[GUIDE] Installing and Overclocking the AMD Mobility 7970 in the M17x R3,an illustrated guide

thank you jaybee

 

Hi I want to ask your if you know the heatsink, bracket and screws of GTX560M match with 7970M? Mine is 17R3 too.

Thank you very much

 

Hi Angewei, hopefully BigTonyman can chime in. he went from a 460m to a 6990m. because the 460m = 560m and because 6990m hardware is 100% compatible with the 7970m, we will get an answer to this question.

 

Thanks a lot! I will wait and see if all goes well.
Do you know DELL has posted the offical driver for AMD 7970m? Have you tried?

 

nope...haven't tried. Geo tried the official drivers from the resource cd (i think its the same drivers) and it took him 5 hrs to get his computer back. I'm going to give it a bit more time

 

Dear Slick, you are completely right! I have tried the link but the file is not available.
Dell is making fun of us, Grrrrrr....

 

you can look at my 7970m install guide for the modded drivers that i'm using. I highly doubt though that dell will give you a non-working computer. So they must have some driver on there that functions in the m17x R4

 

Well hard to beleave but it seems is true!
At dell support forum there is one person who got his M17R4 with no drivers for the AMD card
Re: Alienware m17x R4 7970m question - Alienware Forum - Alienware Club - Dell Community

 

LOL...then i assume he will be looking in NBR shortly.

Just in case anyone is wondering...these are the drivers i'm using, and they work good for 7970m

AMD Catalyst 8.97 18 April – 7900 MOD – BenchmarK3D

 

I have those drivers ready to install on my 7970m but I've modded them so they don't display "7900 MOD" in front of the name.

 

I was going to edit the inf file to remove the 7900 mod too, but i just didn't bother

WAIT...did you say "...I have those drivers ready to install on my 7970m"???

 

HI SlickDude, your guide is very very useful. All people are looking at this and trying to get upgrade.
You are the best!

 

I find this hard to believe..."For anyone else that is interested in the performance of the HD4000 integrated graphics; It's running BF3 on high settings (1920x1080) at an average of 50fps, so that's some kind of win! I can only imagine that with the 7970m that number will sore! "

Doing a quick search I found this for the HD4000..
"EA's Battlefield 3 is notorious for its demanding requirements. Consequently, we suggest playing the title with mid-range or high-end GPUs only. The HD 4000 can barely crack the 30 FPS mark even at the lowest resolution and settings. Other low-end models, such as AMD's quad-core A8-3520M with integrated Radeon HD 6620G, perform even worse."

Intel HD Graphics 4000 Benchmarked - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

Is his 7970m running and he doesn't know it?

 

Yep, just awaiting heatsink and backplate now

 

lol that sounds weird... the Intel IGP is DEFINITELY not potent enough to handle BF3 at FHD and high settings, no way josé!

 

Cool, I'm glad its helping!

hmmmm, "high" might be possible. If he had said ULtra, i would have laughed. IF the HD4000 is getting 50+, the 7970m will be getting 150+

EDIT: 50+fps at 1080p on HD4000 integrated graphics is blatant BS...i checked it out. Look 3 posts below

oh boy! I bet you are getting excited! How did you get around the 120hz screen issue?

 

i think he mentioned somewhere having ordered a 60hz screen...

 

That is a huge improvement then. I can barely get 10 frames per second on my HD 3000. And that is mixed between high and medium not even 1080 resolution.

 

the HD4000 is much improved over hd3000 for sure...however, the claims sound completely inflated.

here is what notebookcheck said about HD4000 graphics in their review:

"EA's Battlefield 3 is notorious for its demanding requirements. Consequently, we suggest playing the title with mid-range or high-end GPUs only. The HD 4000 can barely crack the 30 FPS mark even at the lowest resolution and settings. "

Intel HD Graphics 4000 Benchmarked - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

So the claim of 50+ @ 1080p on HD4000 integrated graphics is BS

hmmmm, i wouldn't put it past Widezu lol

 

Yes I agree. You're quoting my post back to me.

 

OMG HAHAHAHAHA, i didn't read your post in its entirety lol...i just scanned it...sorry about that.

well, i went back to reread your post carefully this time lol...it very well could be that his 7970m IS running and he doesn't know it. If ENDURO is working, it would have switched to the performance GPU in BF3.

 

If that's the case, the 7970m drivers are out and running.

 

but those r4 drivers don't work for us with R3's for some weird reason. We have to wait till AMD comes out with the official 12.5's i think...probably by this weekend.

 

Well then he's probably just stretching the truth with the integrated performance.

 

Can someone dump the Dell 7970m vbios from their OEM cards? Cheers!

 

Would it make a difference with our QS vbios you think ?

 

ask user sallyjefferson with a brand spanking new R4

no idea, but i think Widezu is going to find out

 

Just installed my card without any problem. I'm in the process of doing a fresh windows install, will report back soon!

 

one more week....*sigh* just ooone moooore weeeek.....

