Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

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  • Dannyx
    CertifiedAxhole
    • Aug 2016
    • 3912
    • Romania

    #1

    Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

    Good day folks. Hopefully someone has a clever idea on this little f-up this joint I work in made. A soon-to-be colleague of ours, brought in this dead Alien for one of our guys to look at. Long story short, it had a shorted input FET caused by the GPU dying. Luckily, as is the case with most of these high-end laptops, the GPU is mounted on a removable MXM slot and can be swapped out. This older chap tried reballing it, but of course that wasn't going to just get rid of the short, since he wasn't actually smart enough to measure the power input pins to the MXM board while the GPU was off to rule out the possibility of this being a bad cap or shorted FET on the card itself, so when he put it back in, no surprises there, the input FET shorted again.

    He then gave up, concluding the GPU chip itself must be shorted (which I don't dismiss, neither agree with, unless the card was measured while the chip was off the balls - USE YOUR BRAIN PEOPLE ! ! ), so the new guy, not wanting to give up on the laptop, but not wanting to go second-hand either, went ahead and actually bought a new card from Amazon. When it arrived, after a bit of butt-clenching and finger-crossing, the laptop came on and worked........to a degree, because there's a little problem.

    See, the GPU doesn't match. This is where these guys decided to bite a bit more than they should in a situation like this and tried to upgrade the MXM card while they were at it, so instead of going with the original 780M the laptop came with (LIKE THEY SHOULD HAVE !), they thought this would be a good opportunity to step it up to a 980M. I didn't want to point this out straight away, just so I'd be proven wrong and get it rubbed in my face, but I had my doubts about upgrading MXMs on laptops to begin with, and I was partially right: the laptop turns on and works, loads Windows, but only thanks to the Intel Integrated Graphics - the driver for the 980M does not want to be installed for the life of it. A clean install of Windows didn't solve it, which makes perfect sense, since the error message in device manager clearly explains it: it's listed as "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter", with the error message "The driver trying to start is not the same as the driver for the posted display adapter". Common sense tells me this means "while there's a 980M card in the MXM slot, the firmware for the laptop still points towards the original 780M the damn thing came with, so it refuses to load the driver for the 980M".

    Nvidia's installer simply refuses to run and Windows' driver, while it does install and requires a restart, causes the laptop to freeze on startup, no doubt when the driver tries to actually load up and the only way to get it going again is to go in safe-mode and uninstall the 980M.

    Obviously the BIOS (firmware ?) is the issue here, but I had no luck finding any mods/solutions to this issue. Below is the latest BIOS installer this guy managed to find, should someone ask for it, but there's nothing useful inside of it (to me at least) when I open it with 7-Zip (I don't see what looks like a BIOS image we're used to seeing, like an .fd or .rom file). I don't even know if this "lockdown" happens in the EC or the MAIN region . I was hoping it could be somehow modified or ünlocked to accept a different GPU, so this is where I'd like a bit of help to help the poor guy out, since he's become a good friend of mine and I'd also help me learn something new. Cheers guys. Thanks for any ideas.
    Attached Files
    Wattevah...
  • dellxps15
    Badcaps Legend
    • Feb 2014
    • 1585
    • italy

    #2
    Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

    hi. if im right alienware 17 comes with an 780m. have u tried to run without signature driver and install it with a modded inf ?

    what dev and vendor have the gpu ?

    do you have a 120hrz screen?

    Comment

    • Dannyx
      CertifiedAxhole
      • Aug 2016
      • 3912
      • Romania

      #3
      Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

      Originally posted by dellxps15
      hi. if im right alienware 17 comes with an 780m.
      Yes, that's the one it came with (dead one).

      Originally posted by dellxps15
      have u tried to run without signature driver and install it with a modded inf ?
      Yes - tried that. It messed up the name of the GPU in device manager too, so that didn't work...


      Originally posted by dellxps15
      do you have a 120hrz screen?
      What is the plan behind this ? Not that I'd have one on hand anyway, just asking.
      Wattevah...

      Comment

      • dellxps15
        Badcaps Legend
        • Feb 2014
        • 1585
        • italy

        #4
        Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

        Originally posted by Dannyx
        Yes, that's the one it came with (dead one).


        Yes - tried that. It messed up the name of the GPU in device manager too, so that didn't work...



        What is the plan behind this ? Not that I'd have one on hand anyway, just asking.

        that's not a big problem.... just at the end of the inf file, modify dev and ven of an nvidia graphics card to the one that u have.

        or better way is to find 980m in one inf file... nvami.inf nvamid.inf .... and replace the dev and ven in the top section. and bottom section where is displayed the 980m name


        about the 120hrx screen, i read somewhere that 980m require uefi windows and also 120hrz panel, but not 100% sure about that
        Last edited by dellxps15; 04-02-2020, 04:47 AM.

        Comment

        • Dannyx
          CertifiedAxhole
          • Aug 2016
          • 3912
          • Romania

          #5
          Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

          Originally posted by dellxps15
          that's not a big problem.... just at the end of the inf file, modify dev and ven of an nvidia graphics card to the one that u have.
          So this part just fixes the display name in DevMgr ? True, he didn't do this when he hacked the .inf file, which is why the name showed up as the hardware ID itself, rather than a human-friendly name.

