"New Here" -ish RTX 2080 Alienware M18 R3 and others projects!

[Falinov]

Hello! Good evening to all of notebook talk! Hopefully I'm posting this to the correct area. Sorry in advance if it isn't! If at all possible it isn't I hope it will let relocated to the correct spot . 

 

Ive long since been a long time old school Alienware modder, since the GTX 1070 was first found to work in the old M17xr4, you could say ive been a long time supporter and daily driver of that combination. It wasn't the best but it did well for me and my wallet for a young strapping lad.

 

I am 26 years old, a long time electronics buff. I love working on soldering, repairing tech, drones, it's all cool to me. But I absolutely love Alienware. Specifically the m1.x-R series. Ask me anything! 

 

Well; it used to anyways- as of the last couple years now fortunes have turned for me in my favor and now a lot of capital to experiment and broaden my "aspirations" for the platform. This post is for those who are crazy like me or just morbidly curious. Some of you may also notice this is my first post yet I have a collaborator badge already. I am generally a person who isn't good with interacting with people so ice refrained from posting until I was good and ready. I think I'm ready and I hope this post is warmly accepted. @ssj92 thanks for your consistent DMs! 

 

Full Disclaimer: A lot of Alienware motherboards were harmed in the making of these experiments- including one of my two RTX 2080 MXMs. Trust me I know it hurt me too emotionally and financially.

 

However their sacrifice produced a ton of fantastic results in the long run for others. So come along with me get to know me and the depths of my depravity- I will maybe share my experiences and get to know all those who still daily these fantastic old girls! 😜

 

M17Xr4: - an oldie but a goodie.

 

Well let's start off with my first laptop- ever, being my first mobile setup! I'd surely take the time to to through everything Ive done. Well to start off the MSI 1070 was a good chip it was actually defective for nearly 4 years. I knew this after I sent it to Woodstock (yes that Woodstock if he's still around! Ive since deleted my old discord with him on it I should've re-added him; oops)

 

Anyways! I'd say a couple years ago I stumbled across a rare Aetina GTX 1080 on ebay- skeptically I purchased it and it sat in my inventory for a year before I got to work making it fit. Well eventually in spring 2022' I rebuilt the old girl and with some difficulty and some help from another wizard with these laptops (the creator of the MXM NVME raptor card, (yes I know him personally from China!) I modified the motherboard of my 17xr4 and with some external power and a fully copper heatsink and more powerful fans the 1080 was and still is pumping frames combined with a i7-3940Xm running stock voltage and 32 gb 1866 MHz g. Skill ram. I couldn't find another stick of 2133 (if anyone has a set let me know we can negotiate;) )

 

The result was a pretty stable set of scores I'm sure I'll get scrutiny but let me know your thoughts. She did pretty respectable in my opinion, As you can expect even with all that the 1080 is still a haaaawt card.

 

Now I can already feel in the force some of you are going to be very quick to point out. "But falinov! There's no way you can run that card at full wattage -"

 

Normally you'd be correct yes- There's physical ways around it. From all the research ive done and in collaboration with a ton of other folk across the distant ocean it's widely accepted our aliens have a encrypted list of GPUs the laptop will recognize it's from this list the GPU slot knows how much power to feed off the board to the card. Well since the 1080 and beyond is well after these laptops we have to do INF mods but we also must physically modify the motherboard to allow ANY of the cards I'm displaying today to run at their near peak. You must also provide it external power for the best possible chance of stability.

 

@ssj92 hello again, buddy! 🤗

 

Nonetheless still happy with it and I still daily it. Add a fresh coat of paint and new covers. Ta-da!

 

Oh and it goes without saying every laptop I own is heavily modified - custom heatsinks, resistance mods, fan mods, NVME raid cards to quad NVME-, and obviously a RTX 2080.

 

 

Still with me? Wonderful thanks for following through the first I have a couple more of my laptops to share!

 

Next up in this menagerie of laptops is the Alien M17x r5!

 

The ranger. 

 

I bought this laptop for dirt cheap - literally pennies on the dollar compared to the value this once proud laptop once sold for (35 bucks or something to that effect.) 

 

Screen was broken, GPU was outdated, cpu I'm pretty sure had original thermal paste.- you get the point.

 

Well while I was sourcing the GTX 1080 I had bought 3 HP RTX 4000 cards and a RTX 5000. I'm a gluten... I know. 

