Going to test clevo 980m in alienware m17x R4, m18x R2, AW17

[Player2]

I have the newest 17 with 60hz panel and optimus and windows 7. Do I have to completely reinstall windows 7 to be able to use the 980m or can I simply install it and use my laptop in optimus mode until a workaround or solution is figured out.or should I just wait . I've only used optimus in my laptop for 2 hours the first day I got it and switched to dedicated and never used it again and that was over a year ago.

[godfafa]

The only thing users want is to launch gtx 980m in AW17 with Windows 7 with no UEFI/Legacy boot combination. Simply plug&play. Will it be even possible with modified vibos or do I have to say good bye to gtx 980m in my laptop?

We have just succeeded getting 980m working on alienware. It's not even been a week since we found the solution.

So for now, you are right. You have to say good bye to either 980m or windows 7.

For future, I hope svl7 can make a change.

[XPSSD]

I have the newest 17 with 60hz panel and optimus and windows 7. Do I have to completely reinstall windows 7 to be able to use the 980m or can I simply install it and use my laptop in optimus mode until a workaround or solution is figured out.or should I just wait . I've only used optimus in my laptop for 2 hours the first day I got it and switched to dedicated and never used it again and that was over a year ago.

No needed to reinstall windows 7 for you. Simple plug n play. Just clean old drivers and install new one with modified inf. (if you have 980m right now)

- - - Updated - - -

We have just succeeded getting 980m working on alienware. It's not even been a week since we found the solution.

So for now, you are right. You have to say good bye to either 980m or windows 7.

For future, I hope svl7 can make a change.

I think you make a wrong conclusion because krazycarl have AW17 with 60Hz display (Optimus enabled)

[godfafa]

I was talking to Castiel.

But you got the point. If optimus is enabled 980m can be run with win7. But who would want to

[Player2]

I was talking to Castiel.

But you got the point. If optimus is enabled 980m can be run with win7. But who would want to

Your right I don't want to. But for now it will work and then when a 100% solution is found I can simply flash my bios or vbios to make it work correctly right. Or do you guys think it will take a card from dell to make it work. That would suck to buy card now and use in optimus just to find out I have to buy one from dell in order to not have optimus enabled a month or so down the road.

[Player2]

Might as well just skip the 980m and wait for 1080m. Lol.

By time we have 980m working proper nvidia will be releasing 1080m Wich probably won't work proper from the get go either.

Thanks a lot dell for supporting your customers.

[Cloudfire]

For those with UEFI, just deal with Windows 8 and having full GTX 980M/970M support with both Optimus on/off in the meantime somone figures out how to get Win7 to use UEFI without Legacy. Or til Dell come out with these GPUs so you can snap Dell vbios that works with both Legacy and UEFI.

Win 8 licence is really cheap on Ebay and you can customize it to be acceptable.

My opinion.

[godfafa]

For those with UEFI, just deal with Windows 8 and having full GTX 980M/970M support with both Optimus on/off in the meantime somone figures out how to get Win7 to use UEFI without Legacy. Or til Dell come out with these GPUs so you can snap Dell vbios that works with both Legacy and UEFI.

Win 8 licence is really cheap on Ebay and you can customize it to be acceptable.

My opinion.

Yeah I agree.

Moreover, there is no other choice for us. Stick with win7 and 780m/880m or just deal with win8 and 980m.

Anywas, from @svl7's screenshot of 970m which I believe was shot from windows 7, it might be possible to post in legacy for 970m.

Not sure though. Look at the screenshot. It looks like win 7.

And if he is testing 970m in m15x (which I believe doesn't have UEFI), windows 7 with 970m sli can be an alternative solution.

[slayer305]

For those with UEFI, just deal with Windows 8 and having full GTX 980M/970M support with both Optimus on/off in the meantime somone figures out how to get Win7 to use UEFI without Legacy. Or til Dell come out with these GPUs so you can snap Dell vbios that works with both Legacy and UEFI.

Win 8 licence is really cheap on Ebay and you can customize it to be acceptable.

My opinion.

Or look at Windows 10 Preview. They seem to have fixed a lot of what was wrong with Windows 8/8.1.

[J95]

Yeah I agree.

Moreover, there is no other choice for us. Stick with win7 and 780m/880m or just deal with win8 and 980m.

Anywas, from @svl7's screenshot of 970m which I believe was shot from windows 7, it might be possible to post in legacy for 970m.

Not sure though. Look at the screenshot. It looks like win 7.

And if he is testing 970m in m15x (which I believe doesn't have UEFI), windows 7 with 970m sli can be an alternative solution.

Optimus...

[Neosinner]

Have an Alienware 17 can't seem to find the modified driver for windows 8.1 lots of issues getting this to work

[HaloTechnology]

I have AW 17 (R5 if you wanna call it that ) I am going to upgrade to 970M from 765M So

Do i need new 240 watt adapater ?

