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

Thanks Greywolf!

Only trying to give back to the community what was given to me

 

You need to swap the card. Further more how is Eurocom gonna find out if you did - so long as you swap them back and they already said no RMA.

Swapping the cards will determine if it is a card problem of a MXM slot problem - also might allow you to correct the problem on the bad card. You're not making any progress at all by refusing to open your laptop. . . .

I'm still not sure why you sent your laptop to Eurocom in the first place . . . if the MXM slot is the culprit, it's very possible they were the ones who damaged it - Eurocom doesn't have a stellar PR record afterall.

 

well, bought thermal paste, and will try the swap later tongiht or tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me, or pray or amuthing for me... ill take jsut about all the help I can get right now...

Anyways, will keep you all posted

Ok, I Want To Murder Someone At Eurocom. Look At This Picture And Tell Me If You See Something Wrong. One Card Has Pads Installed Correctly... The Second Has The Amazing Floating Thermal Pad

 

PRIME example why the only one allowed to work on my system is me.

 

lol Wow. Another reason why eurocom is not a good company to deal with.

Opening your laptop should have been the first thing you did.

If the card is permanently damaged and adding thermal pads doesn't fix it, then Eurocom owes you compensation - but judging from past experiences they will avoid it at all costs.

 

Heck, they stole TurboTalon's work and flat out ditched him.

 

That's not even the beginning of it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/428062-official-disclosure-my-very-bad-experience-eurocom.html

 

Well I Swaped The Bad Card To A Diff Buss, And Got Artifacts All Over The Place... Puple Strivs In Alienhead Bios Boot, And Then In Atiflash -i 3 Columns Of Red Striped

Will Post Pics Soon, But I Bet This Means My Card Is Dead. Will Definitely Call Eurocom On Monday To Complain About Their Bad Instllation, But I Guess I Just Lost One Card

I SHOULD PROBABLY LEAVE ONE CARD OUTSIDE (THE BAD ONE) AND ONE CARD INSIDE (THE GOOD ONE)... RIGHT? oops sorry for caps, typing on my tablet sucks. anyways, i guess no sense in keeping the old card inside right?

 

I hope you can get somewhere with Eurocom. I really do. They broke potentially 2 of their own cards and you're out the cost plus shipping. Let us know how it goes.

 

will do aarp. I hope eurocom reads these forums and learns i am really playing nice. It is not my fault. it really isnt. and i am not a millionaire that can jsut throw his money away

well, for everyones enjoyment, i am going to give you all a cheap laugh. After determining my card was dead i proceeded to put everything in place sans the bad card. But genious over here, got the cards mixed up and put the bad card in place of the good card. If i was video taping this, I would have won 10k in americas funiest. I cried, scream and even talked with god asking him why.

As a last ditch effort, I tried using the other card, thinking of the possibility i had messed up.... Thank you lord, thank you

 

Good luck Ricard,

This is such an awful experience...and I think you clearly have enough evidence to show that the poor installation of the card could have lead to it dieing so quickly.

Unfortunately for everyone, Eurocom is one of the only resellers left who we can purchase cards through. I suppose one other would be mythlogic although I personally haven't dealt with them.

And unfortunately one of the biggest losses to the community was Phketan and his ability to provide Clevo parts at exceptionally reasonable prices.

I hope Eurocom comes through, I really do...although obviously based on what was done to Turbo as well as the other threads does leave a pretty sour taste in my mouth. I do know that some folks have had good dealings with Eurocom. I honestly think however, that what defines a company is the customer service of said company and not how they handle the day-to-day problems (RMA a single card, reply to a simple e-mail, etc), but rather how they stand-by their products regardless of the circumstance and how they handle the occasional one-off that requires a bit more time (and maybe even a little money) to keep a customer satisfied.

With a community this large, and with such a specialized service, you would think that they would want to be as helpful as possible...does this mean that the occasional unscrupulous person might get away with something? Sure...but think about how many other customers they will obtain (or retain) by simply following that practice.

I dunno...off my soapbox for now...it's late and I'm tired, so I think I'm just preaching to the choir at this point.

