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

Are you overclocking? If you're not overclocking, is there any reason whatsoever to use anything bigger than the standard PSU? Does it increase performance? I'm running my cards @ 1.02V and they work really well. I think I may be able to get even better performance if I put thermal pads on the top / back of the cards where those little components are (power regulators I think) as well as a thicker thermal pad on the power regulator where the CPU heatsink sits on top of. Regardless, everything is working really well so I'm not particularly inclined to open this thing up again.

Plus, how does having a bigger PSU even work when the BIOS will only allow a 240, right? Why use one unless overclocking? Just trying to make sure there isn't something I could do to increase my performance more, especially if its as easy as getting a new PSU and following some cutting steps (or seeing of someone on the boards can do it for me and I could pay them for their time / shipping because I have a bad hand). Hope you all are doing well, I haven't been here in a while since everything has been working! Thanks in advance.

 

i have already an hdmi male to male cable so the one i said can be used as cable extension too. Ok i was thinking that the sound issue maybe present only with hdmi output and not DP output but if you say so theres no need to try

 

Uhm, I'm sorry it was a little late when I posted that and it doesn't really make sense.
DisplayPort is independent from HDMi so you might get sound thru it even though HDMi won't output sound for some reason.

If you already have a male HDMi to male HDMi cable, the one you linked first is perfect.

 

Ofc im overclocking xD why else would i use a 330w psu. MY clocks are 750/980 at stock voltages+CPU x19 on all cores. I use these for everyday use and gaming. On my old 240 psu with these settings would just power trip (hard shut down) my laptop during gaming. My 330w psu method fixed that but i lose brightness control and ability to charge battery. I personally dont mind since this laptop just stays on my desk at home 24/7 its just to heavy to move imo.

 

ok i ordered one to check

 

Fingers crossed for you, my friend, let us know the results.

 

Wow really? That's awesome!!

Although, I am a little confused as the cards only have 2 video clock signals which is why you are required to use a DP signal for the third clock signal.

Sorry if this has been covered, but been away on holiday for a while.

What cards are you running? And is your adapter an active DP to HDMI adapter? The reason I ask is that a passive adapter doesn't use the DisplayPort signal and still uses one of the video clock signals....

You haven't happened to try a DP monitor by any chance?

Aarpcard, if Easirok has the display working on 3 monitors then eyefinity should also work. I cannot even get it to display on three monitors. When i select the third one one, it says I have to disable another one first.

Eyefinity works on two monitors, but that just sucks for obvious reasons

 

So is there a way to undervolt the 6970s to draw less power? And what's the area where it's safe to keep it stable? (IE, lowest voltage setting.)

 

Stealth55 , can you make a little tutorial (with photos or/and schemas) about your 330W PSU ?

I don't understand your description :

So, you use only the 330W PSU and not the 240W PSU ?

 

Hi imglidinhere,

Yes, it's fairly simple to undervolt the 6970s to draw less power. I'm currently running mine at .96v and have them overclocked to 715/900 and have had no power draw problems/throttling etc. I'm also using the stock 5% Bios OC as well.

According to my Kill-a-watt I rarely peak over 240w, and during normal gaming usually hit around 220w or less. So haven't had an issue with the 240w PSU

Hope that helps.

 

Hey guys! Hope you all are doing well I haven't been here in a while but I do have a question. I'm using my dual 6990's unvervolted to 1.02 down from 1.1. That seems to work the best for me. I have the BIOS OC @ 0% right now. In the past I messed with it and it caused issues. I'm trying to decide if I'm already getting up to about 230 watts in SC2, will doing the 5% OC put me over 240 thus causing an issue? I thought there was someone on this forum, maybe greywolf, that had a lot of issues solved by putting some thicker pads on the CPU heatsink where the power regulator is. With a 240 watt supply, would doing something like that help? My performance is okay, don't get me wrong - but I would defenitly like to sustain higher frame rates in large battles more if I could - and that's mostly CPU from what I understand.

 

I think we need to lobby THEWIZ about the next bios mod.


Whoes in?

 

Hi Intense, it is hard to give a specific amount that the 5% overclock will use in terms of power.

