M17x R2 7970m CrossfireX Ultimate Installation and Tweaking Guide

ThermalPadPlacement7970m.jpg Photo by reID_entify | Photobucket

Regarding thickness, it depends on your heatsink. Mine, for example, is bent. I have to use 1mm pads on the vertical rams and 0.5 on the horizontal ones.

 

i used .5 for all of my thermal pads.

btw i tried to connect my laptop to hdmi. i only output to the hdtv on 1080p and the image is windows. there are black bars around the outside of the image, even though the highest resolution on the tv is 1080p. also there is no sound.

 

Mine seems straight, so i guess 0,5 will be first test.
About the same as they suggest in the kits, but what thickness you use on rest of the chips?
I know thickness is not that important there since they are more compressible. 2mm ok?
My original ones for the original card fell apart so need to swap them all.
Cant seem to find anyone selling ok pads in norway.

Ahh OK.
Going to get 0.5 in a few days. Will have to wait then. :/
On my first card from upgradeyourlaptop they had thicker pads to for some of the lower components too.

 

For the vram, I only used a single .5mm thermal pad. For the rest of the components, I just stacked the .5mm pads till they are high enough to touch the heat sink. I posted a video of doing it the wrong way. XD

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 4

 

installation OK.
finds both cards in HW info and drivers and all, but complains about my crossfire cable.
Could this be due to two different VBIOS'es?



Here i what i see

 

Have you tried enabling it in CCC? Are you sure you installed the Crossfire cable correctly?
Try having 022 flash on each, I suppose, but I think I've ran them with different vbioses at one point. Not 100% sure though.

Maybe your cross cable's shot?

 

Hmmmm, it was ccc telling me the cable was not connected.

Tried re-seating it twice, now running with loose keyboard to be able to at least be able to move on of the plugs.

Done a temperature mod witch makes the re-seating crappy since i have to remove the inside frame to get the entire card with fan and all out to check the cable again.

The cable worked last time, but of course it could be shot. Looking OK though, but not checked behind the black tape.

Ill try updating the "newer card" (secondary card has original 017 and now 022) to hopefully see it working.
If not it the long road to buying another cable, four more weeks of waiting.

 

Unfortunately if it worked once, the symptoms point heavily to cable issues. Thing is, it may not necessarily be bad, but you may have hurt the card slots for the cable because the heatsink on the slave card really gets in the way, and you have to bend the cable downwards carefully when seating it, and make sure it doesn't put too much pull on the port.

You could maybe also use a slight bit of electric tape on the crossfire slots with the cable in to try to keep them in position.

 

It was the cable that worked last time i tried, but then i had the original "baby" cards.

I've actually put a small dent carefully with a screwdriver in the cooler radiator of the cooler where the plug is to make it not pinch the cable.
Hope to gaaaahhd the ports are not damaged. :-(

Will the crossfire cable of the 18r2 fit the 17?

Edit: After looking at the pics i can see it will be difficult to fit :/

Have to first try the VBIOS, if that doesnt work i have to either buy a cable or a card

 

its a bios issue, i had similar problems and thought it was the cable.


try swaping the cards. put the one on the second slot to the first slot and versa..

 

VBIOS or normal BIOS?
As mentioned i know VBIOS is different. 021 and upgraded 017-022 in second slot.

Its CCC telling me the crossfire cable has bad connetion and plugs need to be checked.
Will try swapping tomorrow.
Ill first try to upgrade VBIOS to 022 i guess, and be sure its same VBIOS on both.

 

Vbios. Mine said the same thing about the cable but it wasnt it.

 

Fingers Crossed.
Giving me hope, your the best

 

Good luck man. I did not have this specific issue. I flashed both cards with the same Vbios. I feel your frustration though. I remember how stressed I was when I was trouble shooting the kinks in my setup. I still have yet to complete the PSU mod although I have everything. I've just been rather busy lately.

