970m M15x!

What do you mean by slows the startup lol? Not noticed anything here

 

when you install slv7's bios it adds a second bios screen that says your running a custom firmware. i noticed this straight away on my 770m

 

Must be your laptop.. No such thing here...

 

I have that second screen before bios on 880M slv7

 

one thing youve said that actually makes sense

 

when you push the power button first you will see a message about bios by slv7 than the normal bios and than windows start up.....so it slows down a bit for like 4 seconds. i think thats a shame...because i installed a ssd for fast boot and now its 4 sec longer.......i dont try to be a ass or some thing but we want fast pc's...lol....no waiting on boot... kinda hate that.

 

OK, I have a couple of questions, as I'm getting myself very confused on the 970M/980M with M15X situation.

1. I've read that you need UEFI for the 980M to work. Is that really true, as the M15X doesn't have this? Is there a workaround required, or is the card basically plug and play?
2. Is the power drain on the 980M too much for the M15x, even with the 240W power supply? I have a 920XM CPU.
3. Is the 970M an easier install than the 980M, or is the process exactly the same?

I'm comfortable with modding the driver to install, not so keen on updating the VBIOS if I'm honest. I still have a bricked 7970M as a reminder for the last time I tried that...


Thanks

 

gtx970m is pretty drop in and work .....just the driver mod nothing more heatsink needs the same work as the Original. maybe the xbracket wont fit or the screws (because its a clevocard) but that can be bought as well.

 

So I took the plunge, and bought a 970m. Got it all up and running, but the GPU is throttling in every game I try and run.

Eepo, you mentioned you had this problem initially. How did you overcome it?


So far I've...

• Tried a couple of different driver versions (345.20 and 347.88). Neither driver fixed the issue.
• Flashed with the slv7 vbios. Still the same issue.
• Reinstalled Windows 8, and tried the drivers again. Still not working.
• Tried forcing P0 P-State in nVidia Inspector. Nothing happens.

Symptoms

• Using MSI Afterburner, the GPU load never goes above 50%.
• nVidia Inspector shows the P-State as P1 whenever I'm in a game, not P0.
• 3DMark11 score is only ~P4000

Specs

• Alienware M15x
• Core i7 920XM (standard clocks)
• GTX 970M 6GB with slv7 vbios
• 8GB RAM
• Windows 8.1 Pro (fresh install)
• 240W PSU

Can anyone help? I'm completely stumped at this point...



Thanks!

 

Doesn't it only work properly on Windows 7?

 

why should one have win 8 installed at all????

 

Are you guys hopeful 970M will work OK on Windows 10? Directx12 should be awesome!

 

Was wondering the same thing for the 980m, want to get the best GPU so it can last for years to come
This article has the answer:
http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2015/01/21/windows-10-nvidia-dx12/

Summary:
We’re more than ready. GPUs built on our Maxwell GPU architecture – such as our recently released GeForce GTX 970 and GeForce GTX 980 – fully support DX12.

 

I meant in terms of compatibility, seeing as how the gtx 970m isn't officially supported by the m15x....

 

How can it not be supported, alienware is selling the laptop With that configuration. I must be misunderstanding something....

 

That is not the m15x they are selling, it's the alienware 15 with a soldered gpu.

 

Guys i have m17x r2, i was wondering if m15x is similar to M17x r2, will 970M 6GB from Rjtech work on my M17x r2 ?

 

I noticed you've been asking that same question on the M17x forum.
The answer is yes there are people who have verified it works.
You will however like with the m15x needed custom vbios and moded driver .inf.
Head over to TechInferno for more information. Even though there is lots of information on these here Notebook Review forums, the vbios mods and more detailed information on the whole process can be found on TechInferno.

Also know that you need to full research before you do it. From what i hear it is pretty easy as far as it goes, but there can be hiccups.

 

Thanks for the reply, heading over to Techinferno now, This weekend of mine will be reserved just for research on this, hopefully I get all answers before I take the plunge and buy that card and most importantly that it works, cos returns r not allowed

 

Can you please provide me more sources that both 970m/980m works with the M17x R2? You have mentioned that people have verified that it does indeed work when all I could find is one Chinese website that seem a little sketchy. Thanks ahead!

