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

Your cooler mod looks good Greywolf! Giving me idea's

PS: DR650, the beeping issue seems to be have been resolved

As for the Dell's flashed with Clevo BIOS, I thought it resolved the majority of issues?

 

I have a question for those that have done either the 6970 or the 6990 mod.

What method of installation did you do?

Paste or Pads?

I originally was going to to do it the same way that I have done my 5870's. X23 on the memory chips and MX-3 on the die.

However, due to the recent spat of 6970 issues I am thinking that a more reliable, less messy and easier to repeat way may be necessary.

Therefore, 0.5mm Fujipoly pads on memory and DC-DC converters and MX-3 on the die.

 

Hey DR650,

Aarpcard has a Dell card with the clevo bios and if I remember correctly, flashing the bios didn't help with the fan issue (in his case they are stuck at 100%).

Aarpcard please correct me if I'm wrong.

*EDIT* : Oops looks like Reborn already answered the question. Next time I'll got to the last post on the thread

 

Hey Douse. Thanks for the fan compliment

Regarding installation, I have used both 1mm Fujipoly and .5mm Fujipoly on my cards memory and DC-DC converters with fantastic results. I personally haven't tried to paste due to the several installation I've done which made it much cleaner and easier. I use OCZ Freeze on my die and that works very well. Also bought some Shin-etsu paste but haven't used that yet.

 

My installation,

Memory - Phobya Thermal pad Ultra 5W/mk 0.5mm

GPU - Tuniq TX-4

 

I used the pads I got from my 5870s and IC Diamond but I have some 0.5mm Fujipoly pads for when I can be bothered to open it up again. with Furmark extreme burn test @ 1920x1200 I seemed to max out around 80c

 

i noticed something that is not very encouraging guys. The more i try new games the more fps drops i get and i am pretty sure its related with the power draws. Just tried Global Ops - Commando Libya on 1900x1200

So games with fps drops till now

Crysis 2 dx11 Ultra
Battlefield 3 beta
Global Ops - Commando Libya on 1900x1200

this doesnt look very promising

 

Aristotel,

What sort of avg FPS are you seeing on Crysis 2 dx11 Ultra? On a single 6970, using Fraps my avg has been 43FPS. Just curious of how the drops look with 2 cards. Also, have you tried disabling crossfire and running on a single card? If so does it run better?

Just curious.

 

I was playing F1 2011 last night, on 2 cards maxed out settings I was getting 12fps, disabled crossfire and was getting 60-70FPS. wierd!!

 

What would really be interesting to see is if Aarpcard or Douse (when he gets his cards) see the same performance drops with their power supply mods. Wondering if it's a code optimization thing with poor crossfire implementation, or related to the power draw specifically. I picked up a watt meter a week ago, but still don't have two cards working in crossfire to check.

 

yes i have to try that. i didnt try yet.

I forgot F1 2011 was another one with fps drops. always with crossfire enabled.

 

I really hope this is not the case, only went for the 6970's because i thought there would be no power issues?

Wondering if one 6990 would of been the better option now

 

if 6970s have such issue then 6990s have it too. i mean if its power related

 

Yeah, But I meant a single 6990 set-up as opposed to a dual 6970 setup, do you still have power issues if just 1 card is installed?

 

it seems that i dont have fps drops using single 6970 but then it depends if 6970 is powerful enough to handle highest graphic settings. for example crysis 2 dx11 ultra has around 21 fps with single 6970. with cf 6970 it can go from 60 to 7 (fps drop)

 

need to ask some master...
anyone know after upgrade to ati 6970m and cause system not able to shutdown?

after system lcd turn off and system fan keep moving. anyone face this before?

 

I have a Eurocom 6970M flashed with the Clevo VBIOS. I'm running AMD preview driver 11.10 (the only one that will install). My machine does everything normally. I haven't tried HDMI audio out, so I can't report on that.

 

New 11.10 drivers, a Version2 of the preview. In the last 24hrs.

AMD Catalyst™ 11.10 Version 2 Preview Driver: BF3 Beta and Rage Improvements | techPowerUp

 

You tried them paul?

 

Not yet as I'm at work. Installed them ok tho.

On the M18x forum there's talk of it helping with x-fire stuttering in BF3. Sounds good.

P.

 

Installed ok, 50-100 point increase in vantage. Will test over next few days

Thanks Paul

 

For those with throttling in certain games I would recommend a gpu undervolt and no cpu overclocking, for those with extreme cpu's mess around with lowering clocks and tdp and disabling turbo until you dont get throttling, maybe reduce screen brightness, and if you use an external screen you could probably run an overclock no problem.

 

anyone knows how to downclock 6970s and what settings to use so as to avoid fps drops in games when in crosfire, but dont lose performance?

 

You dont want to down clock you 6970s (although you could but you would lose performance) you want to undervolt them and underclock the cpu instead

I used this guide to undervolt my 6990s its says 4870 but its the same process (dont forget you do every thing twice for each gpu)

In RBE (Radeon Bios Editor) try reduce the voltage for you 3d clocks 0.05v (can use smaller increments if needed) and test for stability, if you get no crashes try reducing voltage further, once your finished undervolting and still get throttling use throttlestop to underclock your cpu

I found that I get no throttling in crysis 2 with a gpu undervolt and a stock 920xm
Without the undervolt I had to underclock the cpu to 12x multiplier and 40w tdp to avoid throttling (I am using dual psu's not sure how much difference that will make though) hope that helps.

