***M18x - AMD Crossfire (Driver Questions, Performance, Problems) Discussion Thread***

i downloaded 12.4 official drivers but there is no display driver in the selections menu when installing so i am guessing these are just for the desktop version?

i downloaded the 12.3 drivers from this website just previously and they installed just fine as there was the actual driver in the menu, at least i can swear i did this....

is this not the correct place to get drivers??

Downloads

 

i downloaded the 12.3 drivers few weeaks earlier and they were called;

12-3_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc.exe

i went to that same AMD site and attempted to download the same 12.3 drivers but the file is called;

12-3_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc.exe

the mobility word is missing from this download so is going on!?

 

You're at the right place, but something seems messed up. Have you tried downloading mobility drivers from another reputable site, like Guru3D and NGOHQ instead? Over the years, that has been a better (more reliable) option for me than the ATI/AMD web site.

 

Correct drivers should have mobility in the name.

I got them from here:

AMD Support & Drivers

after downloading the AMD Mobility Radeon™ Driver Verification Tool

I hope this helps

 

Sometimes that tool works, and sometimes it does not. It appears they have removed the direct download link (on what used to be one of three tabs) from their web site. So, now you're reliant on the "verification" tool. That's very unfortunate. It discourages the use of reference drivers and seems a bit draconian. It also makes alternative download sources more relevant than ever before.

ARGH - if the above link still does not work for you, here is an alternative place to download them, and this improved version includes the HDMI Audio drivers that AMD often overlooks: AMD Catalyst 12.3 Drivers from Guru3D

 

So I downloaded this program called Sapphire Trixx after reading the cossfire forum (I am having very poor performance and had 2 dispatches and am going to send the laptop to depot in 2 days), and on the top left corner it shows 2 series (which I'm assuming is left gpu and right gpu), and when I click them, I see that they have 2 different interfaces (PCI-E 2.0 x16 8 2.0 and 8 1.1) and Driver versions (Dell Driver 8.902 and Catalyst 12.1). Is this normal? I have deleted drivers with driver sweeper and ccleaner. Any insights?
Here are the saved reports per cards.

View attachment report.txt

View attachment 2.txt

 

Sounds like you are having similar nightmares as what I had with 6970M/6990M CrossFire. Some of the readings you are seeing reported bring back bad memories. After 3 pairs of AMD cards I finally gave up and went with 580M SLI. Those issues used to come and go randomly for me. The GPU performance could be stellar one day and like flipping a switch, it would be horrible the next.

Try re-flashing the VBIOS. That might straighten them out. Doing so has worked for some other forum members.

 

That's fairly normal for sapphire Trixx, I think (unless my cards are defective beyond recognition...but I highly doubt it). It happens to me every time I click on the "Synchronize cards in Multi-GPU config" in the settings tab without rebooting. If the GPUs are not in sync Trixx can display one GPU as PCI-E 2.0 x16 8 1.1 and the other as PCI-E 2.0 x16 8 2.0. Just make sure the "Synchronize cards in Multi-GPU config" is checked and reboot. Both GPUs will the be stuck on PCI-E 2.0 x16 8 2.0 8 1.1 (it's not an issue either way, I think). Also sometimes it can just shift from 2.0 to 1.1 just by staring at it, it's Trixx magic

It does seem like you have other issues with the GPUs though.

 

So are the new drivers cool? or should I stick with 12.2

 

I had 12.4 for a week now (from 12.2). First time ever my GPU's managed to work properly with 815/1050 clocks in Heaven DX11 without crashing and giving a blue screen. At those clocks I average around 75 fps at 1920x1080 and tessellation to normal (default settings of the Heaven Benchmark with tessellation to normal).

Batman Arkham city showed a bit of a drop in performance from 87fps to about 85fps during the benchmark (not sure if it's because I have no CAP installed). I'm getting Skyrim in a couple of days so I can check that too soon.

