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

Good luck!! Let us know how it goes!

 

flashed cards at .96, this time i could play Crysis longer then 4 minutes.. but Kinda laggy.. eventually the pc shutted down again !

 

hmmm, you might try flashing them a bit higher (maybe 1.0v). I believe DR650 is running his at 1.02V? I know some folks haven't been stable at .96.

Also if you are doing any overclocking (CPU or bios) you might try turning that off as well. I know the 6990's push the power supplies a bit more then the 6970's, so that may help as well.

Maybe some of the other guys running 6990's have some other suggestions...

 

Once you've tried undervolting your cards (stable) AND lowering the brightness on your screen AND disabled all CPU overclocking, just lower the game settings.

Of course you could create a 480W power supply like a few of the guys on this forum (Douse included) have done.

I don't see any other solution

 

I suppose another possibility is that the power supply itself is the culprit...not able to sustain enough power...the undervolting should have helped alleviate that a bit, although without a kill-a-watt reader (or something similar) I don't know for certain how to prove that. And I wouldn't suggest buying another one just to test a theory.

If I remember correctly someone had a similar problem with a power supply causing issues such as this as well (Intense maybe?).

 

EDIT:: Sorry, didn't realise there was another page Ahh well, it still applies in regards to explaining how it works. Doh! Thenzfarmer is on the money, try what he has suggested to see if it is power throttling

Original Post:

You need to bring down the voltage for your 3D clocks, which are the 715/900.

To elaborate, when you hold your mouse button on those numbers (715 or 900) you will see it highlight some other fields (should be 004). These are the different clocks\voltages for that profile. So medium and high for this example. So when you open a game, the clocks will generally step from the 2D clocks to 004 and then to 001 (715/900)

The other profiles are used for things such as when you are running on battery, have a monitor plugged in etc. They are highlighted by the 'Powerplay States Structure' and should also highlight when holding the mouse button over a profile.

Technically all you need to do it bring down the 1.1v to something like 0.96 and see how you go. However you can change the others if you like, as Greywolf has done.

 

Yesterday i still could play Formula 1 2011, Now when im past the menu ready to get in the game it just freezes or BSOD.. !!

seriously what a fun this is !

 

Are you undervolted?

 

ye its weird, yesterday i undervolted at .96, Installed formula 1..that game i could play smoothless in crossfire no problems.. today i try to play the game again gives me crashes & BSOD.. now i quickly flashed the cards to 1.v and the game runs smooth again hm..

No ideas what other games will give me Like Battlefield 3 Oh dear thats a killer

 

That is the problem with undervolting, it may seem stable and then the next thing you know it is unstable.

Personally, I wasn't stable until I reached 1.02 volts. It depends entirely on your cards.

I would leave it at 1 volts for a while and if you are happy with it, start dropping down by 0.01. Or just leave it at 1, you should notice an improvements in temps and power draw over stock

 

Yeah thats what im going to do if this wont work out i just drop to 0.01.v like you say... it just sucks We can't have the M18x Adapter to work !!

Im going keep myself busy tomorrow when i have day off from work...
Can't really take my time now

Anyways Thanks douse verry helpfull !

*Also these temps at my master card is also not right its to high While not gaming !!! guess i have to repaste that card since id probably did sumthing wrong not sure !

 

Hrrm, unless you have an external monitor plugged in (which it doesn't seem so by looking at your clocks) then yes it is a little high.

My primary sits at a little over 60C when I have a monitor plugged in as clocks go to 400/900

 

Ok, just checking if perhaps reflashing my bad card could work. i was able to get a gpuz of both cards, and it seems the bad card is stuck at gpu core 100mhz and gpu mem 150htz. in comparizon my good card reads 250 and 900 respectively. Any ideas?

 

Odd...you could try flashing the bios from the good card onto the bad card (they should be the same bios, so won't impact anything). Just make sure you save a copy of the original bios just in case.

The other thing you could try, is to set the clocks using Trixx and see how it works if you force it to a specific setting.

 

Is there a step by step guide that walks me on how to get the original bios from one and then flashing it onto the other one?

