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

Actually I just upgraded to 12.1 to see if it'd crash my machine like 11.11 and 11.12 did. It didn't, plus my vantage score and 3dmark score saw a nice little increase. So no real reason in general other then the recommendation from AMD that all gamers should use it.

Metro runs great, just crashes on exit...which is odd. It's not a big concern as its still very playable...just strange that it would only crash on exit. Everything else (Crysis 2, Witcher 2, WoW, Civilization V) all run fantastic on 12.1. I suppose if I come across any other stability problems I'd considering downgrading again, but for now I can live with it.

 

Just a heads up... I finally got my xfire 6990s working. Turns out i had reveived a bad card. Eurocom replaced the card, and everything is running perfect. No need to reflash the cards or anything.. just install and run drivers. I installed 11.10 and later changed to 12.1 beta.
Eurocom has very helpful and knowledgeable staff... it might take some timw to get one on the line (i think it might be a holiday thing), but once you do, they are wesome

I judt converted my m17xr2 to xfire 6990's. Everything is running fine... but i read alot of posts on temeratures, etc... can anyone provide info on what should i run to monitor my performance and temps, and are te values i need to stay within?

 

Ricard, try HWINFO64 to monitor

For performance, you can run 3dmark11 and Vantage. With the numbers we can see if you are running good

 

Awesome Ricard...glad you got it working. Eurocom has been really great...glad that they are available to provide great parts and great support for our machines.

 

YOu can probably undervolt them to .96v to keep temps even lower, and reduce power consumption, but above all. Enjoy them!

Also may want to contain the discussion to the 6970/6990 R2 thread

 

i tried running 3dmark11, and at some points video freezes... or turns black... while music still playing... forced to turn of laptop an restart... any ideas?

 

Nice, I also saw a performance increase going from 11.9 to 12.1

Well everyone, I am off traveling for the Christmas break so internet will probably be sparse.

So an early MERRRRRY CHRISTMAS to all! I hope that everyone can give their new video cards a good work out over the break

 

Douse,

Have safe travels and Merry Christmas to you and your family as well!

May Santa bring all those who are still waiting on 6970's and 6990's their cards for under the tree

 

OK i am about to throw my m17xr2 out the window!!! After I tried to run a 3dmark test my machine ( which crashed my rig)its basically unusable in xfire mode. Last think I think I could try is undervolting (as mentioned by DR650SE). Can anyone point me to the step on doing this
I am starting to regret doing this upgrade. Heck ill even pay someone to walk me through the process via skype... i am desperate

 

Hey,

Greywolf, I had that crashing problem with Metro 2033 as well which is why I reverted to 11.10 (which I finally found) and the issue has disappeared - entirely. The screen used to flash again and again until BSOD, now it doesn't happen anymore, and how beautiful is the Metro at max settings :_)

Ricard, have you tried flashing the cards yet?

 

nope. Could you point me to the vbios that i should use to flash?

 

See the top comment on page 316 of this thread and use DR650SE's vBios.
Download atiflash.
To flash the vbios, you need to create a bootable usb, copy the atiflash utility (included in the package) onto it and then the vbios (6990M.ROM & 6990S.ROM).
Restart, boot on the usb and type "atiflash -i" to check your two cards are on there.
If they are, proceed with flashing, type the following:

atiflash -p 0 6990M.ROM

let it do its thing, it will ask you to restart, don't! - now type this:

atiflash -p 1 6990S.ROM

let it do its thing and once it has, ctrl+alt+del and boot into windows, your cards should be flashed.

 

it is strange, on disablked xfire, everything runs great. The moment i enable xfire, and run a game... i get bsod (which didnt happen before trying to run 3dmark). I am runing stock 6990s from eurocom

 

aweomse isntructiong, going to try it right now

 

Good luck!

 

I would HIGHLY recommend undervolting. There's NO reason not to if you're not going to overclock, which, without a bigger PSU, you can't.

