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Bringing the M17xR3 back from the grave!


Arodion

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Hello all! I am looking to bring my 2011 AW M17xR3 back from the grave, The current specifications of my machine are;

 

CPU: i7 2860qm

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16gb 2x8gb 1600mhz

GPU: GTX580m

HDD: 700gb Seagate

SSD: Kingston 120gb

OS: Windows 10 Pro (Just did a fresh install last night from Win7 Ult)

BIOS: A12 (Dell one, non unlocked)

Screen: 120Hz 1920x1080

 

As to the reason this computer was in the grave I purchased this computer from Alienware in late 2011 and it ran amazing for roughly 1 year until I started having issues with it, I re pasted the graphics card, the CPU swapped out the memory all without any luck, The issue I was having was when I would play any game and sometimes just using the internet within a few minutes of the computer coming under load, the screen would go black and loop the sound, and require a hard reboot, I called Dell and they sent one of their technical support people out and replaced the GTX580 with another one, it worked amazing all over again for roughly 8 months and then poof, repeat and at this point I was out of warranty, and I just ended up putting the computer in my closet and that is where it sat for the last few years until yesterday when I was looking around some forums and hearing about all the issues people had with a 580m and it seems as though as soon as people replaced the GPU with a non 580/675 All the issues people had went away and they worked like they did when they were new, Currently it seems as though the PC works fully until I turn on a game and then it again, goes black loops sound and restarts, I was able to get about 5 minutes of Diablo 3 in before it starts doing it, but I am actually posting this from the 17xR3 right now, so it does work for non gaming functions, The first question I have is has anyone been able to fix this issue without resorting to buying a 400$+ graphics card, the second is what is your experience with the 880m in the R3? and my final question is how do I know for sure when I replace this card it will work? Thank you for your time and I appreciate any response !

Edited by Arodion
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i would personally recommend you a gtx 680m as it is stable as rock in m17x r3 but you can also go for gtx 780m as i was having gtx 780m in my m17x r3 and installation method was same as you wrote above but now i have upgrade my laptop's motherboard to m17x r4 and still using that gtx 780m

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I want to thank @sharingfor his guide for getting sound back on the 880m, his guide is for the 780m but works for this card aswell, if anyone is having issues with getting the sound working on their card, use this guide "

 

Howto install IDT audio driver onto a clean windows install with m17x r3 + 780m.

 

When I first installed my 780m I had a good Windows 10 setup and didn’t have to mess with audio at all. Now I did a clean install of Windows 8/8.1/10 on my new ssd. After the first reboot of install, windows logo loads, then a random solid color, system beep every 3 minutes or so.

 

After disabling the idt audio in bios, I installed and booted into windows 10, yay. Installed system drivers, nvidia drivers (video driver mod instructions: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/2878-m17x-r3-gpu-upgrade-to-gtx-780m/&page=10 get driver from nvidia and find/replace in nvdmi.inf), but audio driver won’t install because it is disabled in bios. If you enable audio in bios and reboot goes through windows logo loading then black screen. (might have been random colors if I rebooted again)

 

Download drivers from dell support site (they are win7 drivers but install to win10, some drivers are already installed on win10) except nvidia driver.

 

The Clean Install:

  1. Disable audio in bios, install and boot windows. Install drivers per: http://alienwareusersupport.weebly.com/upgrading-to-an-ssd.html

  2. To install the IDT audio driver:

  3. Reboot into safe mode (Win10: settings, update, recovery, advanced startup: reboot. Choose Safe Mode option after reboot.)

  4. On reboot into safe mode, press F2 to go into bios when you see it (after advanced startup reboot).

  5. Now enable IDT audio in bios.

  6. Save and continue from bios.

  7. Windows loads into safe mode.

  8. Now install IDT audio driver. Success!

  9. Reboot. You might be done at this point!

  10. On the first reboot, after showing Windows login screen briefly, my screen went black. I waited a minute then held power button 10 seconds to turn off. Turned back on and Windows booted up and I logged in and I’ve been running successfully for 5 minutes so far! Audio plays fine. When I plugged speakers into jack Windows downloaded and installed .net 3.5. Now I’ve got IDT audio notifications.


Thank you sir!

 

Here is a link to the original post, 

 

I can confirm this works with the Clev 880m 8gb OC edition

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  • 1 month later...
On 24. 9. 2017 at 5:12 AM, Arodion said:

I want to thank @sharingfor his guide for getting sound back on the 880m, his guide is for the 780m but works for this card aswell, if anyone is having issues with getting the sound working on their card, use this guide "

 

Howto install IDT audio driver onto a clean windows install with m17x r3 + 780m.

 

When I first installed my 780m I had a good Windows 10 setup and didn’t have to mess with audio at all. Now I did a clean install of Windows 8/8.1/10 on my new ssd. After the first reboot of install, windows logo loads, then a random solid color, system beep every 3 minutes or so.

