6970M driver update issue

Hi all,

I am have a hard time with the drivers for my 6970m.

Some information about my system :

System Model: M17xR3
IOS: InsydeH2O Version 1.0 A04
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2820QM CPU @ 2.30GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.3GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 16332MB RAM
Page File: 3193MB used, 29468MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

Card name: AMD Radeon HD 6970M
Chip type: ATI display adapter (0x6720)
Display Memory: 994 MB
Dedicated Memory: 2031 MB
Shared Memory: 3059 MB
Driver File Version: 8.17.0010.1056 (English)
Driver Version: 8.800.6.1000

I must have tried everything but it seems impossible to install anything but the Dell drivers on my M17X R3.

I tried installing on top, I tried removing everything and then installing new drivers but…

When I first install the Dell Drivers, reboot and then install the AMD drivers using ATI Catalyst Install manager (For example 11.7), it only installs other stuff, but never the drivers itself, the Box for ATI display Driver is greyed out and ticket and it says : ATI Display Driver is already installed and up to date (Version 8.800.6.1000)


When I try to install the AMD drivers after having uninstalled the Dell drivers (Clean uninstall, using DriverSweep in safemode and registry clean with CC Cleaner) once again it only installs other stuff, but never the drivers themselves. It only installs AMD APP SDK Runtime, HDMI/DP Audio Driver, ATI Catalyst Install manager and so on…



I have tried multiple drivers too, mobility 11.5 11.6 11.7 and the hotfix ones as well (AMD site and 3DGURU versions), all of them yield the same results seen above. I have tried desktop drivers, but that didn’t work either. When using the AMD download tool to detect my drivers it picks the Mobility Catalyst (obviously) but when trying to install that file I get a message "AMD Catalyst Bobility cannot be downloaded due to incompatible hardware/software on your computer. The version of your graphics adapter is not supported. Please contact your notebook manufacturer for a graphics driver update."



After multiple clean uninstalls, installations on top etc.. I suddenly had another problem saying Install package failure in the Catalyst Install Manager when trying to install drivers.. so I was forced to restore my whole system to get rid of that issue.


My problem is that on 3dMark I am getting a really bad result : 3000pts or so. I do not understand why, as I have set CCC to High performance GPU, I have set the battery to High performance as well. In games like Witcher 2 my FPS caps at 20-30 when playing on high settings and the game lags in certain areas… I don’t think that normal. If not the drivers, what else could cause this low performance ?



Can anyone help me to install newer drivers ? Also how long does it usually take for Dell to provide updates drivers for Alienware systems ? Could there be another reason why my m17x has such poor performance ?

If you need more information dont hesitate to ask me

Many thanks in advance if anyone is willing to help out ^_^

 

try these over the top of base....works for me.
http://www2.ati.com/drivers/mobile/11-7_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc_ocl.exe

 

Well I dont know where you found those but it seems to have updated my drivers

Only downside is that CCC wont open up anymore now though :/ Guess there's no fix for that ?

Thanks a mil for the drivers ! I will run a test and let you know if performance went up asap.

 

hmmm my CCC works jsut fine......as for where i got the drivers from...its ATIs site....remember that link and change the part with the version....so next time put in 11-8 or whatever....seems to work everytime......another choice, which i jsut did....install the 6990 driver from the R3 download section....seems to work great and you dont lose your Fn/brightness controls like you do with the OEM.....it is 11.7 to. i jsut installed....uninstall all ATI componets via control pannel and install the 6990.....let me know

 

By that you mean the Dell drivers on the Dell support site I suppose ? It doesnt matter that they are not for the same model of card ?

 

works like a champ for me with no loss of functionality like with the OEMs....

 

Ok I will try that, I'll keep you posted.

Thanks again for your help.

 

ATI/AMD (and therefore Dell) uses unified driver package releases which cover a wide variety of video cards. The installation process automatically identifies the card you have and installs the applicable drivers.

 

true, but unless you know that, you dont know to use the m18x or 6990 or whatever drivers are newer.....dell should be better about updating the driver page.

 

Yes, they should. But it is what it is.

 

System is up and running again, the new drivers seem to be installed properly.

However I ran another 3dmark 11 and had around 15-11 FPS in most tests, is that normal for my system ? I thought the 6970 could handle a lot more... maybe there's another issue I'm not aware of.

 

I dont have my 3dmark results at hand, but try ATITool. (dont mind the driver error it will give you at the start). Activate the 3D Cube view - you should get ~1700FPS (yes, 1700 as in onethousandsevenhundred) with normal clocks (680/900).

 

those tests are supposed to stress your system and you will get low fram rates....on some of the 3dmark06 tests, i still only get like 2fps lol.

as long as you end score is 3300 ish, you are in the ballpark is my best advice.

 

i'm getting this issue of unable to install drivers, earlier i was able to install the 11.8 beta drivers but i had a c++ error, so i unsintall, clean everything in safemode and install again. now the dell stock drivers can't even install, this is pretty f**ked up.

i tried the manual install via the device manager but it doesn't work, i get the "there is no driver selected for the device information set or element" error. tried disable driver signature, also doesn't work.

