M17x R2 7970m CrossfireX Ultimate Installation and Tweaking Guide

HALLO guys!! sorry for not beeing here lately, had a lotof work and issues to solve with my old cars insurance etc.

Am i th eonly one geting like 7300 Physics score at 26x and 6950 at 24x??

 

did you try my bios? its different than all others here and for me its the only one that works in my R2.

By the way, nospheratu created a moded bios of mine, one with whatever voltages and gpu speeds you want.

 

i am running an one of the kind BLACK pcbus enginneering sample in my R2 together with a Blue pcb dell card... they work perfectly..

 

just to mention here my heroic simple 240W psu handles " MORE THAN 325W at the wall with GPU's running at 950/1400 with 1050V and XM at 26x across all cores with 110/90 TDP/TDC in 3DMark11"

 

just finished reading more than 20 thread pages in a row! my head will explode!!

so just to get it right, these tings will not give better temps BUT will just hold their initial temps for ever (or longer) with no need to repaste?
hmmmm i was hoping for better temps...

 

They may give better temps depending on pressure, heatsink contact and quality of tim used previously. But they will hold their temps, which is awesome.
And temps WILL improve in time, as the indium bonds chemically to the copper.

 

Welcome back AlienHack Glad you got your work and car paperwork sorted

Yes its a definite benefit as even the best paste's performance deteriorates over time, unlike HeatSpring. Think of it a bit like the Tortoise and the Hare story, only difference here is the Tortoise isn't as slow

So I managed to fix my 3Dmark FireStrike results... seems I was on version 1.0 instead of 1.1 ...so I've finally broken the +-5700 point barrier I had.

I managed to find a key from here for $7.50. I paid with PayPal and the seller emailed me the key within the hour. He's also listed it on ebay for $8.00 here.

The run was done with 25x on all cores with 90/82 TDP/TDC and 1000/1400 GPU clocks. I had to raise voltage to stock 1050V as it locked up on the first run. Result is here.

 

Pretty nice price. And damn fine score.

 

Interesting.

I've never heard of pcbus. I'm assuming they're either a board fab or a routing house? Do you know if they made the engineering sample for Dell or Clevo (or AMD)?

Are both cards running derivatives of Clevo or Dell vbios's? Or are you running the ES vbios since you mentioned yours were unique? Where can I download your vbios . . . or can you send it to me?


Which card is the primary?

 

Nah, he just missed out on the semantics He's running a Dell-manufactured black-pcb ES card.
The rest of the answers, I'll leave to him, since I don't remember

 

the ES is secondary because although it can run as a single card when I have it installed as the first card I cant enable crossfire in catalyst control center.

nospheratu edited my bioS and created several combinations of gpu and mem speed and vddc. I will try to upload tomorow. if he has the files he can upload too.
just to mention with my vbios gameport out works with sound and also hdmi works and the fans are on auto (( although cpu temp bound)

 

i just bought a serial too!! nice price!

 

and i got it as well...for giggles, i hate to go trough 30 minute complete benchmark lol

 

Then ive done some more testing with my new CPU. Not sure I will hassle much more with this since it makes me have to repaste more often.

Cant get you guy's GPU score due to it shutting down if i increase speed more.

But my CPU scores are quite OK i guess.

3Dmark11:
AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-950 Processor,Alienware

3Dmark:
AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-950 Processor,Alienware

 

Yes, quite ok, I don't recall anyone of us scoring over 7400 physics And those are some great scores on the GPU's.
Your laptop violates even AW18 machines specced with top of the line config, unless they OC to high heaven.

 

This with 27x 75mV and 5%. Did try 150mV and two cores 28, but it started temp throtling and scores almost identical. Would have had to move it outside to go but didnt find it worth it. Dont wanna kill this great cpu.

 

Dayeam! Crazy CPU scores Trome71! Awesome!

 

nice scores...
The max physics i have goten is 7300 with 26x

 

Hmmm. I'm toying with the idea of buying a Dell 7970m to try and CFX it with my Clevo 7970m. I don't know if I want to go through that potential nightmare again.

When I did it with my 6990/6970 combo the result was a working configuration but it exhibited all the known compatibility issues associated with both manufacturers cards.

