Alienware M18x R3

[Caleb Nelands]

Id love to know the answer to this, too. As far as I can tell by spending the morning on here reading, it's possible to exchange the motherboards, yes, but I'd love to know from someone who has done this.

Are you trying to go from an R1 to an R2? If so, I believe all that differs is the motherboard, so all you need to do is go to ebay and find an m18x r2 motherboard, like this one. They are expensive though, so make so you really know the difference and what you need to get. The link I gave you was for an R2 board, and with how motherboards come, that's a good price for it.

I'm glad my finances mounted up when they did, because while I love DIY projects, I can't imagine the hassle it'd be to remove the entire motherboard and switch it out. It's probably not as bad as I'm imagining. Good thing is, it's a heck of a lot cheaper and probably less of a hassle than selling your old laptop for a completely different one. Upside is that you get to sell your R1 motherboard and recoup some of that money spent on the R2 board.

I'm a little late too the party (like 6 years lolz) but glad it's possible to fit a R2 motherboard into a R1 casing) I'm guessing the R1 does not have the mSATA connection while the R2 does, from what I've investigated the sata (3x drive) harddrive caddy ribbon is 60pin on the R2 while the R1 ribbon connector on motherboard (might be daughter board) is 40pin (for 2x harddrive caddy)

Hey everyone, for those who don't know I've been working on getting a Quadro RTX 3000 MXM GPU for my M18xR2. RTX 3000 is basically a Quadro variant of the RTX 2060 (TU106).The GPU I found happens to be about MXM 3.0b in layout made by ADLINK. This GPU is also available from Aetina and PNY in the exact same form factor. I chose this because it requires no mods besides INF and it provides the latest RTX features on an old platform.I made a video of MXM in general here including the raptor NVMe card:The laptop has 32GB 2133Mhz RAM, Wi-Fi6E + BT 5.2 as well. It is basically up to spec.No heatsink mod needed:

Hi! I had a quick question regarding the Alienware 18, you mentioned that you had overclocked the screen to 90Hz in yours. Do you have any sort of color problems? I'm guessing you run the laptop with both RTX and igpu. I used to have a single or sli set up, I could overclock up to 95 to 100hz, now when I do this, my color looks all messed up, unless I put it at 75hz. Thank you in advance!

ssj92 My color used to be fine too without the iGPU. I was able to get up to 95 to 100hz at one point, that was without artifacts. Now since I'm using the iGPU and RTX 5000, I can't seem to go higher than 75hz without having artifacts on the screen. You think it might have something to do with iGPU bandwidth?

Routing video through the iGPU may be affecting how high the screen can overclock. The iGPU has a lot less performance and memory bandwidth than a dGPU, so it would stand to reason that it wouldn't be able to support as high of a screen overclock since it's not as capable of a GPU. That may explain the artifacting at higher screen overclocks. However, I've seen iGPUs drive 120 Hz and 144 Hz displays before, so that may not be it.

Another potential explanation is the output bandwidth allowed by the internal connection from the iGPU to the screen. Alienware laptops from 2013 and before have a MUX switch that allows for switching between optimus mode and dGPU only mode. The input into the MUX coming from the iGPU may have less bandwidth available to it than the output into the MUX coming from the dGPU. This would make sense since the dGPU is much more powerful, and can therefore deliver a much higher framerate than the iGPU.

In short, there is a design limitation somewhere causing the artifacting. Since you were able to get higher screen overclocks in dGPU only mode than you can in optimus mode, my guess is it has something to do with the bandwidth of the video output traces on the motherboard that go from their respective GPUs into the MUX switch. I don't know if both MUX switch inputs have the same bandwidth or not, but I'm guessing they probably don't.

Absolutely can post some pictures! I always use CRU as well for the screen overclocking. I gave it a thought many times that it might be the screen degrading over time or like Clamibot said that it might have something to do with the bandwidth coming from the iGPU and going into the MUX switch. I tried messing around with different timings and such in the CRU options but the artifacting was still present. Sorry BTW if I can't seem to respond the right way, to each post. I'm pretty new to this forum thing haha lol!

How did you get this to fit with the mounting holes being offset? I have seen these and passed them up thinking they won't fit. Was afraid of shorting the card where the offset hole would touch where the other screw is supposed to mount

Nope! I can definitely confirm that I have the RTX 5000 in the Alienware 18, the thing is I had to do a couple of modifications in order to get it properly in the laptop. I will post some pictures. Have to take it apart first!

Thanks for this, you have opened a whole new set of options for these Magnificent Antiques! A whole new set of mxm cards. That nut is soldered on to the MOBO??? I think I can do that, without removing the MOBO hopefully Just have to decide to go with m17xr4 or m18xr2. So the boss for stock screw does not touch the gpu? And Thanks again very much appreciate this!!!

He definitely modded it, I can see the bottom left edge was almost completely ground off, the thicker part that drops down. Nice Job, can see where it would have touched, I'll probably get another heatsink for this, maybe a copper with more than 3 pipes

Actually that nut isn't soldered at all, I just glued it in place with super glue. Not on the motherboard itself but, on the plastic cover or tape. Aldarxt, definitely true these older Alienwares have a long life time.

Ssj92 the heatsink is from an M18x R2 or R1 as the oem heatsink wouldn't fit. The 18 heatsink would be off center. So, I did modify it a little, like aldaext said the bottom of the heatsink is cut off because it covered the screw hole. Also on the other side of the heatsink, I sanded this portion down with a handheld dremel.

The oem screw hole ports are touching the card, as far as I know but, it's not making direct contact because on the other side of the graphics is some sort of plastic cover, it's not interferring with any circuits on the card.

Thank you again! Followed your suggestions and flashed my A12 BIOS back to the A11 official BIOS and made the USB bootable drive, and flashed it to unlocked A11 BIOS, and switched to the SG mode.

Your previous reply was tremendously useful:

Bilili, you are where i was except i had SLI dual GTX675's which died 6 weeks apart. I went from dual gtx675's to a single gtx970 + integrated. I wanted to go down the MXM Quadro route myself with NVME adapter as well, but cant do that now.

I get about the same scores with m18x r2 but I am having some issues with it. BSOD's and such. Running alot of tests and driver installs. I might have damaged something when opening it up. I have the m18x r2 since 10/12/2012, bought it new at Micro Center, it has been through alot.

You need the Unlocked BIOS which I believe you now have. Go to the second Advanced tab and change the video mode to SG. You should now be able to see the Intel graphics and the Nvidia dedicated graphics show up in the BIOS. Just check to see that the 1060 is listed in Device Manager as a Basic Microsoft Display Adapter. If it is then you just need to install a modified Nvidia driver

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