M17x R1/R2 - Dell 8.763 Driver (4870/5870 GPUs) + 5870 VBIOS Discussion (non-beta)

Cheers, I uploaded both. For the Hardware, all the info is identical for the Linked Adapter, i.e. second 5870.

Appreciate the help, this is killing me! I can't even watch tutorials for uni.

 

Mine is exactly like this.

 

Mine too

I have a question, i downloaded the CCC 10.10 (only the command center) from ati website, does this conflict with anything that i have ? (e.g. latest Dell drivers with the latest VBios)?

I installed "performenceTest 7.0" to run some benchmarking and i got pretty bad FPS rate compared to other Alienware M17x with the same CPU and graphics cards (hardware), what gives?

 

The driver and VBIOS info looks fine - it matches what should be displayed for the 8.763 + Dell VBIOS update.

Not sure why you two are having these issues. I know you mentioned reinstalling the driver again... I'm going to defer to someone else who is more versed at this (AMD Driver reinstalls) than I. I think what you two are seeing is some left over crap from a previous driver install which is not being removed when you reinstall the 8.763 driver.

Just to be sure, you have verified you are both running the current version of flash player, correct?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It might - installing those reference drivers can be a pain. Suggest you post in the 10.10 or 10.11 discussion threads.

Thanks.

 

Thanx!

BTW, i have also experienced some crashes (message that something is stopped responding) with crossfire enabled, not frequently though (not every 10 minutes)

mostly using the following games
- Oblivion
- Civilization V
- Darksiders

 

I once had a crush too....my school teacher, mind you she was really hot LOL (just kiddin)

 

hy,

i got the exact same issue, dell choose to change my CG, but before they did it i fount out how to fixed it, after so many research, the only stuff who works for me was this :
go on youtube for example, run a video , do a right clic on a video/parametres/disable "activate acceleration materielle" (sorry for the poor translation)

i hope this would help you guy's

 

i recently updated the drivers and bios to 8.763 and according to "Performance Information and Tools" menu in the control panel my graphics and gaming graphics were both reduced to 6.7 from 7.1.

What gives? Do I need to do something else?

Should I, and how can I revert back to the previous bios?

Thanks.

 

Firstly, if the vbios update was successful, you have no need to revert back. It does not hinder performance - it increases it.

If you are relating the the Windows Experience Index, I personally , wouldnt worry as the tool is as accurate as a blind man in a shooting gallery....it doesnt provide constant info at any given time as many people have reported that their indexes/ratings have gone down when they have added better hardware (ie SSD over mechanical hard drives and the hard drive rating goes down - which is impossible really....)

If your system is performing better, great....there are other tools out there to test that this is the case. Various benchmarking tools like 3dmarkvantage, 3dmark06, Unigene Heaven to name a few....

If these tools show that your performance has increased, dont stress ove WEI 'cos its a pile of junk!

 

With the new 8.763 driver (yes first) and the new BIOS (2nd) Im also having an issue with the laptop refusing to go into standby or hibernate mode, but that was when I could turn it on, I have sitting in front of me the original resource disc and after restarting it about 6 times and not being able to bypass "start up repair" (bypass because if I choose to "restore to an earlier point nothing happens after 20 minutes) I am contemplating restoring to factory settings.

Unfortunately, I am an amateur with computers and after an hour of sitting here I dont know if there will even be an option other than "start up repair".

Help urgently and gratefully needed.

 

Can you start up in Safe mode? There you can uninstall the drivers back to "Standard VGA" and then maybe what ever conflict you were having. Otherwise a reinstall of windows may be in order

 

No I cant start in safe mode, when I hit F12 upon starting up instead of that option which is usually there I am limited to:

"start windows normally"

"start windows in repair mode"

Repair mode takes me to a screen and after a good wait I can either:

"system restore"

or

"finish and restart"

System Restore does nothing, it just idles forever.

So I restart and the fun starts all over again.

Do I need to pull the CMOS battery?

