New AMD Radeon HD 6970M dell driver up

Hi, anybody tried and benchmarked it? Cannot find any post about it.

 

here is the link:
Drivers and Downloads

 

hmm.. seems to be 8.851.2 ? which should be a Catalyst 11.5 driver..

maybe it will fix the OSD issue

 

Hi, someone has installed and tested it ?

 

Interesting, anyone has tryied them yet?

 

guess not, everyone's happy with the amd 11.8 preview driver lol

 

You know, I did, 2 days ago and was very happy with the result.

Turns out my brightness keys still stop working sporadically though, I just realized.

Fck you, Dell. Sick of this crap.

 

I've already written in onother post: I installed them 2 days ago (overwritten the old ones), got immediately a BSOD (ati related), and at the reboot my 6970 was no more powerful (20 fps on black ops), rollback the driver, uninstalled the new then the old ones, reinstalled both (one at a time) but.... nothing. I resolved the issue only formatting with alienrespawn. I couldn't check if the osd issue was fixed. Hope it helps

 

had no prblems so far. 3D mark Vantage score was 19500

 

19500 in vantage with single gpu? can you post a screenshot?

The highest i've seen from an R3 is from Inap and a little lower than 17k. And this was with a 6990 on it.

 

Hi Joe85, are you installed it OVER the existing stock DELL driver ? Without uninstall ?

 

Yeh installed over old driver with no issues.

Yeh i'll post a screen for ya.

 

here you go. Screen of vantage 06

 

I installed the new dell driver yesterday (over the old one) . Immediately had a problem with aero glass. I rebooted and it did not help. Brightness function keys worked though...... Messed around for a while and went to shut down. Windows decided to do updates and they hung.

Could not get updates to work. They hung twice. Then aero glass started to work again. Installed windows updates one at a time successfully.

Everything is working now. Not sure what happened. Haven't noticed function key brightness failing. It had only worked with integrated graphics since I got it 3 weeks ago.

 

That's called 3DMark 06 not Vantage, but I'm sure you already knew that.

 

this make a lot more sense

You are talking about 3Dmark06 not vantage. 3Dmark Vantage is another benchmark

 

Why do they need more than one based on 11.5?

 

haha my bad!!!!

 

Is this driver worth updating? I'm still using the old factory one driver. Till now no big issue except the media bar get hot after sometimes.

 

it just blew out on me 2.. updated the driver, got an error installing c++ redistibutable 2010, and now my brighness wont work, i had 2010 previously installed thats y i got that error, but no brightness controlls really, how do u f that up ...

 

Can anyone confirm what driver this is equivalent to? Since I did my fresh install of my OS, I am unable to update to the new 11.8 drivers. I have no idea why? I get an error saying "AMD mobility can't be installed due to incompatibility with your hardware." "Your computer does not contain a proper graphics adapter." I am wondering if it is due to the fact that I reformatted and it suppoesdly is NOT compatible with the integrated switchable GPU systems? If someone can troubleshoot this I would be very happy.

On a side note, I do not see much difference, if ANY, between this and 11.8 (which I was running prior to my fresh install). Benchmarks are about the same.

Reference system: 18x, 2720, 6970CF. Thanks

 

Here's a better source (11.8). http://www2.ati.com/drivers/mobile/11-8_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc_ocl.exe.

 

So has anyone dled and installed this yet? And, besides benchmarking, do gpu updates do anything for cooling/fanspeed ?

 

I don't know why...but my 3d mark 2006 score would be 17,450 to 17,600 with the 6970m drivers.

I clean installed the 6990m driver from dell and I consistently get 17,950 - 18,059 3d marks.

Even though they're the same drivers.

 

Gotta go with what works.

 

I just installed the driver update atop the initial release version (8.80.6-101202a-109902C-Dell.4, A00), and it broke my switchable graphics. While I can successfully switch from the Intel to the Radeon (I have the 6970), I can't switch from the Radeon to the Intel.

What happens is the screen freezes and doesn't refresh properly. In order to get around this, I need to suspend and then resume the machine in order to get video working again. In order to finish the switch to the Intel, I then need to disable the AMD Radeon device from the device manager. The machine flickers, and then I'm on the Intel video.

I tried doing an express uninstall and then re-installing the driver update, but I still get the same result. Anyone else getting this?

 

Try using the latest A08 bios update. It fixed a lot of things for me, including the screen brightness control issue.

 

So are you saying you have an R3 with a 6970 and switchable graphics working with the latest graphics driver update? The A08 release notes only mention an updated CPU table. And I don't have any issues with the screen brightness controls -- only the one symptom I described.

 

Yup! I have the R3 with 6970m.

