And another.. 7970m in M17x R2..Installation with photos

I just got it from Eurocom also this afternoon, i'm already up and running. M17X-r2 is the machine. It's basically just plug and play once you used the thermal pads as described and applied the thermal paste and mounted the heat sink.
As long as you run bios a09 or higher there's not a necessity to upgrade your bios.
Was easy, though a little attention is needed when mounting the heatsink on the new x-bracket, i spent some time figuring out how to remove the screws of the current heatsink (which don't fit the new x-bracket).

Plug it in, download the drivers from AMD site, uninstall old drivers, reboot into safe mode and use driver sweeper to make sure everything is gone, install catalyst and the newest AMD drivers, reboot, and your set for a nice surprise when you fire it up for the first time. It's a beast

 

Hello again, long time no type
About a year ago i had some issues with an xfire 6970 install. After several attempts and bad cards, i settled on running with a single 6970.
Anyways, long story short, i realized I had an unused credit at eurocom, so i called them and decided to upgrade not to a 7970. I figured, the performance should be equal or better than my originally intended xfire config (that never worked), and since the powerdraw is smaller, it should run cooler than my current 6970. Anyways, is there anythin special i need to worry about?

1-i am runing alienware a10 bios... so I should be fine. right?
2-any concerns with HDMI output? I dotn care much about audio output, but do care about video for dual screens. Else, if thats a no go, will vga work?
3-I had the option of going with 680... but they seem to require more power, a possible powerbrick upgrade, etc.... i figured that after the original nightmare of the dual 6970 attempt, id rather go safe with the 7970.. does this make sense... or did I screw up (not to mention the price is about twice that of the 7970.

Anyways, thanks in advance

 

1 : Read above your post.
2: My HDMI works great, with sound and all, think its sorted out.
3: Price is most important issue. 7970 is from what i read slightly slower, and much cheaper, and since u have AMD to begin with the very easy upgrade. Dont know how HDMI work on the 680.
Dont think there is a power issue with the 680 needing you to upgrade if you choose to go that way since you probably allready have a 240 PSU. (crossfire)

 

Thanks trome

Also, i read that fans do not work automatically... Like on the 6970.
So how does that fan program work? Do i turn them on manually before playing a game?
Are there any settings i need to put on it? Any tutorials on their use?

Thanks again

 

You install HWINFO64.
You make it autostart, and all you do is two clicks during startup to make them run after you set the program up the first time.
Then it will run in the background minimizing or having it open as you wish. If you close it stops.

You set fan speed on GPU and I also use CPU. And you set up your GPU2 to run to help cooling down.
My extra GPU fan (GPU2) does not work no because of plug problems, but the laptop doesnt seem to run much warmer. .

 

Hi all!

Any idea why not working Display port out signal the 7970M and R2 combo?
HDMI,Dsub good but need DP my external monitor (dell u2410)

Cheers_muerte

 

Have been looking at this thread for a while now,
I am interesting in doing this upgrade, but i haven't seen any reports how MSI HD7970M sorks in M17x R2,
Anyone tried it yet?

 

i am also thinking of upgrading to 7970m . i want to ask if eurocom ones work ok now on (thought to be dell?) without hdmi and fan issues. Also will be the 240W adapter be able to handle i7 920xm and dual 7970s? I know i cant overclock the cpu. i just want to use it at stok clocks. also where to find this Rj vbios?

also anyone tested clevo 7970 on m17x r2?

 

To the people that got the first wave of 7970M cards off ebay, did you ever get your HDMI or Displayport working for the M17X R2?

 

Dell card: HDMI working,DP no and need manually fan control HWiNFO.
Eurocom card: only DVI and DSUB working.HDMI,DP NO!, but working automatic fan speed.

 

please excuse my ignorance.

what is the difference between the dell card and the eurocom card other that the vbios?

 

Yes other bios and little other physically,but performance same.
If it is important to HDMI working, buy Dell card,If it is important to automatic fan control buy Eurocom card,
easy decision
If it is important to best OC potential buy 680M
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-940 Processor,Alienware score: P8014 3DMarks

 

Hello everybody. I have Alienware m17xr2 and i would like to buy 7970m. Does anyone know is it possible to buy upgrade kit somewhere in Europe? I want Dell card because i need HDMI audio and video working. I've found 1 reseller on ebay (upgrademonkey) from UK, but I can't get any feedback from him. Also found 1 reseller from Belgium but he sells only Clevo cards.
Thanks in advance!