 

just after post, hit F8, there you'll be given the option to start in safe mode

 

I started having flickering issues with the 5870 cards running in cross fire. I just got of the phone with support. The guy I talked to ran installed and ran some benchmark programs and the flickering was there. He told me they were having issues with these cards and then put me on hold. He came back on the line and said a level 2 tech told him I needed to reinstall windows and that would fix the problem. I think that is a bunch of BS. I have the latest firmware and drivers installed. So what I need to know is he giving me a bunch of BS or is it possible that reinstalling windows would fix the problem? I say no.

Thanks
AwHw

 

Be sure you are on BIOS A09 and have updated the VBIOS of the 5870s. Also, be sure you are on the 8.763 driver. you can use the latest AMD reference driver, just be aware Dell will most likely not assist you in troubleshooting. the phone rep should have made sure the system BIOS and the VBIOS were both updated. hopefully he did.

 

yes I have both of them installed. I will use that thread sorry. I just dint want this to get lost in the mix as I need a quick response before I reinstalled windows for no reason.

thank you

 

Hmmm... not sure on the complete reinstall of Win7. Not sure why this would matter - only thing I can think of is the rep wanted you to reinstall to eliminate the potential third party/left over stuff.

Why not try reinstalling the 8.763 driver yourself? Check a few posts back - I'm sure one of the 5870CF owners put together a step-by-step. Reborn and Grim are both heavy posters in this thread. I'm sure one of them covered this.

 

Hi

I have had the exact same problem just yesterday night

I didnt install new drivers i didnt do anything not normal

I was playing Two Worlds II with crossfire enabled and then i quit and i disabled crossfire from the CCC and pressed "OK" the minute i hit ok the screen became dim (still visible but its like the brightness went all the way down even though that its maxed).

I tried to play the same game and i saw the flickering,
I restarted several times but the same, the screen was dark and flickering in the game.

i thoughts its a hardware issue, but thought of doing one last thing before concluding that.

I went to system restore and restored to a previous "restore point" luckilly for me i had a restore point just the day before.

after restoring everything became normal.

do you remember when this problem started to happen? if you have a recent restore point before this happened, try it, am sure it will help you like it did for me

 

The thing is I am not sure when it started. I havent had time to play anything until tonight. The last thing I can remember doing is updating to bios version A09 but I dont think that caused the problem. I am going to uninstall and reinstall the video drivers again.

Thanks
AwHw

 

yesterday i tried to re-install the GPU drivers, no luck, you could try and let us know though

its really a weird problem because it just happened.

is your screen a little dimmer than usual?

I noticed the problem as soon as it happened when the the screen went dim.

if you want to go the format route later on, try to use "restore point" before, give it a try before you format.

 

Not really dimmer but at times it will go bright on its own and to fix it I have to dim or brighten it one notch so it will go back to the setting it was at.

 

I'm as up to date as can be with VBIOS, latest drivers, and system BIOS updates and my machine flickers like mad when Crossfire is enabled. So far I've spent more time trying to make this Alien work right than play games on it. And it doesn't make sense to have to cripple it and run one card just to make it run right. Unless there is some fix coming I'm going to throw in the towel and send it back.

 

I wasn't having any flickering problems with the Dell drivers, but BFBC2 was crashing to desktop. I finally decided to try the latest ATI 10.11 and it stopped crashing to desktop, but now I have flickering (actually more of a single black screen flash). For me it doesn't do it that often, and it seems like it is always in a cut scene. If that's the only time it does it I guess I can live with it, but I should try a few other games to see if there are any additional problems now.

 

Hi

It is really a big disappointment that all of the games i play crashed atleast once with CrossfireX enabled, I bought this laptop thinking that I am going to have a smooth gaming experience interms of quality, stability, ... etc. but the sad fact is (as i mentioned) every game i try has to crash at some point.

the quality and graphics are rendered by the CrossfireX beautifully and smoothly, but those damn crashes!

first, i thought its just one game, let me try another maybe the game has bugs, the second game, the same, third and forth and fifth, and the whole thing started to get really frustrating.