I am currently using the latest 6990m driver from dell.

 

That's a different driver version -- I'll have to try it out. FWIW, I applied the A08 bios, and it didn't solve my problem. The problem's definitely in software because if I revert back to the dell release drivers, everything works fine. Thanks anyway.

heatpipe

 

Nayilalien,

Would you mind humoring me and trying something for me? I've discovered that if I boot using the Intel IGP, I can switch to and from the Radeon without any issues. If I boot using the Radeon, however, I have the problem I described above where I'm unable to switch to the IGP. I'm just curious whether this is unique to me or not.

Regards

heatpipe

 

I just checked the issue with my laptop as well. Seems like I have the same problem as you.

 

If you'll do a clean install of the Dell July 29 6990M drivers ( Drivers and Downloads) or the Dell August 9 6970M drivers ( Drivers and Downloads), then switching between video cards will work as intended. You can then install the Cat 11.8 reference drivers over the Dell drivers if you choose. You may get the BSOD on restart, but just do the F8 -- Disable Enforcement of Driver Signature trick and when in Windows, install the Cat drivers again over the previous installation, at which point the 11.8's should start and operate smoothly with full video card switching in either direction. There is no reason to be using the old Dell March 30 6970M 8.80.6 drivers at this point.

 

The Revelator,

That's just it...my claim is there's a bug with the latest Dell driver package. Nayilalien has tried what I mentioned, and it's affecting him as well. From the way it reads, it's almost as if you think switching works as long as one clean installs either the July 29 6990M or Aug 09 6970M drivers. Nayilalien is running the Jul 29 6990 driver. I'm running the Aug 09 6970 driver. And we both have hit the problem. Are you suggesting that applying 11.8 fixes this? If you don't care to re-read the history, just switch to the Radeon card, reboot, and then attempt to switch to the IGP.

Nayilalien...+1 for taking the time to help =)

 

No, the 11.8 Cat installation is purely optional for those seeking a bit more performance. The thing is, I'm not seeing the same behavior you are struggling with. I just did a clean install of the Dell July 29 6990M drivers. I can switch from the 6990M to the Intel IGP and back again smoothly. I can switch to the Intel IGP, and then reboot and switch to the 6990M after Windows loads, or vice versa. Sometimes it takes a few seconds to complete the switch, but basically it switches back and forth between the cards whenever asked. Have no idea what might be different between our setups.

 

FWIW - I have tried clean windows installs (not respawn) with both versions or the driver in combinations with both A04 and A08 BIOS versions. None of the combinations work on my computer now.

When I received my machine, switching from IGP to Radeon worked perfectly fine. The motherboard was changed out under warranty, and since then it has not worked. If you call Dell today with that problem, they will swear up and down that Radeons do not support switching at all.

It wouldn't surprise me if they simply have a mixture of a few different motherboard revisions floating around at Dell, some switch properly and some don't. If they can convince you it NEVER worked, then all the better for them.

I have personally been fighting with them about it for over a month. Still not resolved. They had at one point broken down and agreed to send me a 580m as a replacement because the switching works on nVidia cards, then they reneged on that agreement and made up a bunch of excuses about procurement wasn't allowed to get any, and they didn't have any in stock. Then they agreed to simply give me a 6990m for all my troubles, if I would simply let it go and stop bothering them about it. That dispatch has been sitting in limbo for over a week now. It will probably end up in small claims in my case, as it doesn't appear they are going to honor either agreement.

If its worth fighting over is up to each person IMO. If I had it to do over again, I would simply vote with my wallet and buy a new Sager instead.

-Jason

 

So watcha planning to do, mang?

 

Same as I have been doing up until now. Attempt in good faith to get a resolution to the issue. Hindsight is 20/20. I considered just selling it and moving on, but the economy is crap, and I'm not willing to cut of my nose to spite my face. I NEED a laptop right now, so I am left with few choices that don't chase bad money with more bad money.

I really like the laptop itself, it it simply unfortunate that the company behind it has a tendency to behave rather in an unscrupulous manner when it is convenient for them. The funny part is that I am the purchasing manager at my company and up until now we have bought nothing but Dell's for both our servers and desktops/laptops. After the ordeal they have put me through with this laptop, I convinced our CTO that it would be a good idea to switch away from Dell, and I set up an account with HP instead. We plan on using HP's now for all our Enterprise and IT needs.

Turnabout is fair play. Dell might have saved themselves a few bucks on me as an individual, but they are going to lose ~$65,000 a year from my company now.

-Jason

 

Yah, dell's pretty bad. Have you contacted a level3 supervisor yet?

 

Takes me almost 20 minutes to get a regular supervisor. How do I go about finding one of the Level 3 sort?