I can have a look for you and find the difference whilst stress testing the processor, but it is a little more complicated then that. The FSB (Front Side Bus) overclock does not just affect the processor, but it also increases the bus speed of other devices in your laptop. So technically, everything can get a little boost...

So as you can imagine it is hard to give a clear indication of how much extra power draw there will be.

I would suggest just giving it a shot. If you start to get throttling, then you know it is drawing too much from your power supply. If not, then you are all good.

Honestly, the 5% overclock is so minimal, I do not think you will have any problems. However it is still an overclock so there are still risks.

 

Awesome case mod, I am in.

That's 2 of us (whoever wants to join in update the number as we go).

 

Hey Intense! Welcome back (was wondering where you disappeared to)

I had initially put additional thermal pads on the voltage regulators (and other chips on the back of the card), but didn't find that it made any difference with the 6970's. Maybe it would make more of a difference with the 6990's as I know a few folks still do it.

I'm also using the .5mm thermal pads (I've used 1mm too in the past...got similiar heating between the two so haven't bothered to change them back to 1mm). So temps have been great for me all around. My secodary GPU fan went out last week, which scared me a bit, but have replaced it and it's all good again.

As far as the overclocking and power draw, I can only speak from the 6970 perspective. I do have the standard 5% OC in the bios AND I'm overclocking my 6970's to 715/900 (which is what a standard 6990 clock speed is) and with my cards volted to .96 I rarely (never) see it go above 230 watts.

Of course at 1.0x volt it will be a bit higher, plus any over clocks, etc..but I agree with Douse that I don't think the extra 5% overclock will add that much to the overall power draw.

Just my 2 cents however.

*EDIT* Additionally regarding The Wiz and the bios mod...I know he's been lobbied already a bit in the 580M thread. I just think he's probably very busy.

 

Oddly enough the 5% seemed to WORSEN performance. The vantage tests got better results but for whatever reason it made everything just a little "choppier". All my temps are fine and performance has been very consistent since I reformatted a while back. For whatever reason I still feel like I should be getting even better performance but I'm not going to mess with it. The only thing I can think of is outing thicker thermal pads on the resistor things that the CPU heatsink covers. I need to check my wattage in skyrim but with my config I feel that I should be able to play skyrim with all of the settings at max and have full smoothness. Maybe it has something to do with bad xfire support but I play on high settings ( not very high) with aa and af at 8 and it doesn't run super smooth like it should. I set the xfire profile to crysis 2 for the skyrim exe in order to get it to use skyrim with xfire and no texture tearing. My performance was the same without forcing the crysis xfire app except i had texture tearing / flickering. Also I play SC2 at high settings instead of ultra. I thought I remember being able to play sc2 at ultra with my 5870's at ultra and skyrim on high really smooth (with the 11.10 drivers). After all the hastle and stress I had installing these 6990s I'm honestly just happy I can play SC2 at high settings. That's the only game I really like to play on my PC (I'd love to play more skyrim but it's performance issues just aggravate me). I could barely play anything before I reformatted so at least I have something. When I can afford a really sweet desktop and monitor I'll sell this headache and get a new 13-14 inch laptop that can game on the go with decent settings. Starting a business is expensive and so are taxes and an engagement ring so, at least for now, I have to stick with what I have. This thing has always worked backwards but I've learned to deal with it. Before I got the march 15 beta drivers from benchmark3d I had to put my texture filtering (in amd settings) on high quality otherwise it would be choppier. I still turn off the surface formatting thing because that also makes things a little choppier. Playing SC 2 my wattage stays around 230 so I can't imaging it's power throttling. I honestly have no clue why it's like this but I do know that I should be getting better, and smoother performance. Anyway - I wrote this in peices while running errands so I hope it's coherent to some degree. I'm sorry I haven't been around in a while - things have just been very busy and the machine has been (bearably) working. Alienware really does some stupid stuff - as I've learned after owning 4 of these things. Hopefully I can sign a few clients soon (web development / marketing) and build a beast. Thanks!

 

Hey Intense, welcome back.
As far as Skyrim is concerned, I get 30-40fps on max settings on a single GPU.
I haven't tried forcing crossfire as I don't think it necessary (ie. better off with high settings and mods like textures... than ultra which doesn't add that much).

