Little help with AW18 Upgrade

[IL19]

Hello there! Apologies if asking this in a wrong section or on a wrong forum (if thats the case, feel free to recommend us where we should ask for advice instead 😃  ). So we are a bit stuck with upgrading Alienware 18 2013 version (R3 Viking, if I am not mistaken) with a GTX 1070. Great source of guideness has been NotebookReview Forums, but unfortunately it was shot down. Our main issue right now is that GPU fan will not start no matter how hot Graphic Card gets. We are using unlocked A12 Bios and didn't find any fan related settings in there. Graphic Card that we are upgrading to is Nvidia GTX1070 MXM 3.0b from Zotac manufacturer I think (uploaded a photo). Regarding vBios we tried an original Zotac version and a version thats for Dell laptops with the same results. Furthermore when using Dell vBios GPU won't go above 139 MHz for some reason.

Any kind of help or advice would be much appreciated. If I should have provided some extra info, please let me know :)

Alienware 18 A12 Unlocked.zip

[Maxware79]

I would keep trying vBIOS versions until you find one that works but, as always, flash at your own risk. This is usually the issue when there is no automatic fan control. 

 

I'm assuming that you have the system in SG mode to run the 1070 so the card shouldn't heat up when you're just in the Windows desktop.

[Reciever]

Zotac 1070 needed the MSi vBIOS in order to work on the internal panel for the Ranger (17 R1) I assume that may be the case for the AW18 as well 

 

What also tends to help is installing an RDP protocol so you can remote to the system, grants a little more flexibility when hashing out this process.

[Tenoroon]

Reciever is correct, if you cannot find an MSI vBIOS, I can dump mine if needed. 

[IL19]

Thanks everyone for your advices!

Yeah, SG mode is activated in Bios, so card doesn't heat up that much while just in Windows Desktop indeed.

Was able to find this MSI vBios for GTX 1070 Mobile at techpowerup:
https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/206876/206876

Should we try this one or are there other versions?

 

And can also give this RDP protocol a go :)

 

[IL19]

A little update 🙂

We have tried several MSI vBIOS versions by now. Installing them did solve an issue with GPU frequencies being stuck at 139 MHz but GPU fan still won't kick in. Once it's temperature hits 91°C it starts throttling.

Is there a chance that we are missing something in unlocked A12 BIOS? It has all sorts of tweaks and settings yet we can't see anything fans-related in there. Could it be that we simply can't find them or they are really missing? Since fans are supposed to be controlled by motherboard's multicontroller chip we assumed that we probably messes up with BIOS somehow but reinstalling it didn't help as well. 

 

[Reciever]

If the system is needed in the mean time I would locate the PWM wire and cut it so that the fan just goes max speed and later modding a physical switch in later for EC control

 

My experiences are primarily with the Ranger, I wouldnt be confident in giving further advice :( 

[IL19]

Any sort of advice is still much appreciated so thank you for taking time to answer 🙂

Yeah, cutting the wire is sort of a last resort at this point!

[Eban]

On 2/23/2022 at 6:21 AM, IL19 said:

Any sort of advice is still much appreciated so thank you for taking time to answer 🙂

Yeah, cutting the wire is sort of a last resort at this point!

 

Sorry I cant help with vbios...but another suggestion. 

You dont have to actually "cut" the pwm wire...just jimmy it out of the plastic connector, then you can always push it back in later.

[IL19]

Yeah, that would be a bit less definitive 😅

[aldarxt]

On 2/22/2022 at 12:58 PM, Reciever said:

If the system is needed in the mean time I would locate the PWM wire and cut it so that the fan just goes max speed and later modding a physical switch in later for EC control

 

My experiences are primarily with the Ranger, I wouldnt be confident in giving further advice :( 

Hey Reciever I came across this many years ago when my asus g51jx was always running HOT I was able to keep a cup of coffee warm placing it in front of the fan, RwPortableX64V1.6.9

allows you to run the fans full bolt say when gaming but to set it back when done, dont remember if a reboot was necessary to reset it. Google it and there was a pic of what to set and the fans just go full, I would play Morrowind or FO3 and the asus stayed cool. Just thought it might help instead of cutting wires. It's not an install just runs portable Here is the pic I used to use

[aldarxt]

On 2/22/2022 at 12:46 PM, IL19 said:

A little update 🙂

We have tried several MSI vBIOS versions by now. Installing them did solve an issue with GPU frequencies being stuck at 139 MHz but GPU fan still won't kick in. Once it's temperature hits 91°C it starts throttling.

Is there a chance that we are missing something in unlocked A12 BIOS? It has all sorts of tweaks and settings yet we can't see anything fans-related in there. Could it be that we simply can't find them or they are really missing? Since fans are supposed to be controlled by motherboard's multicontroller chip we assumed that we probably messes up with BIOS somehow but reinstalling it didn't help as well. 

 

Have you tried unlocked vBios IDK I guess there aren't any for 10 series

[kenny27]

I recall some people having fan issues with the 980m in the m18x r2 and m18 back in the day, while they were figuring it out Hwinfo was a fairly slick way to control the fans...