I read through the first post in this thread again. What are the known issues specific to Dell and Clevo cards. Clevo cards won't support HDMI with sound. Dell cards will. Is there anything else specific to Dell cards such as fan profiles being messed up or anything like that? Has anyone flashed a dell card to a Clevo vbios and found issues?

The reason I'm considering doing a Frankenstein CFX setup is because Dell cards are significantly cheaper and are FAR more available. I've been striking out finding another Clevo card, but there are Dell cards everywhere.

Here's a question: If I buy a Enduro Enabled Dell card and use it in the slave slot, will the computer still fail to post?

Furthermore, I found this on the first post:

"- Note: svl7 has modified the 022 vbios to offer native overdrive functionality without other software tweaks. I recommend you attempt to use them before other vbioses:
Dell 7970m - 015.022.000.001.000000.C42904A1.119 - OverdriveMod - UV 0975v.zip
Dell 7970m - 015.022.000.001.000000.C42904A1.119 - Overdrive Mod_1050v forced.zip"

I'm confused. Does this mean running an Enduro Enabled vbios will not prevent the computer from posting? Is the restriction only limited to Dell cards shipped with 015.022.XXX due to a hardware difference and it's not the actual vbios itself that is the root of the incompatibility? What symptoms, if any does the computer exhibit when running a Clevo or Dell card with an Enduro Enabled vbios, but compatible hardware?

 

There have been few cards that present problem. Alienhack is running a mix of Clevo and Dell without issues (even using an OLD experimental dell card).
The whole Enduro enabled thing doesn't seem to have posed any problem for us, and with a slight few exceptions we can use almost any vbios.
Yes, the only card that really fails to post is one shipped with 015.022, but not just any card, but the ones with the UEFI hardware requirement. Not all 022 cards have this requirement.
Just buy a dell card from a seller that allows returns (and avoid UEFI-cards). Chances are, they'll work without issue.
Stick the Dell into the primary slot and you should avoid any issues with HDMI out (the only issue is the sound anyway, and I think the latest drivers fix even that).
Fan control works auto for both vendors, both dell and clevo, as far as I can tell (although it takes the fan speed from the CPU to do so, so you might want to use HwInfo as outlined in the first post anyway).

Consider the following: with the exception of receiving some kind of defective card, we're like 10 people here that are running this crossfire in various mix and match ways without much in the way of issues.

The ones with issues have been:

Alienhack, until Nospheratu edited him a good vbios to keep voltages and temps in check, due to weird behavior between his EXTREMELY EARLY engineering sample card and his retail clevo card.
Myself, due to either a bad crossfire cable or bent heatsinks (have some stutters when trying to overclock and I'm thinking it's either improperly cooled card components or signal leakage in the crossfire cable).
I think Trome had a bit of my problem as well, but he's now setting record bench scores, so I'm not sure

For the rest, I can't remember Others will have to chip in I won't deny that we got off to a bit of a rough start with the PSU mods, until imsolidstate (bless his heart) solved it for us without even knowing we needed it, heh. Other than that, minor conflicts, figuring out what drivers worked and what didn't (Catalyst 13.x has been GOLD for us, especially after 13.8 beta).

 

Just two corrections to sangemaru's post, AlienHack is running two Dell cards, one ES and one normal production version. Strange thing is his production card won't work on his machine with any vBIOS except the vBIOS from his ES card.

With regards to the fan control the CLEVO cards are able to spin up automatically according to GPU temps only as opposed to the Dells which are dependant on the CPU temps. Flashing a CLEVO vBIOS to a Dell card does not enable the GPU temp sensitive auto fan control on the card.

I'm running CLEVO's and I've tried to get the HDMi audio out device to be detected and I haven't managed at all. The laptop doesn't see any other playback device besides the default Speakers/Headphones output.

Another thing to consider is the newer CLEVO cards seem to be shipping with a hybrid Enduro/Non-Enduro vBIOS which boots and works normally on our machines. The vBIOS version is 015.024.000.002.043595 (BR43595.003) which nitsun69 had flashed on his card and it worked without issue. The clocks for that vBIOS were 1000/1400 on his card but that's another issue on its own, it was possibly edited by someone. I have a copy of this version but haven't managed to test it. I have been meaning to get around to it though.

