DX12 on M17xR3 Finally? Fastest in the Universe! Another MXM Upgrade

[ssj92]

As far as we know, up until now, 880M was the fastest card for M17xR3 due to UEFI BIOS issues. I got a WX4150 flashed to RX 560 and it worked with the 120hz eDP display, so I decided to gamble and bought the AMD Radeon PRO WX 7100 (mobile) MXM card. 

 

Well....it worked! It was a Dell card and worked right away. 

 

Everything works EXCEPT fan control! You have to use HWINFO to control fans. 

 

The stock vBIOS barely hit 10K firestrike GPU score. I modified the vBIOS to OC RAM and increase power limit. Now it gets 13k! I can probably push it more but will try that later, wanted to share the news. 

 

This GPU supports DX12 and the 120hz eDP panel so it is the perfect upgrade. The cost isn't too bad either on Aliexpress (eBay is a bit more). 

 

IDT sound works too, but for me even 880M worked fine with IDT audio. I tested the GPU in Win7 and Win10 and it works in both. 

 

 

[sliderfra]

INCREDIBLE!!!

I tested an RX480m 4GB a few years ago and it did not work at all (black screen).

I also tested s7100x and black screen, again.

I assumed that radeon did not work passed 7970m

 

Good job!

 

BTW where did you get the overclocked vbios for wx7100?

[ssj92]

On 4/15/2025 at 11:14 AM, sliderfra said:

INCREDIBLE!!!

I tested an RX480m 4GB a few years ago and it did not work at all (black screen).

I also tested s7100x and black screen, again.

I assumed that radeon did not work passed 7970m

 

Good job!

 

BTW where did you get the overclocked vbios for wx7100?

I tried rx580 as well, same problem. 

 

S7100x is probably like Tesla, no video outs. 

 

I made the vbios myself, I'll upload it later once I finished testing 

 

Now I'm curious about 6600 xt mxm....lol

[sliderfra]

s7100x does not have native LVDS/EDP outputs. But it works OK on R4 / R5. But on R3 you end up with blank screen and no POST.

It's great news that wx7100 works. It's actually the fastest card available working with the venerable R3 🙂

Not sure about rx 6600 though. Someone tested it here and did not work on any alienware (was from xvision IIRC)

[SuperMG]

On 4/16/2025 at 10:43 PM, ssj92 said:

I tried rx580 as well, same problem. 

 

S7100x is probably like Tesla, no video outs. 

 

I made the vbios myself, I'll upload it later once I finished testing 

 

Now I'm curious about 6600 xt mxm....lol

Hello, didn't you manage to get a Quadro T1000 to work too? In LVDS for the R3?

[ssj92]

10 hours ago, SuperMG said:

Hello, didn't you manage to get a Quadro T1000 to work too? In LVDS for the R3?

that's on SG mode. 

 

WX7100 runs PEG eDP no bios mods. 

 

With bios mod i am running 980M, M3000M, P5000 all on M17xR3 PEG eDP.

 

LVDS works on 980M/M3000M.

[SuperMG]

36 minutes ago, ssj92 said:

that's on SG mode. 

 

WX7100 runs PEG eDP no bios mods. 

 

With bios mod i am running 980M, M3000M, P5000 all on M17xR3 PEG eDP.

 

LVDS works on 980M/M3000M.

Do Quadro PX200 work too in eDP? Interesting. If so... RTX Turing will work in eDP.

 

RTX Ada in the R4 doesn't display anything and doesn't have any LED status but... There are no 8 beeps! It means, I just have to connect a backlight mod cable and it'll display and boot.

 

The same thing happens with the Precision M6800, no backlight = no boot, no LED status (unless you reset the CMOS, it can boot without backlight, it's weird)

[ssj92]

1 hour ago, SuperMG said:

Do Quadro PX200 work too in eDP? Interesting. If so... RTX Turing will work in eDP.

 

RTX Ada in the R4 doesn't display anything and doesn't have any LED status but... There are no 8 beeps! It means, I just have to connect a backlight mod cable and it'll display and boot.

 

The same thing happens with the Precision M6800, no backlight = no boot, no LED status (unless you reset the CMOS, it can boot without backlight, it's weird)

I don't have a P32/42/52 to test but I am 99% sure it'll work. My RTX 4000 comes in 1-2 days so I will see if it sldo works. 

 

You need to start a diagnostic. My windows has num lock enabled when getting to the login screen. Also I enabled windows startup sound. These tell me if the computer is actually booting to windows.

 

I've had "black screen no beeps" many times during my testing but the computer wasn't booting to windows.

 

I already fixed PEG and ironically SG had a bug so now I am doing full SG fix. Ironically M17xR3 will surpass R4 if SG is also fixed since R3 can OC XM CPUs lol

 

Actually after SG fix by next plan is M18x overclocking port to M17x (bios)

 

[SuperMG]

1 hour ago, ssj92 said:

2 hours ago, SuperMG said:

Expand  

I don't have a P32/42/52 to test but I am 99% sure it'll work. My RTX 4000 comes in 1-2 days so I will see if it sldo works

If RTX Turing works then the newer RTX will work too (without 4G decode and needs UEFI in the BIOS).

