Brian

That's true dedication and a work of art.

Which vbios file did you try and does the system POST after putting the 680m in it? If it POSTs, then you may be able to blind flash to recover. Read this very important post:

Here's working versions, sorry for the broken files. Will update the archives. FPT_DOS.zip prr2.zip

@newusertry grabbing them from here:

@Kosti81 in that case you need to call Dell technical support and provide them with your service tag and other info they request. They will generate a master password for you which should unlock it. See this thread for details: http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19599254

Read: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/announcement/4-user-account-promotions-please-read/

Welcome to Tech|Inferno @tech19. Have you tried HWiNFO64? It may allow you to control the fans if the author put it in. He used to do it for Alienware notebooks so it's worth a shot.

If you're subscribed to receive NVIDIA's newsletter and are a fan of Ubisoft's upcoming game The Division, then you'll be pleased to find an e-mail in your inbox from NVIDIA handing out closed beta access keys to the game. The closed beta starts on January 28th for Xbox One players and January 29th for PC and PS4 owners and the only way to get guaranteed access to this closed beta is by pre-ordering the game or receiving a code from NVIDIA. According to the game's FAQ, the purpose of this beta is to test out the servers and to make sure the game is balanced. The Division is an upcoming RPG game with a military theme that takes place in New York City after a pandemic has swept across the US creating chaos throughout society. In the game, you play as a Division agent that roams through an open world persistent New York where you will explore, take part in combat against other players and AI and have character progression. Amazon has a 30 minute video called Tom Clancy's The Division: Agent Origins which gives a nice background on the story. You can find more information on the closed beta here: http://tomclancy-thedivision.ubi.com/game/en-us/beta/ View full article

According to KitGuru, AMD is preparing to cut the price of the air-cooled AMD R9 Radeon Fury in the coming weeks much like it did with the R9 Nano earlier this month. There's no word on how much the price cut will be but KitGuru claims that it should be more price competitive with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980. If you're wondering about the Fury X, it doesn't seem like there is any information on that but it is possible. If you're in the market for a top end 28nm graphics card, it would probably be worth holding off to see how much of a price drop the Fury gets as it is already faster than a stock 980 in most cases and a price cut will make it an even more attractive option. With AMD's next generation Polaris GPUs due out in the middle of 2016, there is still plenty of life left in 28nm GPUs. R9 FURY X R9 FURY GPU ARCHITECTURE 28nm 28nm API SUPPORT DirectX® 12, Mantle, OpenGL® 4.5, Vulkan™, OpenCL™ 2.0 DirectX® 12, Mantle, OpenGL® 4.5, Vulkan™, OpenCL™ 2.0 HIGH-BANDWIDTH MEMORY (HBM) Yes Yes PCI EXPRESS® VERSION 3.0 3.0 VIRTUAL SUPER RESOLUTION (VSR) Yes Yes AMD FREESYNC™ TECHNOLOGY Yes Yes AMD LIQUIDVR™ TECHNOLOGY Yes Yes 4K RESOLUTION SUPPORT Yes Yes FRAME RATE TARGET CONTROL (FRTC) Yes Yes DDMA AUDIO Yes Yes HDMI (WITH 4K, STEREO 3D, DEEP COLOR & X.V.COLOR™) Yes Yes AMD POWERTUNE TECHNOLOGY Yes Yes AMD ZEROCORE POWER TECHNOLOGY Yes Yes AMD TRUEAUDIO TECHNOLOGY Yes Yes AMD EYEFINITY TECHNOLOGY (MAXIMUM DISPLAYS) Up to 6 displays with DisplayPort MST hub Up to 6 displays with DisplayPort MST hub AMD HD3D TECHNOLOGY Yes Yes VIDEO CODEC ENGINE (VCE) (WITH H.264, MPEG-4 ASP, MPEG-2, VC-1 & BLU-RAY 3D) Yes Yes GPU CLOCK SPEED Up to 1050 MHz Up to 1000 MHz MEMORY BANDWIDTH 512 GB/s 512 GB/s MEMORY INTERFACE 4096-bit HBM 4096-bit HBM MEMORY AMOUNT 4GB HBM 4GB HBM STREAM PROCESSING UNITS 4096 (64 Compute Units) 3584 (56 Compute Units) REQUIRED POWER SUPPLY CONNECTORS 2x 8-pin 2x 8-pin AMD CROSSFIRE™ SUPPORT (MAXIMUM NUMBER OF GPUS AND CROSSFIRE BRIDGE INTERCONNECT REQUIRED) 4, no 4, no FORM FACTOR Full height, dual slot, liquid-cooled Full height, dual slot View full article

