Upgrading my old M18x R2

[m3th0d1c4l]

Hey fellas.

 

Been looking through a lot of threads here and lots of great info. I used to be a part of NBR and Dell Forums many years ago but haven't been very active for a long time.

 

Recently, I have been looking at bringing my old M18x R2 back to life. Its been sitting in my closet collecting dust in its original red sleeve, and I am looking at bringing this up to spec.

 

My current (and original) configuration of the computer:

- Nebula Red

- i7 3940XM (3 Pipe Heatsink from factory)

- 32GB RAM (Original Samsung Modules)

- AMD 7970M Crossfire

 

I recently took it apart, cleaned out all the dust, and replaced the thermal compound on CPU and GPUs, and upgraded the Wi-Fi card to an AX210 Wi-Fi 6E/BT 5.2 card as well as placed in a new Crucial 2TB SATA SSD.

 

I am looking at removing the 7970M cards which both still work great without issues, and replacing it with a 1060M or 1070M card with one of the custom copper heatsinks I have seen on eBay. I have seen many talking about the Quadro RTX cards as well.

 

All the cards i have been finding on eBay all seem to be coming from China and are roughly all around the same price range give or take. All the topics ive been reading seem to say to avoid these cards, is this due to quality issues, compatibility or both? 

 

I also assume my original AMD heatsink will not work with any of these, but correct me if I am wrong (hence why i was looking at the custom copper ones).

 

I am currently in the process of unlocking the BIOS to place it into SG mode and If i understood from what I have read so far, I have to remove one of the 7970M cards in order for this to work in SG mode until i get the new card installed?

 

Thanks for any and all info. Glad to see people are still keeping this guy up to date as much as possible.

 

 

[razor0601]

Unlock your Bios, switch to SG-Mode. You can leave both cards inside. Now you get Intel HD and one 7970m. After that I prefer a Quadro P4000/5000. Get a copper Heatsink from eBay or Aliexpress install the Quadro with mod.inf and you have an upgraded M18x R2 without any modding at your Heatsink or chassis and MXM-Slot. 
These Chinese cards are crap. They have no good quality components.

[m3th0d1c4l]

Thanks for the reply. 
 

I have unlocked the bios and switched to SG mode. 
 

I am waiting for the heating to arrive. Would the one from the dell precision work as far as an upgrade? Such as this one?

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/195728292291?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=vp7bGSLNRu-&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=3Zbx8-FNQrS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

now as far as those china 1070m, is it mostly cheap in terms of longevity/lasting components? Or were there other issues?

[razor0601]

Yes, this Dell Precision card will work in M18X R2. I have the same in mine installed. 
I only know that the 1070m Chinese cards have cheap components and may not live very long. 

 

[m3th0d1c4l]

Gotcha. Sounds good. I’ll steer clear of the Chinese cards then. 
 

I also found a quadro p5000 16GB card from a dell precision. Is this also compatible or will the system not handle this card? 
 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186113313061?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=uSLmA-UYRpq&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=3Zbx8-FNQrS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

thanks again. 

[Maxware79]

The P5000 is similar to the 1070 but with more vRAM so there is no reason why it wouldn't work just like the P4000 or GeForce cards. 

 

@Xeper8x8 recently bought one of the copper heatsinks and didn't go through with the upgrade so he may be wanting to sell it. 

 

[m3th0d1c4l]

Thanks for the info. I ordered the P5000 just waiting for it to get here.

 

Ill post some pics once i get it all together and running.

 

One last thing I had a question on, I saw some threads about the MXM to NVME adapter and the power drain that occurs with the use of this adapter.

 

I saw there was a revised V3 version of this card but there was no definitive follow up on how the power drain was in comparison to the V2 model. Does anyone have this V3 model and tested power drain? Currently I am running a SATA SSD that I just recently replaced but was considering getting one of these adapters if the power drain issue was truly fixed.

[Maxware79]

On 11/2/2023 at 1:36 PM, m3th0d1c4l said:

Thanks for the info. I ordered the P5000 just waiting for it to get here.

 

Ill post some pics once i get it all together and running.

 

One last thing I had a question on, I saw some threads about the MXM to NVME adapter and the power drain that occurs with the use of this adapter.

