The most direct solution is the hardware modification approach. I thought about the same myself. But, I think it is extremely ill advised due to the chance of hardware damage and failure. The charging system, power delivery system, circuit board, and voltage regulators are all prone to damage. I don't know the safety margin of all of the components, but being that it is a laptop, I can't imagine that the margin is as generous as a desktop computer.

saccaed
Definitely not looking to do hardware modification for the same reasons you stated. Was hoping maybe an edited ini, reg, or driver might enable the functionality.

Pascal cards have a security feature, where the usual software based flashing does not work, i.e nvflash.  So to up the power limit, only using a hardware programmer, unfortunately.

ty_ger07

saccaed
Definitely not looking to do hardware modification for the same reasons you stated. Was hoping maybe an edited ini, reg, or driver might enable the functionality.

No matter which theoretical method you utilized, increasing the power limit increases the power limit. The concerns I stated remain a concern no matter which method you used for increasing the power limit. The only method I know that would work for sure is the hardware method. The software/firmware method is only theoretical and I don't know if anyone knows how that would be done.

This is very true, any kind of power modifications can blow something if the motherboard components were not designed for it.  In general though, anybody trying to mod a laptop beyond it's factory design is aware of the risks.  I for one, was very frustrated with castrated power limits on my supposedly unlocked CPU i7-7820HK, where they put a 60W limit, which is ridiculously low. I managed to bypass these limits and till today, I have the #1 spot for this particular CPU model on HWbot, a cinebench run at 4.9GHz.  Then I upped the power limit of the GTX1080 to 220W, which was gimped at 180W, to have fun with the higher firestrike scores.  However, all this just for fun, assuming all the risk of something going wrong and bricking the machine, and voiding the warranty.  Certainly not worth it, considering all the risks, since  I don't even use the laptop at those power levels when gaming, since the heatsink and cooling can't really handle it even with liquid metal.  

saccaed
I'm interested in software control over hardware control because of tuning ease. I know full well that upping the power limit can overrun design specification catastrophically.

vistarshook mind sharing how you went about upping the GPU power limit. Shunt mod?

I used Coolane's software to alter the vbios and then flashed it with a skypro programmer.  Since then, my GPU is back to default power, since the shared heatsink can't really take advantage of the extra power due to the heat and the performance gain on the gtx1080 was not that much to justify the higher TDP.  The 1070 benefits the most from a TDP mod, since the performance gain is a lot more substantial, if the motherboard and heatsink can handle the extra power and heat.  I saw some 1070s modded to 180W and achieving 21k in firestrike graphics, which is impressive, but most that have done this were using MXM GPU from their Clevos and MSI's...only one in the thread with an Alienware BGA GPU posted his results.  So of course, using a BGA GPU there is a greater risk since if something goes wrong, a whole new motherboard is needed. Proceed with extreme caution....hehe.
You can search for the thread at notebookreview - mobile pascal TDP tweaker.