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

Turbod, it was Trulyfatal. Still waiting to hear how he went.

Greywolf, I will contact them and let you know the outcome.

 

Awesome Douse,

Hope things go well for you too, I know your anxious to get your hands on some 6990s

Good luck!

 

Mate, I die a little every day that I don't have them

I have decided that I don't think I am going to wait for the bank to find my money before purchasing some again, as it looks like it is going to take forever

So now gotta find some more money!!!

 

The bank still hasn't found your money

That's awful!!

 

Yep one bank says they transferred it and the other says they haven't received it.....

I just wrote a quite forceful (to say the least) email to my bank so hopefully someone now takes reponsibility.

 

Having some driver issues, The reason there is no overdrive function is because its running catalyst 11.2? even though I've downloaded and installed 11.9? tryed uninstalling and reinstall with the same result?

 

Hey Jus71n,

That actually is a question I have. Is overdrive a part of the mobility driver package or only the modded desktop version? I can't say I've seen overdrive before in the standard mobility package that you download from AMD (maybe I'm still running an old catalyst version that didn't get updated as well?), but I know the modded desktop drivers have a lot more options.

Also, you can use Saphire Trixx to accomplish the same thing which is what I use.

 

Anybody recommend a good, free driver cleaner utility?

 

Hey greywolf, if you right click desktop and open ati catalyst, information/software whats the version number?

 

Hey Jus71n

catalyst version is 11.9
Driver is 11.9

But don't see overdrive anywhere...unless I'm just missing it.

 

dont get whty mine saying 11.2 even though I installed 11.9?

 

I'm using the 11.9 Beta drivers. I think they are beta, I don't keep up on driver versions. But mine are desktop modded I believe. When opening the file for installation they have the purple box with some name in it. Can't quite remember, don't have my system with me. But in the modded desktop version I have, overdrive is available. Although the top limits are 740/1000 for the clocks, but I think there is a hack that can raise the limits.

 

I've had to install 11.8 preview drivers to get things working again?? dont get it

 

Yeah I'm certain the desktop modded drivers include it, anyone running the regular AMD mobility driver where it's included? I think there is a stand alone app, but believe that crashes with the clevo cards installed, if I remember corectly from much earlier in this thread.

 

Hmm, havn't tried the mobility drivers, but I do know that the modded ones don't crash my cards and I verified that they work with GPU-Z. I also didn't realize I could just left click the CCC icon in the tray. Pretty nifty I thought.

 

Just tried installing 11.9 over the 11.8 preview, and although it seems to go through the install after a restart im still on 11.8?

Just not getting why it wont install any driver package I want to install? does this mean I'm stuck on these 11.8's

 

Isn't there an 11.10 preview driver out now? Guess you could always give that a try?

I've also found (but this is my experience and I'm sure if I messed enough with it I could get it to work) that going
from a desktop moddified mobility driver to a standard mobility driver can be a bit messy. I'm sure if you do
a clean removal and install it'll be fine. Just didn't have a good experience with it once, so have stuck to
the mobility versions (non-preview).

But that's just me, I'm sure many are able to go between them at will.

 

Yes just looked and there is a 11.10 preview, may give them a go tomorrow as I'm at work and going home soon so I've packed my lappy away

 

DR650SE, got my slot drive caddy today

Just finished installing it (was more involved than I thought!) and I now have two fully functional 500 gig drives plus the SSD!!!

I am stoked at how smooth it went! Copying to the drive at full speed of ~80MB/s

Soooo good to have 1TB again

 

Nice!!! Douse

 

Thanks Kudos to DR650

 

Nice! Glad it went well. I just hate ripping it out and putting in the blu-ray burner when I have to have dell work on it.

But now all you need to do is take that 500GB and make it a 1TB! Glad it all went well. What are you doing with the optical drive? Making it an external?

 

Haha yeah that is going to suck :|

Although I will have to revert a lot more than that if Dell come to visit.

Fingers crossed none of us have a reason to contact them.

I already have a total of 1TB, as I have just one SSD. Should do me for now

EDIT: Ah yeah, I am going to make the DVDRW (not blu ray...) an external for the rare occasions that I need it

 

You guys are giving me too many ideas while I wait to figure out whats going on with my cards...already modded my NZXT Cryo with blue led fans, and now this? haha.

 

Nice Greywolf! How does it look?

 

What are you guys using to test the stability of your under-volts, just games/crysis or is furmark needed to fully test the stability out? and also how long should you test for? an hour or two?, overnight?

 

i personally use a 1.5TB 2.5 inch USB 3.0 external disk (Seagate Freeagent Goflex) using it with the USB 3.0 express card (average transfer of 77mb/sec). i prefer not to have so much data on notebook. secondary drive of 500GB is just enough for games etc.

 

I am the opposite, the more I can consolidate in to the notebook the better. Means when I go lanning I don't have to worry about bringing all my external drives etc and I am good to go.

