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

OK so tonight I split my 240W PSU, just to check it out. Very easy to do actually Been contemplating swapping a 240W PSU PSID chip into a 330W adaptor. Not sure if I'll do it, but it's an option on the table. Also not sure how feasible it is, although theoretically it sounds like a fantastic idea. Here are some pics.

I didn't want to totally remove the metal surround on it, because as you can see from the pics, it's grounded to it, and parts riveted to the PSU board so I just bent it up a bit.













The last image is what I believe is the PSID chip from Dell. I could be wrong since I wasn't able to look at more of the board other then what was right at the very edge.

Thoughts?

 

Wow so complex.
Good job on opening it up.
I was hoping it was on a completely different circuit but it isn't.
From what you saw, is it an actual chip and is it soldered to the main board?

Toying with this could be very dangerous, be careful.

 

Great !

So, you can desoldering the ID cable of the 240w PSU, and put it on the 330w PSU ?

Thus with this, you can have only the 330 w PSU ?

 

That's the idea, near the chip there should be a protection diode and one or more resisters
Hopefully the chip in the 330W PSU is the same.

Per example, the one in my old Inspiron 1520 had 6 pins only.

I have an idea in case it's not a direct 'transplant', i'll post it in a few minutes, i'm 90% it will work

Later EDIT:
Ok, first of all, the downside (which keeps me from doing it since i still have 3 more years left), is that warranty of your laptop will most likely be void. The advantage to this would be using the 330W PSU alone.

I was thinking of separating the chip ( i'm guessing, so it has to be checked, it only uses two pins out of all of them), its diode and resisters from the rest of the circuitry and solder it between the motherboard's power plug's middle connection(this is the PSID connection). This way, it will be part of the system and no matter what adapter will be plugged, your battery will charge, the laptop will run at its full potential without the need of two PSUs (a 240W for the ID and the 330W for its juice). What do you guys say?

And for anybody out there:
Don't do this if you don't know what you're getting yourself into

 

Nice one DR Would be good to see what the ID chip looks like in the 330 watt adapter. Hopefully it is the same type of chip and is a straight swap.

I want to echo a few warnings here.

This isn't messing with 19 volts any more, we are dealing with exposed 120/240 volts so this is potentially dangerous and should only be done by people who take the necessary precautions and know about electronics.

Even if the power has been disconnected, the caps will be loaded until they are discharged and they can have a nasty bite.

@Katalin, I am not sure I am following. You want to connect the ID up to the laptop, so it wouldn't matter what PSU is plugged in? I dont think it would be work, as another PSU will also be providing a different ID and it will double up and become unknown to the laptop. You would have to at least modify the connecting power supply to disconnect that ID so there are not two ID's transmitting...

 

Yes, if the PSU has an ID cable, it should be disconnected.

 

I have been having some strange problems with my external displays
Basically I updated my video driver to the preview 12.2 ccc (12.1 wont install for what ever reason) but now my external screen isn't recognized properly it will only go to 1920x1080 and 30hz when the its a 1920x1200 and 60hz screen which means I'm stuck with the 11.9 drivers
On top of that I tried to use the display port so I can use the vga port for the xbox 360 but the DP refuses to work regardless of the driver!!???
Any one have any ideas other then reinstalling/totally wiping the drivers?

 

Hi Kenny
For me too doesn't work display port!
When has established 6990 display port has ceased to work. At me monitor S27A950D 120 hz but is necessary display port! Interesting in what a problem?

Sorry for last post!!!)))))))

 

well I'm not sure if it ever was working to tell you the truth but it should work!! can any one else try there displayport, hopefully its not a hardware issue

 

It is a good question, I don't know if anyone has tested the DisplayPort since performing the upgrade :S

 

Probably it is a problem bios 6990.
When I used 5870s displayport worked.
Guys for somebody works displayport with 6990???

 

Wow, now we're cooking with gasoline! Write-up please!

 

You could get away with making an adapter rather then soldering it directly in to the laptop. Would be a little less irreversible

I have been trying to find a schematic of a laptop power supply which has an ID. So far I have only been able to find universal ones, and they do not use a ID....

 

Yes it's a good idea Douse

But we can try to put the ID module of the 240W PSU into the 330W

 

Yes, but I put the idea here as a backup just in case the chips are not the same or another way to transplant it isn't possible.

 

Does anyone here have the tools to solder such a small chip? You would need a pretty small solder gun. I think we should all pitch in for a 330 psu and send it to someone on the forum with the tools to do it to see if it works. I would rather have one 330 Watt then two psu's

 

A fine tip soldering iron would do the trick... just absorb the solder with a solder wick, take it out and put the new one in.

More so requires a steady hand My mate would be ideal for this. He is a genius with soldering iron but he is in Aus :|

I believe the bigger issue would be the metal guard being in the way. Probably best to get metal snips and cut out a section rather then removing the whole thing.