By the way... the snapshot I included is from 2 seperate windows sessions... I still cant get both cards to work at the same time

ok, I think I know how to make a copy of the bios. Odly enough, the computer oly allowed meto make a backup of the good card (the bad card wether active or disabled) displayed an error saying backup was not suported by the device. Just sharing to see if thsi info shines any light on my next step. I will still try to flash bios on bad card

does it matter than the backup i have has extension bin, while the instructions i have read refered to a rom ?

nm, the instructions i had from before refered to a post on page 316... but i dont see it there

So if anyone can kindly point me to the guide, ill appreciate it

I also noticed on GPUZ that bus interface it reports the card is using 8x even thpugh it supports 16x ..... is that normal?

 

Hi Ricard, refer to section III on the first post in this thread. Should cover flashing the bios. Just make sure you use YOUR bios file.

Also make sure you have the latest version of ATI flash as well (some older versions report errors)

 

Yes it is normal for the second card to read as 8x

Not sure why it says .bin.

How did you backup the vBios? did you use Atiflash to do so? This is the way that I would recommend, but first you need to boot to DOS

First run 'atiflash -i' to display the adapters.

They should both show.

Then to save; for the first card:

'Atiflash -s 0 6990a.rom'

For the second card:

'Atiflash -s 1 6990b.rom'

This will save two vBios files. 6990a.rom for the first card and 6990b.rom for the second card.

 

i think i ll get my 6970s to 0.98 from 0.96 as some flickering on certain games may be because of it. I hope i wont remember power draw again

 

the second card? thats odd, the bad card is disabled, so tis should be the first card... right?

Also, where ca i get ATI FLASH (ltest version) from?

 

Hello everyone,

I just installed my crossfire 6990m GPUs 2 days ago. i received them a week ago, i was just waiting on my thermal past + pads to arrive from FrozenCpu. took them about 2 weeks to get here *never using USPS again*. i been fallowing this thread for about a month and half now. and It helped me out a lot. So i would like to thank everybody who helped, gave their feed back and provided us with instructions on how to make this happen. i really appreciate it and i am forever grateful to you guys.I documented the process of me upgrading my GPU and i am gonna make a lil thread/post about it later on. this might be my first post but i been an active "reader" here on the forum. I will also include some of the things i found difficult to process during the installation.

Anyway, the heat sink fit in nicely, i got crossfire to work, no major issues what so every. my temps are beyond excellent compared to what they were before. i had thermal throttling issues with old crossfire 5870s. when i ran Furmark for 3-2 mil, my temps would reach 113 Celsius. and currently, my cards temps while idle are 38-41 celsius. and while running at full capacity are 67-75 Celsius. I am not getting any BSOD or crashing while gaming. So far, i count my self very lucky and i feel bad for those who had far worst luck. Richard specifically ... i cant imagine how you feel mate

I tried running crysis 2 on full screen 1920x1200, DX 11 High res, Ultra settings and i experienced some low fps and lag issue. my Fps would range from 19-40 while in an active environment. and on BF3, Ultra setting, full screen, i am getting around 36-45 avg while in an active environment. is that normal because i expected far more better performance than this. i am using ccc 12.1 and i installed CAP 12.1. and btw i did not under-volt my cards yet. i tried lowering my brightness to the lowest setting available but i didn't see a huge difference (a increase of 2-5 FPS, or nothing at all). So i am not sure what to do. Do you guys think its normal or do i need to under-volt my cards? and is the low fps i am experiencing related to that, and if so, whats the safest and best method you guys recommend me to use to under-volt my cards?

Alienware M17x R2 | Black | i7-820QM | 8GB DDR3 1990MHz | RGB LED 1200P | 6990M Crossfire| 1T SATA 7200 RPM| RAZER NAGA | RAZER CHIMAERA 5.1|

 

What do you mean 100 Mhz & 150 Mhz ? Thats what i have on my cards also thats wrong or what ?

 

i was able to get the latest ati flash, and i saved both roms... but how can i tell whihc card is which? I know in windows cause it tells me PCI Bus 2 and 3.... but in here i get:

adapter 0
bn 02 (is that the bus number)
dn 00
did 6720
asic Barts
Flash m25p10/c
romsize 200000
test pass
bios pn -

did the flash but no go, cards still behaving the same. I guess ill try trixx and see what happens

wow, i tied trixx, and whne i tried to increae the clock from 100 to 150 it told me that ultra low power state was enabled on that card. Told me to go to setting and disable it..... any idea what that is all about?

