M17x R2 8970M Crossfire help

Hey fellas, I finally got my secondary heatsink and fan installed with my second 8970M. I stripped a M18x cable and used it to connect, and it worked just fine. However, any driver newer than 15.11.1 beta causes instant reboots upon loading windows. Brightness control is also lost. Anybody have a solution for this? I'm psyched that this is working on 15.11.1! Probably the most powerful M17x R2 out there in existence at this time.

RGBLED 1920x1200 screen
Intel 940XM clocked at 3.6ghz 4 core
Clevo 8970M 4GB Crossfire, with native fan control
16GB DDR3-1333 RAM
512GB Micron M600 SSD
BDROM
Intel 6300 Wifi

And it's still kicking ass in 2018. Quite pleased. Not able to run CPU + GPU benchmarks yet (need to make a proper adapter to use 330W PSU), but GPU benchmarks alone look promising

Bench on 240W PSU, 940XM at 24-24-24-24, 8970Ms at 900/1250@ 0.975V each.
On catalyst 15.11.1 beta
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/12628908

 

The fact that you got that working at all is promising. Do you have anything to check your power draw from the wall? If you're still on the 240W adapter there could be an issue with power draw in the newer driver - especially if your CPU is running at 3.6Ghz as well as I imagine that alone is drawing 80W or more.

Might be worth contacting AMD themselves and asking about the drivers, since its clear it works on the old ones.

 

I've done some testing since this initial post. Driver 17.2.1 WHQL is working with crossfire and brightness control in windows 7. I'm getting some crossfire stutter through, which I attribute to inadequate power delivery from a 240W PSU. I need to make the ID chip dongle fast so I can crank up the power.

 

Nice to hear it. I'm almost certain that is caused by the PSU: when my old PSU was dying a few months ago it would stutter like hell in games with 5870 crossfire (resolved temporarily by removing the 2nd GPU).

 

Yes, with crossfire disabled, 8970M runs like a champ. I may be acquiring a Quadro M5000M to see if that will work with the RGBLED display, a gracious seller said he would allow me to test and return that video card.

 

Raidriar,
I have the m17xR2 RGB and I am looking to get the clevo 8970m graphic cards for a crossfire setup. I've read different posts and yours is the first I've come across that has had success. Which vbios did your cards have before you flashed them? I've seen posts saying to avoid v1.1
Where did you get your cards ? What number is printed on your gpu chip?
Do you have pictures of your cards ?
thanks,
I am a newbie to this forum.
I am dying to get this computer up & running with the 8970m crossfire.
any leads for the heatsinks, crossfire cable etc would be much appreciated too.
thanks again. I'm glad you got yours running.

 

I direct you to my thread here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/m17x-r2-8970m-crossfire-upgrade.814434/

there are no different versions of 8970M, one standard version for clevo, but some come with vBIOS for UEFI Enduro, which makes them not POST in m17x r2 or m17x r3/m18x r1. My vBIOS is uploaded in that thread. I get cards from eBay, heatsink from ebay, crossfire cable also from ebay. Do not get Dell R9 m290x/8970M because they use weird crossfire connector that nobody has access to, and they are also incompatible with the EC (no proper native fan control). So Clevo 8970M is the one to get. I may be selling my cards in a week or so to fund more modding....cheapest on ebay right now is 280$ without the 20$ xbracket needed to mount. I may make you special price if you buy both cards w/ cable. You will also need special sized clevo screws to fit the clevo x-bracket.

 

Wow, sounds good! Let me know.

 

So only a clevo heat sink will fit both clevo cards & not a dell heat sink ?
Sorry to be so ignorant.
thanks,

 

Your M17x heatsinks are fine, the screws need changing

 

If you are upgrading from 5870 Crossfire, you can remove the Clevo X bracket from the 8970s and put the 5870 X bracket in its place - that way you can reuse the old screws. Be warned though that you will need to bend the bracket slightly to get it to fit.

 

No actually, this is wrong. The 5870M xbracket has a smaller square/area on the back compared to 6970M/6990M/7970M/8970M. Reusing the 5870M xbracket would both too short for screw standoffs, thus crushing the die and also having the smaller square area on the backside would crush or short out crucial capacitors. See below:

Stock Dell Mobility 5870


Clevo 8970M (also same as 6970M, 6990M, 7970M except for actual screw post threading...)


Ironically, the 5870M bracket actually fits every standard nvidia MXM card produced, even pascal cards.

 

I've tried it and you can get it to fit. You need to bend the legs so it sits like a quadrupod. The screw holes will sit flat with the board and the middle part will clear the capacitors on the back. Its not an ideal setup, but it does work for testing purposes.

 

I was thinking of getting this for my sister, I found a M17x R2 in mint condition for 250USD and was wondering what would I need to upgrade to a single HD 8970M?

Heatsink mods?
Any specific Bios Mods?
vBios?

 

Reuse heatsink, 1.0mm thermal pads (stack extra on the edges to cover mosfets), good quality thermal paste, clevo screws. If you add another 8970M down the road, you will need the crossfire cable, which I used from a M18x instead of M17x. I may be selling my cards next week so I can test more cards in here.

 

She doesn't need more. So the heatsink is plug and play? Only thicker pads at mosfets are needed?

 

Heatsink is plug in play, nothing to grind. add pads as needed for mosfets to make proper contact around the edges of the card (think 5.0mm or around there...). You will need to remove the c clips holding the screws in the heatsink so you can install the clevo screws in the places.


FYI to those interested: I tested the GTX 880M and GTX 980M in the M17x R1 and M17x R2. They behave exactly the same in both systems. 880M triggers a hard reboot when drivers are installed (which is even only possible after disabling the audio card), 980M causes garbled graphics/colors, which leads me to believe it has something to do with IRQs from the sound card as well as the biosvideo module not being able to properly interact with the GPUs.

So as it seems, Clevo 8970M is as good as it's going to get for the M17x R2.

 

Does that mean you aren’t selling your 2-Clevo 8970m cards & crossfire cable ?

 

Possibly will be for sale in the next couple weeks, am looking for a few more brands to test before I decide to keep the 8970M. If you cannot wait, I direct you to clevo 8970M here:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Clevo-AMD-...712331?hash=item25db75ad4b:g:53IAAOSwTApZbcvZ

 

greetings good man, I need a help I would greatly appreciate, recently buy me 2 hd 8970m 4Gb and install the laptop as it is going to turn on the mouse keyboard and everything normal, except the screen I have a RGB of 1200p, I have no idea what could be, try only 1 and the same, with 2 the same, try the previous gpu hd 4870 at the same time as a hd 8970m and nothing, you need a little help, and if they are so kind to know how could glassify it if that's the problem, the cards are clevs hd 8970m v1.4 bios version: BR44465.003