 

@Slick, @Geo: Quick question... if you overclock, is the monitoring window of MSI Afterburner reporting the proper clock rates or not? Cause for me, the core clock doesn't go higher than 860 in the monitoring window.
GPU-Z reports it higher though... Was just wondering how it behaves for you guys.
Guess I'm gonna do some runs and see whether it actually gets above the 860 or not.

 

Reports at 860, then jumps to the desired overclock when gaming or under load. Weird, right?

You could say it idles at 860..

 

hey guys, I'm still installing stuff on my laptop however there are 2 (small?) problems:
1. screen brightness adjustable, but noticably dimmer than usual
2. whenever I try to launch HWinfo to monitor temp the screen goes immediately to black and I have no choice but to hold down the power button to shut the thing off.

 

For 2. you need an external monitor, I get black screens on the laptop screen too.

 

I get Geo's behavior which is weird. Jumps to 860mhz and stays there...howeever, my temps are like 50c and the fan is inaudible so i know it isn't running at 860...but probably at the 300/150. Then it jumps up underload as GEO says to whatever you overclocked it to.

Long,

1) i get this too...screen is dimmer and colors look a little washed out. However, after running a benchmark like 3dmark11, the screen comes back. I think its a driver issue. We're still running modded drivers

2) i DON'T get a black screen when running HWINFO. I'm using version 3.86-1370

 

Thanks guys, just noticed it myself... Guess it's an issue with the monitoring part.

On HWiNFO startup choose "configure" and disable the I2C options.

 

svl7, you have a 7970 now? Congratz bro!

 

Yes This card totally rocks. Less heat than a 6900m card, and way more power. Finally something new to bench

 

The card is a beast ...have you had time to mess around with the vbios yet?

 

No, I hope I can test some stuff during the weekend.

 

Thanks a lot guys! +1'd! I'm still updating windows and antivirus and whatnot but so far everything is smooth! The temp at idle is cool at around 50-52*C.

Edit: i have given out too much rep so i will rep again later

edit 2: I also got the same stuck at 860 as everyone. It also showed in GPU observer, the gadget i use. HWinfo and GPU-z reported correctly thouh.

And here is my humble OC result, not anywhere close to you guys but yeah . CPU 42-41-39-39, GPU 960/1500 max manual fan via HWinfo.

AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2920XM Processor,Alienware M17xR3 score: P6520 3DMarks

edit 3: tried vantage but shutdown during last crash test. toned down cpu to 41-40-38-38 yet still the same. Either my CPU heatsink sucks hard or my paste job is abysmal :-s

 

Bottled it in the end. £400 is too much, for a novice anyway. I'll wait for the value to drop. probably do it in a year or so.

 

Posted in wrong thread. -_-

Anyways, someone with an R4 please dump the 7970M vbios.

 

Nice score, as for the CPU, it's like the XM renders the paste useless lol. After a few weeks I can't even hold 3.7Ghz x4 on full load. Whilst after a fresh re-paste I was rocking 4.5Ghz all cores for Vantage, even with a voltage increase. ICD7 holds high temps better, whilst idle temps are better with PK-1. Now I know why widezu re-pastes once a month, the XM is too beast xD

 

lol, once a month! thats insane!! so would that only include extremely OCed XM CPUs or GPUs as well?

 

I can't say I agree. I regularly encode at a massive 3.33ghz on 8 threads for hours on end with my 920xm and the required tdp/tdc required to sustain it has not changed. Obviously in the summer everyone has to tone down their settings a little to allow for increases in ambient temps. Otherwise I think my ICD7 pasting is as good now as a few months back when I installed the chip.

Also ICD 7 supposedly gets better after a while as it has a very high diamond content in the 90+%. Once the moisture in the paste has evaporated thermal transfer ought to be more efficient

 

Unless you live in scotland where it is just cold all year round lol.

 

Yeah i was half a mind of changing back to 2860QM =). I switched back to ICD24 recently btw. Oh well thats the burden of carrying a XM i guess, wonder how the M18x guys manage.

 

I know at least 3 other folks with an XM in their R3, and temps spike up after a few weeks. There's nothing else it could be but the paste. :/

This is not after one attempt, this is more than 10 re-pastes on my part. Same outcome.

My paste job is immaculate because I could do 4.5Ghz for multiple vantage runs with no auxiliary cooling. Now, not a chance.

The M18x has a superior CPU heatsink, so it cools XMs very well. The best in fact..

 

I had the same issue...i just didn't want to deal with the heat anymore...so XM gets sold and i'm back to the 2820 which doesn't require all the maintanence. It doesn't matter what paste you use...you are looking at monthly repastes which i'm not doing lol

Congratz on the new card dude! We'll all be good for a while

 

For gaming and daily use it's fine, but rendering and benchmarking it gets a little annoying.

Oh yeah, I have never needed to re-do a GPU re-paste. Temps never exceed 70C for that, so paste doesn't lose its transfer.

I think that high laptop CPU temps of 90s wear the paste out, since it's designed for desktops mainly - 50-60C.