Used m17x r2 - ati 5870 cf questions

Hallo my friends. I recently bought a used m17x R2 with a 920xm and 2 x 5870 in crossfire.

i am an IT (pc tech) guy as a job, so i am in to pcs for over 20 years. I have used clevos in the past (2004-2007 ) but after getting this Alienware i understand what the fuss was all about, they are another category from the likes of sager-clevo etc. the design, the thermal management , the build quality are top level.

ANyways, to our subject.

As i mentioned my laptop has 2 5870s in crossfire. Everywhere i read i get that their respected core and mem frequencies are 700(core) and 1000 mem . The thing is that my cards work at 800 and 1200!! its not a software oc as i reformated the system and installed new win7.

the vbios of the cards are 012.020.000.027.037640 (113-B96101-104)
i checked online and its a valid bios for this card.. my only thought is that maybe the previous owner modded the vbios with raised frequencies .

is there a version of this 5870m card with my frequencies or something is fishy here?

Ofcourse the good news are that both the cards in crossfire work flawlessly and very stable, and their temps never go over 70C, so everything is stable and fast ,but i just wanna know the truth


Also , after looking around, i have come to the conclusion that the R2s dont have an intel intergrated video card , right?



Lastly, my laptop BIOS is version A10 but it has inside the option to OC (1-5%) the fsb and the CPU , so i supose its a moded version of the A10 Bios? or did dell actually let us oc within the Bios?

Thank you all and i am glad to be a new guy in your great forums. :hi2:

 

Hi AlienHack and welcome to the community.

My first Alienware was also the R2 and I got here from a Clevo W870CU so I know exactly how you feel. There is just no comparison, except performance, between the two brands.

I can't answer your questions regarding the VBIOS and frequencies but I can confirm that you do not have an integrated graphics card.

 

Welcome AlienHack

That's definitely a modded vBIOS. Its easy to mod using ATIflash to dump your vBIOS and then RBE to open your vBIOS file changing the 3D frequency text field and saving. Then reflash the modded vBIOS using RBE. I wouldn't be too concerned about the overclock as these cards can handle it fine.

Just make sure your voltage is not modded to sustain those clocks. Plenty of users overvolt to achieve better clocks but if you intend to keep your cards for a while I would advise against it. Stock voltage is 1.05v

If I remember correctly Dell allowed for the 5% overclock option in the BIOS when a XM CPU is detected. There is a modded A10 BIOS as well which allows this ability for normal CPU's as well. I'm running the official A10 since it was released with no issues.

Check this thread to see if you have the mod BIOS or not.

 

This is true, it might have been modded. And also the Intel card is not included, they usually have an nVidia integrated but you must disable the 2 AMD cards to see it (no real reason why, just to save power).

 

The above is true for the R1 as it has the integrated nVIDIA graphics but the R2 has no integrated graphics at all.

btw since you have an XM chip, check out ThrottleStop and make that XM sing!

 

I have modded my 6970s to higher clock speeds using ATIflash and RBE, so that sounds like what was done here. Overclocking by modding the vBIOS was always such a mystery until I did it myself. Like you I've been working on computers a very long time, but have learned so much more over the past few years from this forum (and lots of trial an error on my part).

The beauty of the R2 is that it is extermely upgradeable, which gives it a lot of longevity...you can even swap out the aging 5870's for a pair of 6970 or 6990s, or even upgrade to a 7970 (and potentially an 8970) as well.

You can increase the memory to 16GB, install a Killer wireless card, it's really amazing at all you can do with this machine.

Welcome to the club!

 

That part interests me a lot. I ordered a 7970m from eBay. How easy will it be to make it work ? (I don't mean the Hardware installation. I will manage that). I read somewhere that it might need a vbios flash? It's not as easy as install and play?

Thank you guys

 

hey Alienhack,

Check out this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/677680-another-7970m-m17x-r2-installation-photos.html

Hopefully will answer any and all questions you have regarding installation of a 7970m in your alienware. I know quite a few folks have done it, so at this point a lot of the gotchas should be posted (and hopefully) worked around by now.

Good luck to you!