**
I thought I would provide a little update with my cards and the flickering issues I had posted about earlier.

After about 3 months, I finally received my crossfire cable after a few blunders by Mythlogic.

However, I would still like to rep them, as they were very willing to help and took ownership of their mistakes. I have been relatively reimbursed and have now, in my possession, a new crossfire cable sent out free of charge (oh and they also sent me a t-shirt! I am gonna be the coolest geek at the party)

I have installed it and all the flickering issues are now gone!!!. MW3 used to flicker like crazy! It was practically unplayable. Now it is fine. It almost seems like I have a little more performance!! Which doesn't surprise me if the cards were not talking to each other 100%.

I took a pic of the install of the new cable to show how nice and neat it is. Overall, very happy

Sorry about quality of the pic. Camera Phone

Scored P6994 in 3DMark11 at 790/1000 & 24x across the cores. http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2860517

 

Awesome Douse!!

Good news!!

I was curious how the crossfire situation was working out since initially I know that you were going to be charged a fortune just to receive it.

Glad that all your flickering is gone and that everything is working well.

And what....no picture of the t-shirt?? lol

 

Thanks Greywolf

Well, I did have to pay to release it as it was incorrectly put down as 200USD on the customs form (as you correctly guessed ) Then it was the wrong cable, then they couldn't get the right cable lol.

But like I said, they took good care of me so props to them. Most companies would try to weasel their way out of it.

hahaha nah, no picture of the shirt

 

The only option is to desolder the chip from the 240 watt PSU mainboard and solder replace the 330 watt PSU's psid chip. Like you said, this has to be assuming the chips are THE SAME or compatible and the only difference between them is the programming.

By "separating" I hope you don't mean cutting. Schematics never represent the actual layout of the silicon inside the chip - only what pins are connected to which components.

Removing the chip and placing it in between the power connector on the MB and the MB, while technically possible, will be EXTREMELY difficult to do. First and foremost, there is absolutely no room for it. You're not going to fit the chip and the necessary control circuitry inside the laptop in that location.

Secondly, You can't say for sure only two pins are being used. Circuit boards are constructed in layers with traces on the top and bottom, and traces in several layers on the inside of the board. My guess is most of the pins are being used. That only further complicates the circuitry that you would have to fit into such a small space.

Third, how do we know this chip isn't linked to the breaker in the PSU? How do we know removing it, and powering it off the end supply will allow the PSU to still actually function. Further more you'd need to find a 5v source to power the chip itself assuming it's hard logic based (cmos, TTL, etc)

What we need is a schematic for the power supply and the chip. This weekend I'll look further into everything. Without either of those, there isn't a chance that anyone would be able to construct a working circuit to allow the chip to function inbetween the MB and the power connector.

I think the only chance is swapping the chips from the 240 watt PSU to the 330 watt PSU.

DR650SE, is the chip surface mounted or pinned through - also are there any serial numbers listed on it?

Now we need someone to take apart the 330watt PSU and find out if we have a match.

(It's annoying because I've been able to find FULL schematics for the clevo x7200 and other clevos, but can't find a thing on an dellienware.)

 

I was referring to separating the whole chip from the PCB along with what other components it needs.

It doesn't need to be near the plug's connectors and like i said before, it would be only the chip a diode and one or more resistors, nothing fancy and no PCB. I don't think they changed that much.

That's why i said, i'm only guessing, it has to be checked. This was the case with the Inspiron's PSU, only two pins out of six were used.

 

I'm not saying it isn't possible. I'm only under the impression that you may not realize just how tricky it would be to pull of what you are suggesting.

Where are you going to get VCC from? When you find it, how are you going to make sure that tapping it won't interfere with other components on the MB? What if VCC isn't 5v?

I can guarantee you it's not only just two pins being used. The very minimum is three. VCC, Ground, and the PSID signal. Chances are several of the other pins that seem vacant are being used as well with their traces being hidden inside the PCB. Since the minimum is three and only two can be identified then it is obvious the third pin appears to be vacant, but isn't. Is that the only one? Are there more? Why use a chip with so many pins if only three are needed? Saving costs? Does the chip control something else as well that makes use of the other pins? A full schematic is needed.

You're not going to be using the surface mount diodes and resistor or capacitors. They're too small to solder without damaging (unless you're using a surface mount technique in which case you would need a method to make traces and a PCB). Therefore using normal components used in small electronics further increases the size - and thus the problem of making it fit somewhere. The easiest place would be under the palmrest and that would require a lot of wiring to and from the connector/MB.

Then the connector's main casing is soldered to the MB to provide rigidity. Some kind of holding structure would have to be built into the case to prevent the connector from moving when you plug in a PSU.

