driver woes (6870)?

so i'm trying to update my drivers, was running 11.8 trying to finally take the time to install drivers to see if there's any improvement.

so i uninstalled, safemode + driver sweeper, then CClean.
download and try 8.95. reboot. desktop shows up in 800x600, and it says something about unloading the drivers, no AMD driver detected? . reboot. BSOD before windows loads.

boot to safe mode, check some settings, reboot to windows normal, says again bout unloading driver no AMD driver present. uninstall, safemode + driversweeper, CClean. try 12.2, same thing. wth is going on?

so now i'm without a driver...

i'm more of an nvidia guy, so this ATI stuff is kinda odd to me :/

 

There was no need for CClean or Driver Cleaner, the best way is to install drivers on top of each other.

Stock Dell Drivers -> AMD Catalyst 8.95 17 January – BenchmarK3D and then -> AMD Catalyst 12.2 Preview 8.940.0 Driver – BenchmarK3D

You'll end up with 8.95 drivers and 12.2 CCC

If you get a BSOD during install, just try again after the restart

 

alright. well i got 12.1 working. assuming i can just install 8.95 overtop then run 12.2?

 

Yep, should be able to. Click 'custom' and make sure you are installing a newer driver

 

is it normal for 8.95 jan 17/12.2 to be unable to fully id the 6870 gfx card, reading it as a 6800 series, and 3dmark11 reads it as a 6850 and doesnt read the clocks right. btw geo thanks alot for helping all us noobs

 

I was just going to answer in the other thread, but yeah, that's just how AMD started calling the cards. Both the 6970M and the 6990M will appear as 6900M series as well as the 6870M appearing as 6800M series, I have no idea why AMD chose to do that. You have nothing to worry about.

3DMark11 sometimes confuses the AMD card with the Intel card (not which card to use for the benchmark but the card to display in the final results), there is an option/setting somewhere (one of the tabs, change auto to the proper card) to select which card to the display in the final results. Another common thing you needn't worry about.

 

zero please post your 3dmark11 scores when ya get these drivers working, since we have an almost identical system im very interested

 

P2.5k is a very good score for a 6870M.

Your card is re-branded 5870M so you should be getting the same scores as that. I think you can overvolt your card (by editing the vbios values - 1.15 or 1.2 on the max performance) and achieve a better overclock - though I am not 100% sure on that. Just saying.

 

cool i havnt really pushed it, upping each clock by 75mhz raised me about p200, didnt seem to affect gpu temps at all, should i try 100 each? dont really want to overvolt anything, feel like my cpu would just bottleneck me anyway

 

thanks for the help geo, got it working. doesnt show 12.2 in the catalyst, but at this point i'm just happy to have working drivers again.

not interested in benchmarks, 'n i'm too lazy to install 3dmark. this isnt my main system nor do i plan to do overclocks at this point. i just like to keep up on drivers every now and again so i dont get too far behind.

 

I thought this might help me with the low FPS I'm getting playing the diablo 3 beta, but I guess it doesn't. I can run Skyrim and BF3 on high though...weird.

 

beta's will have their own problems. they're beta's for a reason. Skyrim and BF3 are both "final products" and have already been through that initial stage of testing.

i saw your post in an email originally, but just to clarify on how i ended up solving my problem is i had to go and download (after i uninstalled my old drivers, rebooted to safe-mode and ran driver sweeper, boot back into normal) AMD 12.1 mobility and install that first. this is the "stable" release. after that run the 8.95 setup, i then did a reboot. no problems. then 12.2, reboot again.

the extra reboots may not have been necessary, and the driver sweeper may not have been necessary, but i like to start from a "fresh" start. Its been my ritual since my first computer.

 

does this combo allow you to use all the shortcut keys ...switching, brightness..etc etc...

 

i dont really use the shotcut keys, all i use are the vol up/down buttons and mute/eject CD buttons. i tried the vol up/down and it works.

CCC doesnt display 12.2 for me though, still says 12.1 even though i installed 12.2 overtop.

edit: i meant to say i tried the brightness, that works too.