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

Hi Douse,

Sorry you are correct...the Dell cards still require HWinfo to control the fans if I remember correctly.

 

thats right, i have to use manual fan control on the dell 6990m card, but works great for a single card. has anyone else noticed any blurry looking images( like my games no longer look as crisp compared to my 5870m CF setup)? its not horrible just a little flaw everything runs smooth.

 

Yeah I dont mind using hwinfo for fan control either, as I would open it for temp monitoring anyway.

No, I cant say I have noticed blurry images Maybe double check your CCC settings and failing that perhaps try different drivers.

Are the images blurry in windows as well? What about when windows is loading or in the BIOS?

 

This is the case for the M15x, but for the M17x, the use of the second revision of the clevo vbios is a must for Dell cards. Using any other vbios in existence will result in varying levels of instability and graphical issues.

Using the Dell vbios, allows for automatic fan control if I remember my experience correctly, but windows becomes very unstable. Running my Dell 6970m on a Clevo vbios was the only option for stability when I still had the card.

 

harder to tell in windows, but i can cleary see the font looks a bit off, like its not crisp/fine. will connect to an external monitor and check, if its still there il play around in CCC. as i said its not a huge problem, still loving the 6990 upgrade by any chance could someone point me to a post where i could find m17x prices, i plan on selling soon so would like to see how mine compares in terms of specs/price. thanks again

 

In case you haven't checked, make sure you are running at the proper resolution..I know when I first put in my 6970's it defaulted to 1600:1200 instead of the 1920:1200...also make sure you have your windows settings to 100% instead of 125%. I remember when Alienware sent my laptop they defaulted it to the larger font size (125%) and I couldn't figure out why it looked so blurry...not sure why they did that.

Just some thoughts...

 

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Hi Aarpcard,

I am afraid I must disagree with you. Even Dell cards with the Dell vBios do not allow automatic fan control. As far as I know, there has never been a fix for that.

As for the Dell vBios causing instability and graphical issues, this is not the case for me. I am running the Dell vBios on my ES's (confirmed with a copy of a Dell 6990 vBios) and I have no problems at all. In fact I thought it was the other way round, where the Clevo vBios resulted in graphical issues on a Dell card.

Perhaps you and I have had different experiences. Or perhaps my ES's are slightly different to the Dell cards, however I thought they were practically the same..

 

Hey Guys
I'm thinking about getting a 7970m from upgradeyourlaptop. Just wanted to confirm our MXM slot is 3.0b or compatible. I'm pretty sure it is compatible, but don't remember what the slot type is.

 

Should work but good luck with getting upgradeyourlaptop to ship

Sent from my Samsung Captivate/ICS using Tapatalk 2

 

Yeah I know. They are saying mid to late June. I'm interested, not sure if I'm going to do it yet.

 

Hey Ghost,

I think there are a few other R2 owners who have ordered (or planning to order) the 7970's for their systems. I think everyone is pretty confident it'll work (once they arrive). But as always keep us posted on your results

 

This week I may try my dell 7970 in the R2 if I can get time. I still haven't opened my R4 and I've had it over a week. Maybe 10 days. Not sure how long I've had it but its still boxed and sealed

Sent from my Samsung Captivate/ICS using Tapatalk 2

 

I havent checked new alienwares for long. Did it today and i was astonished as when i got my M17X. I dont know how much faster they can be in real life but I think no more upgrades for me. I ll go for a new one if i ever do!

 

It would be great see you do it, but I would be reluctant cracking that the R4...especially if you are planning to sell it in the future :|

 

Little questions, Can we change the voltage of the 6990M from 1.1V to 1.15V with RBE by flashing the card ? Or the max is 1.1V (stock)

 

Yea, I decided to leave the system sealed and sell it. Figure at least I can sell it and put together a desktop or get the 7970s. upgradeyourlaptop told me that they will start shipping 7970s tommorrow, but I'm calling BS on that. Plus the price of the card went up from $520 to $545 each. again. BS. How can they raise the price 3 times when the continue to lie about the product and say they will ship and now it's over a month later and nothing Oh well. May be talking myself more into a desktop as I think this out. Lol

 

Upgradeyourlaptop told me $575 (just checked email again to confirm) for an upgrade kit. This includes the card, spreaders, screws, thermal pads and paste. Not sure if that was the same thing you asked for but figured I'd throw it out there. I would think having the screws and spreader would be a must if buying just the card didn't come with either.

