tech support Upgrade path for M17x R4?

[Trozzul]

Howdy friends. i have a M17x R4 that originally had a GTX 675m, it has some blown mosfets (i think). I have tried looking up those parts and even if i replaced them i don't know for sure if the issue would be resolved. (with the mxm card installed, the charger wouldn't even charge the system or turn on, went into protection mode instantly)

For now without the card it turns on and charges normally, i would like to find a replacement Card. I'm not looking for something amazing, if i wanted the exact card replacement its a lot more moola than i would like to spend. i have read others success of putting newer cards into this laptop but its really confusing on if i need like modified drivers, whitelisting for gpus in the bios ETC. id like to try to avoid modified drivers/bios (if they already exist, that's perfect but all the forum posts i keep finding are all dead links.)

if i can, i'd like to get something about the same power as that card as i would like to play games from that era on that device, fine with only using older drivers etc. I bought a AMD FirePro 4000m for the hell of it as it was $9 shipped and it was better than the integrated graphics on the cpu figured it would be a interesting test. But if i can i would love some help figuring this out

[Maxware79]

Most people opt for something like the GTX 1070 as it's usually a pretty simple upgrade, if you get the standard MXM format card. The MSI 1070 PCB is designed a little differently and usually requires some chassis modifications.

A few guys have also had good results with the Quadro RTX 3000. This will be superior to the 1070 but also more expensive. I'm not sure if they have tested this card in the M17x R4 but it has been well tested in the M18x R2 and 18 so there is no reason why it wouldn't work. 

You need to run a modified Nvidia driver in any Nvidia upgrade you go for. AMD cards don't require this. You can use NVCleanInstall to help with the driver. I've heard it's way easy than the way we used to do it by manually modifying the driver inf. 

The old Notebookreview forum archive can be found on this site if you want to spend a few hours digging through old posts. 

If you're happy with something from the same era then the GTX680M is the best upgrade that doesn't require driver modification as that card was released with the laptop. The 780M was much better than the 680M but then you need the driver mod. I'd stay away from the 880M but then the 980M is a great card, if you can get one for a decent price. 

[Rengsey R. H. Jr.]

I just slapped a RX 570 in mine las5 night. I have not ran any test on it yet since it was late in the night. 

[sliderfra]

On 4/10/2025 at 5:34 AM, Maxware79 said:

Most people opt for something like the GTX 1070 as it's usually a pretty simple upgrade, if you get the standard MXM format card. The MSI 1070 PCB is designed a little differently and usually requires some chassis modifications.

A few guys have also had good results with the Quadro RTX 3000. This will be superior to the 1070 but also more expensive. I'm not sure if they have tested this card in the M17x R4 but it has been well tested in the M18x R2 and 18 so there is no reason why it wouldn't work. 

You need to run a modified Nvidia driver in any Nvidia upgrade you go for. AMD cards don't require this. You can use NVCleanInstall to help with the driver. I've heard it's way easy than the way we used to do it by manually modifying the driver inf. 

The old Notebookreview forum archive can be found on this site if you want to spend a few hours digging through old posts. 

If you're happy with something from the same era then the GTX680M is the best upgrade that doesn't require driver modification as that card was released with the laptop. The 780M was much better than the 680M but then you need the driver mod. I'd stay away from the 880M but then the 980M is a great card, if you can get one for a decent price. 

 

Hi,

RTX 3000 6GB definitely works in the R4.