Nite all!

 

OH MY GOD!!!

I am speechless......

This is meant to be a company that knows what they are doing right?

Ricard, I am really sorry that you are going through this! I would be so steamed!

Hopefully Eurocom apologise profusely and sort you out with a replacement or at least a full refund...

All the best with them, and let us know how you go.

 

Hi guys when i play battlefield 3, I still got lagg spikes and fps drops like constantly even on low settings hm.. is this normal or ?

im on AMD_Catalyst_12.2 & Catalyst_12.1_CAP1 drivers

hmm

 

If you want to get Eurocom's attention, you may want to contact Joker5150. He does stories for Tech Inferno. I had a guy at Eurocom say he'd give me $100 to put a 6990 in my R2 and give a brief explanation of any issues I had and how the install went. I gave them more than they asked for and never got my money.

 

will do, thanks for the info. I will first wait till monday. I want to at least give them the chance to own up to their mistake. If they dont wantto rma the card for a refund, then I will take it to the next level

thanks again

 

Can anyone tell me why my second card stays at 100 & 150 mhz all the time
when running furmark..

( i dont know in games ) I guess thats why i have laggs related in BF3, does this means the card is damaged or what ?

 

See here, Trulyfatal:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...xed-radeon-6990m-core-clock-stuck-100mhz.html

Cheers

 

thanks mate

 

I believe you have to run FurMark in full screen to use both GPUs?

 

Hello

I want to upgrade my 5870 Crossfire by 6990 Crossfire.

I've some questions :

- Just install the cards and it works ? Any change in the BIOS or Windows ?

- If I buy the cards, it's necessary to buy this : eBay | GPU Spreader / X-Bracket for MXM 3.0b AMD HD6970M/HD6990M VGA Modules

or I can take those of my 5870 ?

 

That's correct.

CFX only works in Fullscreen apps.

 

Hello and welcome to NBR.
Please refer to the first post of this thread, it contains most of the info you need.

 

Hi Gloops, as katalin stated a lot of your questions are answered on the first page of this post.

Regarding the heat spreader, it really depends on who you buy it from whether it's included or not. If it's not, then I'd definitely recommend buying one...the 5870 heat spreader WILL NOT FIT without modification (cutting off the corners for example), there are a few folks here who have done it, but I'd recommend getting one to fit the cards properly if available.

Hope that helps. Welcome to the forums!

 

Yes, correctly crossfire only works when full screen is enabled,im sorry my mistake !!! Thank you for correcting me.

 

Thank you for your answers

But, flashing the VBIOS is necessary to slve the problem of resolution (I will buy the cards to Eurocom) , and the files are only for the 6970...

Do you have the VBIOS Clevo for 6990M (Master and Slave) ?

 

sure here they are

 

Thank you very much trulyfatal

I have bought the 6990 on Ebay (Eurocom).

trulyfatal, do you have any issues with fans speed ? or other ?

 

No mate, Nothing.. Only problem that you should be aware of is that you can't do Audio over HDMI anymore..

so if you ever wanna watch a movie through youre laptop on tv you wont get sound

And i got my cards from the same dealer ,no complaints about it

 

Perfect ! Thank you

I want to keep my crossfire cable, the modification is necessary ?

I don't understand the modification, the cards are the same dimensions...

Or it's better to by a crossfire cable at this seller ?

 

if you order 2 cards @ ebay (Eurocom) you will get a free crossfire cable no charge.. but if you only buy 1x card you probably should order a crossfire cable with it costs around 34€ i tought
but since you're buying 2 cards you will get one for free.. dont worrie

And it fits perfectly no modification with elektric tape is needed anymore

 

Oh Perfect ! It's true !

Thank you for the information

I don't find benckmark (3D mark 06, 3D mark 11) with M17x R2 and Crossfire 6970 or 6990... to see the performances.

 

You can find them here:
Video card benchmarks - Best graphics card test - 3DMark

 

Yes but I don't find i7 940xm with 6970m or 6990m...

 

Ah, you mean benchmark results..