EDIT: 12.4 CAP 1 did not help with Batman Arkham City (in DX11), I still get around 85fps with 815/1050 clocks during the benchmark.

Out of the box, Skyrim seems capped at 60FPS. Using FRAPS during the first 6 minutes of the intro I averaged 49FPS, with 815/1050 clocks, settings on ULTRA, High Texture Pack installed and some other mods like more realistic trees, water and indoor lighting. Xfire seems to be working properly in Skyrim with 12.4 and 12.4 CAP1.

 

Hi, I'm new to the forums I've joined because I've had periodic problems with drivers on my Alienware m18x.

Most of the time when I try to install an amd driver my screen goes black halfway through the CCC installation and stays there, it just hangs on a black screen forever. When I force a reboot and windows finally comes back up it appears that the drivers installed (as the software summary will say I've got the version I was trying to install) but I don't trust this.

I've been following what I know and a lot of great advice on this forum so far. I've uninstalled old drivers, reboot into safe mode, CC cleaned the registry, ran driver cleaner pro and CC clean again (until no issues are found).

Now I've installed the drivers without the screen going black on me, but the Catalyst installer has had an error. With no error message. Here is the report-

"Catalyst™ Install Manager
Installation Report
05/02/12 13:19:01

Hardware information
Name AMD Radeon Graphics Processor
Manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Device ID 0x6720
Vendor ID 0x1002
Class Code 0x030000
Revision ID 0x00
Subsystem ID 0x048f
Subsystem vendor ID 0x1028
Other hardware
Existing packages
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable
Packages for install
AMD Catalyst Install Manager
Final Status: Success
Version of Item: 8.0.873.0
Size: 20 Mbytes
AMD APP SDK Runtime
Final Status: Fail
Version of Item: 10.0.923.1
Size: 90 Mbytes
AMD Display Driver
Final Status: Success
Version of Item: 8.961.0.0000
Size: 90 Mbytes
HDMI Audio Driver
Final Status: Success
Version of Item: 7.12.0.7706
Size: 1 Mbytes
AMD Accelerated Video Transcoding
Final Status: Success
Version of Item: 2.00.0002
Size: 3 Mbytes
AMD Drag and Drop Transcoding
Final Status: Success
Version of Item: 2.00.0000
Size: 1 Mbytes
AMD Media Foundation Decoders
Final Status: Success
Version of Item: 1.0.70405.2224
Size: 1 Mbytes
Catalyst Control Center
Final Status: Success
Version of Item: 2012.0405.2205.37728
Size: 150 Mbytes

Other detected devices
Manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Device ID 0xaa88
Vendor ID 0x1002
Class Code 0x040300
Revision ID 0x00
Subsystem ID 0x048f
Subsystem vendor ID 0x1028
AMD Radeon Graphics Processor
Manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Device ID 0x6720
Vendor ID 0x1002
Class Code 0x030000
Revision ID 0x00
Subsystem ID 0x048f
Subsystem vendor ID 0x1028

Error messages
"

I'm going to try again, please help.

---edit for clarity-
TL R
When installing any drivers for my system everything installs except for this:
AMD APP SDK Runtime
Final Status: Fail

 

mediafriend - welcome to NBR Forums. We are glad you joined our Community and look forward to seeing more of your posts in the days ahead.

I merged your posts because cross-posting is not allowed. As a new member it is important to know what is and is not permitted. Please take a few minutes to review the forum rules.

If I am interpreting the information you posted correctly, the Catalyst™ Install Manager Installation Report states an error occurred, but gives no information about the error. This is a known bug with AMD video drivers that has been present for more than a year. It may never get fixed, but it is not really hurting anything. It is also not consistent. Some folks see it frequently, some never do, and others see it occasionally.

So, it is fairly common for the Catalyst Installation Manager to return an error message at the end of installation even though no error actually occurred. I believe that in most cases this is related to Microsoft Visual C++ installation failures when the same or a newer version is already resident. If you are receiving a specific error message, it could be something different, but I cannot see what that error message is in the information posted.