And by the way, I did go to settings and tried to disabled it... but it would not disable. Its like its stuck in ulps.

Finally, i did a quik look at the bios with RBE and saw that both card bioses state a voltage of 1.1 and a clock of .9 .

Is that ok?

 

Everything seems fine. I think you're a bit confused about what the readings from atiflash and rbe mean. Anyhow here's a list of things.

-Disabling a card in windows does not disable it. The bios will still read it. Video will still be displayed through the card (if it is the primary) - disabling the card in windows only means it won't be detected by the drivers.

-Adapter 0 is referring to the card in MXM slot #0, which is the master slot, which is the left hand slot when you're looking at your computer screen.

-Adapter 1 is referring to the card in MXM slot #1, which is the slave slot, which is the right hand slot.

-Bus 3 probably refers to Adapter 0 and Bus 4 probably refers to Adapter 1.

-Can you confirm you tried disabling ULPS in TRIXXand not anywhere else. You do have to restart the computer after disabling ulps or it won't apply. Did you do that?

-Use atiflash and type the following commands:
"atiflash -ai 0"
"atiflash -ai 1"
That will test each card to see whether it can be detected by atiflash and give you some basic information about the cards. If atiflash can't detect the problem card then you have a problem.

-Try flashing the vbios's again - Use the same vbios for each card as the vbios that is currently on the card that is not giving you problems. The commands should be:
"atiflash -f -p 0 insertbiosnamehere.rom/.bin
"atiflash -f -p 1 insertbiosnamehere.rom/.bin
After each flash, atiflash will check the rom to see if the flash was confirmed successful. If it says the flash was successful and XXXXXX/XXXXXX bytes passed then the flash was a success.

-Did you say you already tried swapping the cards - even after flashing them to the good vbios?

-Use atiflash to save ONLY the good vbios from the good card - assuming the good card is in slot 0, this would be the command:
"atiflash -s 0 insertbiosnamehere"
Then flash both cards using ONLY that 1 vbios file.

- IMPORTANT Most people will say there's no need to do this, but you should definitely do this especially in your case. Everytime you flash a vbios to a card, you SHOULD reinstall the drivers after cleaning them with driver sweeper. I corrupted my 6970's vbios and I was experiencing some of THE SAME problems you are - After a long battle I finally managed to flash the card to a uncorrupted vbios. However, I was still having problem - a lot like what you described. I was about to give up but doing a clean install of the drivers after having flashed the clean vbios fixed absolutely everything.

 

thanks everybody, and tanks soo much aarp for the complete post.

i did not try a restart after trixx.... but i was not even able to move the slider for the clocks on the bad card. tomorrow ill definitely try more with the cards. I will also buy some thermal paste to try swaping cards. I didnt try swap before because I as hoping to get an rma from eurocom, but since they have closed that possibility for me (buyer beware), i might as well try that. all I know is that I only plan on swaping the bad card from slots (there is no chance lil put the last remaining goood card in diff slot). Anyways, tomorrow and over weekend, ill share my findings.

 

changed 6970s from 0.96V to 0.98V. everything working fine with maximum temps 71 and 71 (playing crysis 2 on extreme settings dx11) . Thus artifacts dissapeared from games that they did. Generally I could say they perform better than on 0.96. I have to test more though

 

been playing Medal of honor in crossfire, game runs smooth but still after few minutes everything freeze up..and only a restart through the alienhead is possible

This is really getting to annoyed to me so badly.. the fact that i actually paid more for the cards,then like an Xbox or PS3 gaming console, where you dont have to deal with this issues !

I bett one time its going to be enough for me and i just plant my fist in this keyboard

it doesn't measure up damn bs

 

That sucks. I havn't had any issues with my GPUs. And since I run F@h, my GPUs are always at 100% load. Been at 100% load for over a month at the moment. Freezing sounds like a driver issues and you'll have that no matter which card you have. Drivers are always causing issues.

 

Drivers do suck big time. Your issue does indeed sound like a driver problem.

