M17x R1 - 5870 Crossfire running...

Impressive stuff. Glad to see individuals doing successful experimentation with the first Dellinware M17X, which does have the same MXM and PSU potential as the R2.

 

Sorry to dig up this old threat. So I installed a single HD5870 (Dell card) in my M17x and everything works fine (no fuzzy screen). My only problem is that the fans won't spin past 2000 RPM. So the card is getting hotter and hotter till it reaches 90° C. I can set the fans manually via HWinfo to spin up at 60° C but this is not the real deal. Are your fans run normally or have yoou to tweak the EC via Hwinfo?

Thx

 

Hello and welcome to NBR.

What vBIOS version is flashed on your card? Check it with GPU-Z.
It should be 012.020.000.027.037640, if it's not, download the latest Dell vBIOS for the 5870 and flash it.

Perform a power drain (this should be done with every hardware upgrade).

Are the thermal pads seated correctly?

 

In hwinfo on the sensor page, there should be a little fan symbol near the bottom.

Click it and you'll be in the fan control section. You can set the options here and either have manual control or temperature controlled. I'm not at my laptop right now and can't remember the exact settings but it should be pretty straight forward once you see this screen.

Do not close it, instead click "minimize all"

I'll check exact steps after I get home.

 

^^ He did that but doesn't want to use HwInfo:

 

oh sorry i misread the article.
if the vbios, bios and ec are upto date you may be out of luck.

 

Have to check the Vbios when I'm home again. I applied a powerdrain at the beginning of the disasembly.

I think you need some kind of right Vbios like on the M15x (inverted screen with bios A01). With the dual 260m the fans go full blast (400RPM) when the cards hit the mid 60's , with the 5870 the temps go up till 90 and fans still at 2000 RPM. When idling the card is around 37° on MEMIO.

 

Yes, just check it when you have time. With the M17x as opposed to the M15x you need the latest 5870 vBIOS which is available for download on Dell support in the M17x R2 section.

 

So I'm back at home. GPU-Z shows the 012.020.000.027.037640 Vbios
The system bios is A07. Tried dell drivers and latest AMD drivers (12.1). Still the same. On the other hand with the M15x fan start at 60° C and lower to 2000 Rpm at 50° C

I'm not giving up on this (I hate dual GFX ).

 

Try each card alone in the primary MXM slot and see what the results are.

 

guys is there any difference in the colour of the 5870m graphics card as there are 2 on ebay i could get that are green but i understand dell use red ones is there any difference and does it mean i cant use them in my m17x r1

 

Green ones may be Clevo, try asking the seller.

 

the sale post says the card was ment for a Eurocom W870CU. Which is a rebranded clevo. Does this mean it wont work or will i just have to flash the card with dells vbios.

 

Well, from past experiences, quite a few bricks were reported flashing clevo 5870 with Dell vBIOS AND vice versa, I don't recall hearing about a successful flash.

 

the other thing is that the sell says that he knows that the cards work with Eurocom, Sager, Alienware, Dell brands its just a lot of money to waste if they are not going to work.

Also i dont really know where i can get dell 5870m's besides maybe NBR marketplace and then they come up rarely.

never mind after look more carefully I see i can get some dell cards of ebay at a better price

 

Go for them, you'll sleep better at night

 

got to wait till next months pay i think..... or i could put it on my credit card

 

Hey , how can you do the upgrade, m17x r1 has mxm 2.1 but hd 5870m is a mxm iii b card? how is that possible, the slot is way diffrence, did anyone else do the test?

 

The model in discussion is actually the M17x (first 17" Alienware laptop released by Dell) not the m17x-R1.
People improperly call it M17x R1 and that is what creates confusion.

 

Well after getting all excited about this thread, I bought a pair of already flashed Dell/Alienware m5870 with heatsinks and crossover cable, got them installed no problem.
Downloaded and installed the latest Beta 12.7, and after reboot Device Manager shows Firepro m7820.
Well cleaned out that cluster and downloaded and installed the Dell M17x R2 m5870 drivers, those worked. Dev manager now shows proper m5870s.
So far so good. Except one card gets stuck in 400Mhz/300mhz Core/Mem, and won't go full speed, any type of forcing crossfire causes the computer to hard lock.
Wow, welcome to ATI for s sake
So 2 days later, still screwing with this . I dumped the BIOS and there's nothing wrong there, just in case I re-flashed with winflash anyways.
Still can't get the second card to do anything useful.

So what I want to know is how in the holy balls of the nine hells did the OP get his cards working in Crossfire? Everything in his screenshots shows that he has the same problem as me, with the slow clock speeds just like me.
Also the fans don't really work that well at all. Man why did I switch from Nvidia again?

So, how many people now does that make that has tried this procedure? 3?

 

Okay I got everything figured out.

First off, you have to install the Dell drivers first, enable crossfire, then you can install the newer drivers like 12.8.
My other problem was with the fans and with a very helpful coworker, I think he figured out the issue.
One of the cards had a horrible thermal paste job. The guy who did it used way to much and it was everywhere. Before my friend repasted the card, it was reaching temps of 99C before I stopped playing, and the fan never came on.