 

After disabling the idt audio in bios, I installed and booted into windows 10, yay. Installed system drivers, nvidia drivers (video driver mod instructions: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/2878-m17x-r3-gpu-upgrade-to-gtx-780m/&page=10 get driver from nvidia and find/replace in nvdmi.inf), but audio driver won’t install because it is disabled in bios. If you enable audio in bios and reboot goes through windows logo loading then black screen. (might have been random colors if I rebooted again)

 

Download drivers from dell support site (they are win7 drivers but install to win10, some drivers are already installed on win10) except nvidia driver.

 

The Clean Install:

  1. Disable audio in bios, install and boot windows. Install drivers per: http://alienwareusersupport.weebly.com/upgrading-to-an-ssd.html

  2. To install the IDT audio driver:

  3. Reboot into safe mode (Win10: settings, update, recovery, advanced startup: reboot. Choose Safe Mode option after reboot.)

  4. On reboot into safe mode, press F2 to go into bios when you see it (after advanced startup reboot).

  5. Now enable IDT audio in bios.

  6. Save and continue from bios.

  7. Windows loads into safe mode.

  8. Now install IDT audio driver. Success!

  9. Reboot. You might be done at this point!

  10. On the first reboot, after showing Windows login screen briefly, my screen went black. I waited a minute then held power button 10 seconds to turn off. Turned back on and Windows booted up and I logged in and I’ve been running successfully for 5 minutes so far! Audio plays fine. When I plugged speakers into jack Windows downloaded and installed .net 3.5. Now I’ve got IDT audio notifications.


Thank you sir!

 

Here is a link to the original post, 

 

I can confirm this works with the Clev 880m 8gb OC edition

Hello, could you tell me, what am I doing wrong if Im successful only 1 time of 20 tries(full clean Windows 10 install with several Nvidia GTX 870M driver versions from Techinferno-last 388.13, sound and graphics worked together on Windows 10 Creators Update, now when I clean install it, doesn't work anymore, also on new Fall Creators Update) , when HD audio in BIOS is enabled it always ends up with some solid color when logging  in. With disabled HD audio the graphic and everything works perfect. Im desperate, please help. And sorry for my English.  Thank you very much

Edited by JACOBZ
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On 11/10/2017 at 9:14 PM, JACOBZ said:

Hello, could you tell me, what am I doing wrong if Im successful only 1 time of 20 tries(full clean Windows 10 install with several Nvidia GTX 870M driver versions from Techinferno-last 388.13, sound and graphics worked together on Windows 10 Creators Update, now when I clean install it, doesn't work anymore, also on new Fall Creators Update) , when HD audio in BIOS is enabled it always ends up with some solid color when logging  in. With disabled HD audio the graphic and everything works perfect. Im desperate, please help. And sorry for my English.  Thank you very much

did you disable signature enforcement? if not , do it first then install the modified nvidia drivers..

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12 minutes ago, JACOBZ said:

Yes, I did that always... :)

ok just do as i say

1.Download drivers from official nvidia website.

2.Extract and Modify INF file with your alienware's ID and replace it with the older one.

3.Restart your laptop.

4.Go to BIOS and Disable HD AUDIO.

5.Disable signature enforcement check and log in to windows and install the Modified Nvidia drivers.

6. When successfully installed reboot the laptop and enable HD audio from BIOS and log back to windows.

7. PROFIT???

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22 hours ago, ll_r1d0_ll said:

ok just do as i say

1.Download drivers from official nvidia website.

2.Extract and Modify INF file with your alienware's ID and replace it with the older one.

3.Restart your laptop.

4.Go to BIOS and Disable HD AUDIO.

5.Disable signature enforcement check and log in to windows and install the Modified Nvidia drivers.

6. When successfully installed reboot the laptop and enable HD audio from BIOS and log back to windows.

7. PROFIT???

Okay did as you said an again always solid color screen after login. But what do you mean with:... replace it with the older one... in 2nd step? I always just modifying

the new INF and replacing it back, it always worked :)

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3 hours ago, JACOBZ said:

Okay did as you said an again always solid color screen after login. But what do you mean with:... replace it with the older one... in 2nd step? I always just modifying

the new INF and replacing it back, it always worked :)

solid color ? didnt get it ..could you please post a screenshot of it ? and sorry i meant that replace the modified INF with the original one...

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15 minutes ago, ll_r1d0_ll said:

that is really weird..try booting up without gpu ... By the way , did you disable the INTEL GRAPHICS in bios after installing this card?

Yes, tried everything, searched all over Internet... By the way could you tell me which exact version of windows are you using, version of Idt sound driver and graphic driver version? I'll give it a try with this versions if it works for you :)

Edited by JACOBZ
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i used  windows 8.1 on my alienware m17x r3 with gtx 780m and it worked perfectly without a single issue...now i have upgraded its motherboard to r4 and other specs are the same and running windows 10 now...and everything is working smooth as butter....looks like there is something wrong with you gpu ...which bios is installed in your gpu ? dell?msi ? clevo? try installing dell's vbios on ur gtx 770m and give it a try

 

 

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