 

What luck I got them for cheap. (Cheap by comparison to current prices. Much like my r4 it also has motherboard modifications and features a i7 4940 / 30 - this one was perplexing. The card ran the benchmarks it's definitely an RTX 4000 yet 3d mark was absolutely confused opting to identify this card as a generic VGA of all things- also interesting is that the CPU always overheats on the timespy cpu bench regardless of the cpu 4940 or a pedestrian one running at 2.7 ghz- with some forced cooling I forced it past the time spy CPU bench- despite those issues it scores quite well 

 

 

I had to re-run a couple of the tests ^_^

 

I don't have any pictures of the build but if there's enough demand I'd be happy to show the insides off. 

 

 

Now then onto the elephant of the post. RTX 2080 MXM, a super rare - and expensive card- I have 2... Unfortunately one is definitely dead. That being said I love my Alienware m18 r3. It's a PITA but I love the aesthetics. Fantastic machine.

 

I started this adventure roughly 1 and a half years ago. I started out with the RTX 5000 Which started off as abysmally.

 

Inconsistent power issues, bios problems, and so much more. My oneXplayer 2 P literally pulled in better scores.

 

I later figured that card out- thoroughly i might add and ended up putting it in the m18x r2. Put simply I wasn't satisfied with the 5000. I wanted more. I wanted to push the envelope further.

 

I wanted to take on something I was fairly certain no one else had attempted. A MSI RTX 2080 an "up-to"  200 W card. 

 

Well I can tell you after multiple cuts- bruises- and blood everywhere and burns. -the burns... - it was successfully executed. (Blood was from a machining accident...)

 

How far was I to go to make this work? How would I know how good it performed? Hell how did I determine if the card even worked?

 

I bought the laptop the 2080 comes from just to find that out. The MSI GT75VR. I ran the benchmarks of that system with the card in question and these were the results and served as my warmed up baselines. 

 

 

Here were my results of my insanity- the Alienware M18x R3. 

 

 

With that I hope this inspires some folk. I waited so long to make sure I had everything to post and back up my claims. Nothing better than introducing myself and showing off what ive been working on in the background. It is an honor to be among others who love these old machines. And clearly they can still kick some booty. 

 

It's a pleasure to make all of your acquaintances. 

 

P.S I did add a m18xr2 tag. I have one it's running my RTX 5000 and a rare quad slot NVME it's not done yet. Still waiting to test a few more things before I post it and make sure it's good and ready. With that. Nighty night all! 🙂

[aldarxt]

HOLY MOLY! Your 1 post is a critically needed life saving procedure! The Alienware Club is going to roll out the red carpet for you and the papparazzi are swarming! Welcome Aboard!!!

[Reciever]

Thanks for sharing! 

 

How did you approach resolving the external power requirement? 

[aldarxt]

If you go to 3DMark support page and type in "Graphics card is not recognized" and hit new support ticket  they will fix the VGA card problem pretty quick

[Falinov]

1 hour ago, aldarxt said:

HOLY MOLY! Your 1 post is a critically needed life saving procedure! The Alienware Club is going to roll out the red carpet for you and the papparazzi are swarming! Welcome Aboard!!!

Thank you. 🙂 I wanted to make absolutely sure I was ready to post first. ^_^

 

1 hour ago, aldarxt said:

If you go to 3DMark support page and type in "Graphics card is not recognized" and hit new support ticket  they will fix the VGA card problem pretty quick

Oh cool! Didn't know that. I'll send a message. Thanks! 

1 hour ago, Reciever said:

Thanks for sharing! 

 

How did you approach resolving the external power requirement? 

SSG92 mentioned to someone about a resistance mod. He got that information from me. The slot power can be modified through resistor mod on the motherboard to allow more power through the slot. A small job but greatly stabilizes the power delivery. Once you do that and provide external power to a card (if it needs it) it runs as it should. 

[ssj92]

@Maxware79 must see this post as well 🙂 

 

I'm going to try and see if I can do that resister mod on AW 18 (r3) and see if it solves RTX 3000 issue 

[Falinov]

32 minutes ago, ssj92 said:

@Maxware79 must see this post as well 🙂 

No idea who that is but more the merrier ^_^

 

Good luck on the mod man. My best wishes to ya. Post back to me when you do. Ofc DM me. I'm curious to see if it will. 