 

I saw there was a revised V3 version of this card but there was no definitive follow up on how the power drain was in comparison to the V2 model. Does anyone have this V3 model and tested power drain? Currently I am running a SATA SSD that I just recently replaced but was considering getting one of these adapters if the power drain issue was truly fixed.

 

I've never tried the V3 so I couldn't say. I believe that @ssj92 has tried it though so maybe he can shine some light on it. 

[m3th0d1c4l]

So small update:

 

I got both a 1070M and a quadro card also to test both out. 
 

I installed the 1070 first and performed the driver inf mod and install went smooth and card is working. However the performance of the card seems off. Power draw according to GPU -Z shows never going above 60-65W board power draw and chip power draw is 30-33W max. And bus speed shows as PCIE 1.1 connection @2x instead of 16x/8x PCIe 3.0

 

I haven’t tried the other quadro card yet but I’m planning to later next week when I have more time to tear it apart again. 
 

is this an issue with the card itself, or my motherboard? Or maybe I didn’t do something right with the drivers?

 

Any help is appreciated. 
 

I can attach GPU-Z screenshots when I get back home Monday. 

[mtvgt]

If it comes to pcie speed i can tell you from my own experience, try cleaning mxm port on motherboard. I was surprised how dirty it was inside after all these years + it fixed my problem with lower than expected pcie speed (or maybe re-installing card helped..?) I used cotton ear buds + alcohol based cleaner. 

[m3th0d1c4l]

Thanks, I will try this out.

 

You actually might be right about this. I did notice one thing when i was installing the card with the modded copper heatsink. I noticed it was putting a decent amount of pressure on the card and i thought i noticed some warping on the PCB. Perhaps this is causing it?

 

Ill take it apart and take some pictures when i get back Monday.

[razor0601]

How much Mhz do you have on the corespeed when you run benchmark Programms?

[m3th0d1c4l]

I’ll double check that when I get back Monday but as far as I remember they were hitting max speeds per GPU-Z while I had a game running. 
 

I’ll install 3DMark and test with that as well

 

[m3th0d1c4l]

So i tried to reseat the card and no luck there. I even cleaned the MXM slot (although was quite clean) and the pins on the card itself and made no difference.

 

Here are a couple GPU-Z screenshots with Overwatch 2 launched that I attached.

 

I just am not sure if its a driver thing that I modded the inf file incorrectly? Or if the card itself is the issue.

 

[Maxware79]

On 11/11/2023 at 1:13 PM, m3th0d1c4l said:

So small update:

 

I got both a 1070M and a quadro card also to test both out. 
 

I installed the 1070 first and performed the driver inf mod and install went smooth and card is working. However the performance of the card seems off. Power draw according to GPU -Z shows never going above 60-65W board power draw and chip power draw is 30-33W max. And bus speed shows as PCIE 1.1 connection @2x instead of 16x/8x PCIe 3.0

 

I haven’t tried the other quadro card yet but I’m planning to later next week when I have more time to tear it apart again. 
 

is this an issue with the card itself, or my motherboard? Or maybe I didn’t do something right with the drivers?

 

Any help is appreciated. 
 

I can attach GPU-Z screenshots when I get back home Monday. 

 

Sounds like you could be experiencing the standard power throttling issue that most (if not all) of us had. I'm not sure of the cause but it's easy to correct, although you pretty much have to do this fix every time you want to use the card to it's full potential.

 

Restart the system and go into the BIOS. Switch the video mode to iGX and reboot. Go straight back into the BIOS and switch back to SG mode. When you reboot again your 1070 should be at full power. 

 

I'm guessing that it's a problem due to the LVDS display and having to piggyback off the Intel graphics. I don't believe this was an issue in the Alienware 17 with the 120hz eDP display. 

 

I believe you could also get it to work properly by putting the laptop to sleep and then waking it up. Never tried it this way though

[m3th0d1c4l]

12 minutes ago, Maxware79 said:

 

Sounds like you could be experiencing the standard power throttling issue that most (if not all) of us had. I'm not sure of the cause but it's easy to correct, although you pretty much have to do this fix every time you want to use the card to it's full potential.

 

Restart the system and go into the BIOS. Switch the video mode to iGX and reboot. Go straight back into the BIOS and switch back to SG mode. When you reboot again your 1070 should be at full power. 

