Nvidia GTX680M 4G VRAM for Alienware M17XR4

[dogs]

Hi guys,

first time posting in this forum. Hope all is well with everyone.

 

i currently have an M17XR4 alienware laptop with 1600x900 display and GTX660M graphics card.

I'm sorry now that when i bought this i didn't go for the higher spec display and graphics card.

 

I really want to upgrade the display to 1920x1080 and GTX680M 4G VRAM graphics card.

 

What i would like to know is if i go for the 4G variant, are there any modded files that i need to do or will it just work plug and play?

i was going to go for the GTX780M but didn't like the idea of having to mod the driver everytime i upgraded it.

 

Best Regards

 

[Henrik9979]

Go for The gtx 780m, Yes you might need to mod the driver to get it installed, but it is only the first time you need that. You can find a lot of tutorials for doing so and it WILL work! It is just a matter of how long time you need to figure it out. I've been there many times.

When updating drivers you don't need to it again, only first time.

If you can find the 680 and 780 for the same price go for the 780.

The 680 might be plug'n'play, but it depends on the carrier who sells it. If it says for Alienware m17x then there's a big change it will work immediately.

But if it says for clevo then it can still work straight away, but the chances a smaller and you need to modify the driver.

You can also go for the 880 BUT that card overheats like crazy! If you order this card, make sure to order the correct heatsink, it is crap if the heatsink is slightly wrong, because if it hits 90 degrees it throttles like crazy!

 

Hope you could use the information.

[dogs]

Thank you henrik9979,

that is very useful information.  I will most certainly look into the 780m.

Are there any tutorials on this site on how to edit the drivers?

 

Best Regards

[Henrik9979]

4 minutes ago, dogs said:

Thank you henrik9979,

that is very useful information.  I will most certainly look into the 780m.

Are there any tutorials on this site on how to edit the drivers?

 

Best Regards

You can be lucky that the seller give you a PDF file with detailed instruction how to do it, but I will try find a good tutorial for you.

Edited June 20, 2016 by Henrik9979

[dogs]

thank you so much

I did read on other forums that for each driver upgrade on the 780m you have to mod the driver but if this isn't the case then the 780M is looking more favorable to me.

 

[Henrik9979]

3 minutes ago, dogs said:

thank you so much

I did read on other forums that for each driver upgrade on the 780m you have to mod the driver but if this isn't the case then the 780M is looking more favorable to me.

 

Hmm... Maybe that is true, but I have not experienced it my self.

The only time I need to do it again, is if I uninstall the driver completely.

 

But anyway, when you first know how to do it it is no hassle.

What it basically is about, is - your graphics card will have a wrong hardware ID (This you find under device management).
The Nvidia driver has a tekst file called nvdmi.inf, which has the list of hardware ID's for all the different nvidia graphics cards.
The problem is that the nvidia card you buy, has a hardware ID there is not on the list.

 

What you have to do is enter the nvdmi.inf file, find where it says "GTX 780m" and replace the hardware ID, with YOUR graphics card hardware 

[dogs]

you are a top man my good sir,

thank you so much for this information.

i'm in the process of looking for a 780m on ebay

 

[Henrik9979]

18 minutes ago, dogs said:

 

[Henrik9979]

I found these websites that might coming handy.
It can indeed seem a bit complicated, but it is not impossible. 

https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/3245-need-help-installing-gtx-780m-driver-in-m17xr4/

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers?dev=0CAF&sub=04431028&whql=0&lang=0&orderby=version&dir=desc&os=

http://null-bin.blogspot.dk/2015/08/how-to-modify-nvidia-notebook-driver.html

[dogs]

25 minutes ago, Henrik9979 said:

44 minutes ago, dogs said:

 

 

thanks pal,

i hopefully will be able to repay the favour some day

 

best Regards

 

[Henrik9979]

Just now, dogs said:

 

thanks pal,

i hopefully will be able to repay the favour some day

 

best Regards

 

No problem

If you not so experience with changing graphics card, remember one thing. BE PATIENT!!!

The most errors happens because you start rushing. Take a whole day free so nothing can distract you, and make a perfect result instead of a decent. Many tutorials explain exactly how to do it, but when you get inpatient you forget critical details.

Oh! And take pictures of everything now you have it open. Just so you remember how to put it together, and then you can always see how it looked like inside without taking it apart.

Good luck with the upgrade. Be patient and be happy.

Two people who also can help you is Prema and Mr.Fox.

[dogs]

thanks pal,

i have another question.

will the x bracket i have for the 660M fit the 780M. there are a lot of 780M cards for sale on ebay but not selling extras like x bracket, thermal paste and thermal pads.

[Henrik9979]

Yeah and the two things that are a real pain in the a*** is xbrackets and thermal pads.

First of, yes the xbracket will fit. All xbrackets "fits" the difference between them is the square in the middle of the xbracket. On amd cards it is big and at nvidia it is small.

But where the screws go in, it is the same.

 

I know some one on these forums will beat me for telling you this. I upgraded from an nvidia gtx 675m to an amd 8970m. The and didn't came with any xbracket so I took the nvidia xbracket and blended it till it would fit.