After repasting the card, the temps never go above 74C in regular gaming, and furmark stays below 82C even after 35 minutes. What's interesting now though however, is the fans are working perfectly.

Looks like because the good card was not getting hot, the fans were never being told to turn on, so everything got hot. Now that both cards are reporting the same temps (more or less) the fans come on like they are supposed to.

Man what an awesome upgrade from the 260m GTX.

 

hey dannyboy can you give me a full and clear tutorial on how to do this i found 5870 for $45! and i am gonna buy them but what all do i have to do can u send links to the programs like vbios flash thing and do i just download the r2 ao9 bios or what please explain clear and so i buy 2 of them ? and can you post a screen shot of windows experience index score for graphic and gaming grahics thanks

and do i have to buy any cables for the card(s) and i have the 9400 G and 260m

 

Ok so i just ordered a 5870m for $100 with heatsink and i want to know what do i have to do to install it? i know i have to take out my 260m and put the 5870m in but do i just install the m17x r2 amd 5870m driver and m17x r2 amd vbios or what? and also do i leave hybrid and pcie enabled in graphics option ? please help

 

Hello, Jordy, you'll need the right hand side fan (part number KSB0705HA-8J02 or BATA0812R5H P002, either of them will do just fine).

Regarding vBIOS version, check with GPU-Z to see if it's already flashed to 012.020.000.027.037640, if not download it from Dell under M17x R2 Drivers downloads and flash it yourself.
You'll want to turn off Hybrid SLi in BIOS if it won't already be Disabled, PCIe Gen2 can be left Enabled.

And as for drivers, try the latest version from AMD. If they won't install, grab the M17x R2 drivers from Dell and install the latest from AMD on top.

 

ok thanks ill wait for the card to come in and am i able to run my 260m & 5870m (probably not) but i dont have 2 5870m so i am just gonna run just that 1 card for now and i sli with my 260m and onboard video card does that mean i have the crossfire/sli cable in it already i havnt took it apart and when i get it i am gonna uninstall all nvidia drivers and then run ccleaner and clean registry and then flash card if its not flashed and then install amd drivers from dell and then install latest amd drivers over it and just to clarify so i put card in and boot into bios and then disable hybrid and then restart and boot windows check if its at that firmware if not flash it and then install drivers from dell and then latest drivers + catalyst and install over it and then anything else or am i set and with my nvidia 260m i always have to install drivers from dell then install latest over it but when i flashed latest drivers on my m17x my windows experience index scores went down on video card then when i put back to a older version it went up higher soo whats best drivers for 5870m?

 

i got my 5870m Running on my M17x r1 i am sooooo happy lol i am only using one card but i am hunting down another cheap 5870m and also i had to enable hybrid graphics in bios to get the radeon to work so if i run crossfire do i have to leave hybrid enabled ? and also if i want to run on my onboard nvidia graphics card how do i install the drivers for it while having radeon?

 

If I was to upgrade from 280m's to these 5870m's where would I buy a crossfire cable from?

 

The right side card should have a crossfire cable on it already, if you buy them as a pair it should come with heatsinks and the cable.

 

Besides ebay is there a place to buy them?

 

I suppose places like kijiji might have a listing or from members here or other forums.

 

Hi to all im new but i know your forum very well, i want to know if this discussion is up cuz i got a HUGE problem with a single AMD Radeon 5870m. The problem is :
Some days ago a bought an AMD Radeon 5870m for my M17x R1 i followed your istructions and all warked fine untill the 3rd restart ( after i launched CCC for check some option cuz i was unable to able hybrid graphic ) with the new gpu
so this is what i did:
1) Removed all nVidia drivers ( nVidia 260m drivers) with driver sweeper;
2) Rebooted the PC for make sure if hybrid graphic was DISABLE and it was.
3) Removed the nVidia 260m
4) Removed heatsink for put it on AMD Radeon 5870m
5) Rebooted the PC and reverse the settings with hybrid ENABLE;
6) Installed the AMD Radeon 5870m Drivers (from Dell site)
All worked fine untill i decided to find a solution cuz i didnt see the gpu temperature ( i have tried speccy, gpu meter and others similar program but nothing. )
I decided to Restart the PC and BAM!!! Black screen......
I have tried:
To put off the AMD Radeon 5870m and put in the nVidia 260m ( Nothing )
To repaste CPU, GPU integrated, AMD Radeon 5870m and nVidia 260m ( Nothing )
To remove the HDD ( Nothing )
To Boot the PC without any gpu only with nVidia 9400m ( Nothing )

I forgot to say the AMD Radeon 5870m vBIOS is the 012.020.000.027.037640
*******EDIT****** 18/09/2014
Specs:
Alienware M17x
Stealth Black
Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme Q9300
17" HD LCD 1440x900 900p
4GB Ram Samsung
nVidia gtx 260m 1gb

I dont know what i can do, sorry for my bad english an i hope someone will answer me and thanks.

 

++++++++up

 

Dannyboy you still around? Im having issues with this. Only 1 card is working but gpu-z says CF is enabled so does CCC. Can you help me?

 

Anybody else knowledgeable on this matter?