 

To all of the bros here discussing,
Dell card: HDMI working, DP and auto fan NOT
Clevo card: HDMI video is working, Auto fan controll OK, HDMI audio, DP is NOT working.

Just to clarify.

and one more thing, please read the guide on the beginning, most of the questions are answered there.

 

Hey guys,
Just got a clevo card coming to install in my alienware m17xr2.
It has standard clevo vbios on it like this link ---> techPowerUp GPU-Z Validation 89f5b

I assume it should be no problem to install this with the alienware m17xr2 and just remove the old 4870 card and put in the 7970m clevo version?
Furthermore, I am aware that the audio hdmi will not work but fans should be ok and I am fine with this.

Just to confirm, do I need to install any different vbios on this card prior to installation or the standard clevo vbios above should work ok?
Thnx all and thnx you flingin(PM you as well)

 

Ok guys I need some help.

Installed it and all ok I can bootup into windows and everything is visible.
However, the AMD drivers 13.1 don't detect the GPU and gpu-z which I want to use to copy the vbios also does not work on this card?

I gather I have to install another bios probably the flingin one and do I use atiwinflash in windows to do that?
Is the fact amd drivers cannot detect card an issue with the drivers or bios?

Hwinfo64 picks it up correctly so I think it could be drivers. Going try 12.6 was on 13.1.


Here is my gpu-z info

 

Ok further update.

Looks like it was the 13.1 drivers. Went to 12.6 and it installs fine now with catalyst present.
Will try now the flingin BIOS via atiwinflash.

All good. Followed this guide to help with atiwinflash
http://www.overclock.net/t/1353325/tutorial-atiwinflash-how-to-flash-the-bios-of-your-ati-cards

However,
Have now encountered BSOD blue screens of death with this vbios called thames.rom when I enter windows.
Ok uninstalled drivers and we are finally there!!!!!!!!!!

Strangeness
with the original rom I can use amd 12.6 and it works
With flingin/thames.rom I get BSOD and cannot use 12.6 or 13.1

So back to original clevo rom for me.
Yes confiremd to be working with 12.6 drivers.
Previous rom from flingin gives me BSOD.
I have a v1.1 2G clevo 7970m. Most others I see have the v1.2 version. Maybe this is why.

Very happy chappy
2 upgrades in one day..as the saying goes kill 2 birds with one stone.

 

Well,
Well here it is....
My 3dmark11 score (5234) and other stats.
Interestingly, the 680m and 2820qm in my clevo p170hm scored 5900 points today but this on the alienware m17xr2 is not bad considering we are on 840QM. My clevo with the 2820qm and 6990m was only scoring 3615 points so this is big step-up up from yesterday where I ws gaming wise.
Temps are also much cooler with idle around 30C on 7970m. Previous card 4870 was about 34C idle. Cpu idle temps are much higher with around a +5C to idle cpu cores.

Enjoy

 

Congratz bro

sorry i did not respond earlier, but i was away..
with the vbios thing, im sorry this vbios did not worked for you, vbios flashes are sometimes ''like a box of chocolate, you never know what you gonna get'' - Forrest Gump

 

Thnx bro.

Just ran crysis 3 on the new card.
Runs great too @ 1900x1200

Max temp gpu was 69C and CPU 63C.
It's a great machine this alienware but I was shiat-ting my pants when the very high mode for GPU fans came on ...very very loud..

Flingin can I ask you said you saw video corruption on screen with other bios's can you be more specific in what I should see if the problem exists? Some said at bootup black and white artifacts?

Thnx mate

EDIT: Am running 12.8ccc. The 12.6 were giving me a red tinge when scrolling in browser. These newer drivers very smooth in gaming and no more tinge when scrolling. Highly recommended to the 7970m users.
Here is the link: http://benchmark3d.com/amd-catalyst-8-982-7-august-8-7900-mod

 

it was just a plain white screen upon boot, or a black screen while web-browsing.
Weird thing is i never got any issues while gaming, just when browsing Web or upon boot.

 

Thnx buddy for that info. So far have not seen those issues touch wood.
I see a lot of r2 owners with 920/940 cpu's. Is it a significant upgrade compared to my 840? I overclocked cpu yesterday (5% in A10 modified bios) and saw hwinfo64 showing burst turbo speeds hit 3.4ghz and was very impressed. I gather 920/40 has more headroom but at max what tpu does it draw compared to 45w of default qm cpu's?
Curious.