I'm not saying it's impossible and I kind of like the idea. I'm going to look into it in depth this weekend, but it is a far more complex project than you are making it seem in my opinion. (I'm not saying this to offend you, I'm only concerned that some people - as we have seen in the past in this thread and others - will think a solution is days away when it is really months or never, and start complaining or rush into buying something only to find it was a waste of money.)

In the end it's not going to be a simple unsolder the chip stick a few diodes to it and solder it between the MB and the connector.

 

There will be more pins, if not all, used on the chip. Have a look at this basic schematic of a universal laptop PSU.

Assuming that the PSID would be linked to the control chip..

 

Wow, this is becoming way to complex.
To summarise,

M17X-R2 could use an extra 50W on top of the 240W PSU.
330W M18X-R1 PSU is compatible physically but some component of the R2 board is reading the 330W PSU as being Alien (no pun intended) to the system and therefore doesn't work.
THe solution would therefore be to fool the R2 into believing it is being fed by a 240W PSU by replacing the PSID in the 330W adapter.

And the coding for the analysis of the PSID is located in the BIOS (currently A10).

So we can either ask someone with technical/electrical expertise to mod the 330W PSU which means purchasing 1 x 240W and 1 x 330W PSUs for experimental purposes and then each buying the equipment to mod our own or financing a programming guru to mod the A10 bios for all current and future R2 modders.

What's our willingness to pay to mod a system that is already overworked?

 

Yep, I think the best for all would be to wait for a BIOS update by TheWiz (if it happens).

Failing that we can hope that the control chip is a straight swap and it is the same.

There are a lot of IFs here.

Or make a 480 watt supply (cheaper but need more know how).... or the easier 330 watt supply + 240 watt ID cable mod (more expensive as you need to buy a 330 watt)

 

I am willing to bet that Dell ensured that the M18x PSU would not be backward compatible to get those yearning for more performance to fork out the $4-5k for a new higher end M18x.

Computer manufacturers already practice "planned obsolescence" in which certain components within the product that could be made more robust and long lived for not much more money are intentionally made to succumb to entropy, heat and wear and tear within a certain time frame, typically 5 years.

Its a real shame. Collectively we need to move away from this economic impulse, our continued survival hinges on it, at least if we want to continue to sustain the project of Industrial Civilization.

 

thats why modders exist and we should support them.

 

The control chip in that schematic is the breaker (might also be a throttle). There's no PSID chip for that PSU.

Inside the control chip in that schematic, there is an SCR which is in the on state until the Photocoupler switches to the off state due to too much current being drawn from the PSU.

When the photocoupler turns off, the SCR in turn is switched off, and the PSU is switched off because the SCR is located between the primary coil and the wall.

The L,X, and F legs look like they are responsible for some kind of current control. It looks like there is probably logic in the chip intended to throttle the PSU, until the signal from the photocoupler drops out completely in which case the SCR is shut off.

 

Nice you do know your stuff.

Yeah I was aware that there was no PSID for that PSU, but I would think the PSID would be incorporated in to the control chip.

Or do you think they would have a seperate chip just for the PSID? Would be handy if they did and that was all it was responsible for.

 

Hi All,
Ive recently atempted to install an AMD6970M into my M17x-r2 replacing the 5870M card which was there. I had bought 2 cards but thought id install one first then attempt the other. There is currently only one 5870 on my system.

Removed drivers etc, Got old card out fine, got off heatsink, added new pads and paste and heatsink after cleaning and installed correctly or so i believe, so one would expect the card to work.

However on boot everything worked fine EXCEPT there was no display on the screen. I then removed the new card, reinstalled the old card and everything worked fine except it complained that windows hadnt been shutdown correctly on last boot.

I have bios A09.

Does anyone have any ideas what is wrong? do i need Bios A10?
Is there anything else I could/should try?

 

My guess is that the PSID chip would be separate from the controller. There isn't any real design convenience having them on the same chip - and probably isn't the safest way to design the PSU. If the control chip were to blow, then it's possible for rectified wall current to be sent to the PSID chip would then be sent to the MB - which would then probably fry your laptop.

As a failsafe, I think the PSID chip would be isolated from almost everything else in the PSU.

 

Uninstall all and drivers and power down. Install the 6970m in the master slot on your mobo. Then boot into the BIOS and check if your card is detected, if so boot into windows and install the new drivers.

 

Good idea if I could see a display, sadly I cannot, at least no display after installing as I said.
and yes drivers where removed.

 

try reseating the card and/or trying you other 6970, if you put the card back in and it dosent work you could try doing a power drain before you try the other card, sometimes this fixes things.
drivers are not so crucial I'm pretty sure some have done the upgrade without uninstalling them

 

make sure that you dont have any of your num caps and scroll lock indicator lights flashing, or does it actually boot in to windows not just keyboard etc lights on

 

Drivers do not have anything to do with it if you dont get a display even at POST.