 

Good luck Trome Hope it confirms the issue and works after you flash, and I'll add it to the first post for people to know in the future.
Heya batfuse. Long time no see I'm still fixing the kinks in mine (I hope the new Cross cable will solve my issues). The 330W mod is great, especially if your PSU is giving out.

 

Done VBIOS upgrade.
Seems I either have a cable or a socket problem. :-(

At least now i have two slightly OC'ed 7970M's, one in a antistatic bag. Both works as primary.

Will try to measure the cable, but think i might have to buy asap to fix this modda fastest possible.
Looong deliverytime since I can only get this in the states. All deliveries ive had lately has been 3-4 weeks at least. Aggghhh saaad face.

 

Sad to hear bro. I know that feel, though .
My cable's supposed to be coming in today. I hope to god it works, otherwise I'll have spent my food money on cable management.

 

where u get yours from?
Just wondering since u got it quite fast.

 

Apparently it was on stock with one of the refurbished sellers from my country. Unfortunately I seem to have gotten the last one. Just checked their stock and it's listed as unavailable, with mine confirmed in transit. I think unphoto still has one for sale, you should talk to him about that. I think he was european.

 

Sorry to hear about your problems Trome

I ordered my cards on Tuesday, and holy Jesus they are already on the island and will be delivered today !



so i will be joining the wagon very soon :tongue::tongue:

 

Ive ordered express now from the us.
Hopefully less than 2 weeks away

 

Try swaping the cards.
Mine work only when I use a specific as a first. If I swap them I get the cable error.

also I will later post a link with my bios. I think it might help some of you.
in my laptop no other bios works stably except this one.
so you dont lose anything to give it a try.

 

I did swap, no help.
If you have a BIOS im glad to try it.

Did try 3 different VBIOS no luck.

 

I just got my crossfire cable. I'll test tonight to see if it solves my problems. If it doesn't, it'll be up for grabs for anyone who needs it at lower than I got it for

 

bestaluck 2 u

 

what will happen with 2x 7970m's ?

 

I don't know. Trade you for the single 780m maybe?
Although to be honest, I'm kind of an AMD fanboy, and want to use up this machine to full potential, and nVidia can't do it because of SLI handshake issue.

 

Guys this is the link to the vbios.

I recomend trying it. First flash your second card so you know that it works ok.

FileSwap.com : 7970M-ES-1000v.rom download free

 

780M is already Sold im afraid bro

I wish you best luck on getting those 2 beast up and running again

Oh, BTW

On this photo

ThermalPadPlacement7970m.jpg Photo by reID_entify | Photobucket

we can see that the bottom parts also needs some thermal pads, so i just bought 4mm Pads to cover that area as well.

I doubt anybody is using thermal pads on there (r2 users), but since i touched my 7970m heatsink once, i know that this would be good to have a pad in there as well

BTW the heatsink is Very HOT even when sensors show 40'C, did you also noticed this ??

 

I've always used cooling for those parts as well, after not having them on my first card triggered crashes and instability and occasional GSOD's. And yea, the heatsink block gets pretty warm. It's inevitable, though. While the core is quite thermally efficient (very cool), the GDDR5 vRAM runs hot, and such a powerful card needs loads of VRM's, and those get hot too. All that heat is dumped into the block and radiated inside the chassis, which warms everything up (including ambient temps) and gets your keyboard all hot and bothered. Meanwhile, your core shows a blazing hot 37C (my case).
It's hilarious, though a bit annoying. I was thinking of surrounding the card/heatsink assembly entirely in duct-tape, heh
God, I really hope this cross cable fixes things. If it doesn't, I'll at least be able to provide a fast and cost-effective alternative to Trome71.

 

Before you give up try my bios. Also as I said thermal pads are overstated. Just use a 0.5 on the mems. Nothing else needs padding.

 

what should be the checksum?

