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I got an RTX 4080 MXM to work on this laptop with the backlight mod v2 and a custom heatsink from Cicichen. The temps were excellent and performance too. The 4080 is a big improvement over the 2080 in terms of performance but this MXM GPU costs like 800€ alone. You can get the RTX 4070 for cheaper, for 500€. They are brand new cards with 1 year of warranty from X-VSION and ZRT. The max CPU you can get is the I9 9900K/KF CPU or the Xeon E-2286M (modded CPU). The Xeon is the cheapest option. The I9 9900K/KF are like between 150-200€. Meanwhile the Xeon one is below 100€.

Finally landed in Phoenix so I should be home in about an hour. LONG day. I arrived at Dulles at 12 noon EST.

This AMD 9950X3D2 is madness! Excellent platform. I’m having some board troubles with this open box Dark hero, but I’m happy with the platform overall.

Having a nice Friday sitting for 8 hours at the Dulles Airport waiting for a flight home. *not*

I'm upgrading to 32gb RAM (have a stick coming in that is exact same model #). System has done well for me since around 2008/2009, although I've gone through 4 screens!! Based on below, what recommendations for extending this system's life. Would like extra capability to handle some gaming and a 49" monitor better. I've done some research on 2080 cards, and i9-9900 and seems like there is no sweet spot for doing upgrades for a few hundred vs several hundred with little bang for the buck as well as BIOS upgrades, risk, etc. Not sure I'm hunting in the right holes. Appreciate any good pathways in advance. Thanks! Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz 3.70 GHz Installed RAM 16.0 GB Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8 GB)

How kind of them!. Especially how PCs are very expensive because of the AI craze with rising costs of RAM, SSDs, GPUs, and anything that uses memory chips. We're living in the dark ages!.

I turn bitlocker off, you wont lose any data but it'll take an hour or more to decrypt your data depending how much data you have on your drives. Its really stupid for Microsoft to force users to encrypt their data, i understand for business users but not for the average user.....

I believe the issue you had was using a regular display in an "oled motherboard" or something like that, you need at the very least the regular "eDP cable" that's not made for OLED display

Hello. I got the RTX 4080 and 4070 to work in the M6700 in eDP without iGPU. In UEFI with legacy OPROM disabled. DP and HDMI out are working, it depends in the VBIOS DCB Yes embedded MXM RTX cards display in eDP with my backlight mod v2 cable. It also fixes the issue with the ADLINK, PNY and Aetina Turing cards, where these card don't display anything on the eDP display.

To fit a regular eDP 17.3" you basically have to cut the bottom mounting system from the display, then you need to center/wedge the display at the correct place, it's pretty simple. I never tried that but I believe so since it's the M6700 bios figuring out what to do with the "new" legacy oprom from the dGPU iirc

Via china I can get the following new, just not the red bottom assembly in red. new nebula red lcd lid - $7.50 new palm rest - $8 new bottom access cover - $4.80 so overall very cheap, will be a little more after the agent purchases each item then shipping out via china. I’ll keep an eye on that display listing for the time being and see about getting it as it will definitely make a huge difference.

Don’t worry about the color. You can buy the lcd lid by itself for like $20 on eBay/AliExpress brand new. See if you can find any right now. 120 isn’t too bad if it’s the complete assembly. You can try making an offer for 100. the 3D 120Hz panel on the R3, R4, 17 is actually a good display. Good colors, viewing angles are best on 17 due to anti glare panel, but still, the 1600x900 panel is trash. During my testing of 500+ bios files, switching back and forth between lvds and eDP made me realize how much better the 120 panel is

Nice, the 1600 x 900 display is awful with really poor viewing angles. ive got a bunch of new outer casing parts lined up, just struggling to find the nebula red frame. there is a full 120hz assembly for sale at around £120+

My AW17 had a 60hz panel so I bought another one with 120hz panel. My plan is to swap the display since my 17 already has new palm rest keyboard motherboard etc. my M17xR3 was also a 60hz model. For that one I was lucky enough to find someone selling the whole assembly. I kept the LVDS panel which was a good thing because it allowed me to make those BIOS files. I’ll probably hang on to both 17s until I do my 17 bios mod too.

Just a normal Alienware 17? Not a M17X R3?

I bought a AW17 with 3D panel to swap its 3d panel and resell it with my lvds panel. might be easier for you to do that too.

