[Guide] Installing AMD Radeon Mobility 6970 / 6990 in your M17x R2 (Single GPU and CrossfireX)

Oh man, sorry to hear that. My RMA's "should" ship tonight, that was what they told pkhetan, so hopefully they are still on schedule to ship.

 

Ok, just tried the 240 watt PSU with a cut data cable and the custom bios.

When I plugged in the PSU with the cut data cable, the screen returned to normal brightness. However, the "plugged in" symbol did not register on the battery icon.

The battery stayed at 100% power and did not decrease so I took out the battery, and the laptop remained on running off only the PSU However, the cpu remained clocked way way down with the multiplier only going up to a maximum of 5x.

Next I tried booting with no battery. Everything booted fine. The bios did not recognize that any PSU was attached in the Power tab. Windows did indicate that it was running off of AC power with the correct icon, but the multiplier again did not go above 5x.

When I plugged the battery back in, the AC power icon disappeared, but the laptop did stay on AC power. When I unplugged the PSU, the battery kicked in like it should, but 5 seconds later, the laptop did a hard shut down.

So overall No Dice.

I'm a skeptical person by nature. I have no doubt in the world that it's working for stealth, but none of this makes any sense at all. None. I would like to see it reproduced on another laptop and another M18x PSU because coming from an electrical standpoint (based on how the things are designed), there is no explanation I can think of or even begin to think of why this works. What I want to know is if there is something unique with stealth's machine that's making this possible or if it will work across the board.

Because if the cut data cable works for the 330 watt PSU, then it should work for the 240 watt PSU, and the 150 watt PSU I tried - and it doesn't (it works but not correctly as I explained). Without the data cable, the computer does not have any way of determining what PSU is connected.

EDIT: Stealth, just to confirm, when you said your multiplier was at 24x, did you use cpu-z to read that or is that what you have it set to in throttle-stop? If you didn't use cpu-z, can you use that to confirm that value?

 

here guys shows everything
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...330-watt-psu-working-m17x-r2.html#post7830575

 

everything works fine bro just look at my thread it explains

 

Ok read your topic. Makes much more sense. You still need the data cable from the 240watt PSU to initially trigger acceptance full acceptance from the bios. That explains everything. Good work.

 

So I wonder how the work on the bios mod for the power supply is going? I'll admit I know nothing about modifying a bios, but would that be a significant change? or something fairly straight forward?

 

Ok so if you get the 330w adapter you still need the 240w psu to "hot wire" it?
My 6990ms are in Australia hopefully I get them today

 

Hmm if you still need to hot wire with a 240, Ill stick to 2x240w. Just easier.

 

Awesome Kenny, looking forward to your results

 

i'm thinking just switching the I.D module from the adapter will work also but I'm no technician or welder so i prefer simple way xD

 

I think that will work as well. I tried taking apart one of the 240 watt PSU's, but they're a ***** to take apart. Once you get the screws out, the two halves of the case are locked together with one way snaps. They only way to separate them is to break the case - which i didn't want to do.

But if someone does find a good way to open the PSU cases, then that most likely would work.

 

this is worth a shot..... How to Open a Laptop Power Supply | eHow.com
so now that the m17xr2 has better power and assuming 6990's/580's why is the m18 still in business hahaha >.>

 

Hi everybody，I will follow this great guide to update my m17x r2,but i can not download 6970m vbios that ichime provide。Someone can send email([email protected]) to me with 6970m vbios,thank u very much.

 

Did you order the 6970s through Pkhetan? If you did you don't need the vbios.

 

Did you get your notebook back DR6

 

Yea got it. They also sent me new gpu fans since they left loose screws bouncing around i. The fans. Also a new screen and palm rest since they put small scratches in them.

 

Nice, how long was the turn around?

 

Awesome! I am soooo jealous right now!!! Stupid banks

 

Haha they didn't come today, got my hopes up for nothing going to have to wait till Monday now

 

Damn Sucks when you want it for the weekend

 

I hear ya. I'm hoping my 6990's ship soon too. Right now just getting everything setup on my system. Getting my computer area orgainized since I just moved

 

Not sure if I should post this here or make a new topic, but since I've gotten the 6970's is been a real pain to update the graphics drivers.

Whenever I use the catalyst software suite to download the video drivers, it always stops the download and says it can't download the drivers because I don't have "proper" graphics cards installed.

