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    Best M18x r2 drivers

    Discussion in 'Alienware 18 and M18x' started by Tesadorn, Jul 13, 2017.

  1. Tesadorn

    Tesadorn Newbie

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    I recently got an alienware M18x R2 laptop, Im running windows 10 64 bit and i have 7970M crossfires, now i do not know much about AMD as this is my first time using their video cards i simply wanted to know if anybody knew the best stable drivers i could install for these, thank you.
     
  2. Glzmo

    Glzmo Notebook Deity

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    The last "safe" driver to use for 7970M Crossfire in Windows 10 without hassle is Catalyst 16.7.2 that is roughly a year old.

    Like with other GCN 1.0 cards in Crossfire mode, with Catalyst 16.7.3 and later drivers up to the latest and likely beyond, there is a nasty driver bug where Windows 10 (no matter the version) reliably hangs/crashes on restart/true shutdown with ULPS enabled (it is by default in these drivers) and can corrupt your Windows Update and require a Windows re-installation in case any Windows updates require a restart at the time.
    However, there is a workaround for this and you can use any drivers 16.7.3 or later (including the latest with enhancements for new games) with it, although without ULPS.

    Follow the following steps exactly in sequence and you should be able to use the latest drivers:

    1. Download and Drivers.
    2. Download and run the latest version of Display Driver Uninstaller (choose safe mode and make sure it disables automatic driver updates through Windows Update which is the default option of DDU and keep them disabled otherwise you can't control when Drivers will be installed and it could lead to said crashes again!).
    3. Install the Drivers.
    4. After Installation, do not restart the system when prompted.
    5. Open Crimson Settings/Catalyst Control Center (depending on what the driver comes with).
    6. Disable Crossfire. This will allow you to restart the system to complete driver installation without crashing.
    7. Restart Windows.
    8. Back in Windows, Disable ULPS for both cards via registry or a tool that can do it for you (use your favorite search engine to find out how to do this, I no longer have the system with me to share the registry file I used or which registry value to change).
    9. Restart Windows (required for Windows to read the registry settings and disable ULPS).
    10. Back in Windows (ULPS will now be disabled), open Crimson Settings/Catalyst Control Center (depending on what the driver comes with).
    11. Enable Crossfire.
    12. Done. Restarting/fully shutting down the system should no longer cause the system to hang/crash.

    Be aware that you'll have to repeat the above steps every time you install a driver that has version 16.7.3 or newer, even if you install new drivers over existing ones or you may seriously hose your system.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2017
  3. Tesadorn

    Tesadorn Newbie

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    Thanks man