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

I did it just enough that it was seated on there and it barely starts to bend the heatsink bracket. I was afraid to do it to tightly so didn't go much more then that. I didn't get a good test of my temps since I couldn't get crossfire working, so not sure if it was enough...but figured it was better to be safe then sorry.

 

One more question..in device manager does your card show up as a 6970? or a 6900?

 

they appear as 6900 series.

I did a repaste with Shin-Etsu and the result are incredibles... after a run of 3Dmark2011 both cards are at 70 *C peak...

I can't believe it, everything is working as it was stock

 

Congrats!!! Just swapped my cards and reinstalled them....wish me luck

Cpt..which driver are you using? (from where?)

 

Did you take photos for the card before installing them another time? or did you somewhere what was written in all the stickers? I have a thought in mind, all the 6790M that I saw were BR39257.00 8 ; yours are BR39257.00 9
I know that one card has P/N 6-7 7-X720L-D01 (or-D02) and the other has P/N 6-7 1-X720L-D01 (or-D02) ; but I don't know which for which.

 

Hi Pkhetan,

I didn't take a picture (although I wish I had), the box shows the .008, but looking at the sticker on the cards it showed .009

I just swapped the cards and have powered it up, and will see if that helps. I'm almost positive that I had them switched when I installed it the first time so this should be the correct locations at least.

Bios per GPU-Z : 013.010.000.011.039257 for both

 

Mine are both BR39257.008

 

Ok, so I think this mystery is coming together. The cards definitely have BR39257.009 (the stickers on them confirm this however the box shows that they should be .008) on them...if I flash them to .008 (using the BIOS listed on the first page) they show screen corruption and other types of anaomloies. If I flash them back to their stock bios...they boot and are detected at 6900 cards, but I cannot enable crossfire.

 

@Cpt, can you tell which P/N for which card, please?

 

Hmm. My cards have 008 on the sticker but the dies also say 1036u ENG on them. Wonder...

 

and what about the P/N for Master and Slave?

 

Hey guys,

I'll open it up again and write down the details on the back of the cards and let you know what I have

 

I've answered your PM Grey, Keep us informed.

DR650,

How much OC have you achieved for a daily use on both gpu/cpu? i mean without tripping the PSU. I'm running @20x133 across the 4 cores, 75W TDP and gpu @700/1000. Benched, played. No problem so far and the PSU doesn't seam any hotter than it was before with my 5870's and XM overclocked and temperatures never exceed 74 C on master and 76 Con the slave. I'm really happy

 

Its odd. I don't remember which is which. Lost track when i easy trouble shooting. But one card has 6-77-X720L-D01 on the bottom. The other however has 6-77-X720L-D01
On the bottom and 6-71-X720L-D01on the top. Both


@CPT. Don't remember but you would probably be safe at 750/1050 with CPU TDP at 85. Give it a shot. May net some everyday gains. Cpu depends on your heatsink adjust as well.

 

Hey guys, so I posted the images of the two cards...at least I think I did (new to Image Shack)

Secondary Card

and

Primary Card

The first one I have in the secondary slot and the second is in the primary
if it matters

secondary slot

6-77-X720L-D02-1

Primary Slot

6-77-x720L-D02-1

Thanks again all!

 

Hmm yours says Blackcomb xt V 2.1. mine say v 1.2

 

Thanks Cpt!

Also, if you happen to know, are your cards version 1.2 like DR650? or are they revision 2.1 like mine?

 

That's interesting, seems they made some changes... maybe 2G stands for second generation? No idea. Here's a pic of a card which is on sale from upgradeyourlaptop on ebay, it says 2.2:

Spoiler

My card which I have since April had all the stickers removed, so I can't check mine.

 

That also says part number D002-a vs my D01. May explain why mine say "ENG" on the die. Some changes were made after my engineering sample. Sadly I didn't get more shades

 

All this makes me wonder if I'm missing the bios to make the secondary card act like a crossfire card (instead of a primary). They both appear to have the same vbios and unfortunately flashing the vbios in this tutorial just caused lots of artifacts. So I wonder if they sent me two primary cards by mistake.

 

2G means the memory is 2GB
-A postfix is for P150/170HM
D01, D02, D02-1 are the hardware revision number
V1.2, V2.1, V2.2 : I don't know what they are for.

 

Now I'm getting confused. So is this guide now broken? We will still have technical problems Installing the 6970s in X-F in the R2?

 

I wouldn't go so far as to say the guide is broken, currently it just looks like something is unique about my version of the cards, or they sent me two primary/seconday cards by mistake. Could also be that one/both of my cards are simply malfunctioning.

Although I do have a question for you guys which I'm trying to sort out. Should the vbios on the primary and secondary card be different? IE is there really any difference at all between the vbios? If so, then I may simply need the latest vbios for the primary and secondary card (.009). I tried flashing the stock .008 bios on the cards and received an error that the rom was not erased. And
haven't had any luck with the modded .008 (flashes, but has problems).

 

I'm pretty sure the version of the vbios doesn't need to be the same as long as they are in the same set of revisions. However, shouldn't 2 cards each with the master vbios on them work in CFX?

BTW got my new mobo today, so more testing.

 

Good luck aarpcard with your new motherboard. Keep us posted.

Yeah it's very odd...maybe its simply one or the other crossfire connectors isn't functioning.

