M17x R2 7970m CrossfireX Ultimate Installation and Tweaking Guide

is there any way possible to get dell cards to run with automatic fan support?
im getting tired of starting up hwinfo and stuff.

can i flash the with an clevo vbios or something?
and without a lot risks involved?

 

Afaik it doesn't do anything to flash, it's a hardware thing.
Just add OpenFanCtrlMin=1 to the last line of your HwInfo32(64).ini file and set hwinfo to autostart, and you won't have to manually click it yourself anymore.

 

Hey everyone, so my used clevo card is in the process of dying. I tried to order one directly from eurocom but there in between stock and don't know when their getting more as there are going to the 8970m. Any ideas on where else to get a clevo card. Don't want to go dell as I already have a clevo and have been trying to join the Cf club for months now.

Thanks

 

try upgrademonkey on ebay.

 

Also check rjtech.com

They're reputable and a lot of NBR users purchase parts from them.

 

Right on guys. Thanks for the options. Next question. What's the difference between the p150 em p170em and p370em?and which ones work in our r2?

 

Someone else then me would have to answer that since you ask about clevo. Nospheratu is quite the guru
I use Dell branded cards.
It gives me HDMI and not sound.
If i use other VBIOS i get sound but not as good performance.

 

What do you guys do nowadays for keeping your 7970m from shutting down at that 80-85 degrees point? Is this CooLaboratory liquid metal pad the way to go or do I just have to keep replacing my average pads every three weeks? Anyone have any experience with these pads that they can share?

 

Lol, I'm nowhere near a guru But I do know the EM laptops are built for switchable graphics so the vBIOS that ships with those cards have Enduro enabled which normally is a problem for the R2.

That said, the newer CLEVO vBIOS's seem to have a hybrid feature that allows them to work both on Enduro and non-Enduro laptops. Worse case scenario is that you receive the card with the Enduro vBIOS which you then have to flash to a non-Enduro version like the one in my sig.

Hardware wise there's no difference between the 7970M cards for the P150 EM, P170EM and P370EM. Just make sure the hardware version is V1.2 2G. Your current 7970M should be the same version if you look at the sticker on the back.

 

I am experimenting atm with metal pad for the GPU.
Giving me apx same temps as paste.
My paste has been in for 3 months now in my GPU1.
Temps rarely move past 62/63 but i use HWinfo run my fans hard as early as 50deg.

What pads are you replacing btw?

 

double post

 

14.1 beta guys

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/mobile?os=Windows 8.1 - 64

 

can you guys give the new beta driver a try while playing bf4? i dont have the mantle option on the settings for bf4.

 

I have, unfortunately, migrated to a different machine recently (I'd like to say that the HeatSpring TIM works great on it, both cpu and gpu), so I can't try the AMD stuff out, but am sure looking forward to how it does.

 

Sad reading Sangemaru, sad reading

BTW, i dont get the mantle option either.

 

this will enable mantle for bf4 for 7970m cards

AMD Catalyst 14.1 Mobility Beta Modded(Mantle API enabled) Driver - Guru3D.com Forums

its very buggy for me. lots of fps drops.

 

Do not get too excited boys.
With last driver package we had to wait 500 versions until something stable was released.
I expect this time to be not a much of a difference. ...

Testing is mandatory though

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

So this means always having to wait for the modded drivers after new driver releases to get the mantle?

Nah, getting blue screen all the way when trying to start the game when loading the game after enabling mantle

atikmdag.sys crap

Stopcode

BCCode: 1000007e
BCP1: FFFFFFFFC0000005
BCP2: FFFFF8800F27496D
BCP3: FFFFF88002B2BDB8
BCP4: FFFFF88002B2B610

Will try later how to get out of this crap again.
Hopefully its enough to install older drivers but i have chosen the mantle ingame so not sure how that goes.

