Aurora R10, no GPU used system & SecureBoot

Question

I got a used Aurora R10 with no graphics off eBay. Unfortunately, I can't just stick my old card in it thanks to SecureBoot. I can't change the BIOS setting because that would require a working graphics card to see. What are the options? Will any Dell PCIe card work? Like, if I find a six-year-old Dell Office machine & borrow its card, would that get me through? Is there any way to do this without the card?

Ace of Sevens · Accepted Answer

Solved: Apparently the card did work. Just, for whatever reason, the board didn't like the DsiplayPort until settings were changed. Using HDMI was fine.

r72019 · Answer

What GPU are you trying to install?

Ace of Sevens · Answer

This is what the seller told me:

Hi, sorry you’re having troubles. I’ve sold more than a dozen of these and no one has reported this issue. After some reading it seems your card may not have a compatibility boot mode. You may want to try a different card to get around this, perhaps a friend or another old system? One other thought is, even though you’d be doing it blind, you could try to boot into safe mode by pressing f8 or f11 at boot. Then using the arrow keys me enter to select safe mode. Perhaps then it would allow output from your card and you could install drivers that work. I don’t have the original graphics card in my possession so that is not an option.

One other option I could think of, is unplug the internal hard drive and boot from a usb stick or other hard drive you have with a copy of windows or maybe even Linux and modify from there. Also, maybe try resetting the bios by removing the battery for a minute or so?

Ace of Sevens · Answer

It's a PNY GTX 1060.

r72019 · Answer

Stick the 1060 in a working PC, use the Nvidia firmware update tool (per PNY, also works with their GeForce GPUs), update vBIOS on the 1060. Then stick the 1060 back in the Alienware R10 and see if it solves the problem.

https://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload-March2009/confirmation.php?url=/Windows/uefi/firmware/1.0/NVIDIA_DisplayPort_Firmware_Updater_1.0-x64.exe&firmware=1&lang=us&type=Other

r72019 · Answer

Note, with the update, the 1060 should work without needing to disable secureboot.

r72019 · Answer

Note, the link is for a 64 bit OS.

Mary G · Answer

I don't understand the question. You don't have to turn the computer on at all until the card is installed. Meantime you have integrated graphics to connect the monitor to check if the computer works. See the manual

Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition Setup and Specifications (dell.com)

Service manual- Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition Service Manual | Dell US

r72019 · Answer

The vBIOS update should resolve the issue though.

r72019 · Answer

R10 doesn't have integrated graphics support on motherboard.  Not an option.

r72019 · Answer

Also the USB/C is data only no video.

speedstep · Answer

@Mary G     @Ace of Sevens  Not All AMD or INTEL CPU's have integrated Graphics which is why you need at least an OEM R7 250 to change secure boot to OFF. https://www.ebay.com/itm/265045797985

r72019 · Answer

@Ace of Sevens wrote:

Solved: Apparently the card did work. Just, for whatever reason, the board didn't like the DsiplayPort until settings were changed. Using HDMI was fine.

I sent you the link above to fix the displayport issue. It's a well known issue with pascal generation cards that's why they rolled out the vBIOS update for the displayport black screen issue. The true fix is a vbios update, not changing settings (that's really just a workaround).

Alienware Desktops

Aurora R10, no GPU used system & SecureBoot

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