I currently have the SSD for windows and current games. One of the 500GB for downloads and the other 500GB for game iso's, applications, photo's etc and other stuff that I want handy.

Although, I have ordered a USB 3.0 Express card, as I have just filled up my 2TB external (USB 2) and am planning to buy a 2TB USB 3 drive..

USB 2 is just tooo slow

 

installing games on windows drive reduces ssd speed as far as i am concerned and starup shutdown time reduces as well. thats why my ssd is always more than 50% all the time (just installed windows, primary drivers and a few programs there). installing games on secondary drive and use external for installation files, exe iso etc. The goflex freeagent 2.5 inch is tiny. You just may forget to take it with you because its small (largest capasity on 2.5 inch till now)

 

Whats the purpose of not installing your few select games on the SSD? Seems like a waste, as I dont just want speed in windows but also in games (loading times etc)

 

yes i could do that but i rarely do that. just install only my favourite-demanding apps on ssd.

 

Sorry to high jack thread, but..

DR650, did you have strange beeping (2 quick beeps in succession) during post after the caddy install?

I have found so far that a BIOS reset seems to have fixed it....for now :|

 

Hmm, never had that. When I get home I'll have to check my bios settings, but I never had that. I wonder what could have caused it.

 

Yeah it was weird, the keyboard stopped responding as well during post.......

I also did reattach the keyboard to be sure, maybe that was actually the problem.

Ah well, hopefully it stays fixed!

 

It's awesome, the blue led's really blend nicely with the overall look. Nothing fancy, just threw in some antec fans. I'll grab a picture when I get a chance.

One thing I did notice (and sorry for hijacking this thread) is that there was quite a bit of vibration using the antec fans, so I ended up ordering some rubber fan dampeners (essentially a rubber piece that sits between the fan and the chassis) and that helped significantly. Still running off the standard 5v power supply just to keep the fans slower and noise at a reasonable level.

Really turned out nice. But what I've learned is that I need to get my videocards working or my projects expand and I start doing upgrades I didn't even know I needed

 

Nice man!

hahaha yeah I know exactly what you mean!

It is hard to scratch the mod and upgrade itch when it sets in

EDIT: Speaking of which, the USB 3.0 express card is a nice fit and sits flush. Although it is very tight :|

 

USB 3.0 express card...sigh, don't give me any more ideas...

 

hahaha its cheep cheep!

 

It' is cheap, and I like it for imaging my system, I think it helps to create images. I back them up to an external so that I can have them seperate from my system for when I kill my O/S. It's just a nice thing to have to if you 3.0 drives.

I just bought a 3.0 enclosure since I have plenty of spare HDDs around. But since I never use the express slot for anything, it's definately nice to have. I believe I have some benchmarks in my sig if I remember correctly.

 

I currently use an Esata drive for my backups which is significantly faster then USB 2.0. But have been contemplating getting a USB 3.0 expresscard to play around with it, for additional expansion drives etc. (Plus DR, I'm like you, I don't use my expresscard slot at all currently, so would give it a use).

you guys are bad influences...lol

 

Still getting beeps. It is weird, doesn't happen all the time. Only sometimes on a restart.

I think it is something to do with the BIOS expecting an optical drive and getting something else (maybe cause it takes time to spool?)

It was set to auto but I have now set it to a removable disc....I will see how it goes.

I am using A10 modded BIOS.

 

Some pictures of my modest fan upgrade (sorry again about the hijack)



and



The fans are actually a bit darker blue then the photo shows off, really matches the Blue on the alienware keyboard, fans, etc.

 

I have that cooler. Looks good to me

 

Thanks Paul!

 

Looks nice, i did the same to mine ~1 year ago but ended up taking the colorful fans out for 3 Gentletyphoons, basically traded looks and loudness for less noise and extra performance, those 3 cost me almost the price of the cooler back then lol

 

lol katalin. My original plan was to replace one of the fans (since it sounded as though the bearings were going), then I figured I might as well buy 3 nice colored fans. I saw the expensive ones, and at some point might do an upgrade, I just needed a quick fix to my noisy fan

 

Good choice if the ones you have are for your liking.
Don't buy anything just because it's expensive , personally i became a Scythe fan after trying dozens of different models/brands for my builds over the years.

Maybe we should continue this in the owner's lounge before all this thread really gets derailed

 

haha, I agree...sorry all for the short term derailment. Now back to 6970's and 6990's

 

This is for Table21. He needed the Clevo vbios.

Master GPU vbios is 6990M.ROM

Slave GPU vbios is 6990S.ROM

Anyone know if flashing a Dell card with a Clevo vbios would do any good with the fan issue? I think thats the problem he has. Fans stuck at 30% with Dell 6990s. Just wondering. Havn't stayed up to date on that issue.

 

Last I heard or read from Appcard was that there wasn't a fix or vbios that could change the 100% fans when using a Dell GPU. Correct me if I am wrong guys. It is quite unfortunate, only good for benching perhaps.
The only other way to control the fan then would be to use HWINFO.

Cheers.