 

Ok a further update. Booted it up today after overnight off. Crapped myself when I saw this red tinge everywhere on alien logo and windows logo. Turned it off and then rebooted and got black screen. Hmmm I thought something is wrong.
So I then downloaded rsgeiger's eurocom bios got into safe mode and so far no problem. I think this rom is tweaked to work correctly at 2D with the screen. The previous rom which is the factory one had a slight red tinge to everything and was prominent when scrolling with the mouse on these forums (the blue bar areas).
I also tried flingin's rom and had bsod when going into windows so that one no good for me. Interestingly, gpu-z shows exact same info with the eurocom vbios and the default clevo vbios. However, there is a difference in the 2d colors being portrayed on the 1900x1200 screen. I will test this one over the next 24-48hr and see if the same bug appears as before. If it does I might try the dell vbios as a last resort.


Moral of the story..if you pickup a clevo 7970m and want to put it into the alienware m17xr2 try flashing it with eurocom vbios available on page 30 of this thread. It works great in 2D-desktop and 3D gaming.

Thnx rsgeiger

 

You are very welcome tron2

Yeah, that RJTech bios was one of the earliest, but most useful. I'm also glad you got that vBios fixed before your screen died. I lost one RGBLED to a mismatched vBios.

I stated in another thread (or maybe this thread - so MANY threads), that I believe the cards original vBios wants to run the RGBLED at 120mhz. That forces some of the strange artifacts that you saw earlier.

For others that wish to see my vbios collection, here is the original post ( link)

Good luck to you! I'm still working on my problem over in the OTHER thread still. Will update that in a few days i hope.

 

Thnx bro.:hi2:

Just an update to all, definitely a huge improvement with this eurocom bios and tested/booted it up today and works fine no problem one day after installing the eurocom bios. Everything feels smooth now screen saver comes
on now correctly after gaming it is a real pleasure to be typing on this notebook and gaming is very smooth no glitches very wonderful stuff and colors just pop from the wonderful screen.

Interesting about the 120MHz comments. I tried to open the vbios's with radeon vbios editor on techpowerup but couldn't open these 7970m roms to see/compare if it is a 120mhz thing or a voltage thing. I was suspecting the later as sometimes more voltage to the core at idle/2D can create these weird artifacts.

Anyways another successful m17xr2 owner with 7970m installed. Thank you to all the great contributors on these marvelous forums.
:thumbsup:

 

Congratz Tron, welcome in the club

The 120Hz thing is just an assumption, i do not think something like this would happen, because believe me, if at any moment your RGB screen would be forced to work at 120Hz, it would be a matter of moments before it would burn.
I think there is more behind this issue, but at present, nobody have the knowledge and resources to tell what it was exactly.
One thing that we know is some vbioses may hurt your RGB over time, so we have to be careful and pay attention to our laptops behavior....and act if there are any signs of something going from bad to worse.

 

@tron2^ have you managed to update the drivers past 12.6 now that you are running a vBIOS that's working well for you?

Make sure you are installing the mobility version of the driver also. If it doesn't say mobility in the file name chances are its not.

I'm stable on 13.1's but I can game and play with 13.4's fine if I don't make any any changes in game that causes the cards to change modes on the fly. And yes even with using the latest CAPs with older drivers the newer drivers do make a positive difference in performance so try to update the 12.6's.

 

Yes...
Installed 13.6 beta 2 and got a nice 5800 points for 3dmark'11

 

Confirmed.
13.6 Beta are working for me as well, with HDMI video

 

Hey everyone ^^

So tuesday I finally installed my 7970M on my R2. I got my card from MXMUpgrade and after putting the card on, everything seemed to be alright (both fans and HDMI where working also). After heading home (I did this instalation on a friend's house) I started getting "Your AC power adapter is Non-Dell's Adapter".

My Bios is A10 unlocked (the one that allows a 5% overclock) and already tried to install the oficial BIOS but still getting the same result. I also did a power drain and that seemed to solve the problem but after a second reboot got the message again.

Should I try and flash the VBIOS with the one on page 1 of this thread?

 

That is wierd...
As a last resort you can do a vbios flash, but i do not think this is GPU related issue (hmmmm ?)