When they told you they were shipping tomorrow was that for orders already placed? I'm guessing so. As I said before, I may buy one but I'm going to wait until they are more readily available.

 

yes...but a week ago they told me that ''we can't seel you something we do not have''...i am freaking out, only plus is the price i've paid (450usd)...idk what to think about it....

 

Good Call DR!

My next rig will be definitely be a watercooled Desktop...but I will be sad to move away from Alienware and the NBR community

It really is a shame that they have not shipped them yet. There must be more compatibility issues then they are letting on. I am surprised that they are still actively selling them when they have not shipped any at all...something smells fishy..

 

Regarding the desktop, I don't know....I bought an Area-51 from the outlet with a 580 in it for real cheap. Played a couple hours of BF3 on it and that's it. It performs awesome, way better than my R2 with one 6990, but I just like playing on my laptop. Now I look at the monster desktop in my office and say what did I buy that for? Well I had a $400 gift card that was expiring so I had to buy something. But unfortunately, you can only physically use one computer at a time.

 

I'm really suprised that the 7970's haven't shipped yet. I can't imagine there could be THAT many issues with them. But then again I haven't tried it myself.

Or they are asking someone from the community to do it and write up instructions so that they can "acquire" them like they did from Turbo.

 

yea, thats what I'm thinking to. Part of me wants to sell the R2 and use it to get a 3960XM for the R3 and some SSDs, but I don't know. I just love my R2 too much (16x10+RGB). I like the thought of having the R4, but I have no use for it as long as I have my R2

 

NO DR!!!! DON'T SELL YOUR R2 MAN! You put too much money and time into the R2! M17X-R2 1900X1200 RGB 4 LIFE!!!!!

 

I know hahha. I can't bring myself to do it even if I wanted to. I'm having a hard time letting the R4 go and I havn't even opened it hahaha. But I think I may need to lower the price on my listing. I need to get it sold ASAP before prices drop. Gotta get what I can for it so I can get a nice desktop. Then I'm not sure what I'll do with the R2 lol. I want to many toys.

 

That is good to hear man. I will buy your ultimate M17x-r2 if that day comes....

 

Nobody can anwser to my questions ?

 

max is 1.1v.... 1.15v will simply not work

 

I'm eager to hear about 7970's in crossfire in the R2. I still have only crossfire 4870's in my r2, so that would be a HUGE upgrade

Those of you who did the 6970's or 6990's were you ever able to use HDMI out with video and sound?

I like to connect up to my home theater from time to time and go for some big screen gaming, like the Dead Space series

 

Unfortunately as far as I know HDMI out over the clevo/eurocom cards have never worked (and probably never will). As far as a huge upgrade is concerned I can honestly say that going from a pair of 4870's to 6970's was HUGE so 4870's to 7970's would probably be mind blowing .

 

Would it work with the Dell cards though?

 

Yes, it works with the Dell cards, however you will have to manually control your fans using a 3rd party application.

As for the Desktop vs Laptop, I kind of miss having a 27"+ screen and a proper keyboard, and of course the performance is better. I suppose there is no stopping me hooking up a big screen to my laptop..

 

right but you can flawlessy use DP to HDMI. Transfers sound and audio with perfect quality as well.

 

So if I understand this right:

Dell cards = hdmi works but need app for fan control

Clevo cards = hdmi doesnt work but fans work fine without app

?

Really? Can anyone confirm this? I love hooking up my games to my tv to watch movies and play games on it.

 

Thats correct

 

When I install the second 6970M, do I need to also reinstall the drivers for the GPUs?

It's been a while since I had a multi-GPU system.

 

me is not enough for you? i may have to say i also installed realtek HDMI output driver (its for audio)

 

sweet. I'll totally go clevo/euro once more testing gets done (by then I should have enough to pair a pair )

Haha my bad dood. I am a screaming amateur when it comes to laptop gfx cards so I just want to be double sure.

 

Hi imglidinhere,

No you shouldn't have to reinstall the drivers for the GPUs after installing the second one. You will however need to install the latests CAP's if you haven't done so already.

Otherwise you should just be able to plug it in and have it recognize it.

