Overclocking 6970m

All ignorance aside I'd like to know how to overclock my video card and what settings i should overclock it to. I've heard it's just a downclocked desktop 6850, so I should be able to overclock it to stock 6850 clocks or stock 6990m stocks, right? I downloaded MSI Afterburner, but the clocks were already at the max it would allow (stock).

 

TriXX is best. https://www.sapphireselectclub.com/ssc/TriXX/TriXX.aspx.

 

Thank you! TriXX works great. Right away I went from stock 680 / 900 to 750 / 1000. Would it be safe to push the 6970M to 800 / 1100 if I have to back of the laptop propped up for better airflow?

EDIT: Tried 800 / 1100 and i'm now running Skyrim @ Ultra settings 1080p 4x AA 16x AF with 40 being the lowest fps i've seen. Should I clock the video card back to stock speeds when i'm not gaming?

EDIT AGAIN: After playing Skyrim for half an hour at 800/1100 the screen went black and i shut the laptop down. Guess that's not stable. 750/1000 is looking good I guess ha

 

I do 800/1100. Seems like you have to go just a little lower.

I actually prefer the bios flash/registry tweak that allows you to overclock from the ATI control panel. Let me know if you want to try something other than Trixx and I'll dig up that thread for you.

 

Are the any advantages of using the bios flash/registry tweak over TriXX? Currently i'm using 750/1050 and that's definitely stable. I might try 775/1075 next and see how that goes.

 

Sounds like you're well on the way to mastering the art. You just have to experiment to see which o/c settings suit your card under the circumstances; cards can vary significantly in the amount of o/c they will accept under full loads. Pay attention to temperatures as well when overclocking. Both the 6990M and 6970M use 1.1v for the 3d clocks and 0.9v for 2d clocks. There are a few other voltage settings for different states, but they are immaterial to most users and there is no reason to change them. You cannot increase the 3d voltage for either card; efforts to do will be rejected and voltage set to the default. You can reduce the 3d voltage by modifying the vbios with RBE (Radeon Bios Editor) and reflashing the card. I have successfully reflashed the 6970M to 1.05v and 1.0v in prior times, but returned to 1.1v because the lower voltage restricts overclockability. Temps were reduced a bit with reduced voltage, but not dramatically in my experience.

 

Check your temps, Could your system possibly getting to hot?

 

I know that consistently running higher than recommend clocks can damage the video card over time, but should I be worried about overclocking just when i game? I'm a sucker for the pride of having every setting at max..

Temps are fine at 750/1050, but i'm pretty confident that heat was the issue at 800/1100 as it did take 30 minutes of gaming before I had a problem

 

750/1050 should be fine even for permanent use. Temps should never reach the thermal shutdown point even with settings well above 800/1100. Your laptop's vents and fans may need a good cleaning. If that doesn't do it, new thermal paste may be required. You have to keep these things running as cool as possible.

 

My video card is at 62 degrees C idling with 800/1100 clocks at the moment according to TriXX. I'm about to try Skyrim for an hour and see if I run into the problem again.

Had no problem after an hour at 800/1100 this time. At that clock how is my card compared to a stock 6990M?

 

If you did a 3d mark vantage run I could tell you. I'm not to familiar with the 6970m.

 

That's roughly on par with 6990 stock.

But 6990 can be OC'd too

As for boot vs Trixx, I only prefer it cause Trixx was buggy for me. If it works fine for you, stick with it.

Oh, and for temps, a repaste might be worth your while. 62 idle seems a little high to me.

 

Should I leave the fan on auto or manually set it high?

 

Depends on what your doing. When I was doing folding, I had the fans on high all the time to keep temps as low as possible. For gaming though, It's really up to you.

 

After an approximate 80 min gaming session @ 800/1100 on Skyrim Ultra settings the screen just went black again and I manually held down the power button to force a shutdown. I have the laptop propped up 3 inches in the back so airflow should not be a problem. When the screen went black the bottom felt a little warm, but no hotter than usual while gaming. I keep hearing 800/1100 should be fine with this video card, so any advice? This was with the fan set to auto.

BACKGROUND: I first got this laptop a year ago and within 2 weeks of owning it this same thing happened 3 times when the 6970m was on stock clocks. I called Dell and a technician came to my house and replaced the fan and heatsink. I haven't had a problem with it since then, but now running at 800/1100 has brought this problem back.

