Looking for suggestions

[LVpollo3]

Hello,i am not so technical but really want save my old lovely Alienware.

I have Alienware 17 R1 Ranger with dead gtx770m (atleast repair shop say so)
what would be my options i check forum and some ebay listing if i understand i could get gtx1060m just sawp it and its should work ?

i saw some ppl say P4000 are better option because price in ebay almost same for EU ~240euro ? more shop mention that i should look for new thermal pad

Thank in advance

[Komputers-Best]

The best option would be RTX 3000.

[sliderfra]

HI, no RTX3000 is a very bad idea as it needs a lot of chassis modification on the 17 so I definitely do not recommend this GPU unless you want to loose a day of hard labour.

Go for standard mxm 3.0B card such as 1070 gtx, quadro P3000/P4000/P5000 or P3200/4200/5200 (ones that are fitted with bios chip ONLY)

[Komputers-Best]

13 hours ago, sliderfra said:

HI, no RTX3000 is a very bad idea as it needs a lot of chassis modification on the 17 so I definitely do not recommend this GPU unless you want to loose a day of hard labour.

Go for standard mxm 3.0B card such as 1070 gtx, quadro P3000/P4000/P5000 or P3200/4200/5200 (ones that are fitted with bios chip ONLY)

It's complete nonsense, having a little brains, it's not difficult to finalize everything, I showed how, but the GTX 1070 Msi level card and it's cold and productive unlike the P series, since it's just clippings, the GTX 1070 series has the same, a full-fledged GTX 1070 card only from Msi.. 

 

 

[ssj92]

RTX 3000 opens up ray tracing, dlss, hvec 8k acceleration, rtx video super resolution (coming later for us) 

 

Why use a older Pascal GPU? 

[sliderfra]

he says clearly he isn't so technical!

I installed the RTX 3k on my AW18 and I can definitely say that it is NOT an easy task.

If you don't have the appropriate tools and gameplan, that can easily turn to a nightmare.

Standard MXM modules do exist, and quadro P4000 is not so far away from RTX 3000 performance wise. But it is cheaper!

Unless he absolutely needs RTX stuff or to push his old RANGER to the edge, he should stick with standard mxm.

[Komputers-Best]

I installed the GTX 1080 zotac in an old Alienware 18 in the main slot, while I took out the power connector externally by wire (I soldered it out of the board), since the card did not fit into the slot, and did not experience any problems in installation.

 

[LVpollo3]

On 4/20/2023 at 9:01 PM, sliderfra said:

HI, no RTX3000 is a very bad idea as it needs a lot of chassis modification on the 17 so I definitely do not recommend this GPU unless you want to loose a day of hard labour.

Go for standard mxm 3.0B card such as 1070 gtx, quadro P3000/P4000/P5000 or P3200/4200/5200 (ones that are fitted with bios chip ONLY)

Well i wanted easy route and got 1060 gtx and now fighting with drivers to install them.
Fallowed this https://null-src.com/posts/nvidia-notebook-driver-inf-mod/post.php Nvidia driver installation mange to start and recognize my 1060 but didn't finish.
Any chance that unlocked bios will help me ?

[sliderfra]

1 hour ago, LVpollo3 said:

Well i wanted easy route and got 1060 gtx and now fighting with drivers to install them.
Fallowed this https://null-src.com/posts/nvidia-notebook-driver-inf-mod/post.php Nvidia driver installation mange to start and recognize my 1060 but didn't finish.
Any chance that unlocked bios will help me ?

Hi,

unlocked bios is necessary to force the system in SG mode (if you have 60HZ LVDS screen). Normally if you have 120Hz edp screen, your stuck with PEG so no need to unlock bios but 1060 GTX should handle it with the right VBIOS (ZOTAC & Asrock vbios don't work IIRC)

 

how come installation did not finish? Do you have code 43 in device manager?

Use DDU (display driver uninstall) in safe mode before to flush any signs of old AMD/Nvidia drivers before processing.

 

I'm pretty sure you missed something on your inf mod.

you need to edit nvdispi.inf (1 line) and nvdmi.inf  (line at the back with your device ID then line on top with different sections)

Then restart with disable driver enforcement and you're good to go

[LVpollo3]

3 hours ago, sliderfra said:

Hi,

unlocked bios is necessary to force the system in SG mode (if you have 60HZ LVDS screen). Normally if you have 120Hz edp screen, your stuck with PEG so no need to unlock bios but 1060 GTX should handle it with the right VBIOS (ZOTAC & Asrock vbios don't work IIRC)

 

how come installation did not finish? Do you have code 43 in device manager?

Use DDU (display driver uninstall) in safe mode before to flush any signs of old AMD/Nvidia drivers before processing.

 

I'm pretty sure you missed something on your inf mod.

you need to edit nvdispi.inf (1 line) and nvdmi.inf  (line at the back with your device ID then line on top with different sections)

Then restart with disable driver enforcement and you're good to go

Yheee forgot to about cmd stuff thanks 🙂

[Maxware79]

Unlocked BIOS is not required on the 17 R1 with the 60hz panel as SG mode is set by default. The unlocked BIOS is only required on the 18" systems as SG mode is not an option with the Dell BIOS and it's default video modes are either iGFX or PEG. 

 

It definitely sounds like you've missed something with the inf mod. Don't forget that the inf file has multiple sections of device ID lines for the different operating systems that are supported for the driver. The newer ones have a section for Win10 and Win11. You need to put your new device ID line into both sections just to make sure you get the right OS. Don't forget to add the String line at the bottom of the file as well. 

 

I've only ever had to edit the nvdmi.inf and I've never touched the nvdisp.inf. 

 

I think the nvdmi.inf is called nvdmig.inf or something like that these days. 

[ssj92]

If using SG mode edit nv_display.inf 

 

If using PEG edit nvdmi.inf 

 

The values are different and they are optimized for either Optimus or PEG.

 

You can also alternatively use nvcleaninstall to mod the inf automatically which makes it a lot easier. 

[Maxware79]

That's interesting, I had no idea about the SG and PEG differences with the different inf's. With all my cards, I've only ever done the nvdmi mod and that's with my SG systems, including the 1070 in my M18x. I was getting really good scores doing it that way so I'm wondering how much difference doing the nv_display mod would have made. 

[ssj92]

Honestly, it shouldn't make much of a difference. The important thing is for SG mode since Optimus may not work correctly with inf mod made for PEG.