Other then plugging the cable in on each side and checking I can't think of any other way to verify it..verified the cable with my 4870s, so maybe it's simply a HW problem.

 

No luck yet Greywolf?

 

Not yet, spent much of last night trying a number of different things, including flashing a stock .008 bios (which the cards refused to take) both individually (in the master slot) and together.

Hoping someone might have some thoughts on the .009 bios

 

Hey Ichime/Pkhetan/DR...or anyone else

Would it be worth flashing a non-clevo bios on the cards just to see if it recognizes crossfire? Ideally I don't plan to stay on those bios for the various problems listed on the first page, but is there any reason to believe that this might be a bios problem with the .009? Also Ichime, is there any chance that I could get a modded .009 bios similar to the .008 one that you posted? Just trying to help narrow this down further if possible.

 

You could try using the M18x vbios's to see if CFX will work . . . not sure how big of a risk it is though. My Eurocom card took it fine, but I don't have any experience with the clevo cards.

 

So, I've got both cards running fine, neither are reporting a problem, but without the crossfire cable connected it reports the same problem as the crossfire connected (a cable is not connected, please check your cable). So that leaves me to believe it's one of two things. Either there is a physical problem (a connecter on one of the cards is damaged) or...there is some sort of difference between a primary card bios and a secondary card bios which enables crossfire (or simply the bios that was supplied with these cards has crossfire disabled) I believe if I can get a .009 bios for master and slave to reflash the cards that will be my best bet. Since for whatever reason .008 refuses to flash (rom not erased) and .008 modded causes problems

 

hmmm. Have you tried looking on the Clevo forums? Maybe someone there has a .009bios.

If I get my system to boot with both card in it, I have a feeling I'm going to be having the same problem you are.

 

I hope you don't but definitely let me know.

I've been checking the Clevo boards, but may post there as well.

Hope things are going better on your end

 

are you using the dell vbios now? i thought that fans dont work with it? thus does hdmi audio work with M18X vbios for the 6970s?

 

I had to use the dell vbios to try and get the system to boot with 1 eurocom card and 1 dell card. I don't know if it was a success or not because somehow in the process my motherboard fried. (The single Eurocom card did boot on a dell vbios.)

I just installed the new motherboard on my lunch break, but I haven't done any testing as of yet.

 

Is it powering up now? or have you not gotten that far?

 

The mod was only to increase overdrive limits and to stop 2d clocks from going too high.

In addition to the suggestions I PM'd you with, have you tried pairing up your old cards in Crossfire and see if the cable is still working? I know it's unlikely, but worth a try.

 

Not gotton that far yet. Everything's put together, but haven't put in any video cards yet. Gonna try after work in about 3 hours. I'm going to try my 4870's first.

I have no idea which bios revision this mobo has. If it's not A10, should I update it to A10 before I put the 6970m's in?

 

Thanks Ichime, just replied to you as well.

Yep put the old 4870's back in, attached the crossfire cable and it came right up..no problems at all. So I think I've eliminated the cable as being suspect.

 

Which driver are you using?

I would also suggest flashing through the RBE + WinFlash method. are you familiar with that?

 

Hi ichime,

Using the modded 11.7b driver that Cpt. used. At least that was able to identify the cards and install them correctly.

(attempted 11.6 and didn't have better luck, have reloaded windows and drivers about 4 - 5 times in an effort to have
a clean install of the drivers every time)

I haven't attempted the RBA+winflash method. If you have a link or a post that I can review I'll take a look

Thanks for all your help.

 

I wish you good luck aarpcard and Greywolf22. I haven't gotten there yet and here I'm learning new things from you people, I hope you don't lose more money, especially aarpcard, how much you paid for a new MOBO?

 

$300. If I can't get it to boot with both cards installed or if I do get it to boot and CF refuses to work, I'm gonna sell the Dell 6970m and buy another Eurocom 6970m which I suspect will solve my issues.

 

Thanks Huniken! I hope this turns out to be a learning lesson for all of us

 

I have a guide here for Mobility 3870s (for the 6970Ms, you'll need RBE v1.28 and Winfash 2.0.14)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ocz/363888-how-flash-your-graphics-card-mobility-3870s.html

And this is straight from Techpowerup:

Tutorial on how to use RBE (Radeon BIOS Editor) | techPowerUp

Also, when acquiring/flashing the VBIOS, Adapter 0 is the Primary slot, 1 = Secondary slot.

 

Thanks!! I'll give it a shot! Appreciate the help, and will +1 rep you many times over for all your assistance

Quick question, if possible using this method should I try to flash the Clevo rev 8 bios? as opposed to the Dell bios?

Any suggestions?

 

If you want i can send you the vbios from both my main/slave cards.

edit: here it is

 

Try flashing the Clevo VBIOS in the guide first or the one CptX provided in the zip first. And if you're still having the same artifacts and such, then try the dell VBIOS.

 

CptX...thanks for the vbios I'll give these a try!

And ichime, thanks again!

Wish me luck!

 

IT BOOTS WITH A 4870 INSTALLED !!!!!!

You have no idea how happy I am right now! ahahaha Ok, time to get these 6970's working.

EDIT: The motherboard had bios A06 on it. I should update to A10 right?

 

lol!!!

Congrats man!!

Good luck!

and yes I'd update to A10

Well, if and when I ever get this working, I'll share my gotchas as well as recommendations...I'm making
a list