Click the link in the left side of my signature, directly above the alien head. You will find an index of useful information that you may find interesting. At the bottom of the index are links to threads you will find especially useful as a new member of the Community. Again, welcome to NBR.

 

oops! thanks for your fast response, I really appreciate it. I'm sorry about double posting. I should have deleted the first thread. So even though it says "AMD APP SDK Runtime" failed you're saying it didnt? Or that it should be okay?

The real issue for me is my incredibly poor performance in Tera, whether it's set to lowest or highest.

 

Yes, that is common. That is one of the error messages I almost always received doing a Catalyst installation. The "Software Developer Kit" also does nothing to affect your system performance. Unless you are having some sort of issue, you can ignore that. It is only a minor annoyance.

You cannot delete a post, but if you ever need to delete something you posted, you can either PM a moderator, or click the icon to "Report Post" ( )and include a message requesting that a moderator delete it for you. You can and should use that same icon to report a violation of forum rules (including signatures that are non-compliant or posting of oversized images,) spam, or anything that you think is inappropriate or offensive.

 

Greetings, as a new M18x owner I just would like to ask about what drivers are currently the best, AMD or Dell?

I heard that even though AMD is usually better, Dell drivers were better optimized as of the beginning of this year, but I was wondering if that still holds.

Thanks.

 

Dell's drivers are merely AMD (or NVIDIA, or other hardware device) drivers that they have thoroughly tested and verified don't break anything or cause loss of functionality. When the hardware manufacturer does not regularly send new drivers for an OEM to validation, those available for download become outdated and are not optimized for the latest games. Otherwise, they are fine in most cases or they would not be classified as "Dell Recommended" drivers.

Dell does not develop drivers so they aren't really "Dell drivers" other than the fact that they are made available for download from the Dell Support web site, conveniently hosted along side other model-specific drivers as a matter of customer courtesy and support. OEMs (including Dell) will sometimes fix (i.e. tweak) something in a driver if there is serious problem and the hardware device manufacturer doesn't address the problem to their satisfaction in a timely fashion. In most cases the OEMs will notify the device manufacturer of known issues so the device manufacturer can fix their own product rather than modding the drivers. Most OEMs, including Dell, do not proactively download and lab test new device drivers as soon as they are released by device manufacturers, comment on whether new drivers cause issues, or host the updates as an alternative or mirror resource for customer download (nor should they).

 

Mr. Fox, I have a similar question to user Xasf above.

I received my m18x xfire 6990 march, 2012. I installed the latest drivers from ati's website without knowing that I could just install the drivers without consequences. I had multiple BSOD. I didn't care as I already imaged my untouched system for an Inte 520 ssd.

Anyways, I know how to uninstall the original factory default driver for my 6990's, reboot in safe mode to run drive sweep and ccleaner.

My problem is that I went through months or 47 pages of this thread to still not get a clear solution to which driver is best.

I decided to mention I use this m18 to play Skyrim, BF3, ME3, and Star Craft 2. I also use it to wirte code and do some network testing out passwords with the 2200 processor cores.

I have read that my games won't be able to use xfire correctly without the CAPS and newer driver. My networking software requires Catylst 10.3 and newer to use my cores correctly. I notice AMD Sytem Monitor utility shows my xfire only using about 50%. I don't expect 100% as I still need some processor function for output on my display. I just want to have the correct drivers.

I have installed:
Dell driver 8.851.2-110609a-120503c
CCC 2011.0609.2331.40394
BIOS version A05 11/29/2011
SMBIOS Version 2.7

I have downloaded:
AMD Driver 12.4
Dell Driver 8.902-111012a-128052c
AMD_Catalyst_11.12_CAP1

Dell drivers numbers = what driver number from the Catalyst. I want to make sure I'm past 10.3 in AMD's number scheme?