 

Ahhh could be this :


Mantle performance for the AMD Radeon™ HD 7000/HD 8000 Series GPUs and AMD Radeon™ R9 280X and R9 270X GPUs will be optimized for BattleField 4™ in future AMD Catalyst™ releases. These products will see limited gains in BattleField 4™ and AMD is currently investigating optimizations for them.
Multi-GPU support under DirectX® and Mantle will be added to StarSwarm in a future application patch
Intermittent stuttering or stability issues may occur when utilizing Mantle with AMD CrossFire™ technology in BattleField 4™ - AMD recommends using the DirectX code path when playing Battlefield 4 with multiple GPUs. A future AMD Catalyst release will resolve these issues
Notebooks based on AMD Enduro or PowerXpress™ technologies are currently not supported by the Mantle codepath in Battlefield 4™
AMD Eyefinity configurations utilizing portrait display orientations are currently not supported by the Mantle codepath in Battlefield 4™
AMD Eyefinity technology is not currently supported in the Star Swarm? application
AMD testing for the AMD Catalyst™ 14.1 Beta Mantle driver has been concentrated on the following products: AMD Radeon™ R9 290X, R9 290, R9 280, R9 270, R7 260X, R7 260, HD 7000 Series, HD 8000 Series, A10-7850K and A10-7700K. Future AMD Catalyst™ releases will include full test coverage for all AMD products supported by Mantle.
Graphics hardware in the AMD A10-7850K and A10-7700K may override the presence of a discrete GPU under the Mantle code path in Battlefield 4™
Frame Pacing for Dual Graphics and non-XDMA configurations above 2560x1600 do not currently work with Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4. An upcoming release will enable support
DX9 Dual graphics is not supported in AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta. An upcoming release will enable support

 

i was able to get star swarm benchmark to work. with directx i was getting around 22 fps avg. with mantle, i was getting around 34 fps avg. while playing bf4, mantle is very unstable for me. one game i get great fps avg (above 60) then next game im getting 20-30 fps. i just reapplied some liquid metal pads and all my temps are acceptable. i can only assume its mantle.

 

new tech, immature optimization etc. etc.
To be fair they had to show something about mantle, clock is ticking. I see lots of potential, so long as they keep on optimizing it, it'll be great.
Ahh, i feel like an outsider now without a m17x r2 of my own

 

And all they mention is 1 or 2 games and 1 benchmark, let's be honest, they have to talk with big companies to get it implemented or the idea will die or end up underdeveloped.

Bf4, who cares, if the mantle notes mention performance decrease, especially in CF.

They better do something with it quickly, I will reserve Mantle Hype for later....

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

I agree.
Did the install. Will do the uninstall and then the downgrade again.

 

how to get out of the problem.
At first i tried to roll back drivers.

Works nice until you update back to last drivers
Another bluescreen when starting a BF4 game.
You cant go back to change when having xfire.

obvious solution:
Disable xfire.
Start BF4.
Remove Mantle (enable divX)
Exit game
Enable xfire and you are back in the game.

 

divX

When i get some pesky problems that i know will take hours of troubleshooting i just do Format C:/

 

hehe, i was tired after sitting up for Superbowl
directX

 

Indeed, Format C: is much faster than troubleshooting 99% of the time

 

LOL ive had my share of format

When working on the X-fire i had shutdowns during operation many times. Needless to say my SSD wasn't to fond of it and i had to re-install windows plenty times.

 

Dear Gurus,
As the 880m is coming soon (check sager/clevo thread) can someone please do kindly test thiscard on the alienware m17xr2.
Thank you in advance

 

No problem, $1200 please

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

anyone got crossfire working with the crossfire on BF4 with the new mantle?

The M18 will work with this, but for me its not working yet.

If someone else has this problem with the M17r2 it could be system related.
If not ive got a big job of finding out why.

Ive done quite a lot of different installation and deinstallation and re-installation methods and more but I dont get my card number 2 to run. Temps stay low on second card during game and FPS drops like a rocket from what i get with standard driver using crossfire.

 

From AMD press release:

Intermittent stuttering or stability issues may occur when utilizing Mantle with AMD CrossFire™ technology in BattleField 4™ - AMD recommends using the DirectX code path when playing Battlefield 4 with multiple GPUs. A future AMD Catalyst release will resolve these issues

 

Perhaps I am among the ones thay may have instability aka not functional at all.
The last driver krashed BF4 totally for me so at least it was better.

I have read that others having M18 and same cards do get both cards running, If they had stuttering i dont know.

I am hoping that next drivers would do the trick for me, not much more i can do, but wanted to know if anyone with this setup at least can see life in the secondary card.