I would recommend going through the process of uninstalling and cleaning out your drivers using driver sweeper (as Aarpcard has mentioned for Ricard) and then doing a complete reinstall.

I would also put your voltage back to stock whilst you do so and get your machine running well with ANOTHER game other then Crysis. It is known to cause issues and should not be used as a benchmark imo as throttling introduces another element in to the troubleshooting process. Perhaps keep testing with F1 or MoH as they are less demanding games (I think F1 doesn't use crossfire tho? Anyone confirm that?)

Then, once you are happy that the laptop is running well again try to undervolt until you find that sweet spot.

Just to let you know, I battled with driver installations for a LOOONG time and it turned out it was because of my undervolt.

So i recommend for those troubleshooting GPU issues, always return everything to stock

 

I just got back from the store bought another SSD drive ( Crucial M4 ) and i will be doing a clean install windows 7, So i dont have to deal with currupted drivers... Also bought Battlefield 3 will be testing when everything is back installed i really hope this is a driver problem cause its really getting to my head

 

ok, i just ran ati flash for detailed card info, and it detects both. They both have same bios. Guess my next step is a swap? or should i undervolt?

 

Good idea, a clean install will be wise.

BF3 is a good test as a game, but you may get throttling. Nothing like Crysis though.

Make sure you set your voltages to stock!!!!!

I wouldn't swap yet, and definitely do not undervolt.

Have you tried flashing the good vBios on both cards?

 

Man theese 6970ms are impossible to find on nbr.

 

I am having difficulty flashing my GPU's through dos. i downloaded the latest atiflash and i fallowed the instructions in the guide (i used HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool to format my usb stick, etc) and when i boot up my stick and type in the commands.

cd filename

atiflash -f -p 0 mybiosfile.rom
atiflash -f -p 1 mybiodfile2.rom

all i get is "bad command or filename" on both commands

i also tried atiflash -pa mybiosfile.rom and it didnt work. any idea what may be the problem?

_____________________
Alienware M17x R2 | Black | i7-820QM | 8GB DDR3 1990MHz | RGB LED 1200P | 6990M Crossfire| 1T SATA 7200 RPM| RAZER NAGA | RAZER CHIMAERA 5.1|

 

"bad command or filename" indicates that there is no atiflash file

Make sure you have copied it to the USB stick after it has been converted to a bootable drive.

To check, when booted in to DOS type 'dir' and make sure it is there, or just check in windows

 

Yup I tried (and apparently did) flash the bios on both cards (neaning i flashed good bios on bad card). It gave no errors and everything... yet the cards still behave the same.

So i am jsut wondering if there is anything else I can/should do before actually opening the laptop.?

 

Hrrm...so does the laptop boot with both cards enabled? Or is it only an issue when you turn on crossfire?

 

after converting my USD stick to a bootable drive, i created a new folder and named it "clevo". then i placed the latest atiflash in there, my orginal vbioses and the modded once. the original once are blackcomb and blackcomb1 and the modded once are 6990m and 6990s.

when i boot my usd stick through dos i type the fallowing commands:-

cd clevo

atiflash -f -p 0 6990m.rom
atiflash -f -p 1 6990s.rom

and none of them work



_____________________
Alienware M17x R2 | Black | i7-820QM | 8GB DDR3 1990MHz | RGB LED 1200P | 6990M Crossfire| 1T SATA 7200 RPM| RAZER NAGA | RAZER CHIMAERA 5.1|

 

The filename is not 'atiflash.exe', but 'atiflash-3.95.exe'

Rename to atiflash.exe and you should be good to go

 

It is only when I enable xfire. here is a rundown of the scenarios i have tested:

1-I boot with both cards enabled in normal mode = It hangs during the windows 7 Logo Blooming Animation

2-I boot with both cards enabled in safe mode - computer boots fine in VGA mode (as it does in safe mode)

3-I boot with only Good card enabled normal mode = everything runs fine as it should be, with one card... can play swtor, temps are normal etc

4-I boot with only bad card enabled normal mode = computer runs in VGA mode, gives a message warning of driver problem

5-I boot with good card enabled, and then activate bad card = computer feezes (same as hang)

I have performed all thsi tests before and after Bios flashing.
Also treid to modify clocks in bad card with TRIXX, but sliders are all set to 0 and cant move them.