          Originally posted by dellxps15
          or better way is to find 980m in one inf file... nvami.inf nvamid.inf .... and replace the dev and ven in the top section. and bottom section where is displayed the 980m name
          Not sure I understand this part. The chap did some more research on his own in the meantime and concluded that nvdmi.inf is the right one to mess with for this particular make of laptop. He did change the top entry to match his current 980M in the MXM slot (by simply changing one character, from NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.05AB.1028 to NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.05AA.1028. It installs, but just appears with a yellow exclamation mark saying "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems"
          Wattevah...

          Comment

          • Dannyx
            CertifiedAxhole
            • Aug 2016
            • 3912
            • Romania

            #6
            Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

            Ok, THIS helped clear things up a bit, though it didn't work all the way to the end when the chap tried it, resulting in the yellow exclamation mark I mentioned...maybe I should give it a try myself or try a different section number, since he went with the one closest to his combination (simply changed B to A). I should try a different line entirely, so the section is also different...
            Last edited by Dannyx; 04-02-2020, 05:48 AM.
            Wattevah...

            Comment

            • dellxps15
              Badcaps Legend
              • Feb 2014
              • 1585
              • italy

              #7
              Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

              remember to always disable driver signature.

              download from nvidia site: 445.75-notebook-win10-64bit-international-dch-whql.exe selecting geforce, 900 mobile, windows 10 64bit (hope u have that)
              then execute Exe, and let it extract, whenl looking for adapter it will fail.

              now move to the extracted directory, copy nvdmi.inf to other directory and open it with notepad or whatever.

              on bottom u have: NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.05AB.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M"

              change to NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.05AA.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M"

              on top look for 05AB ... change for example:

              %NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AB.1028% = Section043, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AB1028


              change to :

              %NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AA.1028% = Section043, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AA1028

              save file , then copy to original directory and run setup.exe. when red warning pop hup press yes to continue.



              if u still have !yellow ..... click on device and read the error code.
              Last edited by dellxps15; 04-02-2020, 07:03 AM.

              Comment

              • Dannyx
                CertifiedAxhole
                • Aug 2016
                • 3912
                • Romania

                #8
                Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

                Yes, it's on Win10 64bit.

                We tried exactly that and it did install, but got the "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems" so a Code 43.
                Last edited by Dannyx; 04-02-2020, 07:32 AM.
                Wattevah...

                Comment

                • dellxps15
                  Badcaps Legend
                  • Feb 2014
                  • 1585
                  • italy

                  #9
                  Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

                  error code 43 most like 99% dead gpu.

                  Comment

                  • SMDFlea
                    Super Moderator
                    • Jan 2018
                    • 20286
                    • UK

                    #10
                    Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

                    Are you using legacy boot or UEFI ,if you`re using legacy take the card out,switch to UEFI in bios settings,save and shutdown,then install the card .
                    All donations to badcaps are welcome, click on this link to donate. Thanks to all supporters

                    Comment

                    • Dannyx
                      CertifiedAxhole
                      • Aug 2016
                      • 3912
                      • Romania

                      #11
                      Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

                      Originally posted by dellxps15
                      error code 43 most like 99% dead gpu.
                      They claim the card is new....at least that's what the chap here wants to think he paid for, though of course that's open for debate, despite the brand new looking packaging it came in.

                      Originally posted by SMDFlea
                      Are you using legacy boot or UEFI ,if you`re using legacy take the card out,switch to UEFI in bios settings,save and shutdown,then install the card .
                      It's UEFI, though I'm sure the laptop won't start without a card in the MXM slot (8 beeps), so I can't see anything to access the BIOS to do that....unless you're suggesting taking it out while the laptop's running !

                      Now that you brought this up, the guy this laptop belongs to says the original 780M he had in it started showing signs of giving up quite some time ago, despite the laptop still working on the intel graphics. I think he even got this error 43 at one point before the card shorted out entirely and killed the whole machine. We won't know for sure unless we manage to try it with the card this laptop was meant to work with...
                      Wattevah...

                      Comment

                      • kiraro
                        Senior Member
                        • Jan 2016
                        • 177
                        • North NY

                        #12
                        Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

                        some laptop when we change another GPU not the same model number like original even it's working we have to change some resistance order in motherboard.
                        in order to indicate the identification of new one (always there is a combination for 3 or 4 accepted models), if we put wrong combination even it's work but we cannot find the same model in windows ,so we have to put the right order for this identification card, any way i think this is i got on Asus for not very old model, i don't know if that exist for alienware we have to see schematics same times they indicate that in table not always for suitable GPU . hope that help you .

                        Comment

                        • Dannyx
                          CertifiedAxhole
                          • Aug 2016
                          • 3912
                          • Romania

                          #13
                          Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

                          Here's the schematic for the board in case someone wants to take a look at it.
                          Attached Files
                          Wattevah...

                          Comment

                          • ktmmotocross
                            Boardkiller
                            • Feb 2014
                            • 3553
                            • slovakia

                            #14
                            Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

                            dont even count how many times bought "new" looking package with bad gpu

                            Comment

                            • Dannyx
                              CertifiedAxhole
                              • Aug 2016
                              • 3912
                              • Romania

                              #15
                              Re: Alienware 17 P18E GPU upgrade fail (BIOS mod?)

                              Originally posted by ktmmotocross
                              dont even count how many times bought "new" looking package with bad gpu
                              Correct....could be...*sigh*

                              I already advised the guy to return it, despite being a rather tedious and expensive process...
                              Wattevah...

                              Comment

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