 

@Maxware79 @ssj92 dude has literally the same m17xr4 as me only difference is he painted the front grills lol! That's hilarious. 

[Maxware79]

Damn man! That custom heatsink is something else! I've always wanted to use the spare second heatsink slot as an extension of the primary slot. Awesome to see someone actually doing it!

[Falinov]

21 minutes ago, Maxware79 said:

Damn man! That custom heatsink is something else! I've always wanted to use the spare second heatsink slot as an extension of the primary slot. Awesome to see someone actually doing it!

The RTX 2080 is a 200W card. This heatsink was keeping it at 27 to 37C at idle. It would max out at 78 to 83C fully enclosed on the port royal bench. Did pretty admirably. It was a absolute pain to make this heatsink. I am working on machining a custom cold plate for the 2080 so it can cover the entire dye and the VRMs all in one and less things to clamp while soldering. The amount of burns sustained was extremely painful lol 

[aldarxt]

55 minutes ago, Maxware79 said:

Damn man! That custom heatsink is something else! I've always wanted to use the spare second heatsink slot as an extension of the primary slot. Awesome to see someone actually doing it!

That Heatsink is also giving cooling to the CPU!!!

 

31 minutes ago, Falinov said:

The RTX 2080 is a 200W card. This heatsink was keeping it at 27 to 37C at idle. It would max out at 78 to 83C fully enclosed on the port royal bench. Did pretty admirably. It was a absolute pain to make this heatsink. I am working on machining a custom cold plate for the 2080 so it can cover the entire dye and the VRMs all in one and less things to clamp while soldering. The amount of burns sustained was extremely painful lol 

Does the Heatsink fit under the Keyboard? Looks a little high, how did that workout? When I installed the HP RTX 4000 it was putting pressure under the keyboard and lighting board. The screws for the bezel held everything in place

[Falinov]

9 hours ago, aldarxt said:

That Heatsink is also giving cooling to the CPU!!!

 

Does the Heatsink fit under the Keyboard? Looks a little high, how did that workout? When I installed the HP RTX 4000 it was putting pressure under the keyboard and lighting board. The screws for the bezel held everything in place

It was extremely tight. That's why I'm machining a new block. I'm waiting for a new CNC mill to get here and then I'll start cutting a new block custom for it. As for the pipes the whole point was to combine all 3 heatsinks like a modern monoblock. Thats my end goal have all 3 be one big block like a modern thin. The issue is this crap is expensive. The CNC machine alone ran me 2k. Copper pipes you see I ordered 20lbs of them in all kinds of sizes. That cost me 450 to import. Let's not forget the RTX 2080 if you can find it sells for no less than 1100 to 980 bucks on average its not a cheap build.... not even my buddies in China undertook this project lol

 

"too many bends!"

 

My m18x r3 is an expensive dastard but I love the machine so much I'd put this effort in...

[ssj92]

8 minutes ago, Falinov said:

It was extremely tight. That's why I'm machining a new block. I'm waiting for a new CNC mill to get here and then I'll start cutting a new block custom for it. As for the pipes the whole point was to combine all 3 heatsinks like a modern monoblock. Thats my end goal have all 3 be one big block like a modern thin. The issue is this shit is expensive. The CNC machine alone ran me 2k. Copper pipes you see I ordered 20lbs of them in all kinds of sizes. That cost me 450 to import. Let's not forget the RTX 2080 if you can find it sells for no less than 1100 to 980 bucks on average its not a cheap build.... not even my buddies in China undertook this project lol

 

"too many bends!"

 

My m18x r3 is an expensive dastard but I love the machine so much I'd put this effort in...

If you decide to build extras in the future maybe some members here wouldn't mind buying some. Single monoblock that fits and lets us close the chassis like oem would be nice 

[Falinov]

Just now, ssj92 said:

If you decide to build extras in the future maybe some members here wouldn't mind buying some. Single monoblock that fits and lets us close the chassis like oem would be nice 

While tempting. Would be very expensive.

[1610ftw]

On 2/13/2024 at 5:55 AM, Falinov said:

While tempting. Would be very expensive.

 

Would not hurt to do the math but I can see that you would not want to do it if this is all built by hand.

 

[Falinov]

18 hours ago, 1610ftw said:

 

Would not hurt to do the math but I can see that you would not want to do it if this is all built by hand.

