6970m vBios

Thanks to zippys007

maybe this is a start to 6970m in R2

 

Im so tempted to flash this to my 5870. Hmm of i brick it can I reflash? Doubtful. Not worth it

 

lol DON'T DO IT lol

 

it's a totally different gpu. dont do it!

 

Flashed my 6970M with this BIOS in my M17x R2. It fixed the pixellation issue and constant driver crashes I had with the Clevo VBIOS. I can render with no crashes.

BUT

Fans still do not respond. It's still stuck on medium speed.

Edit: System also freezes when AC is unplugged, and idle temps are pretty high (around 55 degrees) but it could be due to the thermal paste I'm using. I'll try to change that and if I can manually control the fans via HWMonitor, I could run a quick bench.

 

yes please so if the wiz can add the device ID(6970m) to modded bios maybe that will fix fan issue? does the system bios only need device ID of gpu to monitor temps? maybe the reliant info is in the R3 bios?

Do you think xfire will work as is if you had two?

 

I think that seems to be the issue (BIOS support for fans) because I had the same problem when testing the GTX 460M. I don't know how the R2's BIOS is set up, but I hope the device ID console of the BIOS can be cut and pasted from BIOSes from systems that support the card. If that doesn't work, they should look into just doing something about controlling the fans in this system in general.

Don't know for certain if CFX will work for certain, but if it did, the cables will have to be mounted a bit differently because they shifted the Crossfire connector on the 6970M compared to the 5870s.

 

very tempted to get a 6970m GPU or 2
I wonder if i could get one from dell and also if the xfire connector is on the card/position?
Can an R3 owner with 6970m open their beast up and take a photo of your OEM 6970m?
ichime is the ram only on the heatsink side of the card? so R2 5870m heatsinks fit?
ichime did the 460m/470m/485m fit ok in the R2? i wonder if ram and sli connector are in the right place.

Sorry with all the questions

If you can ichime run some 3Dmark benchys

 

So basically it works, you just need to update your drivers as well. Did they change the crossfire cable position so much that the current cable length wouldn't suffice? Or is it just slightly different and will still fit? Even without bios fan control, using HWInfo32 would be enough as long as the cards render properly. If that turns out to be the case, you can ask Mumak to develop his fan control utility even further to perhaps have 3D profile detection so it revs up the fans and in 2D puts them back down. There is also something similar built into Rivatuner but it takes some knowledge of how that program works to configure it properly. I can't wait until my R3 gets here, I plan to test all of this and more with the 6970M in the R2. If Mumak and TheWiz combine their knowledge, I bet we could see an updated bios that fully controls the fans for the R2 with the 6970M in no time. Crossfire is the next step Wish I had ordered another R3 now.

 

I'd wait till at least the fan situation is fixed before purchasing. Hopefully, there'll be a fix for this in the near future. As for the design of the card itself, the RAM is on the front side (heatsink side) with no RAM modules the backside. As i mentioned before, the R2's heatsink fits pretty much like a glove as it did the GTX 460M. However with the 6970M, the X-shaped underbracket that holds the heatsink (from the 5870) doesn't fit as well and there will be a slight bend of it, but nothing too serious. I haven't tested the 470M or the 485M.

The cable length is fine, but because the connector is shifted lower, the cable would have to go over the plateau created by the space to run the original Crossfire cable through. If you look at the R2 (and R1) with the keyboard removed and a CF or SLi cable, you can kinda imagine how the cable would run. You'd have to use tape or something to keep it in place.

Also, I did try Mumak's modded HWinfo to control the fans and I actually benched 3dmark Vantage (just the GPU score, which I posted on the Benchmark thread), but the fans kept on throttling back and the cards actually hit 100 degrees during the test (which is why I didn't continue on with a full test including the CPU score). My thermal paste it solid, but it could be that the thermal pads for the memory I used could be too thick.