 

I'd love to but I dont have the time to scour for it. I'm just echoing what I read a little bit back. It was an R2. What they did to get it to work is beyond me. Good luck though.

 

Hey Eepo, did you ever try out DSR with the 970m? If so, how did that work out? Any notable difference?

 

My Brother Eepo helped me out. My aw15x is running excellent with a 980m now. The little 920xm when pushed to 3.5ghz likes to run at 96 under full load. But the 980m tops out around 63-65 in the 15x. Need to repaste the CPU with some liquid Ultra. For now I've dropped tdp down a bit and 3.2 and playing BF4 in 1080p almost everything on ultra getting 95-130 FPS depending on the map and players.
Not bad for an "old out of date laptop"...

 

Then this should work on M17x R2!

 

R2 BIOS is different make.. I really doubt the 970m/980m will work in it..

 

Indeed! The 920XM has to be pushed hard nowadays to get top performance unfortunately it puts out lots of heat to do so. I hoping Win 10 and dx 12 will make the 920xm pur while gaming! The M15x will not be out of date if pascal is compatible, win 10 + dx12 have a mantle type effect across all games on the cpu. I am looking forward to seeing what the new OS and API will bring to the table. With the advent of BGA keeping the old machine alive and kicking sounds like a fun and intelligent choice to me.

 

Does the 980M upgrade working fine with its 100w power? I'm currently thinking to upgrade my old m15x with 970m or 980m, from 260m. 970m seems pretty easy, besides the power difference, is there any other difficulties to get 980m up and running?

Thanks.

 

No.. Well for surfing the web and general use its ok. You need atleast a 240 and honestly need a 330 for gaming especially if your overclocking the CPU.

 

Hi, about to order a 970m from rjtect. Got one question to ask, which clevo you picked listed there? P150SM-A P170SM-A? It should make no difference in my opinion, right?
And it will be great if you can share the link for the modified drivers.
Thanks

 

It doesnt matter.
Those model choices determine the heatsink that will come preattached to the card. A heatsink you wont be using.
just go with the first one on the list and carefully transfer all the thermal pads over once you've detached it.

Also, for the modified drivers and further instructions on installing them head over to TechInferno. You'll need a clean driver install and modified vbios from svl7 are encouraged.

 

Torn between 970m and 980m. I just got this m15x for free since my friend couldn't get it to boot. He ended up buying a new XPS laptop and gave me this one to tinker with. All it need was a new HDD and some cleaning

Purchased a 920xm, new wifi card, 8GB ram, and a 240w power supply. I have a 7970m sitting around at home, but it was having issues. I'm going to bake it to see if it fixes it self and use it temporarily. Really torn between 970m (~$475) vs 980m ($725). I know the 980m is a must to play ~60fps on high settings on the newer games (GTA V, Witcher 3), but not sure if I should fork the extra $$$.

By the way, thank you all for doing things like this. I never realized that m15x was such a capable platform. Thank you all for making me spend money.... haha

 

Chances are you wont get 60fps with a 980m in those games at the settings you're probably thinking about. You'll get close, but you'll have cpu bottlenecking issues to deal with and heat issues.
I get consistent mid 30's fps in Witcher 3 with a mix of high and ultra, hairworks off (frame rate killer), stock cooling (fans set to max) in a chilled room and and overclocked cpu.
There are some great cooling mods by users of this forum, if you have the extra $$ to put towards a 980m and are really going to town then, build a cooling mod and see what you can get out of it... or just build a more powerful desktop for the same price.

 

Thanks for the reply. Yea, I'm not sure what to do with this m15x. I sold the m18x that I had, because I wasn't using it much. I got it for dirt cheap because it wasn't working right. I fixed it up (gpu issue) and sold it for profit.