 

if i would use 0.5mm they would slide off 1mm minimum for me

 

9500 is the checksum but i always force flash the vbios anyways

 

think the checksum is to verify nothing has happened to the file while downloading or copying?
Since ive done both its nice to know before i wreck my card

got your checksum, but couldnt flash it. had error 0FL01 trying to flash card number 2.
Old SSID: 057B
New SSID_ 0551

 

I am not sure if this news is known to the M17x R2 users but we M15x users have discovered that if the middle pin is deactivated (either by using a switch or complete physical removal of pin) of the 150W and 240W slimline Dell PSU's the PSU are no longer limited by the laptop in how much power they deliver. We have also discovered that the old school 210W and 230W adaptors used by the Dell m1730 and precision line laptops also work as they simply are not recognized by the M15x anyway.

I personally use a 210W Dell adaptor that works with or without pin but another user installed a switch into his 240W PSU to control the center pin on/off and realized he could pull as much power as he wanted when it was switched off. This means we can easily get around 300W if we use the 210,230 and 240W Dell adaptors and much more if we use the 330W adaptor (something I will test out very soon).

Of course the M17x R2 isn't the M15x but they are of the same era and share much technologically. This mod is MUCH easier than the other psu mods and with the switch mod very easily reversible. With the middle pin deactivated the PSU is identified as "unknown" in the bios and will not charge the battery. For gaming and benchmarking however we cannot ask for a better solution. I hope this works with the awesome M17x R2 too!!

With the 210W I can push 25/25/26/27 at over 80% load in FC3 with 7970M set to 950/1450 at 1.05V no problem (providing the PSU is cool enough) power usage nears 300W and sometimes the PSU trips due to overheating lol. The 330W PSU is where it is at and you guys with dual GPU's should be looking at nothing less as it can deliver 400W+ no sweat!

 

Yea, these kind of vbios flashes (from Dell to Clevo or other manufacturer, or flashing experimental vBios) require forcing, otherwise they won't play ball. There's always a slight risk, keep that in mind, although I think you should be fine flashing it, especially to the slave card.

Hello King Thanks for the input, great to know for a friend of mine. The m17x R2 does not appear to have any motherboard limitation regarding power draw, and it will go as far as your PSU can take. I'm running the modded 330W and it's SMOOTH sailing on the power-side Now if i can just keep the CF stable and manage my temps.

 

Ah fair enough. I am sorry you guys have to rip apart the PSU to do the mod! I do need the 330W PSU. If I game for an hour that is usually enough to cause a driver crash and occasionally the system to switch off. The PSU is always burning hot at that time even though I lay it on its side! I really need the 330W! The M15x can easily pull 300W +

How are your temps? I get 77C max at the clocks I mentioned in FC3 in ambient 26C. I have done a bunch of mods to the cooling though I am also thinking to carry out SVL7's voltmod on the 920xm and boost it by about 100mv. I can maintain 24x at 89C max in ambient 26C in Prime 95 small ffts. However at 25x one core fails after a minute or so.. not enough power. I hope I can push to 40x on 1 or 2 cores and 27-28x on 4 cores while gaming (although of course not in Prime 95) what are your thoughts. I wish I had the awesome mv boost feature you guys have!

 

If it makes you feel any better, any time I get the cooling good enough to fool around, it drops to crapland 1 week later.
Let's just say my CPU can do 25X full at 95W TDP no problem. 26X restarts on me at default voltage, but maybe if I ever get the cooling to work properly, I'll have some success with that.

I wish I could get my hands on some of that Indium Heatspring TIM, maybe that would help keep things cool.

Otherwise, when the cooling works it's 25X 95W with 95C max temps in TSBench. When it doesn't it's 25X 55W with 95C max temps in TSBench (with effective clocks dropping to about 18x multi - sad stuff).