 

Hallo guys!!! the black sheep is back!! :hi2:

So after reading the last 2-3 pages i am glad i wasnt here updating the latest drivers

i am still at beta 7 and everything works great!!! :thumbsup:


So what else did i miss?

 

Last drivers work fine on my computer for directX. But for me it seems i cant get mantle running on both cards.
Guess you havent tried yet.

 

dont worry. there are other games and game engines that stated they will use mantle Cryengine for example and Chris Roberts will use it in Star Citizen. i know there are more i cant remember them now.

ofcourse i agree with you that they should have already ,a dozen of companies that make games, advertising mantle if they wanted to make a hype.

 

Update time from my end. Its been a long time coming but I finally got a modded 330w PSU. Have been searching for a second clevo card for a while, man they are hard to find these days. Then I realized I could try reflowing my first clevo card which I bought used and started acting up months ago (weird red vertical lines.) I had thought i done so have been running with a single card since nov. So on saturday night I rolled up a few tin foil balls and place the card in the oven at 385 and let it cook for 8 min. dropped it in and I am running crossfire with no vertical lines. My delema is I know sometimes the reflow will only last a week or two I hoping this in not the case in my case. as these clevo cards are next to impossible to find. Upgrademonkey has one but the have jacked the prices. Anyways. I have
run 3dmark11 with no issue and get anywhere from 9900 to 10110. with clocks at 900/1250. However I get a BSOD every time I try and run 3dmark (not 11). Any thoughts on this?

 

The newer 3dmark is pushing your crossfire harder and voltage may be an issue.
What vbios are you running on your gpu's? From memory there was some tweaked bios which run slightly better voltages to maximise fps and stability. I think sangemaru and others have these tweaked bioses.
Also your psu may not be up to scratch did you follow the stamati setup on techinferno or buy a m18x 330w psu?

 

Im running Nospheratu modded clevo vbois with stock voltage. I took the easy route and bought a someones modded 330w psu off ebay

 

Hi,

first i have to say it's an amazibng thread, i have learn A LOT of things about the R2.

I wanna talk about the 240 psu chip , does anubody have look the eletric signal with osciloscope ? I mean, for me it's just an basic transistor who take the signal wire to the ground that other psu don't. If it's just that we will no longer in need of 240w psu just for one chip, an similari cheap chip on ebay will do the trick.

 

330W power supply for M17x update » imsolidstate

Read it, its more to the chip than meets the eye.

Its programmed.

 

Ok thanks , i understand now , so the psu comparator has to be grounded but the m17x still need the chip signal ... That will be interesting to read the program and see if it can be write in an other chip. Anyways dual 240 W can do the same without soldering on psu board, about the same price , just uglyer

 

Dual 240 = double the size and almost double the weight, but gives slightly more power from what ive read. (im hitting to power limits on the 330W when overclocking my GPU's)

BUT, you could do the plug mod. Not having to open any PSU and beeing able to swap to any new 330 with plugin use without having to do anything.


You want to program another chip, imsolidstate has a guide for that to.
Not another type though.

If you read all of imsolidstates info you will learn more.
There are two mod threads, one "old" and one revised. Read both.

 

I need some help, I just finished installing my second 7970m, and everything booted and ran.. but i am noticing that the secondary GPU is running twice as hot as the primary one ON IDLE. Primary is at 36 while secondary is at 73.
Any thoughts? Thanks for the help!

 

Have you done everything in the guide?

Also the ENABLEULPS in regedit thing?

Probably not. :thumbsup:

 

Secondary at 73 is too hot even with ULPS disabled. Most likely your heatsink is defective or has poor contact with the card. And by poor, I mean probably none. Check heatsink-to-card contact outside the machine, make sure the core die makes contact with the heatsink core, pads are only as thick as required to touch the heatsink and not push back against it, etc.

 

Yup, did all that. But still, having a card at usage of 99%the secondary) while first one is low on usage and low 30s.. it is either bad heatsink... but most likely my motherboards second video car slot is frying cards

 

Ah, 100% usage? Did you disable ULPS as per the guide? What driver version are you using?
What vendor are your cards, and what vbios do you have loaded on each?

 

The 99% happened to me before I disabled ulps. I'd check it again.

 

Ok, ill go and check again later tonight. I will do bad card by itself just to check, and if ti works, then ill retry everything once more. They were both running stock bioses. One was .21 the other .22