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

Becouse master card is somehow responsible for running this second display more than the slave card maybe.
When i plugged my 42incher via HDMI, card clocks went up to 300/900, and this was in idle.

Basicly card will bump the clocks up in order to sustain 2 monitors at the same time. Pretty normal.

 

My 920xm also drop at 9 at idle, not all the cores, just some of them as it is a cycle.. and it happend really quick. It has been like this with 5870's and 6970's, i wouldn't worry about it.

Also, TS won't do anything, even if you activate it, if the pc is on idle, the difference is seen as soon as you put load on the cpu, then it will run as per TS settings. And this is a really good thing. who want a cpu running full speed/no load all the time? The CPU will scale, this is the way it works

 

I'm back and caught up on the reading.
@IntenseIGFX, glad everything is working well. As far as the 9x, I don't know if mine does that or not. Does it drop in thottle stop? I have a feeling that it is part of intel speedstep. Can you turn off speed step in the BIOS? If you can, then see how the CPU idles.
As for temps going up with an external plugged in, that does seem normal to be because the card is sustaining two monitors as flingin pointed out. Dual monitors don't utilize crossfire, so they both run off the master. If you closed the laptops screen, temps would probably drop, as it would run only an external. Infact, they may drop lower than you idle temps when using you laptop monitor, because now the GPU is only pushing 1900x1080 an not 1900x1200.

EDIT:
Just thought of something, Turbo boost was designed when certain number of cores are underload. At stock, 2.0 GHz refers to 2.0GHz when All cores are under 100% load. Anything above that is turbo boost. So 3.3GHz when one core is under load and less turbo as more cores are loaded. The dropping to 9x is Part of the intel speed step, which is designed to minimize heat and powerdraw, when the system is not requiring it. Old Core2Duo chips did the same thing.

The nice thing about our systems and the dell systems is that dell left all the cores unlocked, so it is possible to turbo on All cores. This was an issue when dell released the A08 bios. Dell capped the limit on some of the cores. Once we provided info that heat wasn't an issue and Dell had no need to cap the CPU, the released bios A09 removing the limit.

Here is a link when I did some research. As you can see from the CPU activity graphs, when the CPU isn't underload, it will drop down the multipliers. 2.0GHz was the designed max for 100% load on all 8 threads. Less load=More turbo boost. 2.0GHz isn't a designed minimum cpu speed.

 

Thanks a ton man I really appreciate it. It seems like everything is working really well.

 

Thats awesome, I didn't have much time to check back on the forum since it was a long weekend. Made it halfway to my destination and my fuel pump went out, then cell phone died. Though we did meet quite a few good samaritians. It was all entertaining for my wife and I but glad to be back home. Got anothe long weekend ahead coming up too To much driving. Glad to see you have no driver installation issues and your CPU temps are looking good. Now it's time to really start enjoying the true beast. Should last you several years of good gaming.

 

Thanks man

How did you get your 3dmark 11 score so damn high? Extreme benchmarking / cooling? Also, can you give me your temp ranges for gpu 0 / 1 and cpu while idle / max?

 

Once I get home I should I should be able to check temps.

I have a 40GB SSD that is purely for benching. Getting the score was a lot of balancing and juggling. But honestly it was a lucky run. Trying to run similiar settings again gave me throttling. Pretty much everything was overclocked. 3DMark11 is tricky because the combined test will throttle hard if you have your GPUs and CPU overclocked because it pulls so many watts. So trying to prevent that throttling is the hardest part. I didn't use any dryice or anything on those benches.

The screenshot linked to my Vantage benchmark (25399) shows my idle temps and max temps during the bench. I have since repasted so the Shader on card 2 won't go as high as it is. Although in my everyday setup idle temps for my master card are probably a little higher at idle. I'd have to check to be sure. But ambient temps have a lot to do with idle temps. It was probably a little cool when I was benching. The A/C was probably going in my apt. My CPU hit 90s, in the vantage run, but I had it pull a max of 112 watts, up from the stock 55 watts. It was running at 3.556GHz on All four cores

 

Would you say that p6300 for 3dmark 11 with 0 overclocking is pretty good? I thought I had the 5% oc on my cpu through the bios but apparently I dont. I think I'll just leave it @ 0%. During a battle in skyrim last night (huge seige on Whiterun) my temps were at 85C for about 3 minutes then they went back to 70-75C. Im sure its fine, but I just get concerned because IC diamond is such a pain to use and I worry about whether or not I used the right amount. I'm sure its fine, but I always worry about adding more to the load

EDIT: Also, Dan, do you use a cooling pad?