 

Thanks thenzfarmer for the confirmation on Metro 2033. Glad it wasn't just mine

 

it never asked me to restart, on both isn tances it said card already flashed

 

Also got anotehr BSOD trying toi run game

 

Ok then, try to undervolt now.
Read the instructions posted by technos ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/600465-6990m-undervolt-achieved.html#post7777473) and I recommend saving your BIOS with gpu-z, create a copy, paste that copy onto your usb, load your BIOS with RBE and change the voltage to 0.96V in the one that shows up as 1.1 (second tab of RBE).
Save the change for both .ROMs (they must both reflect the same voltage!) and go through the flashing process again.
If that doesn't work, I recommend you try a different video driver and ensure throttlestop is disabled before you try any GPU intensive benchmarks.
They will work! Stay positive

 

The undervolt should work fine. With my cards properly undervolted I've been having a blast, with great performance and solid temps!

 

ok, i am moving along the isntructions.... i see in gpuz the option to sabe the bios... i did this..... I asume i have to do this twice... one for each card?

 

might be the same bios, but I'd save both just in case

 

Also, gpuz saves them as Bin files..... so recaping, will save each bin... one for backup and one for moddifying. And what shoulod ni name each bin... default name for both seems to be blackcomb

 

You can pretty much name them whatever you want as long as you know which is which

 

ok i flashed and am now in windows... now what?

 

crap i restarted game and got sae lockup

 

how do i disable throttlestop?

 

going to try 11.6 drivers now

 

Do you use throttlestop? It's a program we use to overclock our CPUs within windows. If you haven't used it, don't worry about it.
Can you please take and upload a screenshot of the RBE voltage tab for the vbios you just flashed?
Also, just for the fun of it, maybe try switching the cards around? And check the Xfire cable is correctly fitted on both GPUs.
I would stick to 11.10 and 12.1 as that's the one most of us use.
Also, have you got the application profiles installed?

 

Can you simply uninstall throttlestop? I've never used it

 

ok;

Never had throttlestop, so no need to unistall
goping tot ake pic now and post

 

links to pics

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o178/ricard2798/Capture1.png

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o178/ricard2798/Capture2.png

 

Yeah the voltage looks right

 

i am reshuffling the cards

 

Make sure you repaste both cards and the thermal pads are still sticky. If you reseat the heatsink without repasting (make sure you clean it thoroughly before repasting) then air bubbles will form and the paste won't work nearly as well. I know its a pain in the , but everytime you reseat that heatsink, you have to repaste .

 

ok this is extremely disconcerting. NOw wehn i boot into windows, i get themopuse cursoir, beut everything else is nblack!

 

sorry about my typing, i kind of had a fall this weekend, and have my hand on a sling

 

primnary card is n ot displaying correclty was able to log intop windows (guessing the password position, but everything is dark!

 

been able to slowly see winbdows, but windows do not display the text, etc... seems like teh card or driver is messed up

 

now during post screen flickered and got random artifacts

 

Someone teach me to add my gpu id to some drivers so I can install firepro drivers. How do I get the id and where do I add it?.

 

Wow, seems like you're having some issues. Try fully uninstalling drivers. Do you get artifacts in safe mode? Do you know how to do a clean install of drivers? Drive sweeper / ccleaner?

 

i have been using driver sweeper... but i am getting artifacts EVEn when I see the Alien Head in the original laptop post... immediately after i press power on the laptop

 

could be your secondary card is messed up (now that it's moved to the primary slot). Was that the one that Eurocom replaced?

But I agree do a clean uninstall of the drivers and try to reinstall...it's also possible that they may be under-volted TOO much.

Might try upping it to 1.0 and see if the artifacts go away (just some things to try)

 

Could be a bios or an undervolt problem then.

I'd try reflashing the bios on the primary card and see if that helps.

 

yup that was teh replaced card... it was working fine UNTIl i ran the freaking 3d mark, which seems to have broken everything

 

ok, i just reflashed the first bios I placed on teh cards... and still getting artifacts in the pc bios boot screen... even on the boot menu where i select USB

 

Just bought a 6990m. Hopefully getting it to CFX with the 6970m will be as easy as xeroxide found it to be. Might be lucky and get it before Christmas.

 

i think its safe to assuem my upgrade attempt is a fail... i dont know what else to do