Hello,

Yes you can upgrade to the 980M. Some people do have issues with cooling due to the vBIOS on the replacement card but this is usually fixed by flashing the correct Dell vBIOS. 

The 980M needs to be run in UEFI so you will have to check how your BIOS is set up. If you are running in Legacy mode then you need to switch to UEFI and reinstall Windows (you need to format your drive and lose all your data). 

You will need a modded Nvidia driver to run the latest drivers. 

Wanted to upgrade on my Alienware 17 (2013) video card GTX780M

Purchased & installed Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M card
In Device Manager, there's a “Microsoft Basic Display Adapter”
Basic display adapter hardware id's:

- PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1617&SUBSYS_05AA1028 (with optimus enabled)
- PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1617&SUBSYS_05AD1028 (with optimus disabled)
Modified and installed the driver according to this recommendation:
https://null-src.com/posts/nvidia-notebook-driver-inf-mod/post.php

The latest drivers do not have nvdmi.inf , I modified nvdmid .inf

Installing latest modified driver fails with "Failed to install NVIDIA software" and there are no errors

 ID 1617=980M G-Sync. Maybe this is the problem?

I tried to install older driver versions and the problem is the same

@R172003 can you just paste the line you modded in the .inf here? just to see if it's correct. If you want to add both the 05AA and 05AD lines then they should look like this when added to the inf. The 'Section' doesn't matter at all. 

%NVIDIA_DEV.1617.05AA.1028% = Section018, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1617&SUBSYS_05AA1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.1617.05AD.1028% = Section019, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1617&SUBSYS_05AD1028

Just note that latest drivers have Windows 10 and Windows 11 support so there are two OS sections in the nvmdid.inf to put these lines, just so you can be certain you get the correct OS for your laptop. When you enter them in the first group and scroll down, you will see that the group of hardware ID lines will start again.

Then just make sure that you put the correct String in the section at the bottom of the .inf

Yours will be;

NVIDIA_DEV.1617.05AA.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M"
NVIDIA_DEV.1617.05AD.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M"

Then just remember that you have to Disable Driver Signature Enforcement right before attempting to run the driver installation. Restarting the laptop resets this option.

I did everything like that. The installation starts without problems, gives me the choice of what I want to install. After a while, it crashes, as I wrote

Yes, I re-disabled driver authentication and everything installed !

I modified nvdmid .inf in the latest driver (516.59)

Replaced :

( [NVIDIA_Devices.NTamd64.10.0...17098] )

%NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.05AB.1028% = Section036, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D7&SUBSYS_05AB1028

( [Strings] )

NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.05AB.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M"

On the :

( [NVIDIA_Devices.NTamd64.10.0...17098] )

%NVIDIA_DEV.1617.05AD.1028% = Section036, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1617&SUBSYS_05AD1028

( [Strings] )

NVIDIA_DEV.1617.05AD.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M"

Computer freezes intermittently after driver installation ( Win 10 ) !

I modified nvdmi .inf in the driver 425.31
This is the last driver that supported the GTX780M

Replaced :

( [NVIDIA_Devices.NTamd64.10.0...14310] )

%NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.05AB.1028% = Section162, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D7&SUBSYS_05AB1028

( [NVIDIA_Devices.NTamd64.10.0...16299] )

%NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.05AB.1028% = Section162, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D7&SUBSYS_05AB1028

( [NVIDIA_Devices.NTamd64.10.0] )

%NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.05AB.1028% = Section161, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D7&SUBSYS_05AB1028

( [Strings] )

NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.05AB.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M"

On the :

( [NVIDIA_Devices.NTamd64.10.0...14310] )

%NVIDIA_DEV.1617.05AD.1028% = Section162, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1617&SUBSYS_05AD1028

( [NVIDIA_Devices.NTamd64.10.0...16299] )

%NVIDIA_DEV.1617.05AD.1028% = Section162, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1617&SUBSYS_05AD1028

( [NVIDIA_Devices.NTamd64.10.0] )

%NVIDIA_DEV..1617.05AD.1028% = Section161, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1617&SUBSYS_05AD1028

( [Strings] )

NVIDIA_DEV.1617.05AD.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M"

Driver installed and working fine !

Is there a way to install the latest driver (516.59) so that there are no freezes in Win 10?

I'm not sure why the latest driver is having an issue. You could try some more recent drivers than 425, something in the late 400's or early 500's to see if the problem is still there. 

I've got one of the latest driver versions on my M18x for the 970M so it should work. 

The temperature is normal and the fan is working properly. The test in AIDA64 Extreme is fine, I tried it for 25 minutes

It sounds like the card may be defective, hopefully not. 

Have you tried checking the temperatures? It's possible that it's overheating and causing the freezing. 

Launched the game (Roblox), after 2 minutes the game freezes. I had to turn off my laptop.

After the reboot, I launched benchmark UNIGINE Superposition to check the video card. The test passed with freezes, after passing the test, the laptop freezes until I rebooted it.

I installed the driver 472.12, it also has a similar one to 425.31 nvdmi .inf

It also works well until you start the game.

Why is this happening? How to fix it?

Bios Version: 84.04.88.00.24

Device ID: 10DE 1617 - 1028 05AD

Doesn't sound great then. 

Can you use GPU-Z to find the vBIOS on the card? The only other thing I can think of is that it could do with another version. Clutching at straws though. 

Maybe try modifying nv_dispi.inf ?
Similar problems are described here ([9] Troubleshooting
https://null-src.com/posts/nvidia-notebook-driver-inf-mod/post.php
Only I don't understand how to do it.

There are lots of vBIOS' for the 980M but I can't really find any information on that version. Only it referenced on some Russian site. 

If you feel up to it then you can try and flash a different version but it's completely up to you. It isn't overly difficult but you never know what will happen when messing with firmware so it's a 'attempt at your own risk' situation. You'd want to find a version for the 1617 card and not the 13D7 card, which is the more common one. 

Technically, you can cross-flash it with a 13D7 vBIOS but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're a gambling man. 

I've seen people using the g-sync card before in these older systems and I've helped mod drivers for them but maybe you're having a compatibility issue, or the card is bad. 

I tried to modify nv_dispi.inf , added full details as in nvdmi .inf . In the benchmark UNIGINE Superposition utility, this gets 1.5 times more points! But even so, the test passes with freezes, and after passing, the freezes do not stop until I reboot.

I tracked what's going on with the HWiNFO64 utility.

During the stress test with the AIDA64 Extreme utility, the actual frequency of the GPU processor rises to 1.126Mhz, while the temperature does not increase above 75C. When I stop the test , the actual GPU frequency drops to 135Mhz . At the same time, nothing freezes, everything is fine.

When testing the performance with the benchmark UNIGINE Superposition utility at low values , the actual frequency of the GPU processor rises to 1.126Mhz, while the temperature does not increase above 53C. The short test passes with freezes and at the end of the test, the freezes do not stop , the actual GPU frequency not drops to 135Mhz . Only reboot helps.

I contacted the seller, he advised to roll back to BIOS A12. I have BIOS A17. I don't believe that this will help. I asked to replace this video card with another one with ID 13D7. I'm waiting for an answer from him.

Yeah, I couldn't image that an older BIOS will do much but you never know. If you can swap the card then that's your best option at this stage.