 

as i said you need to force the flash. dont worry it wont have any prob especially on the second card

if you use atiwinflash use this command :

atiwinflash -f -p 1 xxx.bin

where xxx. is the name of the bios file


i always flash this way
i use atiwinflash but open a command line and write the above

I havent done the psu mod because i dont need it. i am lucky and my psu can keep both cards in Crossfire at 850pu 1100 mem and the 910xm @ 24 multi on all cores. I never had a crash power related or multi related.

The limit of my cpu though is 25-26x (on default voltage - on + 0.150V it goes to 29x)

my temps are a breeze... cpu at 78-82 when heavy gaming or bencing and cpus at 72-80 max . Ambient is 29C

 

I use the normal ATIflash.

And my BIOS files are ROM files.
Could i still use same sentence for atiwinflash?

the winflash, does that work from windows?

Btw see that all files i flash from the modded files from techinferno, gives me a sort of VBIOS 017

 

That is sad to hear!! The cooling of the M17x R2 is pretty good I heard. Luckily the M15x is blessed by having a huge heatspreader on the CPU (Whole fan assembly is part of heatsink and therefore made of aluminum!) I then installed a mass of very low profile ram heatsinks over it and did the fan mod seen in avatar lol.

I do wonder about heatspring but also believe TIM can only go so far. The limit of the cooling is on the heatsink. There are very hard limits we have to face unfortunately in a laptop. Then again it won't stop me trying out a couple of these if temps become an issue in the future Thermaltake 80mmUSB Notbook Fan MobileFan II A1888 | eBay imagine 100 cfm extra on the cpu and gpu! Now about 23cfm haha. Perhaps you should do the same on your laptop looks ugly but really isn't. I can whip the fans off in a moment and replace them with a couple of 120x120 desktop fan covers that look fantastic over the hole. All I can say is magic tape is the best invention in the world!!

How are your temps with your 7970M's at 0.975V the same as you I believe I reach about 65Cmax if I use my fan mod same ambient temp. Darned summer!

Interesting to read Alienhack. Considering difference in ambient temps our temps (roughly 3-4C) are pretty much identical. Considering all the improvements I made to the cooling of the M15x the M17x R2 has very robust cooling indeed. Not surprising I guess considering the larger chassis!

edit: just noticed I am pushing GPU harder than you. What voltage you running your 7970M I assume 0.975V?

 

Not good, this are my temps @25 at 36% into 1024M test



Temps are stabilisng at 80-81 and do not exceed this mark, they would drop to 79 and hoover to 81 and then drop to 79 again. So IC diamond is a perfect paste for those XM's

Another thing is ATI 9970M ic coming soon, i think i will preorder as soon as they become available because 20nm should reduce power consumption, thus CF 9970M - Oh yea

 

You mean 28nm flingin. The 9970M will not be 20nm unfortunately.

I copied your test above at same multis I also use ICD 24



Anyways 9970M should still be a lot more efficient. 28nm is a mature manufacturing process now. It wasn't back in April 2012.

 

Hey Trome71, I had to force flash my second card in bios as well (always flashing i bios). Although a little worried at first, it was successful. I also use the latest version of ATIflash. I use this excellent TI guide as a reminder for the sequence to use. I also used the Vbios from TI which are the 017 version. They all work fine and I have had no issue with them.

 

This is the guide ive been using too.
Was ok flashing the TI VBIOS, but no go on my crossfire still.

Was going to flash in Alienhacks version, but what command to force flash?

 

I am runnibg the cards at 1v

I dont know whats the force flash command for atiflash. I use atiwinflash and run it with command prompt. Try it it runs from windows cmd line
and its stable no prob

 

Can i use the ROM file instead of bin file?

Edit: Did the flash using ROM.

Still nogo. Guess ill have to wait for the cable.

Seems your version is 015.013? test 003 etc in the name of the bios.
I see that this time both my bus card interfaces end up with X8 2.0

On other VBIOS it has ended up with X8 1.1

750 / 1000 MHz

 

so you flashed with no problem? but still no crossfire??

 

Truedat.

On my 022 version btw i had the possibility of overdrive in CCC.