Alienware M17x R2 + AMD Mobility 7970 = can it work?

Ok guys,

Just wondering if this setup can work.

Going to order one of those from our friend pau1ow in the UK and try it out.

It seems this has been already tested by BonsaiScott :

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/630103-official-m17x-r1-r2-owners-lounge-thread-part-1-a-12.html#post8579434

Time to see if the R2 STILL has 6 more months and more to go on up to date high end graphic cards...

EDIT June 16th 2012 :

Ok. So our French team @ P4G Forum have done it with the R2, single Dell 7970m and its works like a charm with Hwinfo32 fan management!

For those of your not afraid by french:
P4G / [review] M17XR2 + 7970M

 

it will be great if you could test it.i think it will work since its working in m15x.DR650SE is going to test the hd7970 but he is busy so i'don't know when he will try it

 

on the R2?

if so, great!

 

yes on the R2.

 

@tomX...I'm considering getting one 7970 to replace my CF 6990 (which is now only 1 card because I killed the other). I was thinking of going through upgradeyourlaptop. Who is pau1ow? Does he have some cards available or just 1 for you?

Edit: ah didn't see you were in France. Will probably have to stay with upgradeyourlaptop if your seller is also not in the US.

 

Few more cards coming next week - I'm based in the UK btw so perhaps UYL would be your best bet then.

 

Or I'll just move to the UK. Small price to pay to keep my rig up to date.

 

hehe.

I won't be back in Europe (as I live in Africa) until next month though ... by then maybe some other people will have managed this experiment

DR650 and Ghost, as soon as you get your cards, let me know so we can figure out test procedures and compare our hardware setups

That goes for any other people out there

 

Yes it works - typing on it now. However, now that others mention it, the fan does appear to be stuck on high at all times. Never noticed before and I don't really care. Other than that, I haven't run into any troubles with it - just runs. Haven't pushed it past reported TDP with my GPGPU code though

Running 12.4 workstation drivers which I patched for the 7970 MXM.

OpenCL device ID reports correctly that it's a Pitcairn.

 

Can you run 3d mark vantage?

 

@BonzaiScott

Just use HWiNFO to manage fans automatically so you dont wear them out

 

Good news for everyone.

Now if Hwinfo can manage its fans... this is a rock solid improvement!

We will need some Furemark benching to see what temps are reached

 

I second that please Bonsai!

>>> would love to see some 3dMark scores!

ALSO, regarding drivers, have you tried AMD's 12.6 Beta's? They support the 7970M!

 

HWiNFO32 lets me set the fan speeds. 12.4 supports Wimbledon just fine as Pitcairn.

 

Oh wow, so we have confirmation of this working!?

Awesome! Love to see some benchmarks and also in Crossfire

 

Can't wait for this summer to test this!

 

is there any place i can get a 7970 for r2?

 

Couple of sellers selling theirs. Price is around 450-500 $.

 

Will also be getting one this week and testing. Can anyone confirm if I require the A10 BIOS, or will unmodified Dell BIOS also work?

 

I am sure the latest unmodified BIOS will work.

 

Scott, are you using a Dell 7970 or a Eurcom/Clevo 7970?

Curios if the fan "issue" is strictly related to the Dell cards (like it was for the 6970/90's).

If so, then that could mean that a Eurcom 7970 should run the same as a 6970. Now we just need to get two of them and run them in crossfire to see how it goes.

Unfortunately that won't be me...that's what I get for promising my wife that after I upgraded to the 6970's I wouldn't need to upgrade again for "a few years".

 

Dang xD that is the same i did with my wife in order to justify the upgrade to 6970's

 

I was going to get dual cards but upgradeyourlaptop dragged their feet and I used the money, +$94 to an R4, which is sitting still in the box not even opened. And I've had it for a few weeks I need to either move this thing or use it, but I'm just too hooked on the R2. I just know if I open the R4 I'm going to want to upgrade the crap out of it If I sell this thing I'm it'll be for dual 7970s. That or use the money to build a desktop.

 

Actually, I was looking forward to the R4... but these 7970m on the R2 change things.

With you having a R4, this could be THE great opportunity to compare CPU/RAM/HDD inpact on GPU performance on these 2 builds. Same gpu setups but different CPU / RAM could give some nice info...

but that would mean you have to get yourself the cards...

 

I'm still waiting to see these 7970s actually ship from upgradeyourlaptop before I place an order. They've been delayed a lot.

I second Greywolf's question. Which 7970s are they? Dell or Clevo/Euro? I'd rather not have the fan issue problem, even though I can control it with HWInfo.

 

Unmodified A10 in my R2 works.

 

Thanks BonsaiScott! I'm actually still on A9 since nothing is wrong with my laptop, but maybe I should just go to A10. To everyone interested this will be the Dell brand 7970 that I will be trying out.