Do i need 3 pipe heat sink ?

Do i need to modify the vBIOS or just modified driver ?

Thank you very much for your support !

[Robbo]

@J95, I think you're saying that M15x doesn't have UEFI and doesn't have Optimus right? That's the info I've found out about it anyway from a quick google. I'm interested in this because it means we might be able to get 980M/970M to work on older Alienwares.

[Quark]

I have AW 17 (R5 if you wanna call it that ) I am going to upgrade to 970M from 765M So

Do i need new 240 watt adapater ?

Do i need 3 pipe heat sink ?

Do i need to modify the vBIOS or just modified driver ?

Thank you very much for your support !

No, 240W is perfect

Yes, you need 100W heatsink

No, just install the 980 modified driver

You're wellcome!

[Guest]

Tried it already. Same end result as using discrete graphics. W7 won't load without Legacy Option ROM enabled. 980M won't work with Legacy Option ROM enabled. ...Windows 8 sucks...

Still going to try this. Have been out of town for Thanksgiving. Hopefully, this will work. I'm trying to get W7 to work on the R2 in a pure UEFI boot scenario before I decide whether or not to spend money on 980M SLI. If I am going to be forced to use Windows 8 I may not upgrade. I'm not sure that I am actually interested in giving up any CPU performance as a trade off for gains in GPU performance. That's a sucky trade. I want it all, not two steps forward and one step backward. I don't use W8 for much of anything except Fire Strike benchmarks. W7 does everything better than W8 except for Fire Strike benchmarks. If I can't do this on the R2, it may be time to retire it and move on to a P570WM3 instead. Settling for W8 just isn't an attractive solution, but doing so would be about $3,000 less money, so I have a lot to think about.

Comparing the Physics scores, I'm having a hard time finding value in a 980M SLI upgrade for an Alienware that is stuck with using CPU-emasculating Windows 8 POS... pretty stinking ugly.

[tanzmiester]

i have both 980m and 970m laying around and m18x r1. so far i havent tried to post with 970m. do you guys think i should try it?

[tanzmiester]

ok, i did - no luck! how svl7 did it with m15x? :0

[Cloudfire]

I have AW 17 (R5 if you wanna call it that ) I am going to upgrade to 970M from 765M So

Do i need new 240 watt adapater ?

Do i need 3 pipe heat sink ?

Do i need to modify the vBIOS or just modified driver ?

Thank you very much for your support !

The GTX 765M have a TDP of around 60-65W I think. GTX 970M around 80W. But Alienware makes 2 types of heatsinks I think, up to 75W and up to 100W. You have the one that goes up to 75W so you should be fine

You will need to use the INF trick to install the driver. You dont need to do anything to the vbios. Just enable UEFI with in BIOS and disable Legacy.

Im not sure about what PSU you will need.

Comparing the Physics scores, I'm having a hard time finding value in a 980M SLI upgrade for an Alienware that is stuck with using CPU-emasculating Windows 8 POS... pretty stinking ugly.

Meh, just 600 points down Fox. The GPU will still perform like they are supppose to. Not a world disaster in my eyes, but Im not partisipating in any OC competition anyway so what do I know

Look on the bright side, you can beat GPU scores with 980M while waiting for Win7 support. Pretty sure overall you will beat 780M anyway with total score.

i have both 980m and 970m laying around and m18x r1. so far i havent tried to post with 970m. do you guys think i should try it?

Yeah you need UEFI which R1 doesnt have. Try contacting SVL. Maybe he have some tricks up his sleeves

[mikecacho]

1.To run the 980M (optimus disabled) with UEFI (legacy ROM Disabled) i have to convert my RAID 0 SSDs to GTP? (im using win 8.1)

Edit: i guess you have to GTP the partition.

[Guest]

@Cloudfire - Yeah, I understand some people are so consumed by GPU performance that they don't care about CPU performance. I can't sacrifice one for the other. I do not believe in it and hold a very dim view of accepting compromises from companies that should be held accountable for delivering excellence 99.9% of the time. You can view it as "just 600 points" if you want to, but as I see it Windows 8 causing a 5.4% decrease in CPU performance is an inexcusable fatal flaw. People responsible for developing the heap of excrement known as Micro$oft Windows 8 needs to have their employment terminated because of their incompetence, and Micro$hat needs to take an all hands on deck approach to fixing it before they squat down and pinch off another half-a$$ed OS.

Even with the overrated 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark (which is specifically enhanced to prefer Windows 8) the Windows 7 Physics performance is about 2.5% better with Windows 7...

Compare Fire Strike Physics Results | Windows 7 vs Windows 8

¡Micro$oft, cabrones! ¡Vete a la mierda!

LOL at this Windows 8 "mistake" in handling the CPU... maybe that's why Windows 8 lovers think it's faster than Windows 7.

