Poeticruins

i'll have to comb thru the forums but i do recall reading on here in another thread that the 5xx or 6xx is the last card to enable 3d, the 3d vision supported by the other cards i want to say is using nvidias other 3d setup with the goggles, where the 120hz 3d screens in the m17x use 3d glasses akin to the tv's

i'll try to find that info again and post back unless youve found it already, i upgraded from a 6xx card and that was one of the things i had to decide on, if i wanted to keep 3d and replace the card with the same one (dead gpu) or upgrade, i upgraded lol

sorry got sidetracked with a few mechanical projects i needed to work on, so did some more digging into it and happened across this little tidbit i missed in my earlier research found on another forum: Nope. There is some sort of 3D validation in the BIOS that lists the panels and cards approved at the time of sale. There was talk of a modded BIOS but I guess not enough demand . The 580m is the best card you can use and still retain 3D. 120hz works fine though.

so not sure about the modded bios that been released as i havent actually flashed that on my r3 yet, hope this helps

hello all, been awol a while from forums in general, joined this one with my $60 usd m17x (needed a new gpu) and you all helped me on upgrading that, now i have a new $100 m15x, not to bad, nebula red, i5 540, 4 gigs ram, all stock aside from the upgraded 250gb ssd it came with, 150 psu. looking into upgrading this one to the 740xm and leaning towards a r9 290 gpu, it has the 5850 gpu in it now, only game i really play now a days is FFxiv which the 58 handles quite well at 720 >_< lol.

tried to upgrade to 16gb's but it really doesnt like my corsair vengence 16gb kit that i had to sneak out the m17x (the wife has laid claim to it hence im on the 15) any of you guys that have got this working if you can link me to what rams worked for you or if theres a thread keeping track of this please link me there.

PoeticRuins

thats about how i would do it too, just wish these machines had more hight off the bottom or at least a lip to raise the back of it, then i could see about doing some dremeling to the chassis so the top pipes are exposed with some font stenciled on them in vynil to peel off after painting flat black, copper fonts! would look awesome imo lol

hell you can get a 1070 8 gig on there for what a 980 sells for out here in the states on ebay lol, but look at it this way, it will be the last upgrade that machine would need gpu wise

pretty sure once the top cpu that works for these starts to bottleneck the card its time to lay the ol girl down and grab and msi and start modding that, altho i'm partial to the asus designs personally

damn dude, your going H.A.M on that bad boy arent ya lol, love the work so far man, i cant help but notice the wifi mod is it? thats on the case in the pic; what do you have going on there?

I'm also interested in the russian contact if you can pass him my info when you have a spare moment not modding the m17x. looking to provide a cheaper alternative to the high priced parts on ebay where its pay what the want or gtfo. (pardon if that violates any rules i might have missed, if so admin's please edit at will)

lucked out and got a 765m for 60+ 5 shipping here in the states but most want just under 100 for them and it only goes higher as you go up the performance ladder.

but my rant aside now lol, can you post up more info on the psu mod when you get it about started? and wasnt there a 330 watt psu for these or was that on the r1/r2 models only?

have you checked the bios for a raid setting? the m17x i have gives the option of ahci raid and i forget the other one atm lol, the drive in question does detect in another system or have you tried to swap it with the other ssd?

that and the usual try boosting the fans to about 60/80% if you can to make sure its not overheating

also can you post up your full spec's, o.s,driver ver, any mods to vbios and such, also what psu are you using to power the vid card?

On 4/17/2017 at 1:13 PM, decool said:

Here are my laptop specs :

 

Alienware M17xr4 - I7 3740 - GTX 680m - 16 Go RAM - 256 SSD Samsung 840 Pro - 750 HDD - Full HD 3D 120 hz

 

is that ok ?

I call dibs on the 680m lol! well if you do upgrade that is, im stuck between keeping the just about usless 3d function or update for better gfx, its more the wifes machine while the evga rig i built her gathers dust >_< but alas, was looking into an upgrade and while this is a wild bump in performance she only plays one game, FF XiV so no real need to have something so strong, maybe a 980m or an 880m bah so much to do so little time

lol not a prob man, glad you got it sorted!

ok well its an lvds screen, not sure if yours has the fn+F7 key for igpu, have you tried pressing that?

checked the tag and that came with a 780m 4gb card. if it was an m17 i could be of more help sadly im more partial to desktops, i even still have an ol aurora r1 in the shed lol and only have the m17x here to test with

im not sure if trying a blind flash might do the trick but might i ask why you removed the gpu? if im following correctly with the gpu all you get is the info on the first post pic correct? does that one have the fn+power on self test? if so have you tried that

ok, well now we have something to go on here,do you happen to know what screen you have?

what model machine do you have? i can tell you for sure its not your bios since your getting the beeps, pretty much sounds like my m17x r4

if you have the service tag on it still hit dell support and see what screen you have be it like mine the 3d/120 hz model in which case youll need the vid card in to get anything on the screen

seems the previous owner added that card hence the prema mod, but just changing the option like that wont cause your bios to dump,if you didnt get any beeps at all then i could see it being a bad bios but thats whats giving you the error tones

well if you still have it might i suggest doing it again with the dell stock A05 bios, normal end insert power blind flash with esata/usb, wait about 9 beeps

unplug it to force a brick bios and then redo the blind flash, just wait out the 30 beeps and let it restart till it stops, that worked for me when i did it

but i have an r4 so while they are pretty similer im not to sure it this will work for you, got a deal on mine, mint condition with the dreaded 8 beeps 3d/120hz lcd

turns out twas just the gpu.got a 765m to drop in and all is well, just waiting to be able to dl the unlocked bios since im using older modded inf driver files :/

do you see your original A/W splash screen or just what the pic shows?

also to be on the safe side and double check the usual's you did make sure you grabbed the right files?

EDIT: also what might your hardware config be also? might help others in figuring what the issue could be, in new here to the forum but im a half decent tech

heh, hate to necropost but for anyone alse that might come across this post looking for the same info

On 2/12/2016 at 9:43 AM, Milocinia said:

How would I be able to see if I had a 3d monitor or not? I just got a m17xr3 with no gpu for free and trying to pick out a gpu.

 

look for your service tag and run it through dell support by tag, click on the config tag and then original config, its pretty much all sorted out by what it is, unless you want to take apart the machine, not much of a hassle really, 2 screws for the bottom lid and 5 for the KB trim and see what connection the screens using, closest to the optical drive shall be 3d, least one my r4 it was, pretty sure that the r3 is the same

hey hey party people, so im here by way if unlocked bios paradise and hopefully will find some usefull info on mods overall, just a bit of everything really

seems the ol m17x is holding on huh. new here after picking up one for $100 in mint condition aside from the dead vid card, looking to grab the unlocked bios but i cant :/