 

Sadly I don't have any backlight mod v1 cables. Since the LED status doesn't do anything, Windows doesn't boot because I need the backlight.

 

So it means R3 and R4 will work with the backlight mod, I need to test when I'll receive the v2 (if the timing allows that) but it'll 99% work normally.

 

Do you know what's the part no of the 3D eDP LCD cable, for the R3?

[melissa2006]

• 1 hour ago, ssj92 said:

  I don't have a P32/42/52 to test but I am 99% sure it'll work. My RTX 4000 comes in 1-2 days so I will see if it sldo works. 

   

  You need to start a diagnostic. My windows has num lock enabled when getting to the login screen. Also I enabled windows startup sound. These tell me if the computer is actually booting to windows.

   

  I've had "black screen no beeps" many times during my testing but the computer wasn't booting to windows.

   

  I already fixed PEG and ironically SG had a bug so now I am doing full SG fix. Ironically M17xR3 will surpass R4 if SG is also fixed since R3 can OC XM CPUs lol

   

  Actually after SG fix by next plan is M18x overclocking port to M17x (bios)

   

Just wondering if you are still working on the M18xR1. I currently have GTX 780M SLI. I'm planning to put M2000M in the primary slot and 980M in the secondary slot. Do you think that would work? Thank you!

[ssj92]

1 hour ago, melissa2006 said:

•  

Just wondering if you are still working on the M18xR1. I currently have GTX 780M SLI. I'm planning to put M2000M in the primary slot and 980M in the secondary slot. Do you think that would work? Thank you!

 

I will update m18xr1 bios after m17xr3 is done, it should be a simple port. 

 

I iwll look at m17xr4/aw 17 r1 after

  

1 hour ago, SuperMG said:

If RTX Turing works then the newer RTX will work too (without 4G decode and needs UEFI in the BIOS).

 

Sadly I don't have any backlight mod v1 cables. Since the LED status doesn't do anything, Windows doesn't boot because I need the backlight.

 

So it means R3 and R4 will work with the backlight mod, I need to test when I'll receive the v2 (if the timing allows that) but it'll 99% work normally.

 

Do you know what's the part no of the 3D eDP LCD cable, for the R3?

Backlight mod is not needed for windows boot if laptop is posting. 980m first worked with backlight on m17xr3, then i fixed that. using a flashlight i could see barely the screen. 

 

I don't see a PN for my cable. 

 

eDP mod doesn't work because of mxm slot being too deep 

[SuperMG]

10 minutes ago, ssj92 said:

acklight mod is not needed for windows boot if laptop is posting. 980m first worked with backlight on m17xr3, then i fixed that. using a flashlight i could see barely the screen

Trust me it is. It's weird. Happened on M6700, M6800 and M17X R4. The Clevo laptops don't care about backlight, they boot.

 

I didn't test the R4 in depth because I don't have any backlight mod cables. But for the M6800 and M6700 I did.

Without backlight, they were stuck, they don't try to boot to Windows, it's stuck in post. After clearing the CMOS, sometimes they boot and I can hear the windows startup (with LED status blinking).

[ssj92]

11 minutes ago, SuperMG said:

Trust me it is. It's weird. Happened on M6700, M6800 and M17X R4. The Clevo laptops don't care about backlight, they boot.

 

I didn't test the R4 in depth because I don't have any backlight mod cables. But for the M6800 and M6700 I did.

Without backlight, they were stuck, they don't try to boot to Windows, it's stuck in post. After clearing the CMOS, sometimes they boot and I can hear the windows startup (with LED status blinking).

yes you're probably right, thinking about it 980m lost backlight at windows login not during boot. 

 

anyways, a revised eDP cable probably needs to be made for AW systems. 

[melissa2006]

26 minutes ago, ssj92 said:

 

I will update m18xr1 bios after m17xr3 is done, it should be a simple port. 

 

I iwll look at m17xr4/aw 17 r1 after

  

Backlight mod is not needed for windows boot if laptop is posting. 980m first worked with backlight on m17xr3, then i fixed that. using a flashlight i could see barely the screen. 

 

I don't see a PN for my cable. 

 

eDP mod doesn't work because of mxm slot being too deep 

Thank you. I currently have swick unlocked bios on my m18x r1. Will it work directly or are you working on an independent mod to make m2000m + 980m to work?

[ssj92]

16 hours ago, melissa2006 said:

Thank you. I currently have swick unlocked bios on my m18x r1. Will it work directly or are you working on an independent mod to make m2000m + 980m to work?

You should be able to do 980M SLI with my mod. 

 

M2000M primary is only needed if you're doing Pascal/Turing.

 

AMD Card might be possible too in primary to use Pascal/Turing.

 

Amphere didn't work in 2nd slot but maybe with my bios mod it might work too