Alienware M17X R4 upgrade from 7970M to GTX 980M - discrete card not detected.

[LightningPL]

Hi, I have M17X R4, previously I had AMD 7970M. I bought GTX 980M Clevo card and installed it in with VBIOS 84.04.22.00.10. I have problem that new GTX 980M is not visible in BIOS, I can't disable iGPU (disable Optimus) there is no such an option.

Is it possible to run GTX 980M with stock BIOS ? I have M17X R4 BIOS version A13 (stock, not unlocked).

Tried to install Windows 8 in LEGACY and UEFI mode, and there is only visible Intel HD Graphics 4000 nothing more.

In BIOS i see that DISCRETE CARD: [not detected]

Do you have any ideas, how to run this GTX 980M ? Thank you in advance for help.

[J95]

Try cleaning the MXM connector pins with a dry soft cloth and re-seat the card a couple of times, reset the BIOS if it still fails.

Welcome to T|I.

- Unplug power cord

- Remove battery

- Hold power button for 30 seconds

- Remove CMOS coin battery (next to GPU fan)

- Remove gtx 980m -> 2 screws only, there's no need to remove the heat sink.

- Reinsert CMOS battery

- Plug power cord

- Power on -> Beeps -> hold power button until shutdown.

- Power on -> F2 -> Boot options -> Set UEFI -> "Legacy Option rom Disabled" "Secure boot disabled" "Fast Boot Disabled" -> Exit menu "Save without Exit" -> shutdown.

- Reinsert gtx 980m.

- Power ON -> F2 -> shutdown.

- Reinsert Battery.

Convert MBR to GPT disk (diskpart) then install win8.1.

[Tuqan]

I am running M17x R4 on WIN7 Pro. upgraded GPU to 870M and can't get card to start although drivers load successfully. DM finds error In System Devices: Xeon® processor E3-1200...updating this driver gives me a Black Screen upon next bootup that will only go away if i uninstall in Safe Mode and then Windows finds the Xeon missing and installs the Standard VGA and the cycle begins again.....any help?

[ricardofredo]

Hi, I am also trying to install a GTX980M to an AW MX17 R4 - in my case to replace a 680M 2GB.

The 980M was initially detected in BIOS and I managed to get it working with the assistance of the really useful posts some of the senior guys have been making on this forum.

I had to put the laptop into dedicated graphics mode and install drivers in order to get that to work - it would be recognised with SG but no games would use it (even when the NV control panel was set to use MV for all games).

But after a single session with the card (which was amazing) I got the 8 beeps on start-up the next day and since then the card is not detected in BIOS.

I wonder does that mean it's faulty, or could there be a way (using HWInfo perhaps) to get the card to be recognised again? Will look into it again this week.

BTW when I swap the 680M back it is detected with no issues which makes me somewhat pessimistic about getting the 980M to work again.

I suspect the CMOS battery was unseated overnight which caused the system to forget about the card initially after it was working but I guess it could be a faulty part.

Anyway I'm interested to know if anyone with the card not recognised in BIOS issue has ever resolved that or whether the card is fundamentally not working properly.

Thanks Guys.

[1pinkpanda1]

I think this might have to do with the card's ability to boot as a discrete card (without optimus) in a UEFI boot scenario as opposed to a legacy one. I'd expect the 980M to work fine with the switchable graphics feature (and to be properly detected by the BIOS in both modes). Some of the old cards with old vBIOS which wouldn't be detected by the BIOS as a dedicated card in UEFI mode. Of course, I'm just speculating too, as I'm about to but have yet to try the same upgrade.