 

Well.... this is bad news.

Today I woke up and started my M17xr2.
Noticed this red tinge again and thought let me take out the card and look at it again.

Installed it back in and now white screen at bootup?
Any ideas?

 

Further update:
This guy's post helped me fix the dreaded white screen on bootup.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...7x-r2-installation-photos-12.html#post8771052


Pheeeew I thought it was a gonna..
Now the questions is do I flash to rjtech bios?

 

Ok installed the rjtech bios looks like the clevo hm bios mod from what I can see.
All good, however, cannot find any amd driver which works with it. All keep having device manager ! mark.

Interestingly, when I did get the white screen I noticed 2 beep codes from motherboard?
Any ideas?

I probably will have to go back to eurocom bios and use vga cable if the white happens again.

 

Did you use CCleaner to remove everything AMD from the system? No remains of the old drivers can be in the registry. That is usually required for the new drivers to be installed. The latest beta 13.6 work for me.

 

Yeah always uninstall catalyst and then driver sweeper followed by ccleaner.
I am back on eurocom bios with 13.6 beta 2 drivers. Run's great albeit for that initial boot-up problem with the bios. I am wondering could it be motherboard bios related as I am on A10 modified. Seems putting in the vga external display activates something.
It's one of those strange ones.

 

I had this problem as soon as I installed my eurocom 7970m. I also noticed that the alien head would change lights as if it were charging. I tried reflashing A10 bios with no success. I later ended up flashing the vbios to 1.075 OV which didn't resolve the issue either. I noticed that when I played or ran benchmarks on straight power (ie. battery removed) I would get horrible fps and/or benchmarks.

I ended up replacing my power supply and that solved the "Your AC power adapter is Non-Dell's Adapter" problem, in addition to the power issues while on running straight power supply. However, my lights still appear as if my computer was charging. It otherwise performs great.

I ended up reflasing the vbios to stock voltage as I found gaming performance to be just as good; this also helped with my temps as temps >85-86C cause shutdowns. I had little improvement with repasting and playing around with thermal pads.

 

i have had 11.12 drivers working with my current RJtech vbios super duper.

Oh, that strange white screens you experienced....i do not want to repeat myself but remember that these are one of the symptoms after my screen died within 3 months from installing 7970m with stock eurocom vbios.

i would love to help but i don't know how,
you are essentially on the same config as i am, just i have stock A10 bios and 920XM cpu....

 

I have A10 modified bios and 840QM. Hmmm 11.12 drivers have you tried the latest 13.6 beta 2? I tried 12.6, 12.11 and they didn't work with the rjtech bios in it. It's all very weird stuff.
Mind you I am having an amazing time with the 7970m and Company of Heroes 2. It's rather sensational to play this @ 1900x1200 and all very smooth stuff on maximum. I guess I will have to buy my time and hope the screen doesn't die on me. Worked fine today on bootup so here
There are also some interesting comments here about the issue as well:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...2-7970m-screen-problem-hwinfo-settings-3.html

 

Ok just to further update. Had a few days now since I did the VGA cable thing. Seems like it has fixed the notebook.
Both in the last few days no screen corruption in bios on bootup and notebook works like a dream.
Hope this helps other 7970m/m17xr2 owners.

 

That is great to hear bro.
I/We would appreciate if you would gather the info and in short told the community what happened and what fix did the trick.
Load of users will find themselves in your situation and finding/digging out those posts can be soooo painful ....

I can then modify the OP with info given by you, with your tag next to it

 

Well,

I did one other thing from memory as well cause I hear the beeps were memory related too.
I took out my hynix memory 8GB, cleaned them had some dust on them and then reseated it back into the slots, so keep that in memory...no pun inteneded

For the vga thing here is what happened.
As per previous posts I took out 7970m inspected it and then put it back into the slot(primary). P.S - I only had purple/pink hue on the alien logo on bootup prior to taking this card out.
It was then that I turned it on and the dreaded white horizontal bleach out on black corners occurred and I heard interestingly, two beeps from the alienware notebook. I was in true panic mode. So i then read more about this from page 10 in this thread and the other link of someone trying out the vga cable whilst this occurs to get it to work. I also read that the memory usually does the two beeps as well.

