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

I cant comment on the ones at rjtech. I think one person has purchased them but I dont think we have had confirmation as to whether they have worked.

As for running 6990's, you shouldnt have any issues as you have a non extreme CPU.

If you do get power throttling problems, unvolting by a few millivolts seems to fix it.

 

Awesome Douse!!

Hope this will bring your long journey to a close and you can finally get your 6990s installed and running.

Definitely been a learning experience for all of us, that's for sure.

 

So Grey! how is your system running? Did you perform any other test with kill-a-watt? Since we have the same config your test are really welcome always wondered how much my R2 was drawing since the upgrade, glad to see that 230W once the cards are undervolted

 

Put this in the BF3 thread, but figured that I would post it here. With the 6990s, and my system, Here is the specs at which I run BF3 and it's smooth. CCC is set to "Use Application Settings" for everything. I'll have to play with the settings some later to see if I can get things looking even better.

Spoiler

 

Hi Cpt!!

Well, unfortunately I had to leave for a business trip on Sunday morning at 4:00AM, so didn't get to play with my system other then Friday night. Figures, I'd wait 4 months to get my cards working and the day they start working I have to leave for 2 weeks

I'll definitely provide some updates when I get back home though and will post my results.

 

DR, any reason why you keep V-sync off? it doesn't output suficient fps or is just becouse you prefer it this way?

 

No real reason, to be honest I'm just lazy. Although I'm not sure it would make much of a differance. When I fire up the game I'll try it with it on. Won't be till Monday at the earliest. Going to be busy all weekend.

 

When you turn on vsync, also enable triple buffering in CCC.

Should result in minimal drop in FPS, but may cause input lag :/

 

So where can one buy a xfire 6970m cards at?? I see sometimes on ebay but how to know if they will work for this, without the issues stated on op, and is the difference between the 6970 and 6990 that big to make the price jump? Where to buy is the real issue right now. Thanks.

 

Hi binary,

The Eurocom cards listed on e-bay have seemed to work well for a lot of people (myself included). The seller is upgradeyourlaptop and they have both 6970's and 6990's for sale.

Also if you buy both cards and specifiy that you are purchasing for a Eurocom Panther 2.0, they'll send you a crossfire cable that is the perfect length for our alienwares.

Also the Eurocom cards can be flashed with the Clevo bios to eliminate the problems with the screen resolution.

Good luck!

 

I have a question!

Has anyone used an 6990 ES before? just trying to figure out vbios I will need to flash it to.

Assuming it is the same as the ES 6970, I should use a Dell 6990 vbios. Is this correct?

Has anyone used a Clevo vbios on them?

Sorry if this has been answered before.

 

I've bought two es 6970m from table21 two days ago, soon I'll be joining your ranks
The price was absolute madness and I knew there was no way I would've seen a deal like this ever again, so I just took them as I don't really mind the issues dell cards have and no warranty.
Plus looks like there's a slight possibility I could even unlock all the shaders cores, which would make this even better

 

Sweet!!!!

Yah price is too good to be beaten.

Just need to find the right vBios for it now!

Cool, haven't heard of anyone unlocking the 6970's yet!

BTW:: 11.10's are out

 

Douse, I had a 6970 ES. It basically had all of the same characteristics of a 6990. 1120 shaders and 715/900 clocks. You're going to have fan problems, and you won't be able to shut down, sleep, or hibernate correctly.

I flashed the Clevo VBIOS to it and got the 'funny colors' problem.

HWInfo fan control worked stellar for the fan problems, and I'm very confident that the other problems with shutdown, etc, were due to a driver problem. My reasoning is that when there was no driver installed, it shut down fine. I couldn't test sleep or hibernate because I didn't have those options with no driver installed.

Do you run that overclock on your 5870s all of the time? What voltage are you using?

 

Yeah, I am really pushing these guys too. I ordered a 6970M from them that worked absolutely perfect until it quit (ironic, I know). But without hesitation they told me to send it in for warranty service. Nicest guys you will ever encounter. For a small fee, I was upgraded to a 6990M, which is en route as we speak. They are on ebay under 'Upgradeyourlaptop'. I would highly suggest them because their cards are plug-and-play, and for their customer service as well.

If you plan on going with a CrossFire setup, I personally would go with 6970s. That way you'll have a bit of headroom, especially if you have an XM CPU.

6970M

The shipping is a bit outrageous too for some reason, and it isn't that quick.

 

Turbod, I have been running the cards at that rate since I got BF3, so the last couple of weeks.

Seems fine, no crashing or artifacts etc.

Just finished playing for about 3 hours and temps are toasty but still reasonable imo

As for the 6990 ES, so you used the standard bios that came with them?

EDIT:: Oh yeah 1.1 volts

 

not that toasty either considering the OC you are using

 

Am very interested in this project as I have 2 M17XR2's sitting around, mostly because the GTX285's are slow as my grandmom.

I really don't need both notebooks so I am open to suggestions, i.e., swap/barter/sell, etc. Both are in great condition however I am inclined to hang on to the 1400 x 900 model only because I prefer the lower resolution.