 

All this one is built by hand even if I machine a plate. It would still need pipes. A paiiiiin in the ass to hand bend, flatten, re-bend pipes, soooolder them, get burned, get pissed off. Yeaaah it's a pain. Someone messaged me about it and I told them flat out. Even if I machined them. Materials alone would probably run me in the hundreds of dollars. I think I quoted 1500 at a minimum- and that's being optimistic. I'm not being an ass but if you factor machine time, potential errors (Im far from being good at this stuff.) materials, time, power, CAD time. It all adds up 

[serpro69]

Seems like the image links are broken. Or is it just me? 

But a monster of an intro-post in any case 

[1610ftw]

@Falinov how did you upgrade that GT75VR to the 9980HK?

The "easy" way by getting a 9th gen mobo or the hard way by replacing the CPU?

 

Of course the easy way is not really easy as you also have to make changes to the heatsinks or source different heatsinks so I am curous how you did it.

Still a fan of the GT75 chassis as it has the very best mechanical keyboard, up to 5 NVME and one 2.5“ slot and the earlier versions also have 10G network.

And putting 128GB of memory in there also is very straightforward and much less complicated than it can be in other gaming laptops. Too bad that in the 9SG the 2080 is limited to 155W when 200W could be cooled just fine.

[Falinov]

17 hours ago, 1610ftw said:

@Falinov how did you upgrade that GT75VR to the 9980HK?

The "easy" way by getting a 9th gen mobo or the hard way by replacing the CPU?

 

Of course the easy way is not really easy as you also have to make changes to the heatsinks or source different heatsinks so I am curous how you did it.

Still a fan of the GT75 chassis as it has the very best mechanical keyboard, up to 5 NVME and one 2.5“ slot and the earlier versions also have 10G network.

And putting 128GB of memory in there also is very straightforward and much less complicated than it can be in other gaming laptops. Too bad that in the 9SG the 2080 is limited to 155W when 200W could be cooled just fine.

Wasn't hard at all. GT75 doesn't need new heatsinks. Just a motherboard upgrade from 8 to 9th Gen and 128 gb DDR4. 2080 runs at 150 to 200w with an overclock easily. I've seen it pull that in both the alien and the MSI. Not a huge fan of the platform keyboards. Meh? To high profile for me imo

 

On 3/3/2024 at 11:21 AM, serpro69 said:

Seems like the image links are broken. Or is it just me? 

But a monster of an intro-post in any case 

Thanks, they might be broken. 

 

17 hours ago, 1610ftw said:

@Falinov how did you upgrade that GT75VR to the 9980HK?

The "easy" way by getting a 9th gen mobo or the hard way by replacing the CPU?

 

Of course the easy way is not really easy as you also have to make changes to the heatsinks or source different heatsinks so I am curous how you did it.

Still a fan of the GT75 chassis as it has the very best mechanical keyboard, up to 5 NVME and one 2.5“ slot and the earlier versions also have 10G network.

And putting 128GB of memory in there also is very straightforward and much less complicated than it can be in other gaming laptops. Too bad that in the 9SG the 2080 is limited to 155W when 200W could be cooled just fine.

[1610ftw]

1 hour ago, Falinov said:

Wasn't hard at all. GT75 doesn't need new heatsinks. Just a motherboard upgrade from 8 to 9th Gen and 128 gb DDR4. 2080 runs at 150 to 200w with an overclock easily. I've seen it pull that in both the alien and the MSI. Not a huge fan of the platform keyboards. Meh? To high profile for me imo

 

Ah, so you had an 8th gen CPU with the 2080, that is of course easy.

As you wrote GT75 VR I thought you had started out with a model with an Nvidia 1070 or 1080 as those have a different heatsink array.

 

I have only ever seen these being marketed with the "VR" moniker:

 

 

I am just puzzled that you could pull that much power from the 2080, mine only ever pulls up to 155W despite overclocking in MSI Afterburner while the Area 51m happily goes up to 200W.

 

And forgot to ask, do you really not use that connector with your GT75 or was it just not yet connected to the GPU when you took that picture?

[Falinov]

1 hour ago, 1610ftw said:

 

Ah, so you had an 8th gen CPU with the 2080, that is of course easy.

As you wrote GT75 VR I thought you had started out with a model with an Nvidia 1070 or 1080 as those have a different heatsink array.