It seems NVIDIA is getting to ready to release two new mobile Maxwell GPUs in Q2 2016, the GTX 970MX and GTX 980MX. With the company already dominating the high end notebook market and 14nm/16nm next generation GPUs on their way like Polaris, the timing of this release seems a little odd. Both GPUs will be positioned as slightly more powerful than their existing GTX 970M and GTX 980M counterparts with increased CUDA cores, texture units, and clock speed while retaining the same TDP. In addition to the aforementioned, the 970MX has 56 ROPs vs 48 in the 970M while the 980M and 980MX have the same 64 ROPs. WCCFTech created a table which shows the differences between the new GPUs and existing ones: Model GeForce GTX 980 Laptop Version GeForce GTX 980MX GeForce GTX 980M GeForce GTX 970MX GeForce GTX 970M GeForce GTX 965M GeForce GTX 960M Architecture Maxwell Maxwell Maxwell Maxwell Maxwell Maxwell Maxwell GPU GM204 GM204 GM204 GM204 GM204 GM204 GM107 CUDA cores 2048 1664 1536 1408 1280 1024 640 Texture Units 128 104 96 88 80 64 40 Raster Devices 64 64 64 56 48 32 16 Clock Speed 1218 MHz 1048 MHz 1038 MHz 941 MHz 924 MHz 950 MHz 1097 MHz Memory Bus 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 192-bit 192-bit 128-bit 128-bit Amount of memory 8 GB GDDR5 8/4 GB GDDR5 8/4 GB GDDR5 3/6 GB GDDR5 3/6 GB GDDR5 4 GB GDDR5 4 GB GDDR5 Memory Frequency 7008 MHz 5000 MHz 5000 MHz 5000 MHz 5000 MHz 5000 MHz 5000 MHz Memory Bandwidth 224 GB/s 160 GB / s 160 GB / s 120 GB / s 120 GB / s 80 GB/s 80 GB/s TDP ~150W 125W 125W 100W 100W 90W 75W Table Source: WCCFTech There's no word on what the price will be for these new cards or what notebooks will feature them but if I had to guess, I'd say the usual suspects like Alienware, Clevo, MSI and Asus will be among the first to have these ready. View full article

Try removing the cmos battery, that should cause it to reset. Also remove the battery and unplug the power cord and hold down the power button for 10 seconds to see if that does anything.

What's possibly limiting your overclock is your VRM which can run quite hot. @johnksssand @Mr. Fox could probably shed a lot more light on the subject since it's been a few years that I messed with mobile overclocking.

That's pretty sweet! Did you see an increase in overclock as a result? Also can you add some more detail of what this mod involves in your first post?

We all love drama between technology companies and the latest deliciousness comes courtesy of AMD. They have a 4 minute video on YouTube that questions whether or not SYSmark is a reliable, objective benchmark to use when evaluating performance between different systems. AMD's video opens with John Hampton, Director Computer Client Products, talking about how it is very important in choosing the right benchmark when evaluating a purchase because if you choose the wrong one , you can end up overpaying for technology or getting a lesser performing PC. To emphasize his point, he indirectly mentions Volkswagen's diesel debacle and uses the latter case as an example of how even established organizations can be misleading. We are then introduced to Tony Salinas, an AMD Engineering Manager, who runs through a couple tests in SYSmark using two notebooks, one that has an Intel i5 CPU and the other with an AMD FX CPU. SYSmark returns a score of 987 for the Intel system and 659 for the AMD one which is a delta of 50%. AMD notes that this is misleading and not reflective of real life performance. To prove this, they run a different benchmark called PCMark 8 on both systems and the results show the Intel i5 system scoring 4199 and the AMD equipped one 3908 which is a delta of 7%. AMD says this is a far more realistic indicator of true performance as PCMark 8 tests the CPU, GPU and video subcomponents rather than emphasizing the CPU like SYSmark does. And just to drive the point home some more, AMD created their own in-house test using Microsoft Office Suite where they run a custom script on both notebooks and then measure the start and end of a task with a time stamp to gauge performance. Their in-house test shows the Intel system completing the task in approximately 61 seconds while the AMD based one finished it in roughly 64 seconds which is a delta of 6-7%. As AMD's results line up with those found with PCMark 8, they contend that PCMark 8 is a more fair and balanced indicator of overall performance while SYSmark is not and therefore should be discarded by any potential customers as a tool for evaluating a purchase. Intel system using AMD in-house test: Test completed in ~61 seconds. AMD system using AMD in-house test: Test completed in ~64 seconds. They also take the time to remind us that the FTC has required SYSmark published benchmarks to contain fine print that notes their benchmark may only be optimized for Intel. Of course, this may have something to do with the fact that AMD resigned from BAPco consortium. Finally, AMD notes that a transparent benchmark should meet very specific criteria which includes being realistic, unbiased, objective and transparent, all of which SYSmark is not apparently. While it's fun to see these types of videos from AMD, they also highlight the fact that the company is facing an uphill battle on all fronts, whether it's CPU or GPU, and 2016 may be the year that makes or breaks them. View full article