Because the amd required a xbracket with a big square, the square is actually on some of the chips because it is too small.

But the screws fits and I'm still running my laptop with this card for third year.

 

Long story short, if it do not fit, you can make it fit.

 

You may use a little work getting the xbracket off you 660, because it is glued on. It was on my 675.

[Henrik9979]

About thermal pads. You can use the one you have but I tell you one thing they brake very very very easy so be really careful. Again be patient and look very carefully when you take off you heatsink.

The biggest challenge you can face is the need of modifing your heatsink.

I don't know how well you gtx 660 heatsink will fit. Also you will see on you heatsink if it say NV75w or GTX75w

Because for the 780m it is recommended to be a 100w. Also for the gtx 680m.

You may get it to work anyway.

 

The heatsink for a 680 should fit a 780 no problem. So try search about the 660 heatsink will fit 680 or 780.

About thermal pads. You can use the one you have but I tell you one thing they brake very very very easy so be really careful. Again be patient and look very carefully when you take off you heatsink.

The biggest challenge you can face is the need of modifing your heatsink.

I don't know how well you gtx 660 heatsink will fit. Also you will see on you heatsink if it say NV75w or GTX75w

Because for the 780m it is recommended to be a 100w. Also for the gtx 680m.

You may get it to work anyway.

 

The heatsink for a 680 should fit a 780 no problem. So try search about the 660 heatsink will fit 680 or 780.

[dogs]

ok thanks pal.

i'm beginning to get a bit disheartened because I have already had a few replies from ebay sellers saying that there card will not run in the M17X series of laptops.

is there a specific kind that i need to look out for?

sorry for all the questions but it's a lot of money to pay for something that just won't work.

[Henrik9979]

I don't know how big your budget is, but If you don't mind pay for quality, then buy a complete upgraded kit frome these guys.

 

It comes with thermal pads, thermal paste, xbracket and 1 year warranty.

 

http://www.ceg-hardcorecustom.com/category/gpu-mobile-mxm

 

You can find them on eBay too, and ask them question.

[Henrik9979]

I don't know how big your budget is, but If you don't mind pay for quality, then buy a complete upgraded kit frome these guys.

 

It comes with thermal pads, thermal paste, xbracket and 1 year warranty.

 

http://www.ceg-hardcorecustom.com/category/gpu-mobile-mxm

 

You can find them on eBay too, and ask them question.

[Henrik9979]

I have just bought an gtx 980m sli upgraded kit for my alienware m18x r2.

I'm currently waiting for it to arrive, but they assured me it will work flawlessly.

I see they also have upgrade kits for your alienware m17x r4. Just not the 780m.

I have just bought an gtx 980m sli upgraded kit for my alienware m18x r2.

I'm currently waiting for it to arrive, but they assured me it will work flawlessly.

I see they also have upgraded kits for your alienware m17x r4. Just not the 780m.

Edited June 20, 2016 by Henrik9979

[dogs]

Hi guys,

i took the plunge and bought a GTX780M upgrade kit.

The installation was almost flawless. I say almost because when screwing down the heatsink to the graphics card, i must have over-screwed and sheared off one of the screw heads.

But that being said I now have a working GTX780M in my M17XR4 and I want to thank henrik9979 for his help in me coming to my decision.

 

I seem to have been bitten by the upgrade bug because so far I have changed my 1600x900 screen to 1920x1080 screen and also changed the keyboard as well as the graphics card.

I notice in one of the posts that there is an unlocked A12 BIOS but this is specifically for the M17XR3. Will this also work for the M17XR4?

i currently have A13 BIOS installed on my M17XR4, will there be an unlocked version of this BIOS anytime soon?

 

Hoping to learn much more in these forums which is why I had to subscribe to one of the plans because there was no way i was ever going to get promoted

 

Best Regards

 

Edit:

Seems like it's not working properly

My fps is 24 and no matter what i change in wow or swtor it still stays at 24fps.

is there anything else I need to do to make the GTX780M work at its full potential?

 

I have modded my nvdmi,inf file to use the latest nvidia drivers from the hardware ids of the gtx780m below:

PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119F&SUBSYS_05511028&REV_A1
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119F&SUBSYS_05511028
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119F&CC_030000
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119F&CC_0300

 

below are the added entries in nvdmi.inf

[NVIDIA_Devices]
%NVIDIA_DEV.119F.0551.1028% = Section240, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119F&SUBSYS_05511028

 

[Strings]
NVIDIA_DEV.119F.0551.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M"

 

Most of the tutorial was fairly straight forward although i wasn't sure of what to use for the Section part. Does anyone know what i should be using for this?

 

I re-installed the drivers that came with the card (347.88) which of course are not the latest one (368.69) and my fps has shot back up to over 100fps so it is definately something I have done wrong in the modded file.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated in helping me mod this driver file

 

Edited July 8, 2016 by dogs
added an Edit section

[Henrik9979]

5 hours ago, dogs said:

Hi guys,

i took the plunge and bought a GTX780M upgrade kit.

