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

6990s are installed and operational. Working in cross fire. Stock vantage run gave a 242** gpu score. Cpu TDP was at 70 and gave a 16k cpu score. Overall was 21k. Digging these cards.

I can't post a screen shot yet. My benching ssd has no Ethernet drivers and i just installed the Bigfoot killer so i have no drivers for that either Using my phone.

 

Nice DR650. Are you using a stock power supply also?

 

Yea. 240w. For some reason it tripped just loading vantage the first time. Then next time worked well with 70w cpu TDP. Then tried 85w and it tripped. Javnt monitored the wattage pull on it get. Been setting it and walking off to watch tv

 

Awesome runs DR!

 

Have you noticed the FPS drop problem that aarpcard and kenny had? Think this was evident only in gaming sessions.

 

I saw some in vantage. The cards do draw almost too much power.

 

Thanks for the update DR. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some of these beasts.

 

That's what worries me about the 6990s. While I'd love to have them, I'm not sure they will perform stable during heavy gaming.

 

I saw the post from pkhetan in the marktplace that he can´t sell the cards anymore Does anybody know another trustworthy dealer for the cards?

 

There have been a few links mentioned in the last few pages, but generally speaking the 6970's are hard to get and the 6990's are impossible unless your made of $$$.

I have been searching through UK distributors with little luck at the moment...

 

I reckon it would be more interesting to get 1x6990m than 2x6970m right?

1) Watt consumption is the same = 100W
2) no stuttering issues because of crossfire
3) possibility to add a second 6990m in the future if we fix the power issues.

 

1) dual 6970s stronger than single 6990
2) i get no stuttering except crysis dx11. you can always disable one of them if you want
3) what kind of fix you think could be made? new psu for r2? lool

thus i havent seen a fix for hdmi audio and i dont think i will.

R2 is very nice for the time being but i would say upgrade options come to an end soon.

 

He's speaking about modded bios that would let people to use powerbrick from M18x or using 2 M17x powerbricks with combiner.

 

Maybe it´s possible to buy the cards as spareparts directly by clevo. If i find a way to buy the cards you will hear from me

 

Exactly. +1

 

Phketan had problems doing just that...

You can try, but I doubt i will work for more than 2-3 cards...

 

This is were my lack of electrical knowledge shows, I actually went to a electronics shop told them what I was doing and asked what they had as far as diodes go, after about 15min of uming and ahing the guy came up with a bridge rectifier, I asked him how do i connect it up, he told me to connect it to these two and leave the other prongs otherwise you get cross linkages blah blah blah. So I got 2 and it works for what i need it to, just it doesn't work to full capacity.... ah well

 

If everyone can order 2-3 cards it should be enough for one notebook

I won´t sell the cards to other people. I will only find a shop to buy two cards for my notebook

 

Aarpcard, I thought you had crashing issues?

 

The fans get stuck at fullspeed after installing the 6970s/6990s?

 

Dell or clevo cards?

 

I'm not really sure, I wanted to buy 6970s for my system but I'm noob at this, so any info u guys can handle me is going to help my decision.

 

Oh, I thought you had installed some but the fans were at 100%!

Clevo cards work the best, Dell ones can cause issues but can be fixed with changing the firmware (I think)

If you read the first post is explains a lot of this

 

I think aarpcard mentioned that the dell cards would have their fan stuck at full speed even with the clevo vbios installed (so something else). I believe the fans can be manually adjusted using something like HWINFO64 however if you plan to use the Dell cards.

 

Where did u buy yours Greywolf? Are they clevo's?

 

They are Clevos and I bought them from Pkhetan. Unfortunately he's not selling cards any longer, which is a real shame. Good luck on your search though.

 

Douse have you not gotten your 6990's? Wasn't sure if you were running with them yet or not.

 

Nah because my funds took so long (and are STILL lost) it fell through with Pkhetan

So trying to source some from somewhere else, but looks like it will be 6970's for me....6990's are too expensive and hard to come by

 

It shouldn't matter if the GPU is clevo or Dell the right vBIOS(clevo) can be flashed after.

 

Oh man, sorry to hear that

 

In reply to this: ?

 

That is a bummer Douse. But the 6970m's seem to be a little more of a sure thing which is why I am going with them. I don't want to run into power issues flux issues.

FYI for everyone wondering where to get 6970m's...Mythlogic has them with CF cable for $980. A little pricey but at least they come with 1 year warranty...other resellers often do not offer that. I am getting a pair now. They are marked EOL so they will be in short supply. Get them where ever you can while you can.

 

I never had crashing issues. I had throttling issues which were fixed by putting thermal pads on the DCt to DC converters on the back of the 6970's. I and others still get throttling issues when draw is in excess of 280 watts, but that's not something caused by the PSU's - it's something regulating the flow on the MB. (Still trying to find it and see if anything can be done about it)

And yes, using a Dell card with any vbios will result in 100% fans all the time. You can change them manually with HWINFO, but it's a pain. I believe it works fine on Eurocom cards. I can't remember completely - I probably said it earlier in this topic somewhere.

 

Ouch that is expensive, too much for my liking :|

I thought you mentioned here that the issues you had were resolved by using a better diode?

 

Wow! Yeah that is expensive, but I can understand spending the money if it's going to be an upgrade that lasts you awhile. Just a bit more for my liking as well.

 

The issues I had with the bridge rectifier was severe throttling in some games (Crysis) due to very high VF. I wasn't experiencing crashing. The new diodes had very low VF compared to the bridge rectifier so that solved those problems. Other than the throttling in intensive games, there were no problems.

And it's quite possible he's using a bridge rectifier(s) with lower VF than the one I was using which would explain the absence of extreme throttling in his case.

 

Yeah it was expensive. But hopefully it will keep me from selling my R2 and forking out real money for an M18X. For awhile anyways.

 

Yes, in reply to that post

 

5K Posts!

On to my question, everytime I try to save the vbios from my cards, I get "Adaptor not found" Anyone have any idea why? I'm doing this through ATIFlash via DOS. "atiflash -s 0 6990m.rom" or "atiflash -s 1 6990s.rom"

 

Congrats on your 5k posts

Those commands should do the job but what version of atiflash are you using, maybe the mobility 6990 is not supported(?!)

 

Not sure, whats the latest version?

 

3.89

 

So I'd been running the same old ATIFlash I had picked up when I was benching my R1. That solved the issues, +1 Time to under volt and overclock

 

Congrats on 5K posts!! And saving your Bios!!

 

Thanks.

I can run through vantage at .96v at 730/950. Only done one run so far. If only i had a better psu

 

I figure by the time I get two cards running in a crossfire configuration there will be several PSU options..haha

 

Congrats on the posts. Having to underclock the cards is tragic though haha

 

yea, it is. I don't really need to though. Thought it might help though. Later i May try stock voltage. But Im thinking the more i OC the higher the wattage draw. Just need to swap id chips with a 330w psu.

 

Still looking for 6990 cards. Does anyone know for sure whether the link posted a couple of pages back is compatible?

 

I ordered mine from mythologic, I guess it's being imported. Hopefully I'll have them by the end of the week.