 

Yea, 6300 sounds right for stock. I think I scored a 6300 something on 5870s, but that was with the GPUs overclocked 44%. The temps look fine to me If your not going to be overclocking, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Hey m17x crew!!

I missed out at the beginning of this thread ordering from pkhetan by like 1 week before he couldn't get them anymore
I'm finally ready to order some 6970's again and I wanted to know where is the best place to get them. I'm not going to overclock them, just a nice replacement for my crossfire 4870's.

I found this place on ebay:
ATI Mobility Radeon? HD 6970m GPU MXM 3.0 Type B | eBay

Anyone order from them? Did they work well??

The original thread (iirc) mentioned a different(longer?) crossfire cable.
Is that true? If so, where can I source one?

I assume I can re-use the existing heatsinks from my 4870's and affix them to them to the 6970's.

Do I need different screws/posts, etc to mount the 4870 heatsinks to the 6970's?

As for BIOS, it seems most of you are using Clevo bios. Does that bios allow for proper fan control or will I need to resort to something different for fan speed control?

I've seen in the latest pages some success with a 6990 master and 6970 slave. I'm an eye candy , so the more visual wow I can get the better...even if I sacrifice some framerate. Do you guys (gals?) think the 6990m is worth the added expense? It also sounds like I would sacrifice fan control, if I have read the latest pages correctly.

Thanks m17x crew!!

 

That is where I ordered my 6990 from. Pretty much plug and play, but you won't have any audio over HDMI. That is the only shortcoming I've noted so far. The system will control the fans just fine.

 

Cooling pad is GREAT. Playing skyrim / benchmarking my max CPU temps were 70C and GPU about the same.

bhanzi - I bought the 6990's from that same store a few days ago and they work flawlessly. I asked them to send me new screws + a new crossfire cable.

Getting those c-clamps off of the old video card screws is pretty tough, but other than that the whole thing is pretty easy. The screws that the ebay store will send you will fit properly in the 6970's, as your old 4870 screws wont.

Keep in mind that you have to put the crossfire cable on before the heatsink, otherwise you won't be able to freely access the port. The new crossfire cable they send you will fit perfectly, just make sure its taped flattened down in the groove. I spread the strands apart a bit to get it flat. If you don't flatten it down, the components won't properly sit flush on top of it.

I don't know what you mean by the 6990 sacrificing fan control. I've heard / expereinced no such thing from these cards. If you get Dell cards, you have that problem but with these, there isn't a single one. I undervolted mine to .96V because this machine really doesn't have the added power required to overclock them, and .96V is enough to run stock clocks with no sacrifice in quality (I ran benchmarks before and after the undervolt and got near identical scores).

Hope that helps

 

I'd recommend ordering the cards WITH posts (I believe the 6990's come with an xbracket, but the 6970's do not).

The posts will make it MUCH easier to install them if you go the 6970 route.

 

Thanks for the info Greywolf22, IntenseIGFX and Turbodtalon

About the no audio over HDMI, is that only with the 6990 or does that apply to 6970's as well using the Clevo bios??

IntenseIGFX, I misunderstood the fan issue. I went back and read some threads and see now it applies to the Dell cards, thanks for straightening me out

 

quick question I was wondering does dell sell the heatsink and fan with the card when you order it or do you have to ask them to buy that in addition to the card? and will my previous 4870 heatsink and fan work fine for the 6870?

 

The no audio is a problem for the 6970's and the 6990s (Clevo and Eurocom).

 

If you don't want a HUGE headache, DONT buy the card from dell

 

Yep I agree

Wouldn't recommend buying direct from Dell (I don't know if it's possible since they don't officially support the 6970 in the R2). Even if you could it would be really expensive.

Check out Eurocom (Upgradeyourlaptop on ebay). They have the best deals and their cards have been plug and play. Plus make sure you get a crossfire cable from them as well as SCREWS.

And yes your 4870 heatsink and fan will work fine with the 6970's.

 

As to seeing as I already ordered one from dell. What would I have to do to verify that the card bought from a different location would work with the dell card?

 

The only way is to test them.
I know that aarpcard is running two different cards, one of them being Dell branded.

So I'm sure he can give you more details about this experience.

 

Hi guys,

This might have already been answered in this 300 page thread, is the M18X 330W power adapter compatible with the M17X-R2?
Also, does the cpu bottleneck the 6000M series GPUs when gaming or is it only during static benchmarks?
Thanks,

Mike.

 

WOW! Go away on a work trip for a week and it takes about 30 mins to catch up!!!!

Unfortunately, No the 330watt adapter is not compatible without modification with an existing 240 watt adapter.
Or you could combine two 240 watt adapters as Aarpcard and myself have done.