Now that I'm deploying, I was thinking of purchasing a new laptop with a 980m in it, but wasn't sure if dishing out ~1700 was worth it for me. Since I had this m15x, I ran into this forum and was surprised by the modability of this laptop. I may just roll with the 7970m if it baking works out. I suppose I can just buy witcher 3 on PS4, but... I normally buy multi-platforms on PC (I have a high end desktop at home). Obviously I don't want to be lugging a desktop to the Middle-East...

 

GTX 970M is a perfectly fine choice if you're ok with mostly high settings @ 60fps on modern titles and it runs much cooler than 980M or 7970M (OCed).
From what I've seen neither GTA V or Witcher 3 are particularly CPU dependent with both favouring more cores than high clock speeds or IPC so you should be good @ 3.3Ghz on your 920XM.

I'm using a 7970M OCed to 900/1450 and I'm running most new titles with a mix of medium and high settings @ 60fps and its fine for me. If 7970M comes out ok, it's totally fine for med to high settings.

 

Thanks for the input. I had a 7970m laptop before and was pretty surprised by the performance, even though it ran hot. Hoping to see a lot of improvement with the 920xm vs 740qm
If baking the 7970m doesn't work, I may just play some old games in the meantime. Plenty of backlogs that I have to go through anyway

 

I`m really sorry but i went through all 19. Pages now but still having some questions for Upgrading my m15x.
I hope my english was good enough to understand everything...

I now know that i need a min, 240W Power supply. I have to change the heat pads from (i think) my old card (ati 5670m) to the 970m/980m + the new x bracket and all the thermal stuff. Than start the Machine and install a modded Driver from techinferno, also get a vBios from slv7

So my questions:
-Someone ever made an upgrade directly from an ati5670m? Is that a problem?
-I`m running Win 10, think it´s getting difficult now... don`t want to set up everything new

Thanks for your help with that, searching a long time already about informations to upgrade my GPU the best way.

 

Eepo, have you tried running the 970m/980m on windows 10?

 

I finally did it!
I ordered an 970m an installed it today. Amazing...
Actually just plug an play...
Worked without any problems on Win 10.
I directly tried the official 355.60 driver without any mod. Didn't even reckoned it could work.
Next step is to geht the temp a bit down, 80°C seams to be much to high.
Ony problem i have is how to fix the screen brightness. But i think sizzflair got the answer already.

Thank you all for your help!

 

I installed a 970M just about an hour ago. @Mr. Fox using Mr. Fox's desktop driver.

Installing some games so I can check it out.

 

Bah... only getting 6700 in 3d Mark 11. I have tried both prema and svl7 vbois. It's throttling. Running about 50c.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

Try a different driver? Have you done the centre pin mod to your PSU?

Sent from my m8 using Tapatalk

 

I haven't tried a different driver yet. I have the L adapter and pulled out the center pin on the L adapter. Running 210w power brick.

 

Can GTX 970M owners give any idea the extent to which the CPU is bottlenecking the 970M? If you try to run recent games on higher settings is GPU usage always at or around 90+%? If less than 80% or so that would indicate CPU bottleneck? If you turn graphics settings up higher do FPS remain unchanged (again indicating CPU bottleneck)? Just trying to get an idea of whether its actually worth upgrading.

 

I wish I could tell you. I have yet to get my 970M to run at stock clocks without throttling. I put it aside for a while.

Are you referring to stock clocks on the CPU? I have a 920XM, 620M and 720QM that I can test.

 

No, CPU at max stable OC...which is obviously what I run it at to game

 

Ok, I have motivation now. I will mess with it when I get home. Thanks!

 

You're looking for GPU usage dipping below 80% whilst CPU usage remains very high. Also increasing graphical quality not changing FPS also indicates a bottleneck. What games can you test this in?

 

I don't have a lot of new games. I have ARK, Mechwarrior Online (known to tax the CPU) and Skyrim that I have never installed or played. Is there a specific game you are looking for because I might buy it.

 

Well Witcher 3 is considered a "next gen" game with very high system requirements. I do intend on playing it eventually but it would be nice to know that it isn't bottlenecked by CPU.

 

Looks like your answer is here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...mes-i-e-gta-5-witcher-3.777462/#post-10027567

You even replied to that thread in June of this year.