heywheelie

He blew up his M18x??????

"Secure Boot" is a 'feature' introduced by MS in windows 8.1. To get rid of that message you need to go into BIOS and enable Secure Boot, save and then boot into windows 8.1. The message will disappear.

The Secure Boot option in BIOS is only available if UEFI is activated.

cheers

Any idea why it isn't listed as available under win 7 x64 and win 8 x64?

Interesting that it doesn't show up on the Dell website under drivers and downloads. I have windows 8 installed and when I log into my Dell account only win 7 x64 and win 8 x64 show up and the latest bios is A11. It seems that BIOS is for win 8.1 M18X R2 only and not win 7 or win 8.

Does that mean i need to install it if I upgrade to win 8.1 but downgrade the bios back to A11 if I go back to Win 8 or 7?

Here: Driver Details | Dell US

That's it but it only lists 3 enhancements as the changes from the A10 bios and no fixes, and to me that seems rather odd. Is there anyone that can state in plain english what the changes mean?

Can anyone please tell me in plain english what the changes are between the A10 and the A11 BIOS for the M18x R2?

Is the triple pipe cpu cooler available in Australia? I can't find it anywhere on our Dell site.

New firmware has been released for optical drives for this on dell page.

I don't have that type of optical drive

Mine is a Sony Optiarc Blu-ray burner

svl7, can you take a look at Re: M18x R2, A08, A09, A10 BIOS not working EJECT button under WIndows 8 - Alienware Forum - Alienware Club - Dell Community please. Any idea why it could not work? Thanks

Do any of the unlocked bios' address the eject cd button on the control panel, not working in windows 8?

cheers

chipset is HM77, and raid driver are appropriate for AHCI normaly after you browse for the driver and load the Intel Mobile Express Chipset SATA RAID drivers when you come back to drive selection you can do refresh to see your drive. then you should be able to delete all partition and click next and windows 8 does its 4 uefi partition scheme ....

does it work when not in uefi secure boot mode ? or not a at all?

Thanks a lot. loading the Mobile Express chipset SATA RAID driver worked a treat. Windows 8 with UEFI, Secure Boot and Fast Boot all enabled

cheers

I am trying to do a clean install of Windows 8 Pro on my M18xR2. It came with Win 8 Pro pre-installed but did not support secure Boot or Fast Boot (legacy ROM install).

It seems in order for the UEFI install to recognize my drives, i read I need the F6 floppy drivers of the Intel IRST drivers on a USB drive. Sure enough the windows 8 install starts and can't find any drives and gives an error about a missing media driver. I browse to the USB stick with the F6 drivers and it says that the Intel Mobile Express Chipset SATA RAID is compatible with my laptop. Problem is I don't have RAID and BIOS is set to AHCI mode (my boot drive is a 256GB mSATA drive). i untick the "Hide all drivers not compatible" and a dozen other drivers pop up including an Intel Mobile Express SATA AHCI driver. i tried it but no luck (possibly because the mSATA was not blank, but not sure)

Amongst the other drivers is the Intel Series 7 chipset driver (both SATA RAID and SATA AHCI). Would that be the best choice or am i on the wrong track altogether.

I'd like to at least try Secure BOOT / Fast Boot but after 10 failed attempts my patience is running out.

Any help would be appreciated

What do you mean with MXM error? Does it say that the GOP driver is missing?

In this case just flash the vbios in the first post, it's just a newer stock version which includes the GOP driver required to make secure boot / fast boot work.

Though to be honest I really see no reason to use secure boot, but of course you can do whatever you want with your system

Yes that is exactly the error.

Thanks for the advice.

cheers

EDIT: UPDATE: Flashing the "fixed" vbios on both 680m video cards has fixed my MXM error and Secure Boot and Fast Boot options now available

I see... but since you can only flash the bios and not the rest of the firmware by using fpt it can be a bit problematic. Only the usb recovery method takes you back completely. However, if I'm not very mistaken then the A10 EC also works with the A03 bios, so in case you want to go this way I can prepare something.

Thanks but I think it's probably a bit too risky just to get a working eject cd key on the keyboard control panel. Hopefully Dell will fix it in the A11 bios.

cheers

No, because if you're on A03 you can flash just the usual way.

I'm on A10 and I want to downgrade to A03. the easiest way for me would be via a DOS BIOS that's why I asked about the A03 BIOS.

cheers

Pardon the newbie question, but what is the latest vbios for the Dell 680m.

I have an alienware M18x R2 w2ith 2 x 680m and vbios 80.04.33.00.32

Is there a later one?

I get the MXM error whenever i try to disable legacy ROM in BIOS (Alienware M18x R2) in order to enable Secure Boot/Fast Boot options in BIOs. I assume this thread refers to that.

My video cards are 2 x nvidia 680M in SLI. Odd thing is my alienware is only brand new from a Dell reseller but no idea when it was actually shipped by Dell.

I ran Gpu-z and the vbios is 80.04.33.00.32

I'm hopeless at hex values but would the "hacked" version on post #1 be newer than my existing one or should my existing one already contain the "fix"?

Hacked one is Dell GTX 680m - 80.04.5B.00.02.zip

Cheers

Is there an FPT version of the unlocked A03 bios?