 

Hmm, so am I right in saying then that there are no documented instances that we know of a Clevo and a Dell 7970m being CFX'ed?

I was the first to do it with the 69XX series, so I might as well be the first to do it with the 79XX series lol.

I'm going to have to assume that I WILL have the following issues at this point in time:

-No audio over HDMI (nbd for me)
-Must use HWinfo to control fans (slight annoyance)
-Must disable/enable both cards at every boot and disable/enable Crossfire (slight annoyance).
-Possible throttling issues due to cards not having identical CFX timing (had a throttling issue with the 69XX series, and I'm kind of certain this was the cause). (huge issue)

Eventhough I'm wary, I'm probably going to end up doing this. Worst case scenario, I sell the dell or clevo card at a small loss and buy the respective replacement.

So just to reiterate, we know of no one else having done a cross manufacturer CFX setup with 7970ms? Only one other person ended up doing it with the 69XX series and they had the same issues as me.

 

I'm really curious if it works with Dell cards.

 

There is someone using both a Clevo and a Dell card, but I don't remember who. Maybe trome or Flingin. Don't remember.

 

Not me for sure

 

No one that I can recall.

That seems like a lot of trouble to go through

What's the prices of the cheapest Dell and CLEVO cards you could find? Cheapest CLEVO card could find was at RJTECH for $475. You could also try contacting Eurocom. They should give you a better discount as opposed to their ebay pricing since there would be no fees involved as you're buying direct from them.

 

svl7 posted it up on T|I here if you want to give it a try... it might be risky though if that enduro on/off switch depends on a bit of hardware specific to the CLEVO cards. I'm just speculating here though, I have no clue.

 

you will have normal audio throught display port out, just use a displayport---> hdmi converter and you can have normal audio and ideo out on your tv

they are auto controled but with cpu temp. but in normal everyday things its no prob cause whatever ticks the gpus tick the cpu too.

crossfire is always on with no problem

that is easily solved by flashing the same vbios on both cards

 

Doesn't this require an active displayport signal? With my current Clevo card, my displayport is not "active" and is only operating as an HDMI passthrough. . . .now that I think about it, I'm probably wrong.

That's a good point, but I'd still like to have the ability to be gpu temp dependent if I'm benching or something.

I think disabling both cards and re-enabling them would disable crossfire. Speaking of which, have you guys tried to get CFX running without the CFX cable? Amd released a statement a while ago that they experimentally determined there were no losses in routing the CFX signals through the PCI-e slots which was their reasoning for removing the CFX connectors on the R2XX series cards. They said they tried it all the way down to PCI-e 2.0 8x which is what our MXM slots happen to run at.

That didn't work on my 69XXm cards. If it was something to do with timings, it was definitely hardware influenced. . .

Clevo cards are impossible to find used. New ones cost around $500 with RJ-tech being the cheapest like you said I think. There are tons of used Dell cards out there going for low $300's. Contacting Eurocom is a good idea. I'll give that a shot.

 

I use 2 dells with clevo vbios. Had stuttering with dell vbios.
Alway use hwinfo. If running game or bench i manually run fans 100%. If not it can run automatic. Not much hassle once i have gotten used to it.
Have not verified hdmi but the reason for not testing is mostly for bever needing it. Might test this.weekend if you really need to know.
My only small issue is gpu's is that they make my computer shut down above a certain clock and i cant overvolt them due to same issue.
I did try higher forced clocks with DELL VBIOS it did not shut down, but it did stutter quite heavily, still with better benching though due to the higher clocks.

 

Hey Guys, So I got my second card today! :thumbsup: Ordered from eurocom and I had them flash it with svl7's undervolted vbios. Need to figure out how to make the crossfire cable fit properly into the slot but that's not my issue tonight. When I enable SF. my secondary card, the new one, idles at 99%. I disabled the ULPS in my reg but no luck. So what am I doing wrong? KInd of killing my fun.

Thanks

 

You gonna try this Sangemaru or are you keeping away?

 

It did not operate for me.

 

On the secondary card, you take a flat screwdriver and make a small dent where the cable goes, almost on the top of the fins.
The heatsink fins will slightly separate but you push them together after the dent is big enough and simply take a bit of heat resistant tape and put it on the bottom of the heatsinkfins where air is not going through when pressing the fins together again with your fingers.