This is an amazing project. I am currently rebuilding and upgrading an Alienware 17 R1/Ranger — the Haswell successor to the M17x R4 — and I am considering what appears to be the same ADLINK/industrial Quadro RTX 5000 16GB. Do you think you could share some information about your parts and display plans? Where did you get the RTX 5000? Do you still have the seller or listing details? I would also be very interested in the exact PCB markings, vBIOS version, and a GPU-Z screenshot, because I have found a very similar card for sale. What about the heatsink? Was it made specifically for the M17x R4, or was it a custom unit that required modification? Did the RTX 5000 mounting-hole pattern line up with it? With regards to the panel, I am also planning a 165Hz 1440p panel for my Ranger. I thought that was the maximum it could support, but you putting a whole 165Hz 2k panel looks wild. What is the exact model number of your 17.3-inch 2560×1440 165 Hz panel? Also, which eDP cable are you planning to use? Are you using the factory M17x R4 120 Hz/3D eDP cable, modifying it, or making a custom cable? Have you also checked whether the panel requires 3.3 V or 5 V logic power, and whether the OEM eDP cable supplies the correct voltage? Lastly, getting an industrial RTX to power eDP seems to be a problem according to many people. Have you found any solution for getting the RTX 5000 to initialize the internal eDP panel in PEG/dGPU mode? This is my greatest concern, since the card may work perfectly under Optimus with LVDS while still failing to drive an internal eDP panel. My Alienware uses the Compal LA-9331P motherboard. I have the complete board schematic, which shows a four-lane eDP path, and I am considering modifying the OEM Dell N392W eDP harness so that the webcam and microphones remain functional while connecting a modern BOE QHD/165 Hz panel. Your build is the closest project I have found to what I am attempting, so any photos, part numbers, links, BIOS settings, vBIOS information, or later panel results would be hugely appreciated.

9950X3D2 is insanely fast! Multithreaded is more or less the same as my w3175x probably a little bit faster. But, I play a few games that are not the most optimized like: Oblivion remastered, Ark Ascended, just to name a few.. And what a difference there is! It really has perked things up. I’m seeing double on my 1% lows in these CPU limited titles. Unfortunately I’m having another issue... I cannot get EXPO to boot at all. It worked one time on the very first boot. And do not know what happen. 😭 I cleared the bios after fiddling around with things. And now EXPO fails to post. None of the EXPO’s will work. Tried Expo I, II, Tweaked, etc. I have to run DDR5 4800 to get the system to load windows or work at all.. I have cleared the bios, unplugged everything. EXPO just refuses work. For now DDR5 4800 is working, so I’m running that. I’ll try to update the bios and see if that helps. EDIT: Found the issue. CPU mounting pressure. My waterblock nuts were popping off the threads under tension. I’m going to have to address this block mounting. For now it’s working though. This is a picture of the system. It has a big thick chubba HWlab GTR 480mm cooling the CPU and single D5. 😀 The CPU is really beyond fast in gaming. Words cannot really describe how fast it is lol 😂 I could notice it in Oblivion without a frame counter. 1% lows in Oblivion have doubled. I wasn’t expecting that. AVG fps is about +40% higher in CPU limited games. It is seriously an outstanding gaming CPU. 💀

Considering that the Apex motherboard was already slightly discounted having the free NVMe included made it seem like a no-brainer.

I mean throwing in a $269 2TB Gen 4 NVME is better than some random 240mm AIO they usually try. NVME and DRAM are the modern day gold lol.

weeks late in mentioning this (cuz I was busy) but the Nahimic 1.10.11 app was also available to Asrock MB users from this download in mid-May 2026.

a few years late on this but bios, driver & manual downloads for Galaxy Book3 & similar models can be downloaded from this Samsung page select the Galaxy Book3 or similar series and a list of available downloads will be provided

Um... uh. Ok. The NVMe was free. I guess that makes it ok.

a few years late on this but bios, driver & manual downloads for Galaxy Book4 & similar models can be downloaded from this Samsung page wish I found that site sooner

I have to drive past Microcenter on my 1 hour trek home from the airport at the end of each business trip. I have had to exercise a lot of self-restraint to not go by on the way home and pick one up, along with a Z890 motherboard. The only thing that has held me back is the motherboards that I think I would find suitable are stupid expensive. I'm headed home tomorrow night and I already was checking the Microcenter website last night before going to sleep to see if there was something that I couldn't live without in terms of motherboard options.