[SUCCESSFUL] Alienware 18 + MSI GTX 1070 MXM

I'll have to think on selling you that 1070M as I would be selling my AW18 with no GPU then, as I have just ascended to my 3rd AW purchase. But I agree, as beautiful as the 1070M is (blows the dual 880Ms out the water in AutoCAD), I wouldn't recommend anyone endure the driver nonsense.

Honestly - this was the Mrs pushing me to buy. I have to deploy on the 3rd, and have spent enough time phucking with this machine to the point it annoyed her too.

Begin paste>

Estimated Delivery Date: 03/29/2019
11:26:33 PM You have 1 Alienware Area 51m
11:26:42 PM
Alienware Area-51m
Processor: 9th Generation Intel® Core™ i9-9900K (8-Core, 16MB Cache, up to 5.0Ghz
w/Turbo Boost)
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64bit English
Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2070 8GB GDDR6 (OC Ready)
Power Supply: 180W Power Adapter and 240W Power Adapter
Memory: 16GB, 2x8GB, DDR4, 2400MHz
Hard Drive: 512GB RAID 0 (2x 256GB PCIe M.2 SSDs) + 1TB (+8GB SSHD) Hybrid Drive
Color Choice: Dark Side of the Moon
LCD: 17.3" FHD (1920 x 1080) 144Hz Anti-Glare IPS Display w/ NVIDIA G-SYNC + Tobii
eyetracking technology
Wireless: Killer Wireless 1550 2x2 AC and Bluetooth 5.0
Primary Battery: Lithium Ion (90 Wh) Battery
Keyboard: Alienware TactX keyboard with per-key RGB LED AlienFX lighting, anti-
ghosting, N-Key US Eng
Driver: Killer N1550 Wireless driver

Service: 1 Year Premium Support Plus
Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed): Microsoft Office 30 Day Trial
McAfee Live Safe: No Anti-virus Requested
11:26:57 PM The estimated delivery date is 03/26/2019 - 03/29/2019
11:27:12 PM J
**** ********, you have a 1 Year Premium Support Plus warranty. This includes
Premium Support Plus
11:27:17 PM
Amount:$3,180.76
Type:VISA
11:27:27 PM
Your subtotal is $3,009.57, total shipping is free, total tax is $171.19, total state
environment fee is $0.00 and your grand total is $3,180.76.
11:27:32 PM
our purchase will be subject to Dell's Terms of Sale, which require individual arbitration
of any disputes. You can find them at the bottom of each page on Dell.com. Once I
place your order, it begins production and changes or cancellation may not be possible.
11:27:37 PM Would you like any additional review of your order details before I place the order?
11:28:09 PM Erik
It looks good. Shame I have to pay for Windows, but otherwise all is fine.

Congratulations on your New purchase!!
Here is your Order # ************* and Customer # *************
While we thrive to ship your New Computer as soon as possible,
We estimate the order to be delivered on or before 03/29/2019
You can find all Terms and Conditions of sale on bottom of Dell.com Page.

11:32:12 PM hope you enjoy the performance of your new laptop

End Paste>

Really I didn't want anything 1080, but I'm sure I can change that later. Its just that I must have a machine for work, no ifs ands or buts. I also signed on to buy the base spec machine, as I'm not overwhelmed by RTX benchmarks, but there it is... I wound up with middle GPU and top CPU.

It was also a kick in the teeth having to pay for Windows when HELL will freeze over before I use W10. (which incidentally I still have on the old boot drive of the existing system - though unused)

I just need more pixels for what I do...

 

Hope you enjoy the new laptop. Please when you get a chance, let us all know if you are satisfied with the new purchase or not (need the deets).


-imest

 

Will do pal.

 

Are there any known issues for the people having a gtx 1070 in their m18x r2? Does the soundcard work for example?

 

Yes it works. There are no problems you just need to shim down the heatsink so that the card fits perfectly.