However, we are waiting on a BIOS update to remove the throttling as the laptop knows it is meant to be a 240 watt adapter and tries to keep power consumption around that figure.

As for your CPU query, it depends on what CPU you are talking about and also in what relation you are referring to a bottleneck. If you are running a non-extreme processor there may be a slight bottleneck, in games but you wont have to worry about power consumption issues. An extreme processor definitely has the grunt but can result in power consumption problems which can be avoided by not overclocking the processor and undervolting the GPU's.

I am using Throttlestop and I have made a profile for each game that I am playing depending on how much the CPU and GPU's are being used (using trial and error and a Watt meter). For example BF3 runs pretty much at stock, whereas Skyrim can run the CPU at a full overclock as the game relies a little more on the CPU rather than the GPUs (Damn console port).
I run a CPU under-clock when using Furmark for obvious reasons.

Guys, regarding the new Dell driver, whats the verdict?! I imagine it cant be that much better then the 11.10....

 

I can buy Dell 6990m card in a good price.
The fan issue is the only disadvantages?

Or there is also sleep/hibernate/battery/shutdown issue?

 

You will certainly have fan problems, but this can be remedied by using HWINFO32.

I have heard\experienced mixed things regarding the sleep/hibernate/battery/shutdown problems....however I am inclined to say that you should expect that you will have these issues as well.

 

It looks it's better not to buy this card.

 

TBH the Eurocom\Clevo cards are the best in terms of compatibility, however you will not have audio over HDMI.

 

I know about clevo. I could have this dell card for ~300$ so the price is quite nice.
But I'm going to wait for new 7000 series. Maybe they will fit to R2 (I hope)

 

They do have their problems but sometimes if the price is low enough it is worth it

 

Douse welcome back!

 

Thanks!

Good to be back

 

You'll definitely have fan problems. If you can find the right vbios, you shouldn't have sleep/hibernate/battery/shutdown issues though.

Is it a 6990, or a 6970? I have no experience with 6990's but I assume they'd be nearly the same if not completely the same.

I'm using a Eurocom card in conjuncture with my Dell card. It was a challenge to get them to work together, but now that I have them working, the only serious issues I have are fan problems. I do get throttling above stock clocks and issues where the slave card's shader will max at 106.5C. I also get hard shut downs. However all of these only occur if I'm above stock clocks. It is stable enough to play games at the clocks in my sig for quite some time.

I'm not sure if the problems I'm having are related to the Dell+Eurocom combo or something else. I'm pretty sure the throttling and 106.5C shader temp can be attributed to improper heatsink contact on the slave gpu. I tried fixing it with little success. I'm going to try again. I'm pretty sure the hard shut downs can be attributed to the Dell card.

In order to get the set up to work I had to do a lot of jostling with vbios's and video card configurations.

-The Dell card HAS to be in the master slot. The computer will not post if the card is not in the master slot. Instead it will freeze at the bios splash screen.

-Using M18x vbios's on both cards will result in windows being unstable as well as fan/sleep/hibernation/battery/shutdown issues. The computer will post and if you're lucky, you will be able to get into windows though.

-Using REV1 X7200 Clevo vbios's will allow the computer to post and complete windows stability. However, you will still have the fan/sleep/hibernation/battery/shutdown issues.

-Using REV2 X7200 Clevo vbios's will again allow the computer to post and complete windows stability. The only issue you will have with this vbios combo is the fan problem. (I've since modded these vbios's to lower the core voltage on 3D performance clocks to 0.96v.)

-Every single combination of vbios pairs with the Eurocom card in the Master slot and the Dell card as the slave will result in the computer freezing at the post screen. The Dell card HAS to be the master.

I believe these are the only official vbios's available for the 6970m's. If anyone knows of any other vbios's with CFX support please let me know and I'll try them. I'm not too knowledgeable on the 6990m vbios revisions. I don't know if there are two x7200 versions. The only reason my 6970m's are stable is because I got lucky with the second X7200 vbios. It is unknown whether or not the X7200 6990 vbios will behave similarly for the Dell+Eurocom 6990's. Again I'm unsure if you've purchased 6970's or 6990's. Another user, xeroxide, has successfully crossfired a Dell 6990 with a Eurocom 6970. Yes read that again. No Typo. If you're going to be using 6990's maybe he can answer some more of your questions eventhough he has a really unique set up. I'm thinking of doing the same - selling my Dell card and buying a Eurocom 6990 for CFX with the Eurocom 6970. I've really about had it with the throttling/hard shut down problems on any kind of an OC.

