TESTING crossfire 7970m on a m17xr2 with unmodded PSU

OK, so i bought a second 7970m to run xfire on my alienware (m17xr2).

i am running a stock (i think) 920xm
a 7970m with bios 015.021.000.000
and standard PSU 240W.

Now, my second card arrived. I do not know which Bios version is running on it, and I repeat, I still have the regular psu (which wont arrive for another week). So in the interest of testing to see the new card is in good condition, should I?

1-Uninstall my first card and run the second by itself? I would hate to do this to avoid all the unnecessary re pasting and dis-assembly of a perfectly good primary card.

2-Can I just install the second card despite unknown bios? and also despite not having the modded PSU? At this point I just want to make sure the card runs so i can give the good to go to ebay


If anyone has any suggestions on the best approach to testing second card and finding out the bios, I will appreciate it.

Thanks

 

See the guide in my sig.
You may be able to use the card without a modded PSU, and if you're going to try it out, you may as well stick in the secondary slot to be done with.
The best instructions to get it to run have pretty much been tried and sorted through, so the hard part for you is out of the way.
But you WILL need the modded PSU eventually, even if you can run the crossfire for a little while, it will push the 240W PSU too hard and it won't be able to run for long.

 

awesome. thanks. ill give it a try

Seems the card is working. Ran on xfire, and catalyst detects it. i also was able to run a little of titanfall... but the moment i bumped the settings, it started to get choppy and such..maybe i need more power... Then later on, titanfall would lock up, so at that point i disables xfore in catalyst and decided to wait on the PSU. Hopefully that psu will get here soon.

I did notice when I tested that at iddle, the second card seems to be warmer (primary at 35 while secondary at 42). Then, I also noticed in games, the primary was the one getting the higher temps, while secondary hovered in the 40s. I wonder if the fact that card one is at bios .21 while secondary at bios .17 has anything to do with it.

any thoughts?

 

My secondary card runs alittle higher then my primary but it idles around 38 vs 32 in my primary. in regards to the psu you might try turning off some devices in your bios (ie. bluetooth, etc) i was able to run with the underclocked vbois till i got the 330 w psu running.

 

flash your GPU's with UV BIOS- as low as can go.
Then reduce speed on the cards to lets say 750-1100 each.
This should be way faster than single card while you are waiting, and give you a bit more overhead on power on the PSU.

 

can you point me to a link with instructions on how to :
-find the bios you are telling me about
-instructions on flashing the bios
-reduce the speed on the cards?

thanks in advance

is this a good resource?

AMD 7970m - modified VBIOS

also is there a way to back up the bios that came with my cards?

 

are you running dell or clevo vbios?

here is a guide form tech inferno with a ton of info on vbois flashing

[GUIDE] AMD VBIOS flashing

 

Dell branded cards

 

heres a link to svl7's modded dell vbios

AMD 7970m - modified VBIOS

 

Is there a way to back up the bios thats currently on the cards?

never mind, the instructions say how to back up

OK, so i tried all 3 undervolt bioses, and no luck. Compute boots in bios, but the moment window starts, all i get is a black screen. Luckily I had backed up the original bioses, and was able to go back to square one, any ideas?

i even tried to flash the bios of the first vcard into the second one, and no luck... i wonder if tis the second card thats having issues with flashing

the fun never ends, i have now the 2 cards showed up in device manager, but catalyst shows one card as disabled, and no option to turn on xfire

 

Are you back at the original vbois on both cards? Does gpu-z show both cards with the correct vbois listed in each.

 

yup, both cards at their original bios. just dont have an option to enable xfire in catalyst, even though gpuz sees both cards, and device managers sees them as well.

Ok, solved the xfire issue (in case it helps anyone). Founds another forums thread where people experience the same issue with the latest couple fo drivers. They solve by cleaning old drivers, opening lappy and taking out the second card. The installing drivers. Finally, you go and install the second card, and the drivers should detect it and auto enable xfire... what a pain... but it worked

Now he only problem is that I am getting half the frame rate when using xfire tan when using single card (in titanfall). Anyone knows if this is a result for the power supply not being enough? I wold really hate to believe that my purchased video card is a dud.

 

If you type atiflash into the dos prompt it will list all commands including one to save the current vbios.

 

Yup got that and luckily I did it before flashing, since I could not run any bios that was not the original ones from my cards

I am just frustrated that in titanfall, doing xfire results in choppy half frame rate matches than with the single card. I just hope this is more due to not enough PSU power rather than a bad card

If someone has any info, please let me know, cause i am very bummed

 

Ok, got some new updates. I still can;t get xfire to work properly. The 2 cards are detected, device manager lists them fine. Catalyst even allows me to enable/disable xfire. But performance is horrendous (about half the performance of a single card). In battlefield some of the characters flicker on and off, and in titanfall,the titan cockpit flickers at the start of a last titan match.

What I found out is that my secondary card flashes correctly and is able to but regardless of weather I pick 1000-975 or 950 volts. It seems the bios included in the bios pack are the same as what the card had originally, so only the clocks are changing. Bios 015.017.000.001 and part 113-C42904A1-117 across all volt bios flashes.

Now, interestingly enough, if I flash the primary card with these bioses, the system does not post to windows (i get a pre window load screen, then it just sits there with a dark screen (and none of my peripherals seem to power up (like the lights in my gaming mouse remain off). The bios that works on this card says 015.021.000.000 and the bios part number says 113-C42904A1-118 (notice that the last digit is different from the first card... is that something of concern?)

I am going to try to flash the primarys bios on the new card, but I think i did that already before, and it didnt load windows. The second to last alternative at this stage for me will be to unscrew all the heat sinks and such, and switch the cards, primary and secondary... but i wonder if that will even make a difference.

My final alternative will be to wait for the modded psu to get here to see if that makes a diff, and thus repeat all the crap i just did.

Any gurus out there have a clue of what might be going on?

 

when you had crossfire enabled did you run regedit and disable your ulps?

 

Yup. Changed the value in 4 places... 2 for each card

 

hmmm...i have two clevo cards in mine before i had a 330 w psu if i drew too much power gaming my psu would shutdown and my computer would just die. the flickering almost seems to me like one of the cards isnt seated properly but I am far from an expert. have you read sangemaru's guide? its full of good info.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...rex-ultimate-installation-tweaking-guide.html

wish i could be of more help. I know how it feels to get frustrated over this whole progect i actually fried my first card well attempting CF and it took me 3 months before I was truely able to get it going. all the best man

 

OK, I did the basic test of setting the new card as my only card in primary slot. I cleaned drivers and all.
The card boots in bios just fine (No artifacts, etc), and then in window runs fine with basic video drivers from ms (again no artifacts or anything).
The moment I ran catalyst installer(latest non beta), the system crashed. I got a blue/teal banding from top to bottom across the whole screen. Had to hard restart.
I tried again with same results... so card is not even forking as a single card

I guess I need to assume the card came defective

 

Sorry to hear that man. I'd have to agree with your assessment. These cards are super sensitive. Best of luck

 

Thanks man.

Luckily the seller is willing to accept the return. So either ill get a possible replacement from him or a refund.

I just feel so bummed, I was really looking forward to trying out dual 7990's

 

That's E=ricard2798;9640701]Thanks man.

Luckily the seller is willing to accept the return. So either ill get a possible replacement from him or a refund.

I just feel so bummed, I was really looking forward to trying out dual 7990's [/QUOTE]

I know the feeling man. I recommend getting a replacement though. It's a labour of love and once you get it you ll be happy. Probably always tinkering with it to get a little bit more out of it but That's have the fun... Though I use the word fun loosely