 

hmmm... I have similar issues when I push my 6990m a lot, but I usually leave it stock as it eats through just about anything I really need it to. Try dropping the clocks a bit and seeing what happens? It could be that the card just isn't stable at that clock speed.

 

The weird thing is that this same problem was happening from day 1 when i got my laptop. There is no way this should have been happening with a stock 6970m. Like I said I had a Dell technician replace the heatsink and fan, but do you think there is a problem with the thermal paste perhaps? Others seem to have no issues with those clocks. Or perhaps I need to disassemble the laptop and give it a good cleaning. I have not cleaned this laptop since I got it (i don't think blowing into the fan counts).

 

Yea I would give it a good cleaning and maybe a repaste before you call up dell.

 

Would I have to take it apart or would a simple compressed air can sprayed into the fans and vents be enough?

 

I would take the back cover off and then unscrew the fans and clean out both the fans and the heatsinks. if you need a guide I can go find one for ya.

 

A guide would be awesome. It would give me something to do tonight and the gaming would definitely be worth it lol

 

here you go : M17x-R3 CPU & GPU Re-Pasting Guide w/Pics!

 

I know I am a late to the party....but as a point of reference for the OP, I also overclock my 6970m to 800/1100 using TRIXX. I prop up the back of my laptop when it is overclocked. No crashes on Skyrim or any other game.

I set mine back to stock after gaming, TRIXX makes it easy to overclock/reset to stock with a few mouse clicks.

Good luck and I hope you get it sorted out.

 

Mine definitely overheats at 800/1100 with TriXX and it just overheated after 20 min on 750/1050 in Skyrim. That's with the back end propped. I'll get an air can after work tonight and try to clean this thing. I'm using the 12.3 drivers if that counts for anything.

 

Using 12.3 drivers also

 

That settles it, it just needs cleaned and possibly repasted. I hope it's not the second one because i've never done it before.

 

Well, remember, not every chip overclocks equally. You might just have one that doesn't want to OC. But I would def try a repaste, and with good stuff. Clean the old crap off really well.

 

I got a can of compressed air and a gave the fans a good cleaning. There was a fair amount of dust build up (a years worth without cleaning). After an hour playing Skyrim with 800/1100 clocks the video card was much cooler and TRIXX reported a temp of 60 degrees C immediately after exiting the game. I'm going to go ahead and say problem solved for now, with a lesson in cleaning learned and a repaste in my future if the problem persists. Thanks to everyone who has helped!

 

Glad to see you might have fixed the issue.

 

Unfortunately my video card is overheating again and it is NOT because the fans need cleaned. The same problem is happening where the screen goes black and I have to manually shut down the laptop. The laptop is propped up in the back so airflow should not be the problem. The bottom of the laptop felt hot so i took it off and the copper cooling pipes were indeed scolding hot. I tried manually setting the fan speed to 100%, but it did not help. Any advice?

 

max I tried with 6970m was 880/1150 standard voltage.
I played 850/1140

 

Mine is overheating well below those clocks aldam, so clearly something is wrong. Should I call up Dell?

 

On my old R3 I had a great 6970m overclocker, Definitely use trixx and make sure the fans are more active. at 70c I had it at 100%.

on the card side make dell replace the card before your warranty is up, if its up pay the 129$ and have the, extend your warranty for a year. Your card seems to not handle heat well as my 7970m. try your luck with the next card as my old 6970 ran 850/1100

 

I called tech support and went through an hour and a half ordeal. The technician insisted I let him run remote connection to uninstall my driver and install the one off of the Dell website. After watching him download and install, with error, the incorrect driver, twice, he gave up and offered to replace my 6970m. I kindly explained that this is not the first time i've had heating issues and requested an upgrade. After speaking with his supervisor he agreed to have a technician come and install a 6990m. I asked for the 7970m, but he claimed it was not supported in the r3. I know you can get it working in one, but I didn't want to be rude since I was already getting an upgrade (that and I had already been on the phone for an hour and a half). So the moral of the story is, free upgrade haha.

Seeing as how i've never had a 6990m, what clocks do you guys run it at?