Good luck on getting these clients signed.
Cheers,

 

Yeah Skyrim performance for me was not that great in crossfire. Had to do quite a few mods for it to be satisfactory....

 

I love the single 6990 =] still dont need the second one =]

 

I responded directly in a PM, but figured I would post here also just so there is no confusion about what I am doing. In summary: I am not in any way overcoming the limitation of two display signal outputs from these machines. The USB adapters can be considered additional display cards for all intents and purposes, and while they participate just fine in an extended desktop, I wouldn't expect them to work with Eyefinity. They don't even support F.Lux, which I use to soften the color of my displays when the sun sets (*really* nice program by the way)...

VGA output does not work for me after upgrading from a HD 4870 to a HD 6990 graphics card. But that's OK with me - DP/HDMI/DVI are much better than VGA anyways.

• I am using the HDMI port to drive my primary display (this is the center one).
• I am using the DisplayPort port to drive my right-side display, using this adapter that I picked up from Fry's: FRYS.com|SIIG
• I am using a USB->DVI adapter to drive my left-side display, using this adapter (NOT using the included VGA connector): http://www.kensington.com/kensington...y-adapter.aspx

All three displays are ASUS VE248 flat panels: ASUS - Display- ASUS VE248H

Those were the best ones I could find at 24" that also included support for VESA 100mm mounting brackets (all three are mounted to a custom HumanScale M7 arm system - very sturdy).

 

Thanks for the info Easirok!!

 

I just bought an AMD Radeon HD6990M (Blackcomb XTX) MXM 3.0b Module; 2GB GDDR5 CrossFireX Ready. I have an m17xr3 2670qm 8gb 1600mhz ocz vertex 3 120gb x 2 radeon 2870m. Please excuse the fact that I'm an amateur but will this card be compatible with my computer and will it matter that I only have one card now when its crossfire ready and does the computer even support dual gpu.

 

Yes, the 6990M is compatible with your m17x-r3. However the R3 is only a single GPU system, so you won't be able to run two GPUs in a crossfire configuration.

Hope that answers your question

 

Thanks for the response. So it will still work even though it is crossfirex ready.

 

yes it'll work as a single card and a crossfire card (for systems that support it)

 

Thank you for the answers and the patience for noobs like myself.

 

Anytime glad to help

 

Guys i have some very good news for you today. I received my DP to HDMI cable and guess what! It outputs video to external display as well as audio! So this is the solution to absence of sound through HDMI. It absolutely deserves the purchase! Just connect and select realtek hdmi ouput as default audio! it was long before i could use my audio on external display. Its back again! YEAH!

 

Hello guys

Since the Battlefield 3 Update , I have flickering with my Crossfire 6990M.
In particular, with the map : Crossing Seine (which has many sun light).

But before this update, I didn't have issue...

My driver : Ati 12.3 RC (8.95) + profile 12.1 CAP 3


I try to uninstall driver, and install the new Ati driver.
Same issue.

I have disable the Crossfire, and the issue is fixed !

But, can you know if any patch exist to play without isssue and Crossfire Enable with BF3 ???

 

Hey Gloops there have been a lot of issues with the 12.3 driver...did you confirm that when you uninstalled the driver that it actually uninstalled?

Also keep an eye on your secondary GPU as 12.3 has a tendency to lock the clocks at max speed and do other strangeness with the GPU fan.

I'd highly recommend downgrading back to your previous driver unless there is a reason to go to 12.3 specific to battlefield.

If you have downgraded but still have an issue, first verify that your driver level is indeed the previous driver (12.3 left remnants for me and I ended up re-imaging from a previous image).

If it still remains, then there could be a problem with your crossfire cable...it's a possibility, so might be worth reseating. However since it started intermediately following the code upgrade then I suspect the driver is still the problem.

 

Thank you for your answer Greywolf

I have correctly uninstalled the driver, with Safe Mode and Driver Swipper.

I will install the 11.10 driver version, it's optimised for BF3.

For the Crossfire, it works perfectly, and it's recognize in GPUz ... so I think that it works fine...