I would update the BIOS to latest, do a power drain and reseat the card as others have mentioned.

Failing that, try the other card that you have. If it works then the first may have been faulty



I know some people were asking about DisplayPort.

I have connected up a DVI monitor to the display port using an adapter and it works fine.

I am running 12.2 however my 6990's are ES...so don't know if that makes a difference.

 

what exactly do you mean? not seeing any post screen at all? no alien head logo?
or does it go black after windows logo?

any error lights flashing / solid (scroll/num/caps lock)?

right, but he should have gotten an error code!

^^ i suspect the same, on a working system i would update the bios and reset default settings.
also check the monitor cables connecting to the mobo, i know i've nicked it by accident making it only half connected resulting in a black screen.
geiler, which brand of cards did you buy btw?

 

all good ideas thank you all very much.

As soon as I get some new ( and better ) thermal pads ill give it another go, have to wait on the pleasure of the ups.next week is likely

There was no display at all after changing cards. No alienware head logo , nothing. Cant see myself how drivers could have an impact as they're not loaded until windows starts.

 

Right, drivers wouldn't affect the bios screen from displaying. I definitely would double check all your connections (although you said it works when you replace it with the 5870, so probably not a problem). And then the next thing to look for would be any blinking lights that might indicate a video card problem.

What brand of card did you end up buying?

Good luck!

 

got my cards from eurocom, guessing they're clevo?

 

Yup, no post screen does mean the issue is not driver related.

Guys, I am going through a little "hurdle" with my rig.
Playing BF3, after approx 3 mins of gameplay the game crashes with the image frozen on the screen, the mouse appears after another 10 secs and eventually I do a Ctrl+alt+del to check but the game is responding.
I get a memory error informing me there is not enough memory...
I have 8GB of RAM, 4Gb of video memory and 240GBs of SSD space.

I tried to reinstall the drivers (driver sweeper and the whole shebang) and on my last forced reboot I was informed that the video drivers were not functionning properly (they were not working at all, I am back to standard resolution).

Is anyone experiencing issues playing BF3 (whichever the settings) with the latest 12.2 drivers and the 12.1 Cap 3 app profiles?

Cheers.

 

Yep, I have had this.

The error says something about DirectX and no more memory??

You are not the only one, there are quite a few threads on this and BF3. I found it only happens when I alt tab out and say, check firefox.

Only happened for me once I upgraded to 12.2.

Since not doing alt-tabbing it doesn't happen any more.

I would try perhaps 12.1's again and see how you go.

EDIT:: BTW, nice desktop I had to look up your case and it is impressive! Must be pretty massive being a full tower.

 

Hey Douse

You're a legend, always here to help out
I am about to reinstall the 12.1s now. Weird issue but I've tried reinstalling them twice now and no luck. I'll let you know how I go tonight
As for the case, I went all out! It's my first desktop and I wanted something with maximum airflow with LEDs, easy to clean and of course cool to watch - I was stunned by the size of it but it was worth every penny.
She is a beauty in action as well with the red LEDs and the green Nvidia logo on the GPU^^
Cheers

Edit: I am playing with the 12.1s installed - I cannot play multi player on ultra (40fps minimum) because it seems to lag/stutter and after 5 minutes I get massive throttling.
I've tried turning my brightness down and it just isn't enough.
On high settings I get throttling as well, will try to undervolt my cards some more tonight.

 

Haha no problem

I would imagine that the case would be quite large! I had a full tower back in the day before aluminum. So it was all steel. Weighed a tonne!!

As for the drivers, that is pretty strange. And you definitely have the caps installed? I know this is the same generic answer everytime, but have you done a full driver sweep with the reinstall? I would also reinstall the CAPS as well.

Although, it is strange with the throttling....

I have another idea of what may be causing it, and that is AMD overdrive. It may be overriding your voltage settings which is why you are getting throttling all of a sudden. I would confirm that your 3D volts are what they are meant to be using a monitoring tool whilst in game. Then perhaps enable and disable overdrive.

 

Yeah Metal would have been far too heavy lol.

As for the drivers, I first uninstalled the caps, restarted, express uninstalled Catalyst and driver 12.2, restarted in safe mode, ran driver sweeper, restarted and then express installed 12.2, restarted and installed caps 3 and restarted.

Will GPU-Z do the job? I haven't used it since it was provoking micro stuttering with the 5870s in X-Fire

 

GPU-Z should do the trick as long as it reads your voltages.

 

Ok, it's working fine on ultra
I had overdrive enabled and "audacity" running at the same time might have been the issue!
Thanks Douse, +rep if love I can spread.
Cheers

 

Nice! Glad you figured it out

 

Awesome ThenzFarmer! Glad to hear its working for you!