[mw86]

@Cloudfire - Yeah, I understand some people are so consumed by GPU performance that they don't care about CPU performance. I can't sacrifice one for the other. I do not believe in it and hold a very dim view of accepting compromises from companies that should be held accountable for delivering excellence 99.9% of the time. You can view it as "just 600 points" if you want to, but as I see it Windows 8 causing a 5.4% decrease in CPU performance is an inexcusable fatal flaw. People responsible for developing the heap of excrement known as Micro$oft Windows 8 needs to have their employment terminated because of their incompetence, and Micro$hat needs to take an all hands on deck approach to fixing it before they squat down and pinch off another half-a$$ed OS.

Even with the overrated 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark (which is specifically enhanced to prefer Windows 8) the Windows 7 Physics performance is about 2.5% better with Windows 7...

Compare Fire Strike Physics Results | Windows 7 vs Windows 8

¡Micro$oft, cabrones! ¡Vete a la mierda!

LOL at this Windows 8 "mistake" in handling the CPU... maybe that's why Windows 8 lovers think it's faster than Windows 7.

lol Love your rants bro I do agree that physics performance is a clear indicator of how efficient Windows 8-10 is. I only recently loaded the Win 10 preview but I would not go to that unless they fixed the efficiency issues. In all other aspects its not so bad. 10 looks better and 8 was worthless. But neither stand up to 7 till they fix the code

i can except the bump from 780m sli to 980m sli because its like having nearly 4 780m for only a 5% cpu performance drop is a great alternative to not being able to use 980m's at all but as for me I wouldn't settle for that either lol. Hopefully Alienware and Windows 7 UEFI +980m becomes feasible on Alien 18 and the other effected models if there were any.

My Alien 18 came with Win 7 Ultimate, clearly my preference lol.

[mikecacho]

@Cloudfire - Yeah, I understand some people are so consumed by GPU performance that they don't care about CPU performance. I can't sacrifice one for the other. I do not believe in it and hold a very dim view of accepting compromises from companies that should be held accountable for delivering excellence 99.9% of the time. You can view it as "just 600 points" if you want to, but as I see it Windows 8 causing a 5.4% decrease in CPU performance is an inexcusable fatal flaw. People responsible for developing the heap of excrement known as Micro$oft Windows 8 needs to have their employment terminated because of their incompetence, and Micro$hat needs to take an all hands on deck approach to fixing it before they squat down and pinch off another half-a$$ed OS.

Even with the overrated 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark (which is specifically enhanced to prefer Windows 8) the Windows 7 Physics performance is about 2.5% better with Windows 7...

Compare Fire Strike Physics Results | Windows 7 vs Windows 8

¡Micro$oft, cabrones! ¡Vete a la mierda!

LOL at this Windows 8 "mistake" in handling the CPU... maybe that's why Windows 8 lovers think it's faster than Windows 7.

Good thing CPUs are ahead of their time when it comes to gaming performance. Its the GPU that needs all the extra juice it can get. So the 5% loss is no big deal for me, but i understand that you are a die hard number chaser so i can understand that hate.

[Guest]

Yeah, it's a tough decision because I don't like being "forced" into anything. I really love my M18xR2, so this is a really an unfortunate catch 22 scenario. As attractive as 980M SLI is, I'm more than a little bit disgusted with the prospect of not being able to stick with Legacy BIOS and Windows 7 (both of which are my preference) in order to use 980M in an Alienware. The Windows 8 CPU performance loss on top of that is like a double-whammy, I am carefully considering whether it makes more sense at this point to just box it up and shelve it as collector's item while its still in excellent condition and replace it with a P570WM3. I've never handled compromises very well. I tend to be an all or nothing type. If I can't have an Alienware on my terms, I'd rather get something else that meets more of my requirements. A low tolerance for compromises is one reason why I find it so difficult to get excited about the Alienware 18. Being a "nice machine" simply isn't good enough.

[mikecacho]

I decided the lesser of the 2 evils, since i love AW systems i decided to take the day to completely wipe my system and go true UEFI for the 980M in my R4. This will buy me a few more years in hopes of Dell pulling their heads out of their a$$. As for Microsoft, they are fighting for the market share with Apple, i see the route they have taken to fit those casual PC users only makes sense in terms of capital. I would hate to see Apple take over everything, so i can understand why Microsoft is shifting to this dumbed downed OS ( i never supported Apple and never will, hell my phone is a windows phone ), but i would also like for them to consider a enthusiast version of 8.1 or even the new upcoming Win 10.

[Guest]

I bet enthusiasts are viewed as a threat to Micro$haft, and maybe even Alienware at this point. We identify all the flaws and complain about the things they did not do well instead of drinking the Kool-Aid. They probably wish we would just go away, or put up and shut up.

I'm not an Apple fan either... for similar reasons. If I was a big fan of boring and ordinary, I'd probably love Apple. If I had to use Windows 8 the way Micro$lop made it and could not tweak it to the extent I have, there would be no reason to not switch to iOS.