 

Download the Dell July drivers: Drivers and Downloads.

(Assuming that you have already uninstalled the current drivers via Install Manager in Control Panel>Uninstall Program; if not, do that first.)

Go to Device Manager, right click on the HD 6900 Series adapter, if present>Properties>Driver>Uninstall>Check delete the driver software for this device and then OK. Reboot if required.

Return to the main Device Manager page and repeat the same process for the Intel IGP, if present.

When drivers have been removed for both cards, select Action>Scan for hardware changes from the DM menu bar.

Hopefully, Windows will install the VGA adapter for both cards; if however it loads another ATI driver, just repeat the driver removal process as before (depending on your installation history, there can be several versions of ATI drivers embedded; you have to remove them all, one at a time.)

When both graphics adapters show Windows VGA, then reboot into safe mode (F8) and run Driver Sweeper for AMD Display only. Reboot to Windows and run CCleaner to clean up the registry. Reboot optional.

Double click on the downloaded drivers and install.

 

yea i've done all that already before posting, and somehow i could get the dell july drivers to stick, i immediately create a restoration point and move from there, i'm unable to downgrade the drivers to the stock ones, and the 11.8 preview driver doesn't work either, installing the 11.8 whql exe file would cause my laptop to BSOD.

so i decided to install the driver only via device manager (have disk -> inf file), it was installing, then i got a BSOD again! i rebooted, looked at the driver, it's now 8.881, somehow it miraculously went through. verified in GPUz, somehow the intel GPU is still in 8.8512.

tried a few games with stock and OC clocks, works fine, but i had some really weird texture problems, all the texture was super washed out, so i fiddle with the ATI graphics tray, set to "Optimal Quality" and that seems to fix the texture issues.

so far no issues with sleep, fn keys, shutdowns, switching..
does these issues happen often with ATI drivers? not allow it's own driver to be installed? i search around the web and this seems to date back pretty long time ago.

wasted 5 hours just to troubleshoot this =_=

PS: if anyone is getting error that says it's unable to install application package, you'll need to uninstall the MS C++ distribution 2010 64 that came with SP1.

 

No, you need to ignore it. It won't install the C++ package because you already have a newer version installed via Windows Update. You don't want to go backwards.

 

Well, it's confusing:

Seemed like you were saying the stock Dell drivers wouldn't install. Perhaps you meant something other than what you said.

 

i originally had 11.8 preview drivers installed (on top of original dell stocks), so i went ahead and installed 11.8 whql on top of it (just like you suggested in the other thread), but i got an error with the C++ distribution not installing, i was concerned, so i uninstall everything, including CCC, the driver..etc. then did a reboot, used driver sweeper to clear everything.

that's when my problem started happening. I proceed to apply dell stock drivers (the first dell drivers). and i was getting Driver install failures (ccc, c++, all other installs were success).

i was completely confused since when i did a clean windows install back a few weeks ago, all stock drivers worked flawlessly.

i downloaded the dell july driver and it didn't want to stick orignally, i can't recall how i fixed it, but it was alot of uninstalls, ccleaners, driver sweepers, restarts lol.

i really hope this doesn't happen again for future releases :/

 

Glad you finally worked it out.

 

After more testing of different games I still cant seem to get good performance out of the 6970M.

I installed the latest drivers from the dell website (Released In august).

Take Shogun 2, I get max 20 FPS on the campaign map when using high settings (1080p, Includes AAx4, Tasselation, SSAO etc) and on the battle map always 20/30 FPS maximum.

I read on forums that people with the same config as my M17x are getting 30-40 FPS without overclocking. Then why do I get such bad results in comparison ?

Same for Witcher 2 where I was stuck at 20-30 FPS maximum and a log of lag.

Is it's not the drivers then what could cause the problem ? perhaps a clean windows install would help ? Any ideas ?

Thanks in advance

 

Hey guys just revice my m17x r3 and, ran 3dmark 11 basic, and got a score around 2900,
i think i may have to install a new driver for my 6970m card, i saw that using the drivers on the dell website for the 6990m work fine with the 6970m card, is that correct?

Also i know limited stuff about computers, so just trying to find the easiest way to get the most recent driver, so basicly all i need to do is go to the dell website and download the drivers for 6990m Via this link? and install them over the drivers i have atm? if you need anymore information.

 

ok i know this thread is pretty old, but i wanted to add my experience in this issue.

I just recently got my 6970m replaced, somehow i ran into the same problem, which the Dell official drivers refused to install, the other applications installed fine, it's just the driver itself that's getting stucked somewhere.

This was happening to my old 6970m, and i thought it was a hardware issue but it turns out this new 6970m is also experiencing the same issues. So anyway, i found out that it has something to do with the Inf folders missing in windows/system32/DriverStore/FileRepository, to find out your driver's inf, you'll need to consult the installation log under windows/inf/setupapi.dev.log this will show you what is going on during the installation.

so I hope this helps, i temporary fixed the issue by taking over FileRepository folder and create the missing inf folders and files and the installation was able to go through. While i found out what's the root cause, i'm not sure if there's a permanent fix to this, it's entirely windows related, but i can install other drivers just fine though.