 

I suspect the 7970M hardware will be the same no matter where you purchase from, only the vBIOS will differ. The differences you'll be interested in (if there are any) is p-states and enabled video output ports. Some of the MXMs I have don't have LVDS enabled. If you find that an MXM doesn't appear to work (no LCD output), before giving up hope, try powering up with the VGA output attached to a monitor. That would allow you to boot Win7 and flash the vBIOS.

Good luck

 

Srsly, just ship it over to me and I'll open it for you

 

I have a couple 7970Ms but have only experimented very quickly with trying to get them both working and not met with any success. I may have some very limited time next week to play around with 2 in the R2 again. Who here knows the most about getting 2 MXMs working in the R2? If we can line up a time, perhaps we could get them both working and report back here.

When I originally bought the R2 I think it had 2x NVIDIAs in it and they were connected with a blue SLI cable. I do not have that cable anymore, so they would have to be set up as independent GPUs, which is what I want anyway. Is that possible?

Haven't seen this posted anywhere, but at least for the R2, the heat sink has worked for every MXM I've thrown at this thing, and I've plugged in at least 10 different ones (AMD and NVIDIA). Get the best paste you can for the GPU die and gap pads of the right thickness for the memory and rest of the hot stuff (power conversion).

Even so, I had a Cypress at 102*C junction in my R2 this AM

Wish the GPU fan went over 3720 RPM

Kind of surprised that the socket is still good after 20-30 cycles.

 

i think you need the crossfire cable to be able to use them both as for running them as independent GPUs i think it won't work did you check the device manager do you see two hd7970m or only one.

 

Yeah you'll need the crossfire cable to utilize both of them...however windows still should see both of them...it will only be able to use one of them however.

I know this based on the 6970's I had with a non working crossfire cable. It should still physically see both of them, but only the primary will be utilized.

Also I should point out that there was some success with the crossfire cables that originally shipped with the 4870's and 5870's from Dell. For some reason on the 6970's they worked for some folks, but not for others. However Eurocom sells a crossfire cable for 6970's (and I assume now the same for 7970's) that have been successful.

So if looking to purchase a crossfire cable, I'd go through them.

Just my .02 cents.

 

Ichime and TheWiz

 

Yep, Ichime did the tests on the 6970's and the 580's so he'd be a good choice.

 

7970M in stock at Eurocom.

 

Im positive the Clevo 7970m wont have fan issues on r2.

 

Me too.

10char

 

I have a status update. No luck yet because the X-plate on the 5870M is too small for the 7970M. And I dont yet have the X-Plate for the 7970M

EDIT: I did try to mod the 5870 X-plate with some thermal pads and I did get it on the 7970. However my m17x would not post. It just ran with full fans and blinking scroll lock lignt. Maybe it could not sit properly with the X-Plate elevated so far away from the back of the card. So still waiting for the 6990 X-Plate, as I hear that works.

 

Why did you use the x plate from a 5850 instead of the 5870 (Edit 2: oops you already did)?

If the 5870 x plate won't work, how would we attach the R2 heatsink?

Edit 1: A blinking scroll lock with caps and num locks solid indicates a problem with the processor or mobo. See this article:
Check for LED Behavior on Alienware M17x of M15x When a No Post Situation Is Suspected - KB Article - 367784 | Dell

 

Would the HDMI be working with the clevo though? i.e. sound and video both coming through?

 

Guys,

Don't have too much hope in the Clevo 7970M, this GPU is to work with Enduro supported notebooks like Clevos where iGPU and dGPU are muxed.
The Dell 7970M is working in my MSI 16F2 but the Clevo isn't (blank screen/no display) because I don't have either Optimus/Enduro. In the new MSI, both do display.

The only option that would make sense is to get the Clevo 7970M + the modded vBIOS Enduro OFF that would come from Sager, good luck to get it

 

thanks for the info Pau!

 

once that's tested, then well know.

Sent from my Samsung Captivate/ICS using Tapatalk 2

 

Thats good to know, but all I had to do was swap back in my m5870 and it worked just fine again. I'm also only on BIOS A9, so will upgrade to A10 before trying again.

 

I wonder if it threw that error because it didn't recognize the card. I doubt A10 will help, but it certainly won't hurt.

Has anyone got a 7970 to work in an M17X R2 yet? Dell or Clevo? I don't know anything about enduro but I know the R2 doesn't have any switchable graphics so that sounds bad.

 

Eurocom told me they will ship 7970m this week as they recieved cards last friday, so we should know soon enough, i'll keep you updated guyz, fingers crossed

 

these are the types of threads where i regret getting an R1 D:

 

They told me they were starting to ship a week ago. Seems typical of Eurocom. Still eager to hear the results though.


Sent from my Samsung Captivate/ICS using Tapatalk 2

 

Have you tried the Clevo card with an external monitor?

 

Can't wait for everyone to get their cards so the testing can begin. I almost got enough saved to get me a pair.