I hesitate to install any new drivers as I read so many back and forth comments to working or not working correctly. I want to be able to dim my screen when I want and utilize my xfire like it's meant to be. Knowing my specific case, what should i install for a driver above or from a website to have fully working xfire in games, monitor dimming, and networking software using my xfire correctly?

Sorry for the long winded post but maybe it might help others who are scratching their heads on this thread's confusion.

I didn't want to test everything out, but that is the fastest way to find out what drivers work for me.

I downloaded Dell's 8.902 driver and installed it to find out that my screen doesn't dim anymore. I also tried the driver out with my software and didn't notice anything better like higher frame rates or a boost in processors for my networking software.

I uninstalled correctly Dell's 8.902 and installed AMD's 12.4. I noticed that the driver actually installed was 8.961.0.0 for AMD 12.4 if anyone cares. I also noticed the dimming works proper now with this driver. I ran the windows experience and lost a decimal point of my score on graphics. I used to get 7.6 as that was the slowest thing on my setup. Now I have 7.5 which is interesting. My networking software improved like I hoped and I still have to test out my games. I don't like overclocking and I imagine that would boost my windows index up again.

As far as I can tell, I see no reason not to use AMD's 12.4 on xfire 6990 on a M18x setup.

 

There are multiple opinions about which driver works best. If you are finding 12.4 to work well, there is no reason to change anything. There are posts scattered throughout the M18x forum with opinions about which driver is best. It can vary by system and vary by the games you are playing. The best driver is the one that works the best. Version numbers are irrelevant if they don't deliver results.

 

Thank you for the info, I too have a 6990 XF system.

I think I'll go with "install latest tested drivers from Dell website, only meddle further if any performance problems with latest games occur" as a rule of thumb and see how it pans out

 

Hello guys as the title suggests I am getting what seems to be throttling and the game will continue to throttle until I restart it, then it will do it again after about 10 minutes. I made GPU-z logs of both the master and slave card and although the cards are touching 90C there is apparently no throttling in either of the cards, except for the very, very odd 400 MHz down clock. Most of the time while playing the cards are apparently running at 715 / 1000 MHz.

I am running 12.4 drivers, before these drivers I had 12.1 and could not install any other driver/CAP over them, it would always report 12.1 until I did a driver sweeper after trying to install 3 different drivers over it. So now my driver install should be clean but I still have the problem....

Here are both logs.... in case you can see anything I cannot. The master card feels hot when I place my palm over where it is.

First file is Master card log and second is slave.

Thanks

 

Ok so I think it could be a power supply issue.. I noticed the power supply was unplugged and it was loose, then when I restarted and checked everything was plugged in properly I got a warning saying the PC could not detect the adapter's wattage or type.

 

I'd recommend 12.4 with 12.4 Cap 1 or 12.5 Beta with 12.4 Cap 1

 

My AC adapter does some funky stuff now and then. I had it replaced under warranty a while back. Are you still having issues, or did you get things straighten out, Harry? Was it overheating, too?

 

I just did a clean windows install and I will now try my games... I noticed that during gaming the fans would not go at 100% but the fan speed below that.

I will report back and see what the outcome is.. but it seems overheating is the problem yet there is no throttling...

EDIT: Ok so after monitoring temps and everything with GPUz I noticed that temps have dropped down from 90C to 78C, and clocks are at 715/900 often but sometimes and about 1/4 of the time the GPUz log reports that the clock rates are dropping to 300MHz when reaching 74C at first, but towards the end of the log the clock rates are at a stable 715/900 till I finished the test whilst at 78C. These temperatures aren't too high are they? GPUz also reports that the max fan speed is 30% with an RPM of 22.

