Alienware 17 Rager GTX 970M upgrade 8 beeps

[Johndill]

Hi guys, I've purchased a GTX 970M to upgrade a customers Alienware 17 R1 with a 120hz panel & I get 8 beeps.

 

The ebay listing showed a blue PCB card but I have received a brown PCB card. I have no idea what manufacturer makes the brown PCB.

 

Would I need to flash a supported vbios for it to work in the Rager with 120hz panel?

 

I'll add some photos tomorrow for you.

I'll also try it with a 60hz panel.

 

Any help would be appreciated, last 970M Rager upgrade I did was a blue PCB card & it worked out of the box.

 

Thanks 🙂

[Popcan]

39 minutes ago, Johndill said:

Hi guys, I've purchased a GTX 970M to upgrade a customers Alienware 17 R1 with a 120hz panel & I get 8 beeps.

 

The ebay listing showed a blue PCB card but I have received a brown PCB card. I have no idea what manufacturer makes the brown PCB.

 

Would I need to flash a supported vbios for it to work in the Rager with 120hz panel?

 

I'll add some photos tomorrow for you.

I'll also try it with a 60hz panel.

 

Any help would be appreciated, last 970M Rager upgrade I did was a blue PCB card & it worked out of the box.

 

Thanks 🙂

 

It’s been many years since I dabbled with mxm card swaps but if I remember correctly. The Alienware/dell stuff would sometimes throw fits over the wrong vbios.

 

 I remember something about there being an issue with the 60hz vs 120hz panel.

 I’m pretty sure the 120hz panel bypassed Optimus and the vbios would address that.

on top of dell being picky about non dell vbioss.   From my experience most mxm cards can swap vbios just fine. As long as the mxm card matches the vbios.

 

 Example a Clevo 970m 4gb vbios would work on a dell 970m 4gb but would not work correctly on a 970m 8gb.

 

I know it’s a pain but looking in the notebookreview archive on here would help. I know it’s been talked about over there.
 

unless the card is just dead, I think your issues is the vbios.   Also try the normal thing, reset the cmos, clean the card connector and reset it into its slot.

 

 

Hopefully someone with more knowledge will chime in.  

 

 

[Johndill]

I've tested it in another AW 17 R1 with a 60hz panel & the GTX 970m is in working order.

 

I've tried setting the 120hz system to UEFI bios (with a GTX 770m installed) but still get 8 beeps with the 970m.

 

I tried backing up the vbios with GPUz but it says BIOS reading not supported on this device.

Tried to backup with nvflash also but get PROGRAMING ERROR: Source block is out of range.

 

Tried to flash another vbios but get:

 

Nothing Changed!

Error: The EEPROM on this device is too small to support this firmware update.

Edit:
I was able to get some sort of dump with red-say's SIV. Attached dump.

GeForce GTX 970M [GM204-A]-84.04.85.00.0b.rom

[ssj92]

Do you have a pic?

 

What is the device id in gpu-z?

[Johndill]

Here's the screenshot when it was in my 60hz AW 17R1.

[ssj92]

Pic of the card? Looking at gpu-z this is a non g-sync card, so it should work with both 120hz and 60hz. 

 

Hardware programmer may allow flashing the vBIOS but other than that idk what's going on 

[Johndill]

Here's some pics 🙂

[Johndill]

Just found this PDF from the sticker on the back. Aetina M3N970M-MN

m3n970mmn.pdf

[Maxware79]

Aetina 970M's won't work in the 120hz machines. They will work in the 60hz though. 

 

It's possible that a vBIOS flash will get around it but I'm pretty sure others have tried and had no luck. 

[ssj92]

5 hours ago, Maxware79 said:

Aetina 970M's won't work in the 120hz machines. They will work in the 60hz though. 

 

It's possible that a vBIOS flash will get around it but I'm pretty sure others have tried and had no luck. 

Yes this seems to be the issue:

 

1. Embedded DisplayPort (eDP) is supported on DP_D only.

 

If I remember correctly, AW eDP is DP_C not DP_D so yes it won't work, unless this is a vBIOS only issue. But if it's wired for DP_D as well then it requires hardware mod. 

[Johndill]

Thank you so very much for this info. 🙂

Well, now I have to decide whether I contact the seller & try to get it swapped or refunded.

Or just cop the unwanted $300 AUD spend & put it in an LVDS M18x R2 & buy another for the customer. 🤦‍♂️

[Maxware79]

I bought an Aetina 970M a little while back and faced the same problem. I ended up putting in my M18x but soon discovered that there was no fan control. I had to find a vBIOS that would work with the card. I had to change the subsystem ID of the card which you can only do with certain versions of NVFlash and it can apparently be risky. 

If you get the same problem then I can let you know the vBIOS version I used. 

$300AUD is a lot for a 970M.  

[Johndill]

I decided to contact the seller & explained the situation & they are happy for a return & refund thankfully. 🙂

 

@Maxware79 Ah ok, $300AUD was the cheapest I could find on eBay.

If you have a few links I'd be very grateful. 🙂

[Maxware79]

Good result then. I guess there aren't a lot of options here in Oz so we often pay too much for these cards. Some guys on our Discord occasionally have some MXM cards for cheap.

[Johndill]

Final update, got a full refund & purchased from another seller double checking they were sending me the blue PCB card.

Recieved a Blue PCB GTX 970M & worked stright away. 🙂

Thank you very much guys for your diagnosis help. 🙂