The thing is, its not like when i start the game it crashes directly, i play fine for sometime and then a crash happens, sometimes it happens after 30 mins, sometimes after 2 hours, sometimes it recovers fast, sometime it doesnt and i get back to windows with an error message telling me that the application has been closed, sometimes the whole laptop freezes and i cannot even open task manager to end the game process so i have to force shut down.

games i have played (maybe its game related, but all of them are bugged? i really doubt it?).

- Civilization V
- Darksiders
- Oblivion IV
- Two Worlds II
- Command and Conquer Tarbian Twilight (crashed once and i never played it again, the game sucked)
- Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends (crashed one time only, but i dont play it alot so, ... )

all of those games have crashed at least once, anyone played one of those games heavily and did not experience any crashes? if yes what is your configuration? (driver versions, ... etc)

I have the latest DELL VBIOS and DRIVERS and i am confident that the installation is correct (by following the right installation steps and comparing the GPU-Z output with others)

what could be the problem ? is this really a problem or is it normal to have crashes every now and then in every game? if it is a problem what could be the cause? over heating? is there a limit to the heat of the GPU and then it stops responding? are the games I play the main reason? bugs in the games? is there a hardware failure in my GPU? how come the games are working perfectly for some time and then at some point they crash if its a hardware issue? what is it?

appreciate your feedbacks and sorry for the long post

cheers

 

irkan: I'm in the same boat. I've spent HOURS going over everything on this machine. Fresh install of Windows, latest drivers, BIO and VBIOS flashes. Between the quirky battery problem and this Crossfire debacle, i've just about had it.

I'll give Dell support a chance, but if that fails I've had just about all I can take of this boat anchor.

And I sure didn't pay for the Crossfire option only to disable one of the cards as that seems to be the only way I can run anything.

It's so disappointing to me. I was really looking forward to this machine and it's turned out to be one big buggy headache.

Keep your fingers crossed. Maybe we'll find a solution.

 

that would be the first thing I would look at. You can log results gpu-z gives to a txt file.

Brian also suggested that some M17x's had a problem with the VBIOS a while ago, although I would think by now it would have been fixed. If the card is operating within 80C during the games. It's time to call dell for a replacement slave card. Make sure you have the slave card selected when you're logging, otherwise you'll be looking at the primary card's numbers instead..

 

thank you for commenting ... its kindda a relief to know that I am not the only one suffering from this, and it is really a big disappointment and frustrating to pay so much money for a cutting edge gaming laptop and not be able to enjoy its benefits.

what would be the "safe" temp range for the slave GPU? below 80? what about the primary is there a limit for it?

thanx

 

why did the thread get closed and transfered to here? I dont believe the issue is related to the latest Dell drivers (from what Goldenboy69 stated)

anyways am sure you mods know better

I have something weird when i started to monitor using GPU-Z i found that the core clock and memory clock of the slave GPU more than the main GPU :/ is this normal? :/

screenshot below, left one is primary, right one is secondry, check the clocks
http://pictat.com/i/2010/11/28/43870untitled.png

 

reason for transfer is:

If you are running the 8.763 dell driver + VBIOS, then we discuss issues with this driver/VBIOS here. This way, others may benefit or be able to contribute to the resolution.

further mod related questions/comments can be sent to me via PM.

Thanks.

 

I would suggest downloading Hwinfo32 and run that....it will show you accurate temps for both carsds and "indicate" which card is at what temperature...gpu0 = primary, gpu1 = secondary/slave.

http://www.hwinfo.com/download32.html

Personally, I found it to be more accurate that gpu-z with regards to its information.

If it helps, FYI, when running Furmark maxed out, my gpu temps reach the following max in celcius....gpu0 (primary) max 90c gpu0 (slave) max 87c. (temps after 7 mins of Furmark extreme burn mode, 1920x1080, 8x AA etc)
This is with my laptop on a cooler at full fan speed settings and with no modification to the factory issue pastes etc etc....

Clock speeds showed as both topped out at 700/1000 which would be normal for gpu intensive action....both cards maxed out....

 

but is it normal for the slave GPU to have more clocks than the main GPU while the laptop is pretty much idle?