 

I have only ever seen these being marketed with the "VR" moniker:

 

 

I am just puzzled that you could pull that much power from the 2080, mine only ever pulls up to 155W despite overclocking in MSI Afterburner while the Area 51m happily goes up to 200W.

 

And forgot to ask, do you really not use that connector with your GT75 or was it just not yet connected to the GPU when you took that picture?

If you look closer. You'll notice no connection at all on the MSI card. Meaning this picture was taken when I was testing an RTX 2070.

 

Second the MSI GT75 specification is MSI GT75 Titan VR 8SG. not to be confused with the earlier GT75 VR my bad I did not put the full name down because I didn't pay it much mind. The system is far from a favorite of mine. It only serves as a backup. 

 

Third point id like the point out that you may have not considered. The 2080 I have and the one you probably run doesn't have the on card modifications that I had placed that drastically increase the draw. I only seen a spike to 198w. However I consider that 200w it's just easier for me to round up 2. That being said. Yes average is 150/160 for a normal one. I have 2 of these RTX 2080s one died because of the torture I put it through sadly. I wish it'd survived an expensive mistake. 

 

Just because I post here doesn't mean I put everything I know about these systems to public information especially when it contains information that can damage hardware especially this. As far as I know I am the only one to dedicate this much resources to make this card work In my alien and provide my findings that are safe to public knowledge. You never reveal all your tricks and secrets all at once. 

[1610ftw]

37 minutes ago, Falinov said:

If you look closer. You'll notice no connection at all on the MSI card. Meaning this picture was taken when I was testing an RTX 2070.

 

Second the MSI GT75 specification is MSI GT75 Titan VR 8SG. not to be confused with the earlier GT75 VR my bad I did not put the full name down because I didn't pay it much mind. The system is far from a favorite of mine. It only serves as a backup. 

 

Third point id like the point out that you may have not considered. The 2080 I have and the one you probably run doesn't have the on card modifications that I had placed that drastically increase the draw. I only seen a spike to 198w. However I consider that 200w it's just easier for me to round up 2. That being said. Yes average is 150/160 for a normal one. I have 2 of these RTX 2080s one died because of the torture I put it through sadly. I wish it'd survived an expensive mistake. 

 

Just because I post here doesn't mean I put everything I know about these systems to public information especially when it contains information that can damage hardware especially this. As far as I know I am the only one to dedicate this much resources to make this card work In my alien and provide my findings that are safe to public knowledge. You never reveal all your tricks and secrets all at once. 

 

Thanks, sounded to me that 200W would have been with a stock card so I thought I may be missing something with my system. Sorry to hear that one card did not survive as these are not the easiest cards to come by!

 

And yes, judging by your signature I would have guessed that you kind of prefer Alienware laptops 😉

[Falinov]

1 hour ago, 1610ftw said:

 

Thanks, sounded to me that 200W would have been with a stock card so I thought I may be missing something with my system. Sorry to hear that one card did not survive as these are not the easiest cards to come by!

 

And yes, judging by your signature I would have guessed that you kind of prefer Alienware laptops 😉

Sure do. 🙂 never got into others because I couldn't afford them at the time. Now I just don't care to anymore. 

[aldarxt]

Hey @Falinov I see you have a Aetina GTX 1080 in m17xr4, does it have a power cable plugged in and where would it plug into? I have a Aetina GTX 1080 and can't get it to work properly, kept getting code 43 and moved on to other failing projects

[Falinov]

14 hours ago, aldarxt said:

Hey @Falinov I see you have a Aetina GTX 1080 in m17xr4, does it have a power cable plugged in and where would it plug into? I have a Aetina GTX 1080 and can't get it to work properly, kept getting code 43 and moved on to other failing projects

I do. Code 43 usually in my experience means a physical problem. Is the dye in tact? I tapped into a 19/20V blank pad on the motherboard and did the resistor mod. It performed admirably. It, like the 2080 is running external power and resistance mod. 

[Reciever]

3 hours ago, Falinov said:

I do. Code 43 usually in my experience means a physical problem. Is the dye in tact? I tapped into a 19/20V blank pad on the motherboard and did the resistor mod. It performed admirably. It, like the 2080 is running external power and resistance mod. 

This intrigues me greatly, I have been on the fence about getting an RTX 3080 for my Clevo since it doesnt have external power