Either way, I hope there'll be something done to add support for these cards because 1) they're great (especially with Cat 11.2) and 2) the M17x is a great platform (probably the best gaming notebook I've owned so far).

 

can't wait to see your results Joker this is looking good for R2's

 

Well Ichime, definitely get in contact with Mumak, I think he's key to solving the fan problem for now until TheWiz gets back to work on the R2 bios. If he can make his fan detection algorithm more aggressive (in milliseconds) it should keep the fans working on high when set and should alleviate all heat issues. I agree, the M17x-R2 is the best notebook Dell has ever made and likely will ever make.


Dan-I'm excited too, I wasn't excited at all about my R3 order but now I am so I can yank the 6970M out of it and put it in the R2.

 

someone with the resources needs to get one of these working in an R1 please!

 

Would love to get this working in an R1 too. I'll definitely be getting in contact with Mumak, though I think a direct BIOS fix would be more stable.

EDIT: Also, th 6970M has issues shutting down (system will stall/hang up and requires a manual shut down).

 

This used to happen with the 5870s as well before Dell issued a vbios update. There are workarounds we developed that were software based using Rivatuner and they would likely still work for the 6970M.

 

I checked with TheWiz already if we can find a method to completely disable the automatic fan control in R2 so that only the setting done by HWiNFO32 is used, however we haven't found that yet
To modify the fan control cycle is no problem. Currently it checks every 1 second if the BIOS changed the setting and if it did, then it sets it back. I can make this to be more frequent, let's say 300 ms, however the fans still need some ramping time...

 

Yep I figured as much, maybe even every 50-100ms would be better.

 

Too frequent checking in loop might overload the system. I'll set it to 200ms, post a new build on Tech|Inferno and then you can check if it's better or need to be adjusted more..

 

Sounds good. I'll be using HWInfo a lot more once my R3 arrives.

 

The R3 uses a different method to control fans and it seems only one fan can be controlled curerntly although the interface should allow both.. Might be a bug in the EC implementation...
I wish I could get some info from the ODM engineers, but I don't have a contact in Compal (R3) or whoever did the R2... I know the methods, interfaces, however it's proprietary...

 

For the R1 and R2, the ODM was Flextronics/Arima. Wonder why Dell went with Compal this time around...

Anywho, I tried the latest HwInfo revision (1181) and I still get the same problem with the throtting back. I think if you can open up the 5870's VBIOS, we could see what keeps these fans on constant.

 

The M11x was made by Compal too.
Fans are controlled by Embedded Controller (EC) which runs its own firmware and that's completely proprietary. The problem is that this stuff is seldom described anywhere and quite difficult to decode, so I haven't found a method how to disable the EC auto fan control yet..

 

I thought Dell/AW would stick with Flextronics for their higher end system. But Compal makes some great systems I guess.

Anywho, I tried your latest build 1187 and the fans throttle much less and for lesser intervals. So, I did a full vantage run and got better temps. So the 6970M should fit within the thermal limits of the R2 if there is proper support.

 

Ordering an r2 today! IS there still development going on for the 6970?

 

no developments really other then hwinfo being fine tuned
I am currently saving up for a pair of 6970s, not sure if anyone else is still seriously considering it still though

 

If this would work with two 6970m cards in Crossfire, that would be great.

I am looking for a laptop for college this fall. Currently looking at a Precision M6600 with the FirePro 8900m, but if this Crossfire setup could be made to work with the M17, I would almost be willing to try two FirePro 8900m in a M17 just to see if they would work.

Would make an awesome CAD system.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...6970m-your-m17x-r2-single-gpu-crossfirex.html

Doubt you would be able to get two FirePro M8900s to work in Crossfire since the VBIOS probably won't support it. But seeing as the M8900 is a rebadged 6970M and the FirePro ad Radeon cards use the same driver, the 6970Ms should be able to do some CAD work and the programs that are giving trouble can probably be addressed with a Driver tweak.