I just logged using GPU-Z the temp for the slave GPU while playing NFS Hot Pursuit with everything maxed (ty game EA screwed up again). The temp rose to 81 max few times not more, ... most of the times it was between 60-79.

the game didnt crash for an hour, than i quit cuz got bored. a good sign i guess.

 

What are the temps of your primary card when gaming? - are they hotter than the slave? - what about the clocks? - how do they compare under load?

I would say that its not normal for your slave to run hotter than your master during idle....my slave during idle is exactly that....its idle...temps are around 26-30c and also idle clocks are 100/150 and not like you say yours are....something isnt quite right if your slave is clocking up higher than your primary if your system is idling.

My slave also never gets hotter than the primary during full load or idle...its always a little behind it.

It may be the case that you are having higher temps due to a poor application of thermal paste on the slave gpu....are you sure you have the right card selected in gpu-z? - the top one on the drop down is for the master and the one below is the slave.....just a thought....it maybe incorrect seating of the cards themselves or a loose crossfire cable or something. I would get AW tech to run through the possibilities with you in terms of diagnostics.....if its a faulty gpu then they will more than likely send a replacement with or without a technican (depending on if you want to swap it yourself) to rectify your problems, if thats the diagnosis.

 

I posted a screenshot in the before last post.

the temp of the slave card is always below the main one, only the clock of the slave is more than the main, thats why i thought its weird, and there isnt any application running. (on idle secondry GPY has more clocks and less temp always) according to GPU-Z. will try the one you posted and check

 

I am not into ATI cards so was wondering about an issue.
I never heard of BIOS upgrade in Nvidia but heard a lot of ATI ones.
So is this a driver upgrade or a complete BIOS upgrade?

 

apparently the GPU has Bios (called VBios) plus normal drivers, my believe is that the VBIOS doesnt normally get changed alot, but it has to be changed if new set of drivers are released and they are very different from the previous drivers, that they require new VBios to work with.

using a new VBIOS with old drivers would cause Blue screen error (in case of ATI 5870 GPU).

if the manufacturer of the machine (or the GPU manufacturer) didnt specify any VBIOS for your notebook than i wouldnt worry about it, cuz probably the upgrading of the VBIOS is not needed, and you can upgrade your drivers normally without issues

 

Hey guys, I have a quick question,

if I'm still using stock DELL drivers for the m17x with the old VBIOS, do I need to specifivally instal driver v8.763-100810a-104118C-Dell, A01 before the VBIOS or can I go straight from stock to 10.11 and then install VBIOS?

I can probs skip straight to 10.11 but just wanted to ask, cant risk bricking a system like that

EDIT: also, to install 10.11, do I just wipe out everything related to the AMD driver (including application profiles, CCC etc), do a registry clean and then install Grim's complete care? Damn AMD is puzzling, NVIDIA used to be easier...

 

The most important thing to remember here is that the new vbios is NOT compatable with any other driver other than Dell latest 8.763.....if you do the vbios update with your current drivers, you will get endless BSOD's.....if you are on Dell 8.692 drivers, you need to get rid of them before doing the vbios update, otherwise, when you try and restart, BSOD all the time.

I dont know for sure if 10.11 work with the old vbios, i think you need the new vbios to unsure that they work properly. People were using 10.9 and 10.10 but they hade to use "workarounds" with the older vbios installed to get themn to work....

If you can get back to Standard VGA Drivers by uninstalling what you currently have, you would be safe to update the vbios and then go with whichever driver you want.....as it would be a fresh driver install....(updating the vbios does not have any conflicts with standard vga drivers afaik)....

Grim posted some infor here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...70-september-2010-incl-vbios-flash-guide.html and its a guide on a fresh windows install with the new vbios....if you want to do that, i would suggest following the instructions within.

If you dont want a clean OS install, as long as you do the drivers and vbios all "at the same time" without rebooting, i would imagine you would be ok to go straight to 10.11.....as then , you will have the new vbios and wont need any workarounds to get them going....