 

How do these temps look after almost 2 hours of Diablo 3 on max settings?

 

That looks about normal in all honesty.

I hit around the upper 80s myself with one. I have yet to test with two.

Alrighty, I've got the second 6970M installed...

The second 6970M is a BIOS flashed M8900 and it's recognized as a 6970M. However, I tried to run 3DMark Vantage and the machine froze up around 40 seconds into the Jane Nash benchmark sequence, riiight up at the point where the lights start flashing and you see the character "Jane Nash" running away.

Temperatures at idle are no higher than the primary card... so I'm wondering exactly what happened.

Do I need to reinstall the CCC drivers?

Help?


EDIT:

Is there someone out there who has the vBIOS editor for ATI GPUs? Google is being retarded.

 

That's two 6990's not two 6970's

My 6990 install was a little challenging. I've done the ducting changes suggested elsewhere, and now that I have the replacement card for my failed one (the folks at Eurocom were great), I've got it all put back together. The cards barely fit in, so getting them in with the fan and heatsink attached took some major jockeying. The primary card was the tightest fit, and having to put them in with the Crossfire Cable already installed took even more careful concentration. All in all though, it wasn't that bad, and I do have to say there were about 1/10th the number of screws involved in getting this far as there were when I took my old HP apart.

Thank you to Douse, Greywolf, and anyone else that I might've missed who helped me out along the way. And for anyone interested the store on Ebay recommended by Greywolf a few pages back is awesome. They took care of me when I had the problem with one of the cards I was initially sent, and worked with me the whole way.

 

Awesome news PWn3R!!

Glad you got everything up and running!

Temps look great...my 6970's run a bit cooler, but that's to be expected, plus I'm undervolted as well, so I think your's look great.

@Imglidinhere : What version of ATI driver are you running? Also are you running everything at stock clocks? and are you overclocking the bios?

If you aren't running stock clocks, try that first and see if that helps...also if you are overclocking in the bios (the 5% overclock) try disabling that and see if it works.

As far as the ATI driver, some are more sensative to dual cards then others...I'm running the 12.6 beta version without any problems at all, so if you haven't tried that you might upgrade and see. The AMD drivers have been a bit hit or miss the past few releases, so may be a driver issue as well.

I assume you mean RBE (Radeon Bios Editor) http://www.techpowerup.com/rbe/

I think that's everything...good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

Okay... so my diligence has paid off MASSIVELY. I am so happy at the moment...

I've undervolted both 6970Ms to 1v from 1.1v and they're underclocked slightly at 650/900 vs 680/900.

The 920XM has been modified in ThrottleStop to only draw the predesignated 55w TDP, with 55A respectively, as well.

Here's what I got in Vantage with those settings.

AMD Radeon HD 6970M / 6990M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-950 Processor,Alienware score: P17921 3DMarks

 

guys whats going on with 69xx mobile drivers? latest official still 11.4?

i7 950 mobile cpu?

 

Hi Aristotelhs2060,

As far as I know the 12.4 are still the official drivers (not sure what ever happened to 12.5 official release..guess there wasn't one). The 12.6 beta drivers from AMD's website are what I'm currently using and they have been very stable overall. Not sure when the next official release is scheduled.

 

12.4 stable for me. Was stable with 2 cards, now stable with 1.

 

i am also using 12.6 beta drivers really stable on 6970s with 12.6 cap1 profiles. However i wonder why they didnt release at least 12.5 official driver for mobile gpus as they did for desktop ones.

 

There was a copy of 12.6 CAP 4 profiles already that i saw somewhere in the last few days. I am going to go to the 12.6 beta drivers when I get home. I did have an interesting lockup in Starcraft II last night that has me irritated but I'm sure I'll figure it out and beat it soon.

Possibly a silly question, but what is the best CPU you can run on one of these M17XR2's? I'm thinking about upgrading that next, I have no warranty, so I really don't care about that.

 

I7-940XM. But with 6990s pulling a lot of juice, I don't think it is worth installing. Still plenty of others have it and love it. But with my 820 and CF6990s, I had more power draw crashes than I wanted. If you were to go with the dual 240 adapter setup like some of these guys have done, you wouldn't have that problem and it would be a good upgrade.

 

Guys, you might want to see this:
AMD Catalyst 12.7 BETA (8.981.2 June 12)