-I haven't tried using non-paired vbios's with the cards - i.e. 1 Dell vbios and 1 Clevo vbios. Does anyone know if there are any permanent risks associated with attempting this? I still am hoping for a combination where I can use the Eurocom card as my Master because I think that too may help solve some of the issues I talked about earlier in this post.

An added bonus is the fact that if the Dell card is the Master, Displayport Audio DEFINITELY works and I suspect HDMI audio will work too. I haven't confirmed HDMI audio, but Displayport audio and HDMI audio using a Displayport to HDMI adapter DO indeed work.

 

Has anyone experienced a situation where their slave card turned on inconsistently? After trying to do the 5% OC in the bios, my slave card deactivated and wasn't being recognized in device manager OR atiflash -i. I turned off the 5% OC and after a few reboots, I got my crossfire back.

That was yesterday. When I got home from a meeting this morning I turned on my machine and the second card was not being recognized. I uninstalled the drivers on my master card and had drivesweeper clean out all of the AMD stuff. I reseeded the slave card, turned it on and the computer recognized it. I uninstalled the drivers on it via device manager and when I rebooted, it was gone.

As per Greywolf's advice, I then removed that little battery in the back of my machine for a few minutes to reset my BIOS (because the issue seemed to start when I tried to do the 5% bios OC). The first time I turned the machine on I booted straight to USB and atiflash didn't find the card. I then booted to windows and the card was there. I reinstalled the drivers on the card and its still showing up (at least for the two reboots I've done). I haven't done any benching yet to check its integrity, but I will after this post.

Since the tech pasted everything horribly, I repasted the CPU and the master card. The only reason I haven't repasted the slave yet is because the temps were fine. If you look back on the thread, you'll see the horrible pictures of the tech's paste job on the other two components. Could a bad paste job be causing an occasional short? Should I just repaste the slave? I hate to do that, and then end up having to switch the slots anyway and switch the heatsinks again / repaste and end up doing even more.

What do you all think?

 

Speaking of 6990's...

I really would like to order the 6990's (better gaming longevity) and since I don't really have any intention of oc'ing them nor my cpu (820qm)...it seems from the various threads we are able to run them in crossfire with our 240w power supplies as long as we don't overclock the gpu's or cpu. Did I read that right??

Is there any progress on a modified system bios to support the m18x power supply if and when we want to reliably overclock?

I saw how 2 of the m17x crew have spliced together 2x240w supplies. Is that a real alternative? I'm not afraid to solder given a schematic

 

Undervolting the 6990's is fine if you don't intend to overclock.

Also, in regards to my previous post: I was able to get the 5% OC in the bios and it didn't increase my temps at all. 3dmark 11 score went up as well.

For some odd reason the card seems to be working fine right now. I have no idea what happened. It seems that, since I got the drivers reinstalled on the card, its worked. I may repaste it anyway just to be safe, I don't know. I honestly don't know what to make of any of this. I feel like, regardless of driver issues, the card should have been recognized by atiflash. I don't know why in the hell its working.

EDIT: Makes 0 sense. I've rebooted a few times and its working great with the 5% OC. No issues. Does anyone know what the hell is going on? Could it have been a driver issue, even though atiflash didn't see it? I'm so lost. I don't want to repaste it if its working, but I also don't want it to stop working.

 

Hi Douse, thanks for that info! I'm using a 920xm processor that I rarely overclock. It might be easier for me to undervolt the GPUs slightly and keep throttling at bay. I am still curious to find out how you combined the two 240W PSUs...

Edit 1: "I saw how 2 of the m17x crew have spliced together 2x240w supplies. Is that a real alternative? I'm not afraid to solder given a schematic" - I AM NOT DOING THAT!

 

^aww, it's just a hot metal object, solder and maybe a few diodes, resistors, and cap's...hehehehe

Though I admit to not being too excited about lugging 2 power supplies around when I move room to room

 

Haha yeah, easy for some! I was 11 last time I used a solder and it was to create some kind of funky clock for a school project xD
A few years have passed!

 

I still don't know what to make of it...makes no sense to me.

 

So so so... how far are we behind the M18X in terms of xfire gaming performance? I mean these are mean looking specs in your sigs with the 6990M or 6970M crossfire setups in bold and red but in terms of gaming (Metro 2033, Battlefield 3, Arkham city...) have benchmarks been done prior to and after replacing the GPUs on the M17X-R2?
Cheers,

The frog.