 

Big thanks for the reply man. However I'm still a bit puzzled...

you said that the new vBios is not compatible with any driver other than 8.763, but then went on and said that people use 10.11 with the new vBios? I assumed that 10.11 is newer video driver than 8.763 and according to you vBios should not work with that.

 

Sorry for my expalantion...i meant to say that if you want to use DELL drivers only, if you do the vbios update, you will only be able to use 8.763 onwards....any other Dell driver prior to this will result in BSOD....both updates were released together and if you want to stay with Dell drivers and update the vbios you will HAVE to install 8.763.

The good thing about the new vbios is that it ALLOWS us to install AMD reference drivers without any poroblems thus far and without having to do any workarounds to get them to function.

I have the latest vbios and AMD 10.11 installed and they work fine so they should do for you too....

In a nutshell, if you want to update the vbios, either 8.763 or 10.11 will work fine, its just that any other Dell driver PRIOR to 8.763 will NOT work and you WILL get endless BSOD's if you try it.

Sorry for any misleading info...

 

Oh thanks I got the point now

So then it seems that my quickest option is to remove the current DELL stock driver, application profiles, CCC, etc so I'm left with Standart VGA. Then I flash my vBios, and then install Grim's package. Is that right?

 

TBH, im not 100% on installing AMD 10.11 and then flashing the vbios....im not sure if you would run into problems with these drivers running with the older vbios prior to flashing - AMD drivers required a workaround to function with the older vbios.

The way i did things (and it may not be the easiest or the right way lol) was to install 8.763 first, then flash the vbios.

I ran these drivers for a while until i wanted to try the 10.11's

Obviously, i then had the vbios already installed so i manually uninstalled my 8.763's and CCC back to vga drivers and installed 10.11's after a run of ccleaner's registry feature and driversweeper to remove any lefotovers. I also chose to custome uninstall CCC instead of express uninstall as i wanted to keep the HDMI Audio Driver which isnt packaged with 10.11 catalyst.

My 10.11's installed fine this way.

I just wouldnt like to tell you - go right to 10.11 and then flash the vbios as i dont know if, for the short time you would have 10.11 and new vbios, there would be any issues.

I was told to get back to vga drivers and remove any leftovers to ensure a clean install of new drivers.....this method worked for me, and although it seems longwinded (and probably unnecessary), it seemed like the right way to do things.

It may be the case that you CAN go ahead and install 10.11 and then flash the vbios but i wouldnt like to tell you to do it.....just incase it caused you any heartaches.....

Maybe you should fire a quick Private Message to Grim....he is very helpful and im sure he would tell you 100% what you can or cant do.

Sorry cant help out more but dont want to give out any bad advice.

 

If you have the latest VBios and you UNINSTALLED the drivers in normal windows mode, the system will back to the default drivers, DELL drivers, which will cause Blue screen error if you try to boot in normal windows mode.

to overcome this, open in safe mode and uninstall any drivers (you would probably find the default dell drivers that the system defaulted to after you removed the previous drivers) and then run in normal windows mode, which will run using VGA because there wouldnt be any drivers for the GPU (because you deleted the defaulted dell drivers as well)

than you can go ahead and install the drivers you want (in normal mode)

 

Good point Irkan.....system does default back to 8.692 (if that was factory drivers) if you uninstall and reboot.

Does anyone know if there is any reason NOT to do the following though....

1) Uninstall Dell Drivers to VGA status
2) Install 10.11
3) Flash vbios

I think the previous poster wanted to know if this is possible to do....i couldnt advise as i am not familiar with how AMD drivers work with the old vbios.

Assuming you uninstall old drivers and install new drivers FIRST, before flashing the vbios, there would be a short time window when you would have 10.11 and old vbios running....I dont know if they conflict with each other - wether restarting with this combo would work without performing "the workaround=true" trick that was used to install other AMD drivers prior to the release of the newer vbios.

If you can reboot with 10.11 / old vbios combo successfully, and then flash the vbios, I wouldnt forsee any problem going straight to AMD 10.11 - as im not 100% sure though, would be great if someone would comment on this for future references.