Regardless, could someone point me in the right direction to get the correct cards to replace the NVIDIA SLI setup in my notebook(s)?

Lowest and most respectable vendor would obviously be the coolest.

Thanks!

 

I'm seriously looking at this upgrade for my m17x-r2.

I currently have crossfire 4870's, but I want to upgrade my graphics to get the best visual quality possible for Skyrim.

Does anyone have thoughts on the value of going from 2x4870's to 1x6970? I could afford the crossfire 6970's but I'm not sure of the return on investment.

 

Look at it this way:
single mobility 6970 > CF mobility 4870
CF mobility 6970 >>>[...]>>> CF mobility 4870

 

Yep I agree with Katalin.

I went from a crossfire 4870 -> single 6970 and saw an improvement in games (and my vantage scores)

Also a 6970 is a DX11 card vs dual 4870's that are simply DX 10.1 cards.

Single card = less heat, plus can be overclocked. So you will see a difference between dual 4870s and a single 6970.

 

Going from 4870s to a single 6990 would blow the doors off of your laptop. Seriously. You know that feeling you get when one of those big black Alienware boxes show up on your step? Yeah, it is like that...

 

LOL

Yes, what Turbo said...that's how I felt when I finally got my 6970's talking in crossfire...and that we BEFORE I played any games

 

So I'm looking at Eurocom's eBay page and they have two 6970's...

Link

The seller offers the card both with and with-out soldering posts. Are they required or no?

I'm considering picking up one card now and another next month. All I would to do is flash the bios and add the crossfire cable down the line to get Crossfire correct?

Thanks for the responses folks...I was debating going back to a desktop for Skyrim but this upgrade will let me rock it and maintain my beloved m17x for a couple more years.

 

Hi Armin,

Yep those are the cards that I ordered. I ordered them WITH the posts only for easy install. If you order them with the posts make sure you ask that they send you the screws as well (since they are smaller then the ones that Dell uses).

Some folks have modded their brackets to fit the cards without the posts as well, so that's another option...just depends on what you feel most comfortable with.

Also if you order another card later, ask them to include the crossfire cable for a Panther 2.0, which is almost the perfect length for the M17x.

Then once you have them flash the bios and you should be good to go. I flashed the latest Clevo bios on my cards, but it's only up one revision from the ones that Ichime has posted (those work as well). And I don't have any issues with fan or resolution.

Otherwise that should have you covered.

*EDIT* Interesting, I see they raised the price for the ones WITH posts (I got mine for the same price as those without posts), I also see that they added compatibility with Alienware which means that it should be covered under the 3 month warranty if something goes wrong. I must say, so far (although I haven't dealt with them much), I've been pretty impressed with Eurcom. I know Turbo has had some pretty good luck with his RMA experience as well.

 

Glad to hear you're finally rocking with 6970M CrossFire, buddy!

 

Hey guys, this is sounding more and more like i am going to get 2 6970s. out of interest, what score do they pull at stock speeds in 3d mark 11 running on a stock 920 or 940?

 

stock as it is in the R2, with my 920xm i pull P5950

 

So Turbod, for the ES you said that you had colour issues when you used the Clevo vBios. So I assuming that you did not use this and reverted back to the Dell vBios?

What is the vBios that comes with them then as they aren't gonna be Dell OEM obviously, and does anyone have or can they provide me with a Dell OEM 6990 vBios so I can get all flashy flashy on its a$$ .

 

Thanks Mr. Fox! It's been a long road, now I just have to wait until I get back from my business trip to actually use them

 

Yeah, what Captn said. I pull about 5995 at stock speeds in 3dmark 11.

 

Hi Greywolf,
Do you have a link to the bios you've used please?
P.

 

Oh no, not another vbios to fiddle with....... Mine seems to be running good with 0.98v

are you having problems that you think a new bios will cure Paul?

Grey, many congrats on getting your crossfire working at last, have you had chance to try HDMI with the new bios?

 

Hi jus71n,

Unfortunately I got as far as installing the cards and running a few benchmarks before I had to head out of town for 2 weeks. I'll give HDMI a try when I get back home next weekend.

Paul, I'll see if I happened to save it on my work machine, if so I'll send it to you. If not I can send it when I get home on Saturday.

 

lol, no one's twisting your arm.

Well, perhaps.

On the whole it’s all working fine. BF3 (main reason for upgrade) is perfect. Especially on the preview3 drivers. These seem stable, better than the WHQL ones.

I have some virtual machines for work that run under Microsoft VirtualPC 2007. These now crash the video drivers. They run for a while, then sooner or later (graphically intensive = sooner) the drivers crash. Windows tries to 'recover' the video, but 9/10 times ends up with me having to power off the machine.

I've tried a selection of drivers, driver sweepers, X-fire off etc. nothing seems to fix it. I don't think there's a hardware issue as everything else runs fine. I may try installing windows on another disk to see if it’s my installation.

Failing that I'll have to persuade work to move to VMware (should be anyway).

Thanks I'd appreciate that.
I did have a search for them, but no luck.

 

Here is the "latest" bios that Clevo sent to me when I sent my card off for RCA.