On primary card your best option is to try to remove some of the flat tape the last 4-5 cm and it will be easy to fit.

My cable is a replacement cable without the tape anywhere. for that you have to isolate the cable by the secondary card for the edges not to scrape of isolation.

 

thanks, figured id have to do that. saving that for tomorrow. just trying to get UPLS disabled. for some reason each time i open my regedit to check its turned on again on 0003. cant seem to stop my secondary from idling moon

 

hmmmm you have xf cable installed, could it be loosing contact?

What VBIOS u use on both cards and what drivers?

 

Try placing a wanted advert in the NBR marketplace for a CLEVO card. Most of use bought our cards from there anyway including me. There's a few resellers on there as well so you never know. Best of luck man :thumbsup:

Did you log temps? I remember in the early days users were reporting that Dell cards in our machines used to cause shutdown around 80-85C temps.

There haven't been any reports recently so I assumed it was resolved through drivers but you might want to check that out.

I think AMD is still working on the no CrossFire cable driver for all cards.

That could be causing it. Have you tried uninstalling, cleaning with the AMD Cleanup utility and then installing the latest driver?

 

My CPU temps goes quite high at times so i know they dont shut down, when testing its when starting GPU tests.

When running this test AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-950 Processor,Alienware for fun now.

There is my two GPU-z loggings of max temp.


CPU's running at max79 deg. (T-stop max temp)



Hmmmm odd:
Did a test close to my pain limit
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7534588



CPU same temp only this time 27X. 93W max.

 

Use the Catalyst uninstaller to Express Uninstall ALL AMD Software;
Restart;
Reinstall 13.11beta 9.2;
Restart;
Disable ULPS (EnableULPS and EnableULPS_NA all flagged to 0);
Restart;
In CCC, disable Crossfire and re-enable;
See what happens.

I'm tempted, but don't want to brick... gotta search the net to see if anyone's done it before.

Our cards lack the xDMA engine present in 280X and 290/290X. Only cards from this point forward can pull off the bridge-less CFX. Will be nice to see if it applies to the next mobile generation.

 

I put an ad up several days ago. Lotta views but no bites at this point. . . .

Bridgless CFX has been around for years . . . at least since the HD 3XXX series. I'm fairly certain you could only take advantage of it on specifically enabled motherboards . . . which I'm guessing does not include the R2's motherboard =P

Or maybe that's one of the shortcomings of the MXM interface. . .

 

Who knows, it doesn't work. Pity, but I've seen tests done with bridged vs bridgeless configurations for both SLI and CF, and the results were not favoring bridgeless at all. Still faster than single card, but nowhere near a proper bridge.
The reason why it's feasible now, is due to faster PCI Express buses and xDMA.

 

So I fixed the idle problem don't know why but ulps kept turning back one. Managed to fix that was idling fine so I decided to run 3d mark. Got through the first three tests and black screened. Upon reset it now freezes on the windows load up screen. If I unplug the second card u load up fine. I'm running a stock 240 w pay but I'm running a 0.975 vbois on both cards. Is this a power issue?

 

The first thing I would do is load a vbios onto the cards with stock clocks and voltage and see if the problem persists.

 

Flashed both cards with stock vbios and still no luck. Gets to the windows symbol and freezes or just passed it goes to black and freezes.

 

try bots card alone. Both in primar slot, and try to go to windows. Lets exclude some things.....

 

But "sounds" like power issue.
Try them one and one undervolted. That will be your best shot later regardless until you fix your supply.

You running any CPU OC?
If you do, remove that to.
External disks off. USB fans off, etc etc. Remove all other power users you can if both cards run seperately.

 

Trome71,
What vbios clevo you use for your cards?
I too want to try. Even with 330watt I get stutter with crossfirex. But productivity became better.
There is more...
How you do overclocking?

 

I use the VBIOS from Nospheratu.
Right now stock voltage and OC in overdrive when OC'ing. .

Normally run stock clocks too but can run to 975 / 1440. It starts stuttering a bit at higher clocks.

 

So my new card will not boot from the primary slot. It was able to crossfire last night. When it's in the slave I can flash it. Please don't tell me I bricked it some how

 

Where I can download vbios Nospheratu?
Somebody tried to edit vbios VBE7?