 

Sorry, I did not read every word of this conversation, but this part will NOT work. You have to install the latest Dell drivers first, then update the VBIOS. Then you can uninstall the Dell drivers and switch to the 10.11's after the VBIOS update. The update program will not work unless you have the Dell drivers installed unless someone knows of some sort of workaround (INF editing or something like that).

 

Thats EXACTLY what i did mate, i uninstalled factory 8.692...cclean/driversweep and restart in safe mode....installed previously downloaded 8.763 and then performed the vbios update. Since then, I have uninstalled Dell 8.763 and installed 10.11 and they work fine done like that.

What we werent sure of (and i didnt think it would be possible due to the workaround needed) was wether it was possible to SKIP installing 8.763 and go right for 10.11's.....

I said to the guy who was asking this a few posts earlier that I wasnt sure how the 10.11's would react with the old vbios and that it would be better to install 8.763 and then see how they go....THEN if you want 10.11, just uninstall them...safe mode ... c/clean/sweep etc and install 10.11 either from AMD direct or either of Grim's "packages"......

I knew that prior to release of the new vbios or the beta vbios, people were having to mod the AMD drivers to install them....as the vbios process requires that drivers are done first, then logically, installing 10.11 would mean that you would be doing so ontop of the old vbios and thus, have to do the workaround=true for them to work....seems alot easier just to do the above...install 8.763...flash vbios...uninstall 8.763...install 10.11 .... that is, if you want AMD drivers!

So, to CLARIFY for ANYONE who has NOT YET performed the vbios update....you will need to install Dell 8.763 PRIOR to flashing your gpu's and THEN, if you want to update to 10.11, feel free to UNINSTALL 8.763 drivers and install AMD's latest offering! - (remember, if you DO uninstall 8.763, restart in safe mode otherwise your lappy will reinstall default factory drivers automatically and you will have BSOD all over the place as Irkan pointed out a few posts back)

 

Ahhh that's why I'm BSOD lol irkan thanks for the info

 

can someone check in their CCC and tell me what the date on their BIOS version is (that has VBIOS A01 on 5870's)

i have A01 and even reflashed it just like 2 mins ago (because tell tech support wanted me to) and it says

BIOS Date: 2010/05/13

but that's not correct! and dell support doesn't belive that i flashed the bios to A01 because of it. its bull.

 

Primary Adapter
Graphics Card Manufacturer Powered by ATI
Graphics Chipset ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series
Device ID 68A0
Vendor 1002

Subsystem ID 043A
Subsystem Vendor ID 1028

Graphics Bus Capability PCI Express 2.0
Maximum Bus Setting PCI Express 2.0 x8

BIOS Version 012.020.000.027
BIOS Part Number 113-B96101-104
BIOS Date 2010/05/13

Memory Size 1024 MB
Memory Type GDDR5

Core Clock in MHz 700 MHz
Memory Clock in MHz 1000 MHz
Total Memory Bandwidth in GByte/s 64.0 GByte/s


Linked Adapter
Graphics Card Manufacturer Powered by ATI
Graphics Chipset ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series
Device ID 68A0
Vendor 1002

Subsystem ID 043A
Subsystem Vendor ID 1028

Graphics Bus Capability PCI Express 2.0
Maximum Bus Setting PCI Express 2.0 x8

BIOS Version 012.020.000.027
BIOS Part Number 113-B96101-104
BIOS Date 2010/05/13

Memory Size 1024 MB
Memory Type GDDR5

Core Clock in MHz 700 MHz
Memory Clock in MHz 1000 MHz
Total Memory Bandwidth in GByte/s 64.0 GByte/s


This is my info from CCC.....highlighted vbios in red....

 

thank you very much. that's exactly what mine says. anyway re-flashing the vBios fixed my problems. idk why.

anyway i thought i'd mention that the tech guy said that dell will be releasing an updated driver for 5870's within a month. he said he just read it today.

 

Well, that certainly is good news. It would be nice if the update includes a version of CCC with all the functionality of CCC for desktops.

I am currently using the 10.12 mobility driver version from ATI and it's working good for me.

Ignore the date. It's the version number that you go by. The dates on driver versions frequently does not match the release date.