At home I modded them a bit using RBE to adjust the voltage, and made some other change regarding how much you can overclock the card. Personally I haven't done any overclocking on the 6970's, but I did it just to match what ICHIME had done with his modded drivers.

These are the stock drivers which haven't been modified, but I can attach those when I get home if folks are interested. Really there isn't much to it.

Depending on when folks got their cards, you may already have this version. My first set of cards did, my second set did not.

View attachment 72362

Note that this can be used on both the primary and secondary card.

Full version name is : BR39257.009

Also standard warning apply...make sure you know how to flash the bios, just because it worked on mine doesn't mean it'll work on all of them, becareful, etc.

Also I've done very little testing so I don't know the difference between the two, will have more results next week.

 

move to vmware I run various linux, winxp, win9 dev, and win7 and yet to encounter any issues. Upgraded to version 8 when it came out and it's running stable so far too BUT I have not been using my VM's quite as often.

 

@Greywolf - Thank you. I'll have a play with that later. I'd be interested in the modded version you've created.
I tried to Rep, I need to spread it around first apparently. I'll get it to you as soon as I can.

@The0ne - I've been looking at treating myself to a copy of Workstation8. Perhaps this is the reason I've been looking for.

 

Hi Paul,

Anytime..hope it helps

When I get back from my trip I'll send you out a copy of the modded version. Wanted to play a bit with it anyway, so it'll give me a good reason to do some testing before I ship it your way.

Good luck to you!

 

mine came with BR39257.008. shouldnt the file inside the zip have .rom or .bin extension? thus RBE says its corrupted file. can you check it again?

 

Just rename the file extension to .BIN or .ROM. RBE will open it after that.

 

So Turbod, with your ES card that you had. Did you just use the firmware that came with it?

 

Yes. The Clevo VBIOS made the do all sorts of funny things, kind of like a lava lamp if you're familiar with them. Flashed back to the VBIOS that it was on it when I got it. It was a very powerful card, and I enjoyed its performance. Couldn't deal with the manual fan control and shutdown/sleep issues though.

The card calls itself a 6970M, although it has clocks and shaders of a 6990M. I would assume that a 6990M VBIOS should work. Didn't have it long enough to really mess with it too much.

 

Ahh ok, sweet!

Should be plug and play then

 

it says file may be corrupted. flashing with this can cause no system boot

on show information it says:

The problem is that the 4870's (and maybe later) BIOS is 128 kB instead of 64 kB in file size. ATIFlash, WinFlash and GPU-Z 0.2.4 and earlier however read out the first 64 kB only. So, the file you get this way will be corrupted. Flashing such a file (modified using RBE or not) to the card will prevent the system from booting. RBE detected now that you specified a BIOS which has a 64 kB filesize only but utilizes GDDR5 memory. So, please double check if this file has been read out correctly! To be sure, use GPU-Z v0.2.5 or later for BIOS extracting. However, flashing (correct 128 kB sized) BIOSes using ATIFlash or WinFlash should be no problem.

and thats true. its only 64kb when default vbios of my 6970s (BR39257.008) is 128kb

 

Have you copied it out of the winzip folder and pasted it in a non winzip folder? This should decompress it. It's normally what I do. Unless I'm totally off on this. I normally take the .rom file, zip it. Then you can open the zipped folder, copy it out, and past it. If the file itself had the extension changed to .zip from .bin/.rom, that may change it. Never did it so don't know what effect it would have. but if the size was cut down, it may not be a good vbios.

This 6990 vbios that I uploaded (my cards vbios) was 128kb, and the zipped folder was 41kb.

 

ita a zip containing the file without extension (and its not a zip file, if you rename to zip it wont extract anything) . if you download you shall see. well i wont flash this on my cards till we find whats the fault.

Greywolf please resave your vbios and upload when you can. I think you should save vbios using other way. thus both master and slave gpus have exactly the same vbios?

 

Yea, I would not flash that. Unzipping and changing the extension doesn't have it at the right file size.

 

VM Player is free and is miles ahead of VPC. I used VPC and VirtualBox for awhile and was hesitant to move to VMWare until they began offering a free player that will also create VMs. Now that they do, I recommend it to everyone. Great program and I can almost guarantee your driver problems will go away. I had similar problems with VPC. No problems with VMPlayer. Though if you have a Killer network card, you will want to uninstall Killer software, install the VMPlayer first, then install the Killer software. Or it will cause all kinds of problems with Killer LSP.

Sorry for going off topic. Haven't had much to contribute since frying my 3rd card playing BF3. Runs good on a single 6990 though. Haven't had time to replace the bad one. I'll get around to it.

 

Hey guys,

When I get home I'll upload the version that I used. The instructions that came with the file that Clevo sent me didn't have me renaming to a bin file, they were simply this:

atiflash -p 0 -f BR39257.009

But I believe when I modded it in RBE, I did have to re-name it to a bin file prior to making the changes.

Either way, when I get back home I can re-upload the file that I used (and can confirm that it is working fine).

Also I did zip the file prior to uploading it, so you would have to unzip the file and then run against the unzipped file,
the file size is 63kb and unfortunately all my other bios files are on my home computer so can't compare.

Sorry for the confusion