The only thing that gives me hope is that the computer boots with the bad card alone (in vga mode), with no artifacts/etc. My previous damaged cards would not boot, or would rpesent artifacts in boot/bios screens.

I have noticed that bad card alone has odd clock info (like its stuck in a low power mode or something)

Again, all i want is to exhaust all possibilities available before opening the laptop. I beleive the only thing i have yet to test is change coltage.

 

The low clocks would just be the card sitting in 2D clocks which is 150/100.

Ok, so it boots fine until you apply the drivers. Because safe mode loads without them.

I know you probably have, but have you tried removing the drivers and performing a driver clean as Aarpcard has suggested. This will allow you to boot in to windows without safe mode.

Download the latest drivers and reapply them. You can even try some older ones if you like, perhaps 11.9? I dont think many people have had many problems with the news ones so they *should* be ok....

Give that a whirl and let us know how it goes.

Just to clarify, you mention it only happens when you enable crossfire, but the first scenario you mention that it hangs when both cards are enabled. So this is when crossfire is enabled, yes? So if you dont have crossfire enabled it boots fine?

 

It boot fines with the good card enabled ONLY (bad card disabled)

with the bad card enabled only (meaning good card disabled), the computer boots fine but in VGA mode, and i get a message that there was a problem with the drivers

 

Oh ok, so regardless of crossfire it just does not boot with the bad card enabled in to normal windows unless in Safe mode (no drivers)

Right, have you tried the driver suggestion? Especially since the Vbios flash? I would do this before switching the card

 

trying now booting with only bad card enabled after a cc and driver sweeper run. Will proceed to install older drivers if possible... will keep you posted

It booted into windows, using standrar vga adapters, but on hardware list it shows with the warning traingle and states code 10, device could not start

 

Guess what guys !! A new WINDOWS 7 installation did the trick... I installed crysis 2 again and OH GOD i runs smoother then ever !

also no more freezes and no more BSOD/shut downs... I guess it really was driver related !! Been Playing now for almost a hour No problems at all !

Thanks for all the help from all' of you !

Next game Should be BF3

 

Oh.....that doesn't seem good to be honest.

Go ahead with the driver install anyway.

Another long shot, are you running the latest BIOS for you laptop? Perhaps reset your BIOS or perform a power drain or upgrade\reflash

Also, before switching the heatsinks etc, maybe just try to reseat the card in the same mxm slot.

You could also perform a reinstall of windows as Trulyfatal has done to be sure there isn't something dodgy software wise.

Nice mate! Drivers can be a real pain in the rear! Glad it is working for you.

 

ok, tried to install the driver with only bad card enabled.

11.6 failed (it didnt even load the display drivers)

12.1 treid to install, and froze in middle

 

Try 11.9, they were very stable

Also, reset your BIOS to defaults, it is easy but should eliminate any hardware config settings that may cause problems

Another thing don't have your good card disabled...I don't know how things would work using the secondary as a single card....never done this before!

 

tried everything, and still same ol same ol. Defaults on bios, etc.

I have come to the conclusion that I either have to try to flash bios again, just to see if I luck out... or else switch cards from slots.

I did one final attempt at begging eurocom to do an rma for teh card. Hope to hear from them soon (one way or another). If they accept the rma then i am done and will jsut keep one card.

If they dont, then ill start the swaps to see if the busses have an issue,

also, i know this probably has no relevance, but i have noted that my alienhead button sometimes changed from solid to kind of a cycling color fading mode (only for a few secs). Almsot like when its charging the battery... even though battery says its fully charged.

Could it be that my card does not have enough juice to keep with teh cards?

 

That is normal, mine used to do that as well (when I had my battery in).

Not sure mate

If you really want to try everything you can before switching the card, your last resort is to do a format and a fresh install of windows. That way you can pretty much completely rule out software as being the issue.

 

I agree with Douse...the next thing I'd do is switch the bad card into the first slot and try to boot it up...if it hangs, you can try doing a fresh install. If all that fails...then I'd say that second card is definitely a problem. Hope Eurocom can help you out.

Hey Douse,

Thanks for all your help with everyone! Was gonna rep you, but gotta spread it around a bit.