Digital Foundry re-tested Ark: Survival Evolved on an Xbox One after the developer made some performance improvements and unfortunately the results are still less than spectacular. This isn't really much of a surprise as the game has always performed pretty poorly even on powerful PCs such as my own Titan X setup. If you've never heard of Ark: Survival Evolved before, it is an open world sandbox game that takes place on an island full of dinosaurs where you are free to gather resources, build bases, tame dinosaurs and attack other player built bases. In concept it is similar to other open world games like Rust but this game just runs a lot worse. You can watch Digital Foundry's video review below: View full article

@Dschijn whatever belonged in your guide were moved there. If there were any recent posts that belong here moved into your guide, just let me know and I can put them back here. I had to guess which were yours after a certain point as our backup didnt cover the latest replies.

Yeah definitely slap on a higher res camera on there if you want some youtube clicks and don't wanna kill people's eyes with that VHS porno grain:

LOL! No doubt about that. Needs HD though, for a second I thought I was watching 1980s VHS footage

Nice man, that does look like something I've wanted to do with a drone. When you fly first person, do you see it on your end or is it record only? Edit: Ah saw the ending now, see you looking at a display heh. What would make this even cooler is if they create one powered by oculus.

This will be a working log of features added/removed/modified from Tech|Inferno forums. Please bookmark/follow this post to stay up-to-date on feature specific changes made to this forum. If you have a feature in mind, you can submit it in our feedback thread. 5/26/16: New Features: When you mouseover the badge showing who liked a post, you will now see a larger list of who liked that post. You can still click to get the full list. Ratings now show half-stars for the average (for example, if one user votes 3 stars and another 4, it will show 3 and a half stars) and there is now an indication if you have rated something. A "Preview" button has been added to the post editor which shows how the post will appear after BBCode processing. Tabs show how the post will appear on desktop, tablet and mobile. Users can now choose to ignore notifications for being mentioned in posts by particular users. You can now filter searches by specific forums/categories. Activity Stream enhancements: The filter dropdowns now have an "Apply" button for better usability (previously you had to click outside the dropdown). The "Expanded/Collapsed" toggles are now clearer. Hitting back from a clicked item in any activity stream now remembers your position and loaded results. 3/23/16: Platform update including a large amount of bug fixes and security updates. Please let us know if you run into any issues after today's update. Previous updates: Features Added: Anchor links: Example: Table of contents: anchor 1 anchor 2 anchor 3 Header Anchor 1 Anchor 2 Anchor 3 Known issues: The old link editor will pop up in addition to the new one if you double click on a link. You can use either one to edit the link but if you started w/the new one, it's best to use that. Test it out, let us know if it works well for you and if it does, we'll keep it. If not, we'll pull it. 1/23/16 More features added for the e-GPU crowd and others: Cell coloring for tables Lots more editing features for table rows/cells - Press control + right click over a table for editing menu Custom colors + increased color palette for text Table Header with bg color table table table table When making a table, please be sure to set width as a percentage rather than in pixels so that it scales properly in mobile view. For example. the default size is 500px, instead replace it with 50%. Tables are now set at 50% width by default. Please always use percentages when modifying table widths. Those based on pixel sizes from this point forward will be deleted by us without notice. Thanks.

Threads repaired, the URL for this and @Dschijnthread have changed, please update your bookmarks accordingly. Apologies for the inconvenience.

@Dschijnyou may need to update your bookmark but your thread is here: We had to manually separate it rather than use a db restore as we didn't want to lose recent replies.

@Dschijn your thread was mistakenly merged into another. During our next maintenance period we're going to restore your thread and the thread it was merged into. However, the result may be the loss of some recent replies.

First post cleaned up.

First post of thread cleaned up.