 

Yes... But it's not easy to find with this configuration lol

 

I would say to expect a score for 3DMark11 to be somewhere around P6000 - P6300.

I would say to expect a score around 20k - 21k for Vantage.

This is all assuming everything is running stock.

Overclocking you can hit 25K in Vantage and P7000 in 3DMark11

Here are my stock results:

AMD Radeon HD 6970M / 6990M video card benchmark result - Intel(R) Core(TM) CPU X 920 @ 2.00GHz,Alienware score: P19891 3DMarks

 

Thank you

It's good score !

What is the score with 3D mark 06 ?

 

3DMark06 won't be any higher with 6990s then it will with 5870's. See sig for details.

 

With my Crossfire 5870 , I've 19 500 points approximately...

How do you do to get this score DR650SE ??

 

Got an update on my ordel with the 6990 cards. Its nothing final, but I had a VERY FRIENDLY and AMICABLE conversation with Eurocom today. Nothing has been decided yet, but at least they are willing to listen and wrk with me. They requested I sent additional pics to them, which I will do tongiht.
Again, nothing final, but I am very tahnksful that at least they are willing to work with me.

Will keep you posted.

 

Hi Ricard,

That is indeed some good news. I hope that you are able to come to some sort of agreement with them.

 

Glad to hear it Ricard. Fingers crossed that they step up and take ownership of their mistake!

 

One way or another i can play Crysis 2 Smoothly.. But when i play Battlefield 3 Or RAGE.. i get stutter/throttle i really dont know if its GPU or CPU related But i gave up on the fact to get it right...

Personally i think that the upgrade to 6990' Was to expensive for what you get..And that its not that really of an improvement..And People with 5870's can just pwn me, so i get the feeling.

i can't even use the Overdrive or in CCC , wich give me directly a bsod in game same for trixx.. Flashing the card to higher clocks isnt possible either..

conclusion When i knew back then what i know now i would have never done the update, and just go along with a new m18X.. i'd rather go for good performance then then a RGB led screen..

 

Check the CPU/GPU chart in BF3 to see where your spikes are. I forget the command though. I play BF3 with no stuttering on every single graphics aspect maxxed out with no issues. My 6990s have been nothing but gold. It's seriously like putting gold bars in my system. And for F@h they are great!

 

It is a shame you feel that way, but the issues you are experiencing with CCC and OD are not normal, and your performance should be significantly better.

Have you done any benchmarks to make sure your laptop is performing as it should?

DR650, I think the command is 'render.perfoverlayvisible 1'

Perhaps disable crossfire and see if your performance is better? Also, run HWINFO32 in the background and make sure your GPU's are being fully utilised.

For a comparison, I was running BF3 on medium\high with the 5870's and now I run it on Ultra. So there was definitely a performance boost.

If it is any consolation, I still battle with the flickering overlay problems.....seems to affect some games more the others, AND I am still waiting on my replacement crossfire cable!!!

 

If you have a proper working setup, dual 6990's are more than twice as powerful as Dual 5870's.

Are you running stock or modified voltages on the cards and your cpu?

 

Im seriously looking at doing this upgrade, where can I get a set of clevo 6970's? What do you guys think about the differences between the 6970's and 6990's? Im leaning on the 6970's as they are cheaper and draw less current.

I found some 6970's on ebay from the seller "upgradeyourlaptop" and have asked if they have the required posts, cable and heat sink screws and will ask whether or not they are clevo cards but so far no response.

What do you guys think?

eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

Update: "upgradeyourlaptop" on ebay has the hardware and cable. Still awaiting response as to whether or not they are Clevo in origin.

Oh really? Link? Man Im glad I am so late in the game, this is going to be easier than originally planned.

 

Upgradeyourlaptop is Eurocom's ebay store. They are Clevo cards. You should read more of this thread - probably from the beginning if you have time.

 

Thanks for the sound advice, Ive mostly skimmed through the first page, going through it in detail now.

 

Hey Vulcan,

Also make sure you purchase the cards WITH soldered on posts and make sure that you ask them to include the screws as well. The alienware screws will NOT fit.