 

Oh wow! great job!
Dont push your luck on 7970m they WILL NOT give you that card especially with an R3 unless you pay them. 6990 is a great card, depending on that exact cards limits I suggest starting out at 790/1000 and taking baby steps of 10/25 increases in clocks while checking temps and running 3d mark 11

 

The 6990M is already a solid 15% faster than the 6970M. I've seen most 6990Ms hit a core clock of 850mhz without a problem.

 

I'm not trying to push the card to the extreme right when i first get it haha. I'm assuming 800/1100 is a nice stable OC for a 6990m then? Anything higher than that is not with the very minimal fps gain vs the long term possible harm to the video card for my needs.

 

you need to ask yourself; Will you really be keeping the R3 for longer r than another 2 years? R6 bro... R6...9970m and i7 5820qm ..... with a 1440p screen windows 9 32GB Quad Channel DDR5 Ram and a SATAIV SSD running at 1gb read and write speeds....

:drool:

Yeah... It'll run Crysis...

 

I'm planning on keeping it for another 3 years atleast, which is why i was pleased to be receiving a free GPU upgrade. I know I won't be maxing out games 3 years from now, but i'll be happy with "only" medium settings @1080p in 2015. It'll still look 1000x better than a console.

So 800/1100.. nice and stable? not pushing the thing in any dangerous way?

 

800/1100 is more than stable for the 6990... BUT you may get a bad overclocker as I have a 7970m that cant pass 920/1300 on stock voltage while others are running 1000/1500 on stock Vs. So dont push those numbers right away, slowly get to that level and watch the temps. But an average 6990m should handle those clocks without a hitch.

 

Guys, its there any utility for correct undervolting 6970m (ati m8900)? I tried After burner, trixx with no affect.

 

I tried to overclock my 6970m using sapphire trixx...but everytime i push it past 710/1000 i get alot of screen flickering?

Using amd overdrive i can overclock to 710/1000 and its fine...no screen flickering.

How do i resolve this screen flickering on sapphire trixx?...my laptop is elevated using a cooler so the temperature when gaming doesnt exceed 70c usually.

I have a Samsung Series 7 gamer laptop using 13.2 catalyst

 

Same is happening with me, I have an Alienware m17x R3 with AMD Raedon HD 6970m switchable graphics but using Tixx only gives me screen flickering/artifacts and there is no apparent change before or after opening hwmonitor after trixx, I also tried looking in the bios but as far as I can tell it will only let me change the Memory Clock but there is no optionfor the GPU clock. I am currently using the AMD Catalyst 13.4 CCC and drivers.

 

I've ran into the flickering problem a lot with Trixx on both my 6970 and 6990. I finally gave up and just settled for a mild OC in CCC.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-flashing-vbios-may-work-other-gpus-also.html

Try this and let me know if it works, I am trying to get understanding on what cards it does and doesn't work with. Should allow you to undervolt and overvolt.

I am not 100% sure but I had the same problem with my 7970m, moment I tried to OC with Afterburner my screen flickered and flashed but as soon as I started to game it worked fine. It is caused by Afterburner changing your 2D clocks as well as 3D clocks, which causes the flickering. Downloading the version of Afterburner in the link above should fix the issue.

 

I used AfterBurner and it seems that my flickering is gone and it did overclock the GPU, thanks.

 

I just beat FarCry 3 on Ultra with my 6970m oc at 850/1100 played straight for 7hrs no problem. I have a R3 2830i7 and 2x512ssd in raid 0 with 4gigs stock ram and OC 6970 at 850/1100 no problem..

 

Man, that is the most unbalanced system setup I've ever seen.... You spend nearly a thousand dollars on your SSD array but keep the 4GB ram?!? (this coming from someone who spent $35 on 2x8GB sticks off of Newegg a couple months back)

Nice OC though, I should really do the same on my system! (Once I get the damn thing stable, of course)

 

Why do you say it is unbalanced? I am not a computer guru just know enough to get myself in trouble.

 

Just the lack of ram, really. You can get some good 2x8GB kits for under $50 (on sale, prices seem to be much higher now than last fall though). It's not that only having 4GB of ram is bad, just that it is probably the limiting factor on your rig's everyday performance. And some applications (photoshop, video editing) really need more than 4gb of ram.