M17X r4 - gpu upgrade Quadro RTX 5000

[SuperMG]

1 minute ago, Ollie87 said:

Ok the divers 528.24 allow me to change the watts but only in power shell it runs stable on 90w and also 100w, I don't have to adjust the core clock speed now, I'll investigate how to set MSI afterburner so I don't need to do this.

 

Looking good so far 

MSI afterburner has the same power functionality as the the shell smi one. 

[Ollie87]

MSI is working all good, was me being a fool, ive ordered the edp cable for the m17x r4 - i will investigate the screen next, doesnt arrive till the end of the month 

[SuperMG]

26 minutes ago, Ollie87 said:

MSI is working all good, was me being a fool, ive ordered the edp cable for the m17x r4 - i will investigate the screen next, doesnt arrive till the end of the month 

Me and one guy weren't able to get the RTX 3000 from HP to work with the M17X R4 eDP. In LEGACY and in UEFI. It's a 8 beeps.

 

However with a M6700 eDP, the RTX 3000 from HP works in both LEGACY and in UEFI.

 

Also you have the ADLINK version of the RTX 5000 which means your card lacks the backlight pins.

[Ollie87]

I still seem to have an issue with power, it managed to complete a GPU test on 90 watts, any higher wattage causes crashes, so far the best thing I've been able to do is limit the core MHz and not tamper with the power.

 

I have the screen and got a edp cable coming I'll keep the current screen on and boot the bios and throw it into PEG mode and try the other screen out, it's worth a go to see if by chance I can get it to work, should I be looking at changing it to muxless or keep it on fixed and full 

[SuperMG]

53 minutes ago, Ollie87 said:

I still seem to have an issue with power, it managed to complete a GPU test on 90 watts, any higher wattage causes crashes, so far the best thing I've been able to do is limit the core MHz and not tamper with the power.

 

I have the screen and got a edp cable coming I'll keep the current screen on and boot the bios and throw it into PEG mode and try the other screen out, it's worth a go to see if by chance I can get it to work, should I be looking at changing it to muxless or keep it on fixed and full 

90W no issues. So anything above 100W = issue.

 

Are your VRM/Coils cooled? Thermal pads touching the heatsink?

 

You should try with the RTX 5000 HP variant and see the results. It's a 110W to 115W max TDP card and see if the TDP issue persists or not. HP is better because the GPU has the backlight pins integrated in the circuit board.

[Ollie87]

I get crashes from around 95 watts onwards in-game, vrms are all covered i used silicon paste on them instead of pads as was worried they weren't touching the copper heatsink, I've seen your post on the backlight pin modification, I will check this out further.

 

The only way it works better is setting the core clock to lower MHz, it's stable with my maximum on 1350mhz, I'm going to tinker tonight with the settings and see what I can do with the voltage unlock.

 

Can't afford to buy the hp version they are very expensive around £800 

[ssj92]

On 3/5/2026 at 4:43 AM, SuperMG said:

Me and one guy weren't able to get the RTX 3000 from HP to work with the M17X R4 eDP. In LEGACY and in UEFI. It's a 8 beeps.

 

However with a M6700 eDP, the RTX 3000 from HP works in both LEGACY and in UEFI.

 

Also you have the ADLINK version of the RTX 5000 which means your card lacks the backlight pins.

So even with backlight cable you cannot get rtx 3000 to work in m17x r4?

 

 

[SuperMG]

2 minutes ago, ssj92 said:

So even with backlight cable you cannot get rtx 3000 to work in m17x r4?

 

 

No. We tried the HP RTX 3000 with 120Hz 3D in UEFI and legacy, not work. Tested in 2 different Alienware laptops.

 

Maybe we did something wrong? I don't know.

 

Only the M6700 and M6800 can accept HP RTX 3000/5000 with LEGACY BIOS and UEFI BIOS.

 

Newer Ampère and Ada cards need UEFI and Legacy OPROM disabled to work and display in the Internal screen. Got +240FPS in heaven benchmark with the M6800 eDP, RTX 4080 MXM and a bad heatsink.

[ssj92]

22 hours ago, SuperMG said:

No. We tried the HP RTX 3000 with 120Hz 3D in UEFI and legacy, not work. Tested in 2 different Alienware laptops.

 

Maybe we did something wrong? I don't know.

 

Only the M6700 and M6800 can accept HP RTX 3000/5000 with LEGACY BIOS and UEFI BIOS.

 

Newer Ampère and Ada cards need UEFI and Legacy OPROM disabled to work and display in the Internal screen. Got +240FPS in heaven benchmark with the M6800 eDP, RTX 4080 MXM and a bad heatsink.

M17xR4 & AW17 R1 both support full UEFI mode so I am curious why they didn't work for you guys. It's unfortunate I don't have a M17xR4 but I do have a  AW17 for testing. 

 

I am receiving T1000 today so maybe when I have some time I will take a look. 

 

  

On 3/5/2026 at 10:31 AM, Ollie87 said:

I get crashes from around 95 watts onwards in-game, vrms are all covered i used silicon paste on them instead of pads as was worried they weren't touching the copper heatsink, I've seen your post on the backlight pin modification, I will check this out further.