 

More and more problems with the 12.3's....

So far I am glad I have been lazy and not installed them yet

 

What version do you installed Douse ?

 

Just sitting with the 12.2 previews and the latest caps.

Although I still occasionally get BF3 crashes when alt tabbing. DirectX says something about running out of video memory.....

I played it this weekend after about a month and I thought it ran a little choppy. So I don't know if this is related to the latest BF3 patches....the gameplay itself was very different as well

 

Thank you Douse

Yes, the gameplay was changed a little ^^

EDIT : Same issue with the 12.2 preview...

 

Hay guys,
I have got a problem, I bought 2 6970m from eBay upgradeyourlaptop and the problem is if i flash it to clevo vbios the laptop lose display, i mean after installing ati driver when i restarts the windows logo comes out and then all black!!! I reflashed to original eurocom vbios and now i am limited to 1600x1200 resolution and the crossfire wont work. Someone Please help!!!

 

crossfire needs restart
as for the changing resolution try hitting fn+f6 while on 1600x1200
the problem is it's detecting a VGA device. this will happen every time u close the laptop and re-open it. it's just a matter of hitting fn+f6.

as for bios, i'm not sure which one i'm using atm. i think it's the eurocom with the subvendor modified to dell using rbe.

 

Thanks for the advise i solve my resolution problem by following you steps. But the CF still not working. I tried to restart and also tried to reinstall ati driver. Noting works!!!

 

trikolpona, verify your Crossfire cable.

 

Hrm, I just had a pop up from CCC asking me to update to 12.3! Never had it do that before....must be some new functionality they included?

 

Thanks a lot guys for helping me out. I fixed the problem. For some reason i dont know why the CF cable from upgradeyourlaptop wasn't working. Now i replaced it with the old m17x one and all good!!! Anyway if anyone can tell me if they having any problem with 240watt charger for CF 6970m? Cause for some reason my laptop crashed 2 times after enabling Crossfire!! But now its going good for 3 hours.

 

If you are having power issues, generally you will have throttling in game and your PSU will eventually trip.

So your laptop will just turn off and the light at the end of the power cable will also be off.

Have you undervolted your cards at all?

 

Actually i dont have that problem, when i try to on firefox the system crash and blue screen comes out with error msz. If i turn off the cross fire then all good!!

 

It's an evil conspiracy....resist!! RESIST!!

Trikolpona - What driver are you running? Also do you have GPUz installed to see what sorts of temps you are seeing on the cards. Also, do you blue screen on any program with crossfire enabled? or are you seeing that only when you run Firefox? Would be good to narrow it down a bit more if possible.

 

hahahaha don't worry, I will resist. Although it pains me that I am not running the latest drivers

Cmon AMD, get your act together!

 

i have both cards undervolted to 1v and my cpu (920xm) set at 24x across the board with 78w tdp/tdc. haven't tripped the psu with those settings nor have i run into power throttling issues.

drivers can be a little tricky with bsod's but the latest preview drivers have been good (i like the 12.4 preview), funnily enough it's been the whql that give me trouble lately.

 

I agree, the preview drivers for whatever reason seem to be more stable then the WHQL ones...which I don't completely understand.

I have my cards undervolted to .96 and have them overclocked to 715/965 and I haven't hit a single throttle problem.

I'd definitely recommend being careful on which driver you install when trying out the cards, I know 12.2 preview seem to work good, but 12.1 would bsod, 12.2 I believe also bsod'd and 12.3 does funny stuff with your secondary GPU. Unfortunately I'm sensing a bad trend for the 2012 drivers.

I might have to give the 12.4 preview drivers a try, 12.3 WHQL left such a bad taste in my mouth so I'm hesitant to upgrade to anything until I know that they are stable and without "odd" issues.

 

what do you mean with odd issues? Thus what funny stuff does 12.3 driver do with secondary gpu? I am using 12.3 now without any obvious issues. But i dont have them overclocked and they are at 0.98V

 

12.4 previews eh! Must give them a try. The 12.2 previews have been great

 

Does anyone know if hwinfo32 can be used with the Dell 6970 to control the fans?