The installation was almost flawless. I say almost because when screwing down the heatsink to the graphics card, i must have over-screwed and sheared off one of the screw heads.

But that being said I now have a working GTX780M in my M17XR4 and I want to thank henrik9979 for his help in me coming to my decision.

 

I seem to have been bitten by the upgrade bug because so far I have changed my 1600x900 screen to 1920x1080 screen and also changed the keyboard as well as the graphics card.

I notice in one of the posts that there is an unlocked A12 BIOS but this is specifically for the M17XR3. Will this also work for the M17XR4?

i currently have A13 BIOS installed on my M17XR4, will there be an unlocked version of this BIOS anytime soon?

 

Hoping to learn much more in these forums which is why I had to subscribe to one of the plans because there was no way i was ever going to get promoted

 

Best Regards

 

Edit:

Seems like it's not working properly

My fps is 24 and no matter what i change in wow or swtor it still stays at 24fps.

is there anything else I need to do to make the GTX780M work at its full potential?

 

I have modded my nvdmi,inf file to use the latest nvidia drivers from the hardware ids of the gtx780m below:

PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119F&SUBSYS_05511028&REV_A1
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119F&SUBSYS_05511028
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119F&CC_030000
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119F&CC_0300

 

below are the added entries in nvdmi.inf

[NVIDIA_Devices]
%NVIDIA_DEV.119F.0551.1028% = Section240, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119F&SUBSYS_05511028

 

[Strings]
NVIDIA_DEV.119F.0551.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M"

 

Most of the tutorial was fairly straight forward although i wasn't sure of what to use for the Section part. Does anyone know what i should be using for this?

 

I re-installed the drivers that came with the card (347.88) which of course are not the latest one (368.69) and my fps has shot back up to over 100fps so it is definately something I have done wrong in the modded file.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated in helping me mod this driver file

 

Glad to hear you could use my advice.

 

About the low frames, try to use msi afterburner and monitor your temps, usage, and core clock and see if there is a pattern between those. Run a game a couple of minutes and watch the graph afterwards. Then it is easier to troubleshoot.

[dogs]

Hi henrik,

Thanks for replying

 

The low fps only seems to occur when i try to install the latest nvidia driver (368.69). I modded the nvdmi.inf as shown in previous post but couldn't get any higher fps than 24fps. When I installed the modded driver from eurocom website (347.88) then the fps goes back up to 100fps. So it looks like my modded file is incorrect.

 

I will play around and see if I can get it to work but any help modding driver 368.69  would be greatly appreciated.

[Henrik9979]

41 minutes ago, dogs said:

Hi henrik,

Thanks for replying

 

The low fps only seems to occur when i try to install the latest nvidia driver (368.69). I modded the nvdmi.inf as shown in previous post but couldn't get any higher fps than 24fps. When I installed the modded driver from eurocom website (347.88) then the fps goes back up to 100fps. So it looks like my modded file is incorrect.

 

I will play around and see if I can get it to work but any help modding driver 368.69  would be greatly appreciated.

Yes I understand that, but I want to know what is causing the fps. It sounds like the coreclock stays at idle. MSI afterburner can tell you that. Also I am not 100% family with the m17x r4, I think it maybe has nvidia optimus technology, so the problem could be it keeps using the Intel graphicscard and not the nvidia. Said in another way, it stays in powersafe mode.

 

But in general, nvidia has fucked up their drivers very bad, making many cards useless. Your modding seems to be correct. I assume you did disabled the forced driver signature, otherwise modded drivers will not install probably.

 

I will give you a link for a thread where the newest drivers are modded so the performance issues are gone. 

Edited July 8, 2016 by Henrik9979

[Henrik9979]

Go to some of the latest post to find newer versions. But the complete instruction for installing the drivers are on this site.

 

https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/4906-alienware-aftermarket-upgrades-driver-support-modded-inf/&page=47#comment-140591

 

[dogs]

19 minutes ago, Henrik9979 said:

 

Hi henrik,

thanks for posting back.

I'm not sure what you mean by disabled the forced driver signature. I don't recall having to do that. What should I have done?

 

I will play around with MSI afterburner and report back.

 

Sorry for all the questions pal, you must be getting sick of me

 

 

[Henrik9979]

10 hours ago, dogs said:

Hi henrik,

thanks for posting back.

I'm not sure what you mean by disabled the forced driver signature. I don't recall having to do that. What should I have done?

 

I will play around with MSI afterburner and report back.

 

Sorry for all the questions pal, you must be getting sick of me

 

 

Not at all, I am very patient.

 

To disable driver signature in Windows 10.

First you click on the Windows 10 logo in the bottom left corner and choose settings.

 

Then just follow the pictures.

 

When getting to the last picture press 7 or F7, it doesn't matter.

 

Remember, this way you only disable driver signature until you restart the computer again.

 

If you want to disable it permanently let me know.

 

If you already have it disable permanently then you will see your Windows build version in the right bottom corner when you are at the desktop.