However, if I search the net, and find all the components individually and download, them the drivers will install fine withing the .cfg true workaround.

It's really annoying though. I had to do it for 11.7 and now it looks like I'm gonna have to do it for 11.8. Anybody experiencing the same problem? Any way to quickly fix it?

 

Hey aarpcard, when I was attempting to get mine working I noticed the same problem. Only the modded mobility drivers for 11.7 would install (versus the ones from the ATI website)...it seems everyone was using those for the 6970's and were the only ones I could get to actually install.

So I'd be very curious to what others are seeing as well, I'm wondering if this is the same problem that I've seen reported with the Dell 6970's and the inability to successfully install the AMD/ATI reference drivers as well. If anyone has a solution to this I'd be very interested.

 

I hate nVidia.

 

What's wrong?

 

I can't get the drivers to install in the R2. Wanted to test if the newer cards would work.

 

Maybe the .inf file is missing the GPU IDs in which case you'll have to add them manually. Can you check if they're in the list or you get uncompatible hardware error?
What are you testing with?

 

I can install 11.8 fine, with the .cfg workaround set to true. However, I can't download the drivers using the Catalyst Software Suite Installer.

 

Can you pm me directions on how to install 11.8 like that x.x i got my 6990's

 

Awesome Stealth, did you get them installed?

 

no busy using laptop atm..

 

heres 1 of em...



think they will work?....

 

Nice! Looking forward to your results!

 

Well, I wanted it to be a surprise, but what the hell...

I got two GTX 580Ms. I've installed one in the R2 and I've tried like 10 different drivers, and with the modified .infs and no luck. The farthest I've got was using the Have Disk method, but it would take a really long time to install and it wouldn't fully install the driver, allowing Windows to override that install with Standard VGA drivers.

 

Do the 69xx's require the retention mod for optimal cooling?

 

Edit, never mind, my .inf file won't work, I guess you don't have Dell 580m cards... If you tell me the details of your card I can try to mod an inf.

 

They're Clevo X7200 cards, but I think I'm going to flash them into Dell cards and see what happens.

 

That's also worth a try, in this case you should be able to use this .inf file (after flashing the Dell VBIOS). Good luck!

In case you want a .inf for the Clevo VBIOS I need the subsys ID, subvendor ID and hardware ID of the card.


Here's the .inf for the Dell hardware IDs, it might still have a little mistake in it, but I can't check this atm... let me know about your success:

 

Awe man real shame, keep at it though, I'm sure you'll get somewhere. Perhaps try the R1 with the nvidia chipset.

 

That one doesn't work, but I'll redo it after I reflash to the Dell VBIOS. If you want to try a Clevo inf,

Vendor ID: 1558
Subsystem ID: 10DE-1211

 

Weird, the Clevo stuff is all there in the driver .infs, no need to modify one, there shouldn't be a problem... hmm. Maybe someone else has more experience when it comes to .inf files.

 

Ok, I finally got somewhere. I renamed the inf file from LV2G0 into nvdm.inf and it installed. 2D and 3d clocks work. Only problems now are getting SLi to work. I'll need HWinfo for fan control since the fans are stuck at one speed (Max).

While I work on this SLi issue, here's a single card Vantage run:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

Ahh Nice surprise ichime,

I knew you had something special in the works for us.
I can't wait to see SLi running!
I might just have to borrow my mates 6990Ms from his M18x and do some benching in the R2!

Cheers.

 

Hey guys! Any success with Clevo CF in the M17x-R2? I just installed 2x6990Ms in my M18x and only primary is detected in the BIOS. Any ideas? vBIOS?

 

Stealth is the first one to receive his 6990's but I don't think he has tested them out yet.

 

Did anyone experience similar issues with Clevo cards in the past (no secondary GPU in the BIOS)?

 

I didn't have the problem with my 6970's (crossfire connector didn't work), but the bios picked up both cards, and both were detected in windows as well (with the stock clevo bios and the dell bios).

Maybe the 6990's are different? Once Stealth has a chance to install his we'll have a better idea.

 

My 6970s worked off the bat. Waiting on some 6990s now but those should work too.

 

I'm starting to think one of my cards may be bad

 

Have you tried swapping the secondary card into the primary slot to see if it detects it?