 

Nice, thanks Kenny, +1.

I would hope that those of us on 6970 rather than the 6990 are a little closer to the line. Perhaps we don't need to alter too much.

 

anyone got face this issue??

with original a10 bios and 11.10 ati driver@ original dell ati 6970m gc..

the system unable to reboot and restart... system go blank and fan still spinning.

anyone? pls help.

 

Im running my 6990s at .96v So far all is well. And the 940xm Doeat really need an OC for gaming. Plus heat is down. Would need to do more gaming, but doubt if it throttles.

 

what would you suggest for 6970s? voltage etc?

thus try crysis 2 on dx11 and ultra high settings. if this doesnt throttle then nothing throttles. at least for the time being

 

Try undervolting to .96v as that should bring down the wattage draw. Don't OC the cpu either. Give that a shot.

 

i dont have to change gpu and memory clock settings?

 

Nope. Should remain stable at stock speeds.

 

right! fps drops reduced dramatically. almost not at all! i also changed voltage to 0.96 not only for maximum clocks but also for all those who were over 0.96.

 

Did you experience any drops in FPS?, also is your cpu overclocked?

 

if you mean the fps drops from 45 or 60 to 7 no i didnt experience it at all!

cpu is with turbo mode on. not further overclocked.doesnt seem to be needed.

crysis 2 dx11 ultra can drop under 30 fps or go to 45 fps but this is related to ati driver-hardware and graphic demands, not power issues. remember its the most demanding game.

 

I like to keep my 940XM @ 25x with throttlestop, does this mean in high end games I'm faced with a choice, or should I say a compromise between powering the CPU or GPU's?

Also tried HDMI out this morning to watch the F1, didn't seem to want to play, where as before I would just plug it in and it would put the desktop up on the big screen, I was having to manually select the output, it was only showing part of the screen, It was showing that 2 tv's were plugged into it, tried manually setting up to the correct res and when I finally got the correct picture up the mouse pointer wouldn't show on the tv? Oh and no sound lol........ Gave up and just watched it on the laptop cos I missed the first 8 laps messing about.

 

Oh dear, I haven't tried that yet. (HDMI)

Just to see if the fps issue was power related, I pulled my 940xm down to 50w TDP. BF3 was buttery smooth, and never slowed down. On high settings, I was getting 70-90fps only slowing to high 50's in woods.

So, it's power. I'm going to drop the voltage on the video cards and turn the CPU back up.


P.

 

Hi guys,

I've gotten a friend of mine to assemble the 6970M into my M17x-R2 but he returned it to me with the problem of it not being able to shut down. Besides that issue the card was running fine. (i don't know how he installed my drivers) Basically i can run games and all fine only problem is i can't shut down, sleep or hibernate the pc

Upon chancing on this guide, i followed it to the bone regarding the gc bios flashing e.t.c and installed the Catalyst 11.5 Mobility. I can now shut down my pc fine ! (yay) but the problem now is my screen keeps flickering, warping, bending, many dots appear randomly and graphics card crashes when i open up too many folders. I've uninstalled and resintalled the 11.9 Mobility but same problem Is there anyone who can help me out? Is this a driver issue?

 

I can live with dropping the voltage as long as there is no performace loss....... How do you go about dropping voltage?

 

Use RBE to edit the 3DClocks voltage and reflash the modded bios to the GPUs.

 

Hey Primuslim,


What VBIOS are you using and what type of cards do you have? If you are using Dell or Eurcom cards, then flash them with the CLEVO VBIOS in the first post (DR650 re-posted them also a few pages back) and try it then. I believe either Dell or Eurcom (or both?) have the problem with shutdown, so flashing the CLEVO Bios should resolve the problem.

Good luck!

*EDIT* Sorry so that you got your shutdown issue resolved...good for that. Were you seeing the same graphic problems with the other vbios? If not, you might try re-flashing it.

 

Thanks, DR650SE but the description on how to do would have to be a little more in depth than that, I'm a relative noob to this stuff

 

Here you go, this is how I do it every time. Pretty much explains everything.

 

Paul, Did you get round to testing with GPU's under-volted and CPU overclocked?, also in tests like vantage is there a performance drop due to the under-volting?

 

undervolting doesn't decrease performance.... ever....Unless you got to far then it just crashes, a stable undervolt is only good!

 

If so,

how come the manufacturers don't use or recommend those specific undervolted values... since they can only be beneficial (powerwise, temperaturewise and performancewise) ?

 

Every card is different, just like some cards overclock and undervolt well, (others not so well) so the manufacturers just put voltage on that will safely cover all the cards for a trouble free experience

 

Ok so I'll do this later, modify Vbios in RBE to 0.96v will it be obvious where to put these settings? then flash back to card and confirm in GPUz?

 

yeh its pretty obvious, there is a tab called clock settings, in there you can adjust the voltage for all the different clocks

 

anyone here got facing issue with dell oem 6970m with alienware m17x r2??

 

If you're using a Dell OEM card, you will need to reflash it to the Clevo VBIOS in order to fix the shutdown issues. The fan problem won't be fixed and it will require an updated mobo BIOS.

I also realize that the link to the tools for this guide requires you to sign up at T|I. I'll post another link later.