to put side you don't want to unsolder in water, and heat the other side where you want to unsolder with a torch. But I warn you: soldering this stuff is a real nightmare. With my modded heatsink (which is so ugly and crappy I can't even make picture of it for now), I reached 72°C max while benchmarking, which seems to be pretty good temp. Right now writing on forum, GPU temp is at 55°c. Spend some time finding the good BIOS settings You'll have to try out some settings, and you may have no boot issues, black screens, and many errors. You'll feel very lonely at this time, I know. But searching forums saved me most of the time! If you're in trouble, just search and ask You can boot? Well you still have to wait a little until it works! Once we're here, we can boot with the GTX 1070 inside the laptop, and it appears as something like Microsoft basic display in Windows device manager. So we need to download official driver from Nvidia, extract it and mod the .inf file. I used this howto: http://null-bin.blogspot.fr/2015/08/how-to-modify-nvidia-notebook-driver.html There are many others, it's well documented on the web. Lines I added are those ones: %NVIDIA_DEV.1BE1.057B.1028% = Section408, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1BE1&SUBSYS_057B1028 and NVIDIA_DEV.1BE1.057B.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070" Then it just installed fine after disabling Windows driver signature enforcement of course. I could even install whole Nvidia Geforce experience stuff. The GPU POWER LIMIT throttling issue OK so you think it's installed, now it's over, after all those countless hours searching, testing and tweaking our good old M17X R4? Of course you launch a benchmark, and now you notice another problem. GPU core frequency is good, then it goes low, then it goes high again, then low again... GPU is throttling. I went into HWinfo, and noticed GPU power consumption was going higher than 110W, then I had GPU throttle, it went down around 50W, then it went up again, and so on... I searched and found nothing. I thought it was because I only have 240W PSU and I must change for a 330W one. Then and angel appeared and said to me "Hey, man, this must be a BIOS setting related issue, just fix it". So I went in the BIOS again, and I noticed this setting called "adapter warning". I just disabled it, and now it's running fine. When checking, I can see I still have POWER LIMIT message, but it doesn't slow down GPU frequency, no throttling anymore. This is the funny part where the 2012 laptop kicks ass to BGA craps Yeahhhhhhhhhhhh!!! We can say we made it, the MSI GTX 1070 is working in the Alienware M17X R4: Now, please have a look at this latest Alienware 17 R3 (BGA crap) Firestrike result: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8941795 Yeah I know, this is serious expensive hardware we have here: a 6820HK CPU and a GTX 1070, such Alienware laptop must cost around 2500$, no? Of course, my poor old laptop cannot not beat this beast, what do you think? Here is benchmak I just made today, with little OC, it's not optimized at all: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/19201328 Ladies and gentlemen, on the left we have my 2012 M17X R4, and on the right a brand new 17 R3: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/12289770/fs/8941795 To finish, before I can go at last trying to play GTA 5 at maxxed out settings, here are some links which were very useful, and can help if you want to make such mods. MSI 1070 in Alienware ranger by loafer987: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/msi-1070-in-alienware-17-r1-ranger-success.797893/ German Alienware forum with huge CPU and GPU heatsink mods: http://alienware-forum.de/index.php/Thread/7254-AW-17-R1-CPU-Heatsink-Pipe-Mod/ http://alienware-forum.de/index.php/Thread/7254-AW17-R1-CPU-GPU-Heatsink-Pipe-Mod/?pageNo=2 http://alienware-forum.de/index.php/Thread/8042-AW17-R1-3D-120Hz-GTX-980-N16E-GXX/?postID=69530#post69530 Zotac BOX GTX 1070 MXM in Alienware 17: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-17-r5-gtx-1070-mxm-3-1b.800137/ I hope sharing all those informations helped M17X R4 owners to keep faith in this old good laptop. I'm pretty sure it can also handle a GTX 1080 by the way, if someone is willing to try (I can't be the guinea pig for the next step) it would be nice This post has been promoted to an article
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