 

Wonderful. Thank you

 

Hi, now I upgraded to a ZOTAC GTX 1070 from a ZBox. With modinf with Driver 391.35. The card was known fine. In Idle about 60 Degrees. But the Fan is Not spinning. Also Not under load. With MSI VBios ending 3C the card was Not known. HWinfo64 seems to spin only the cpu fan. Does anyone has a solution?

 

The solution is, I had to switch EC-Support off. Now with spinning Fan on max. The card‘s max temp is 72 degrees in Unigine Superposition. So the Zotac works out of the box in the AW18. The only 2 things to do: Driver Mod and modding the Heatsink. I have the 100w Nvidia Heatsink, but I think the AMD Heatsink is also better.

 

People use MSI vBIOS to output to a eDP PEG mode scenario, may not work for you in SG.

 

But which VBios? The 3C doesn’t work. Card is then shown as faulty and GPU-Z can‘t read anything

 

You'd have to ask the man that did the mod, I avoided the AW18 due to lack of eDP.

 

WHO is it?

 

The OP, who else would it be?

 

....Magically appears out of nowhere.....

@razor0601 I'll link all the vbioses that should work, flash them with a skypro programmer/equivalent please.

 

Ok thanks, But why not with nvflash?

 

nvflash can cause your card to become bricked due to fake hardware id changes detected after a vbios flash, your hardware id for the card stays the same though. Can you show me a picture of your cards hardware id, like shown in the picture below:
I need to know if your card has g-sync or not...

 

Yes of course:

 

Here try these:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1fwPbEN5aLfsoHOmGlcxKeyffoLubdkrz

Flash one at a time test if the mdp port displays an output if not continue with the next one...

MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR ORIGINAL VBIOS IF ALL FAIL!!

 

But PEG Mode is also not possible?

 

No you can't, the display is lvds, edp is needed for a gtx 1070 to work. There is no edp to lvds converter like the gt83vr, gt83 etc.

 

So, the GT83VR don’t work. I flashed the second one but now the card is not shown anymore. ???

 

Did you flash with a programmer?

 

I don‘t have a programmer

 

Only signed unaltered vBIOS work via software flash. Everything else needs a programmer.

For instance flashing zotac 1070 with MSI vBIOS is one of the few exceptions. Otherwise Pascal requires programmer to tinker with.

 

Bro I told you to use a programmer, there is a reason as @TheReciever said otherwise you will get a bricked card, especially with pascal

 

So now only this programmer may help me?

 

In a nutshell.

If my understanding is correct, some sectors are not available to rewrite while its in use. That could be incorrect though, Im not a veteran modder when it comes to software manipulation.

 

Hmm ok. Later I will try it again.

 

No chance. Now my technician will work on it.

 

Now I have installed a MSI GTX 1070. works fine. I started Unigine Superposition in 1080p Extreme and coreclock jumps from 950 to 1500 and back. Anyone an idea?

 

Tune the card yet?

 

What do you mean?

 

It's all about power envelope with pascal, you basically have to tune around that now.

 

Ok, tune around means?

 

You should read on how to do that. Sorry don't have the time for that at the moment.

 

I tried on Nvidia settings and with Afterburner something. No
Chance. Any other solution?

 

Maybe I need another VBios?

 

Hey everyone! I'm very new here and I'm really wanting to upgrade my AW18's GPU to this 1070. After reading this thread, probably for the 4th time, Lol, I am understanding it a bit more. However, I'm wanting to know has anyone succeeded, as in "everything works" with this upgrade? Which one, if any of them where everything works, has less or no physical modifying to anything? I'm particularly interested in the standard MXM form factor 1070 upgrade.
My Alienware is the 2015 edition of the AW18: 4940MX Processor, 32GB Ram, Nvidia GPU, BIOS version A14 06/25/2018. Btw, has this thread been moved or just the conversations been moved to other threads? It really would be disappointing to see this thread abandoned. Thanks everyone and I'm really impressed of the effort all I have seen on this thread helping and meshing off of each other's input. Thanks again! Salute!