 

I'm guessing that it's a problem due to the LVDS display and having to piggyback off the Intel graphics. I don't believe this was an issue in the Alienware 17 with the 120hz eDP display. 

 

I believe you could also get it to work properly by putting the laptop to sleep and then waking it up. Never tried it this way though

I just now tried this (both sleep and the BIOS) and same result. Bus Speed still shows PCIe 1.1 @ x1 and no difference on power draw/performance.

 

I am going to try the quadro card probably tomorrow or next day but I wanted to rule out of this card has a problem so I can return it if need be. Any other suggestions are appreciated.

[Maxware79]

That's surprising, I really thought that would be the issue. I doubt it's a driver thing but you never know, maybe try a few older versions. 

 

Did you get the MSI 1070? Looks like the vBIOS is an MSI one

[Maxware79]

Make sure that your chipset drivers are installed/up to date. 

 

[m3th0d1c4l]

10 minutes ago, Maxware79 said:

That's surprising, I really thought that would be the issue. I doubt it's a driver thing but you never know, maybe try a few older versions. 

 

Did you get the MSI 1070? Looks like the vBIOS is an MSI one

 

It was a 1070 from eBay. Didn't have a vendor listed that I saw on the item description. it showed Dell as the Subvendor in GPU-Z so i assumed it was a dell version or similar. Is there a different VBIOS i should try? I haven't touched the VBIOS yet. 

 

 

4 minutes ago, Maxware79 said:

Make sure that your chipset drivers are installed/up to date. 

 

I did this with latest on M18x R2 downloads page, as well as trying to let Windows update them through Windows update, same result.

 

Are there any settings in the unlocked BIOS that may be affecting it? I haven't really messed with anything in there after flashing the BIOS except switching to SG mode.

 

 

[Maxware79]

No other settings that I know about. If it's the standard format 1070 then you may want to look at flashing a Dell/Alienware vBIOS but that is completely up to you. I'll see if I can find the version I was using but it's probably burried in the NBR archives. 

 

EDIT; You're actually on the same vBIOS that I was on so that can't be it. 

[Maxware79]

I had saved an old screenshot on my work PC so that was helpful. This is what I was getting

 

[m3th0d1c4l]

Yeah yours is running correctly. Should be at PCIE 3.0 x16 and @ part can drop down while idle for power savings. Mine won’t even register the x16 3.0 part at all
 

So I tried uninstalling the drivers and cleaning with DDU and opened GPU-Z when it said just “Microsoft Display Adapter” and now it showed the correct bus speed with PCIE x16 3.0 @x8 1.1 

 

As soon as I install the driver it goes back to 1.1 @1x. I wonder if I’m doing something wrong with the modding of the driver file. 

 

I even tried older drivers from 535 version. Same thing. I’m kind of baffled. Don’t know what else I can check or mess with. 
 

I edited the nvdmig file both sections plus the strings section. 
 

Only other thing I’m wondering if it’s a windows 11 issue and maybe I need to install windows 10 instead? Did you have windows 11 in those screenshots?

[Maxware79]

Those screenshots were pre-Win11 and I sold the 1070 a few years ago. Interesting that you're getting the correct speeds before the driver installation. That definitely points to it being a driver thing or possibly the Windows 11 incompatibility. 

Win11 really isn't optimised for these older systems, even though it can run on them. That could be your issue but I've never tried 11 on my older systems. 

[Maxware79]

If you have a spare SSD, I'd install Win10 on that. Pull out your Win11 SSD and keep that aside just in case it still doesn't fix the problem so you can throw it back in later. 

[m3th0d1c4l]

1 minute ago, Maxware79 said:

If you have a spare SSD, I'd install Win10 on that. Pull out your Win11 SSD and keep that aside just in case it still doesn't fix the problem so you can throw it back in later. 

Yeah this sounds like the plan to go with here. 
 

I got another 2.5” SSD I can use. I’ll go ahead and download/create a windows 10 bootable image and test this out later tonight or tomorrow after work. 
 

if this turns out to be the problem I’ll be happy. I can live with windows 10. 
 

I’ll keep you posted. Thanks again for the help and insight. Much appreciated.