 

I max everything on BF3 and that's at 1900x1200 not 1900x1080. Our systems are plenty capable. Id only trade for a maxxed out Clevo x7200/ Sager NP7280. I would miss the RGB though

 

Yeah, one of the valid reasons I am not upgrading to the M18X, that screen is like white wine in a cheese fondue, simply necessary!
Since you re using the maxed out specs for the R2, did you undervolt your cards at all? Or are you using different throttlestop profiles depending on the game you're running (much like Douse)?
Cheers

 

Unless you're overclocking the cards, there's no need to keep at stock voltage. Undervolting reduces power draw / heat and runs great for stock clocks. I ran benchmarks before and after the undervolt and I had no difference whatosever. I'm running a my processor 5% BIOS overclocked with 2 6990's @ .96V and my idle temps on my processor are between 40-45C and my temps on my cards never go past 75C. Usually they never go past 70C, but I've seen them hit 75. I also have a really nice NZXT Cryo cooling pad, but before I was using the pad you can +5C to all my temps (even before the pad my cards never went past 76-77C).

 

Here are some updated pictures of the adapter I made. I've since added an LED isolated to the main PSU so I can easily tell if it's breaker has tripped. The schematic is a little bit different so if people want me to upload an updated one I could do that. Here are some new pictures. I would highly recommend putting this in an enclosure if you decide to build it. The heatsink connected to the diodes doubles as a ground. As a result, if the heatsink touches the metal case of your laptop (which is also a ground), it will spark and trip both breakers in both PSU's. After they're reset no worries.

I also made a custom power plug - basically spliced two 3 pronged cables together so I still only had to plug my dual PSU's into a total of ONE outlet. Because the power supplies are slim, they stack nicely. You could easily secure them together with some electrical tape. Then it would be no different than carrying around 1 big PSU like the 330 watt PSU for the X7200.





However, if you are interested in this I would really go back to HERE and then read from about page 75 up until that point as the entire process is detailed very nicely throughout.

 

I only had a single experience where windows didn't recognize my slave card. The circumstances aren't like yours at all though. I think either a corrupted vbios, bad connection, or something else was the problem I had. Yours sounds like it might be a faulty connection. As long as there isn't any thermal grease in the MXM slot or on the pins, there's no way a faulty paste could be causing this. Read below:

I'm pretty sure I corrupted my vbios and got extremely extremely lucky.

 

Awesome! I am so looking forward to this now! A fun little project to undertake! I just need to buy the cooling pads now, I have a tube and a half of MX-3 and steady hands tostart the job as soon as the cards arrive
Cheers!

 

Nope, no throttlestop profiles. I only use throttle stop when I'm not gaming. So when I run virus scans and such my CPU has more power, but for gaming that's not needed. I have my cards undervolted to 1.0v, but will be undervolting them to .96v soon.

 

Yea, I didn't have any power left in there.

Is it possible that the issue resolved itself and I'll be fine now? lol

As far as temps go, I don't think they could be better Here's a throttlestop temp log (damn hwinfo64 keeps crappign out and won't update CPU temps) of a game of SC2. Everythings on ultra settings. I've got the 5% OC on, as well.

EDIT: Also, even though my temps are good, I still notice my keyboard getting pretty warm over the master card when I'm gaming. I never noticed that with the old cards.

You all have the same issue?

 

Your temps are very nice, I wouldn't be touching a thing! Hopefully you don't have that strange issue again, but if you do try simply reseating the cards, and as is suggested make sure there is nothing on the pins. I don't think the CPU overclock could have caused this, however increasing the FSB does have an impact on the PCI bus, but 5% is very minor....Are you cards undervolted atm? Perhaps try to increase your voltage to stock as the increase in hertz could have been too much with the undervolt. I have come across some strange issues when my cards were undervolted....

My first thought was ULPS deactivating your card, but it should at least be available when using atiflash....

BTW, I am still shocked about that paste job that was done on your CPU! YUCK!

As for the warm keyboard, this is nothing to worry about either. My laptop used to do this with the 5870's when they were clocked up quite high.

One thing I would like to clarify, are you using an application like HWINFO32 to monitor your temps? As solely the GPU temperature is not the one that you should be monitoring, it is your memory and shader I/O temps.

 

@IntenseIGFX Glad to see your temps are so good! Also good to see that the crossfire issue was resolved. Like Douse said, the 5% shouldn't have anything to do with it, but it may have been a driver that hiccuped when booting into wiindows. If you notice, when crossfire is enabled, it takes an extra second or two to load windows because it has to initialize and load the driver for both cards. Maybe something happened there during the loading. Eitherway, glad it's worked out. Don't mess with it!

Also like Douse said, watch the Shader and mem temps. I use HWinfo64. Make sure you get the latest version.

 

My shaders temp are a bit warmer than the other sensors. between 2 to 5 degrees depending