 

The only way it works better is setting the core clock to lower MHz, it's stable with my maximum on 1350mhz, I'm going to tinker tonight with the settings and see what I can do with the voltage unlock.

 

Can't afford to buy the hp version they are very expensive around £800 

 

What are the core temps? Sounds like it might be good to invest in thicker thermal pads. Something might be overheating 

[SuperMG]

10 minutes ago, ssj92 said:

M17xR4 & AW17 R1 both support full UEFI mode so I am curious why they didn't work for you guys. It's unfortunate I don't have a M17xR4 but I do have a  AW17 for testing. 

 

I am receiving T1000 today so maybe when I have some time I will take a look. 

 

  

 

What are the core temps? Sounds like it might be good to invest in thicker thermal pads. Something might be overheating 

Ollie's temperature are good. I already recommended him that. 

 

Alienware does 8 beeps maybe it's the mux switches from the eDP line...

Just get a red covet M6700 or M6800 they dust off these Alienware... Yes I do not have any TDP bug (no 40-55W fluctuating) with the 150W 4080 besides the thermal throttle in FurMark but that's easy to fix with a new 4 heatpipes GPU heatsink.

[ssj92]

28 minutes ago, SuperMG said:

Ollie's temperature are good. I already recommended him that. 

 

Alienware does 8 beeps maybe it's the mux switches from the eDP line...

Just get a red covet M6700 or M6800 they dust off these Alienware... Yes I do not have any TDP bug (no 40-55W fluctuating) with the 150W 4080 besides the thermal throttle in FurMark but that's easy to fix with a new 4 heatpipes GPU heatsink.

I own M6600, M4600 and now 7520/7720. I also own essentially all AW from 2011-2014 except M17xR4. 

 

I wouldn't say the Precision dust the AW. AW has superior cooling and better IO/chassis (M18x at least). 

 

Anyways I will look into the 8 beeps, maybe you are correct, eDP is stuck behind MUX. 

 

I should have bought 4090 when it was cheaper and 4070 too. Now they've gone up.

 

TDP bug only affects haswell AW (Aw17/AW18). The M17xR3/R4/M18xR1/R2 do not have the issue. 

[SuperMG]

6 minutes ago, ssj92 said:

I own M6600, M4600 and now 7520/7720. I also own essentially all AW from 2011-2014 except M17xR4. 

 

I wouldn't say the Precision dust the AW. AW has superior cooling and better IO/chassis (M18x at least). 

 

Anyways I will look into the 8 beeps, maybe you are correct, eDP is stuck behind MUX. 

 

I should have bought 4090 when it was cheaper and 4070 too. Now they've gone up.

 

TDP bug only affects haswell AW (Aw17/AW18). The M17xR3/R4/M18xR1/R2 do not have the issue. 

I wasn't able to get the external HDMI/DP on the M18X R2/R3 to work with dGPU.

 

I can with the Alienware M17X R4/R5 and Dell Precision M6700/M6800 to make the HDMI/DP to work with dGPU.

 

For the cooling, custom heatsinks exist so the better argument doesn't apply now... I had many issues with Alienware laptops (dirty, replacing a lot of motherboards, bad charging ICs, bad speakers) but I had 0 issues with Precisions at the moment, smooth, better IO, better MXM support.

 

The TDP bug affects Haswell, even on MSI GT laptops. For HP I have no info. The TDP bug only happens on XVSION, ZRT, AETINA, PNY cards but not for the HP RTX ones...

[ssj92]

6 minutes ago, SuperMG said:

I wasn't able to get the external HDMI/DP on the M18X R2/R3 to work with dGPU.

 

I can with the Alienware M17X R4/R5 and Dell Precision M6700/M6800 to make the HDMI/DP to work with dGPU.

 

For the cooling, custom heatsinks exist so the better argument doesn't apply now... I had many issues with Alienware laptops (dirty, replacing a lot of motherboards, bad charging ICs, bad speakers) but I had 0 issues with Precisions at the moment, smooth, better IO, better MXM support.

 

The TDP bug affects Haswell, even on MSI GT laptops. For HP I have no info. The TDP bug only happens on XVSION, ZRT, AETINA, PNY cards but not for the HP RTX ones...

AW17 and AW18 can use external ports without internal panel connected using PEG on all cards pascal+ 

 

TDP bug affects my haswell AW18 with HP RTX 5000 as well. It also does it on RTX 3000 (ADLINK). 

 

When I have some time I will disassemble my M18xR1 & AW18 to do the resistor mod that janepa said and see if it fixes the issue. 

[SuperMG]

4 minutes ago, ssj92 said:

AW17 and AW18 can use external ports without internal panel connected using PEG on all cards pascal+ 

 

TDP bug affects my haswell AW18 with HP RTX 5000 as well. It also does it on RTX 3000 (ADLINK). 

 

When I have some time I will disassemble my M18xR1 & AW18 to do the resistor mod that janepa said and see if it fixes the issue. 

My RTX 3000 HP works on Alienware 17 R1 and no TDP bugs! 82FPS in FurMark, 148FPS in Heaven benchmark. I know that the PNY, AETINA RTX 3000 have the TDP bug for this laptop.