 

The OP was attempting to make 1070 sli work but no dice as you need SG mode to have everything operate as needed. As a result he moved on to other projects.

There is omission of details but that is more or less a tl;Dr.

 

Get someone to buy it for a good price (not hard with the 4940MX) and buy a RTX 2070 laptop, a lot less hassle for more performance than you'll ever get out of this machine.

If you decide to continue down this path, keep in mind you will have to buy the MXM standard 1070s, or modify the HS and other elements for the MSI.
This thread isn't really abandoned, just no one left to carry it on lol

 

Oooooook. Reading of these various threads and your comments, it's obvious you are not very fond of the AW18's; I love mine, it performs really well and is a real pleasure typing with it. I have seen a few comments that favor the M18x R2 over the AW18. I would like to know anyone's opinion on this. Also, if you feel this same way, could you give your opinion of this too?
So, where could I get the MXM Standard 1070 or how would I even look for it? And, ofc, for a decent price. Could someone lead me to a step by step "everything works" instruction install of this MXM Standard 1070 upgrade. Maybe even this upgrade is identical to the M18x R2's install; I'm hopeful that can be elaborated on. Last thing: Should I ask of this upgrade on a different thread and if so, which one?
I really would like as many too weigh in on this as possible; I think that would be essential.Thanks again!

 

He had poor experiences with laptops from what I can tell and now recommends everyone against such scenarios as a result.

 

No, its just why spend more money on something that performs worse and lacks features compared to newer devices? I get it as a pet project, but value wise it just doesn't make sense and there isn't an argument to make.

I prefer the M18X R2 just because I like the aesthetic and it having 2 more SATA ports than the AW18. Others note that it generally runs cooler and has a better VRM as well as motherboard design, leading to less blowouts and dead motherboards.

You can buy the 1070 from Taobao or eBay.

 

There is always an argument to make.

Buying into a platform to then upgrade isnt the wisest of scenarios but for many they are desiring to upgrade what they already have and can sell their GPU to cut the invest in near half in many cases. Shelling out 350-450 versus 1k+, more if you want to maintain tiers in the product stack. Going from top of the product stack to some crappy plastic shell is the cost of that recommendation.

Though it all depends on the starting point for each user, as each case tends to be unique


M18x R2 has better VRM's and can handle more power but can only use 1x 1070 anyways.

AW18 has lackluster VRMs and have a tendency to kill itself when trying to push the limit, the motherboard in general is just a bad design.

 

Much to my surprise a user seems to have been able to use two 1060 in a AW18 in SLI, which begs a question if two 1070's could be used, also in a M18XR2 (if only one of the ports on the motherboard wasn't there lol, where the slave GPU is)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...k-thread-part-3.730723/page-227#post-10989315

 

You can also try the Marketplace on this forum. That is where I found my 1070 and it was significantly less than the eBay sellers.

 

He also noted that it was basically unusable due to SG mode. Likely the CPU not really knowing how to govern 2 GPU's at the same time. There is a reason that all SLI machines never had optimus (or at least to my knowledge)

 

Yes but...I didn't think it was even possible to get the machine to boot up with two GPUs in SG mode... let alone get nvidia panel to show them in active SLI mode.
When I finally move house (next couple of months hopefully) and have my man cave that my beloved wife doesnt venture into, I will definitely concoct a plan to sneak in a few components to mod my M18XR2 further

 

Hey always love a good mod!

 

Yeah, I can understand where some have had bad experiences with laptops and anyone having a bad experience with anything can influence their opinion. Nevertheless, I thank you for your reply, which I kind of felt the same way. And just to make a notable statement here: Whether anyone's statement or opinion they give is agreed with or disagreed with, I give endeavored respect to it's author.