So I then took my vga cable had my dell 24" monitor working and put a vga cable into the 24' monitor. I then took the alienware m17xr2 to the monitor it was running on battery turned it on and saw the white bleach screen. I then attempted to connect the vga cable to the alienware m17xr2 slot on the side. I then saw the amber standby on my 24'' external display go green and voila the external 24'' screen started to show everything as per normal. Meanwhile the white bleach disappeared from the alienware screen and then a few moments later I saw the dell 24'' screen show windows desktop. It was at this point I disconnected the vga cable and looked at the alienware screen. Voila the alienware screen showed the desktop now and everything was sweet.

Since then no more reddish/pink hue to the screen on alien logo and windows startup and more importantly no more white bleach screen. I also reseated the memory modules (2 of them) and since then everything is sweet.
I am running on A10 modified BIOS, Eurocom vBIOS on the 7970m and the 7970m card is a Clevo. Also running 13.6 beta 2 AMD drivers which are the latest.

Not sure if this bug is related to the motherboad bios or my ram which may have been incorrectly seated(highly doubt it but took them out either way and inspected them). I will continue to monitor it but hopefully it stays this way for a long time. The vga cable monitor swap may do something to the motherboard bios which then fixes this issue as the 7970m maybe looking for iGPU which could be causing this bug. Once the vga swap is done maybe it permanently records this until you either 1. Remove the 7970m card and attempt to put it back in or 2. you remove the cmos battery or reset the motherboard bios, which I have yet to test and do not want to attempt this either.

I am starting to think it could be one of the last two points.

 

Hello guys, I finally bought Dell 7970m, but the package came with some thermo foil instead of thermal pads, so I couldn't finish installation of card because I want to put proped pads on chips. Anyway, as this is my first time to change GPU card in laptop and I read this whole thread i have some questions and need some advice. As I am not sure which Vbios is flashed onto the card(I presume it's original Dell vBios) is it possible to burn my LCD screen on first boot, like rsgeiger and flingin had? My motherboard bios is A09 and i have 720qm processor. Can i do some precaution measures to avoid burning LCD?
Second thing i was courious about are the 4 screws connecting heatsink with xbracket. I had 4870m (which gone bad with artifacts and stuff) in machine, so i put the card out and removed heatsink. On heatsink there are 4 screws with c-clips mounted on them. I tried to screw new xbracket (which i got with the card) to the heatsink with no card between and it fitted perfectly. As i read on this forum that old screws have to be removed from heatsink and used new ones I am bit confused. Am I missing something?

 

Hey slavinjo and welcome.
1. I doubt you will burn the screen so don't worry it can be fixed as well from my testing with vga cable input. Concerning the dell 7970m you should have full functionality of hdmi including video and audio but the fan control will be an issue and you need to set the fans with hwinfo64.
2. Ok with the c- clips you need to remove them as they will not fit into the 7970m(screw diameter too small for 7970m). The dell 7970m should have come with x-bracket and 4 screws. Use these screws to attach heatsink to the 7970m.

Hope this helps.

 

Hey tron, thqnks for response and welcome
I did a little experiment. I mounted bracket on a card and connected it with a heatsink (without pads and paste applied) and screwed it lightly. Screws fitted in bracket like a charm. Only problem could be screw "height" when i apply the pads. I ordered Phobya 1mm thick pads and tommorow i will take the bracket and go to the hardwqre store to buy 5mm long screws which fit the bracket in case original screws wont be long enough.

 

If you have a Dell x-bracket the original screws will work. If you have the Clevo x-bracket then your original screws will be incompatible as tron2^ mentioned. You shouldn't have to use longer screws for the install.

 

I believe it's Dell bracket so i think it will be fine. However i noticed strange orange plastic-like foil on the gpu core of the old 4870m. It has thermal paste under it (on the gpu chip itself) and on it. Should i remove that foil and put it on 7970m and apply thermal paste in same manner, or just apply paste on the chip?

 

No its not needed, afaik its just there so paste doesn't get everywhere. Just apply paste on the GPU die about the size of a grain of rice.

 

Kewl if it is the dell bracket then it should be fine just check the screws before putting any paste.
As for the pasting methodology here is the holy grail guide:
Application

Make sure you use ICD7
My temps are max 64C(gpu) in Crysis 3 played for 2 hrs. ICD7 rox.... now when will I find the time to re-paste the cpu?

 

OK, thank you guys for your help. I will assemble laptop when thermal pads arrive and I'll keep you posted with results.