naightmehr

Yeah the i7 3940xm is a hothead, best you can do to decrease temps is add another heatpipe, lap the heatink and do the m14x r2 fan mod. Would love to see some cool heatsink modding if you're planning on doing any :-)

What are the temps of the 1070? I presume you're using a 3 copper heatsink?

If you already have a 120hz screen then the mode is already on PEG which means you got nothing to worry about, and no you don't need to change the vbios since it's programmed inside the videocard chip. Once you change the videocard to a gtx 1060, 1070 (?) you'll have a completely different vbios chip programmed on your new videocard. The only thing you do need to worry about is getting the drivers to work, though it's perfectly explained in this guide http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/installing-nvidia-drivers-by-modding-inf-files.746245/ and I'm sure you can get a modded gtx 1060 inf somewhere around

I think that Ripsaw means that you don't need the unlocked bios for the gtx 1060 and 120hz combination to work, like Zoldago stated, you can also log into your windows with your 60hz screen, use the key combination FN+F7 to switch the graphics to the gpu and during that process the bios automatically changes the screen mode to PEG for the 120hz to work. Bios A11 would work fine too.

@Zoldago Is that your own mod? Looks amazing, and yeah I had something like that in mind, my original plan was to add 2 heatpipes on top of the existing ones, and add a bit more radiator between the fan and current radiator.

It's looking pretty good but I'm curious about your decision to do a 2x240 watt psu mod, like you said with the 240 watt you're barely on the edge, but wouldn't a 330 watt psu suffice then? Seems like a lot of effort to do the 2x 240 watt mod, when you can just get a 330 psu. And for the cooling, yeah the 3940xm is a hothead, I'm personally going to add two extra heatpipes to my own laptop to cool the cpu better, would love to see your watercooling project though, but are you going to install the watercooling internally or externally? Also the link that you provided to the antenna mod doesn't seem to work, it downloads a file for me. @An0npl4y Could you also provide me with the contact informations?

@An0npl4y For what price does your russian contact sell a gtx 1060? A friend of mine is interested in doing the same upgrade I did, but I got a 1060 from ebay for 650 dollar, he's skeptical about such a high price.

Good luck with the bios chip replacement, if possible take some pics for future bios chip replacements.

Seems like I was wrong about the bios chips, people actually sell those, though I've never seen anyone succesfully installing one, could give it a try as a last resort. http://www.ebay.com/itm/BIOS-CHIP-for-Alienware-M17x-R4-M17xR4-DUAL-Main-EC-No-Password-/131456742467

You're correct, in benchmarks the 980 outperforms the 1060. But in games the difference is minimum, if that's what you're going to use it for. But looking at it rationally the 1060 would outperform the 980 if you compare other factors like, almost the same performance but vastly lower power consumption, thinner card, longer battery life, lower temps and it's a newer generation card so it has more features, though I cannot support that last argument since I'm not too experienced with the features.

I don't think it's possible for this motherboard to replace the bios chip nor can you find those anywhere. Or people refer to the CMOS battery, have you tried that already? If not, open your case and remove the battery, then hold the power button on the front for about 30 seconds to drain all the power, sometimes this can fix a lot of problems. I attached a picture with the cmos battery

My last guess would be to use the recovery method to try the oldest A05 or A06 bios, otherwise I'm afraid you'll have to replace your motherboard

@decool The 1060 beats the 980 while the power consumption is lower, also finding a desktop grade 980 for a laptop is really hard, and it probably might not even work, overheating, not enough power. And the gtx1060 beats the 980m hands down.

Have you tried flashing it to an older official alienware bios? Like the A11 or maybe even try the A13

@decool if I were you, I'd go with a gtx1060, performance-wise it's still going to run all games perfectly fine at 1080P and it'll work great with the 120hz screen. The gtx1070 requires a bit more modding as explained in this thread, since you're probably not very experienced, I'd say the gtx1060 would be perfect for you.

You could buy a new motherboard from ebay, basically all the alienware parts are available for sale, pretty neat

Unfortunately I'm still a pre-promoted user so I don't have access to the download files :v

Hmm that's pretty weird, because I personally had the 60hz model as well with the AMD HD7970m. Though I had no problems installing the 120hz screen on the 1060, after I installed everything it worked perfectly fine, plug and play. But that does kinda worry me for in the future if my 120hz might act weird. I currently got the normal A12 bios, what's the best way to go to the unlocked bios? If I read svl's thread then I first have to go to Bios A5 using the recovery method, though it's risky and I'd rather not brick my motherboard, what did you personally do @An0npl4y?

Awesome project with a cool result, I also needed a new laptop for my gaming needs but I couldn't say farewell to my old trusty alienware. I personally got the gtx1060 with the 120hz screen and i7 3940xm. Still an awesome result, have fun with your machine! :o)

Hey, unfortunately there aren't any options to limit the voltage. I also upgraded from an i7 3610qm to an i7 3940xm, and my temps also went beyond 90 degrees which means it's throttling down. Now I did two things so my temps decreased, the first thing is, I lapped the heatsink of the cpu which decreased temps by around 10-15 which is already a huge difference. The second thing is, I replaced the m17X r4 fan with an m14x r2 fan, the r2 fan has a better cfm compared to the m17x r4 in exchange for louder operation (not too loud tho) I'll share some links with more information about the fan upgrade and lapping your heatsink, good luck :o) http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/lapping/