Question Alienware upgrade issue - Can you solve this?

[JonnieJonJon]

Hey guys,

I previously owned an Alienware M17x R4 with a GTX 980m 8GB, worked like a dream.

Since that time I now own another same model laoptop with the Standard GTX 660m which is a little weak.

So I bought a gtx 980m and a tesla M6 both 8GB to try out and both just give the same result - 8 beeps (supposedly display failure)

When I re-insert the GTX 660m, all is ok and back to normal.

Since then, I tried both cards in an alienware m15x (i7 1st gen) :

With the tesla it will not post.
With the GTX 980m the laptop starts up and win 11 loads the drivers ok.

Questions:
Why do the teslas not work in either?
What is stopping the GTX 980m from working in the newer m17x r4 ?

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[helpstar]

most likely bios not supporting it
Bios up to date?

 

[JonnieJonJon]

most likely bios not supporting it
Bios up to date?

Hi, yes latest bios. It's all a little odd.

 

[helpstar]

which exact model number do both laptops have?

PSU might be too weak

Teslas most likely incompatible to consumer laptops, because of BIOS support and the vBIOS as well

https://www.dell.com/community/en/c...-gpu-nvidia-tesla-m6/66f8704b9983c060015b4b36

Dell Precison M6800 MxM GPU

Hello everyone, I own an M6800 with a 4710MQ and K3100M. The K3100M Kekler card is useless to me pretty much. I've been looking to upgrade it, and I have narrowed myself down to a few options: - Quadro P3000 6GB (slower than 1060, can it have a 1060 6gb mobile bios flashed onto it??) - Tesla M6 (...

notebooktalk.net

 

[faalin]

Laptops aren't meant to have have parts swapped out like that. There could be a few things, the socket does not give enough power for that card, Aleinware is owned by Dell and they could have locked the BIOS to not accept CPU and GPU upgrades. Thats their way of saying if you want something faster, you should have bought it in the first place or buy a newer model. I've seen some parts from Dell and HP that have their own custom BIOS on them that only work in Dell or HP computers.

Heck we have a few HP servers at work, when i upgraded the ram on one with ECC ram the server through a fit because it wasnt HP ECC ram.

 

[Eximo]

I think the power one is likely the to be the case. 50W to 100W max between the two cards.

 

[JonnieJonJon]

which exact model number do both laptops have?

PSU might be too weak

Teslas most likely incompatible to consumer laptops, because of BIOS support and the vBIOS as well

https://www.dell.com/community/en/c...-gpu-nvidia-tesla-m6/66f8704b9983c060015b4b36

Dell Precison M6800 MxM GPU

Hello everyone, I own an M6800 with a 4710MQ and K3100M. The K3100M Kekler card is useless to me pretty much. I've been looking to upgrade it, and I have narrowed myself down to a few options: - Quadro P3000 6GB (slower than 1060, can it have a 1060 6gb mobile bios flashed onto it??) - Tesla M6 (...

notebooktalk.net

Hi, there's the m17x R4 (i7 3630QM) and M15x (i7 920XM) I'm using a 240w PSU for both what do you think?

 

[faalin]

The 660m has a maximum power draw of 50w while the 980m is 120w

It doenst matter what the PSU is, if the socket is set to only deliver 50 watts for the 660m it will never give enough power for the 980m.

 

[JonnieJonJon]

Hi, there's the m17x R4 (i7 3630QM) and M15x (i7 920XM) I'm using a 240w PSU for both what do you think?

BTW thanks for the link, very useful but looks very complicated reflashing the vram and all :/

 

[JonnieJonJon]

The 660m has a maximum power draw of 50w while the 980m is 120w

It doenst matter what the PSU is, if the socket is set to only deliver 50 watts for the 660m it will never give enough power for the 980m.

But like I said before, the 980m worked on a previous M17x R4 I had and it works on the older M15x so maybe there must be something else.

 

[JonnieJonJon]

Laptops aren't meant to have have parts swapped out like that. There could be a few things, the socket does not give enough power for that card, Aleinware is owned by Dell and they could have locked the BIOS to not accept CPU and GPU upgrades. Thats their way of saying if you want something faster, you should have bought it in the first place or buy a newer model. I've seen some parts from Dell and HP that have their own custom BIOS on them that only work in Dell or HP computers.

Heck we have a few HP servers at work, when i upgraded the ram on one with ECC ram the server through a fit because it wasnt HP ECC ram.

Yes know what you're saying, could be the case with the tesla but i've seen the 980m working in the alienware before. There's an interesting link above from helpstar...