Heres the funny thing though, most of the time I am playing this game the GPU load is 0%, and at max 30% for maybe 2 minutes or so then drops. This is over a period of 30 minutes gaming in Section 8 Prejudice though this does show in BF3 etc as well. There seems to be know obvious correlation between the clock rates and GPU load when skim reading through the logs and actually after properly reading them there is no correlation at all. The 2 cards are not in sync at all, the slave card's clocks are everywhere between 100 - 715, the fan speed is stuck at 30% with an RPM of 300 - 400, the GPU load is at the same 20 - 30 but more constant and seems to be doing the most.

Here are the main factors I can see in the log:

- Clockrates and GPU load are all over the place

- Fan speed is stuck at 30%/22 RPM

- Games have low FPS for the entire session

 

hi,

can anyone tell me what's going on when my device manager is not showing dual cards?

also when i do get it to do it.. not sure how after multiple installs and, sometimes after updating bios to A05, or a restart.. when i enable crossfire, even opening internet will give me the blue screen. then It never shows crossfire again.. I have to uninstall everything, and try for like 20 mintues t get crossfire, only for it to lockup when I have enabled it, any game I play crashes the system / or freezes it, and one again after a reboot the crossfire is gone???

any help, or knowledge in this area guys?

also another question, is even when you don't have CCC, does the device manager supose to show the dual cards? or is it only when you have CCC running and on? wondering if I should do a restore, and start again from "fresh" installig bios A05 first then..

 

It sounds like you're having some hardware issues. If you're under warranty, I would call 1-800ALIENWARE to see about getting parts replaced.

You should be able to see both cards in Device Manager even without CCC or display drivers installed. If you don't see them both listed as devices at all times, you have a dying GPU or a motherboard with dying components.

 

^ Thank you fox


my instincts were telling me, I should be able to see both at all times...



Thanks again, I will cal land see what they say





problem is I really need this comp to play diablo 3... hope it's not bad

 

Keep us posted, friend. If you run into any issues getting proper help, don't hesitate to reach out to a Dell/Alienware rep here in our forum.

 

Your temps are not a problem. Running under 90°C under full GPU load is fine, and 78°C under full load is good.

I ran into issues similar to that with the 6970M/6990M CF setups I used to have. I think your video cards are dying. If you're still under warranty, I would call 1-800ALIENWARE to get the parts replaced.

Ignore the fan speeds. I've never found them to be accurately reported. The GPU fans are actually system fans that are controlled by the EC, not the GPU modules. (Same is true for the NVIDIA cards.)

 

I would disagree with Mr. Fox.

I had this exact same problem: Suddenly games would drop in framerate from 60+ to < 20, GPU-Z showed temps at 90-92°, GPU usage would be very low (25-65%) and the clock speeds would constantly dip to 400mhz. Only a restart would resolve the issue.

I remedied my problem by cleaning out the fans and heatsinks on the GPUs with a vacuum cleaner. After that, my GPUs topped out at around 76° and never throttled down. Framerates stayed constant.

 

Well I turned off CF to see what the difference was and at first it seemed better, but then it started to lag again and I checked the temps, back up to 91C so I turned CF off to see if temps were the still 78C, and they shot up to 91C on both cards, I managed to play whilst at my dads as it is much cooler here and stabilised at 84C. But bottom line is I think it is overheating badly so I will call dell tomorrow and ask for a tech to come replace GPUs/Power brick.

How did you go about opening up and cleaning with the vacuum?

 

I just took the bottom panel off and sucked out the dust, nothing fancy really.

There wasn't even really a whole lot of dust, either, probably about 6 months worth... but it was apparently enough to cause such problems.

 

If cleaning out his fans and heat sinks doesn't solve the problem, he could have an AMD hardware failure like one of the three defective systems I had. From the GPU-Z logs originally posted, an overheating condition was not reported, (both GPUs under 90°C,) and the most recent information previously posted ( yesterday), 78°C maximum would not suggest any problem overheating and cleaning out the fans and heat sinks probably will not fix the problem with fan malfunction (not running, or running too slowly) and clock speeds hanging.

In light of the new information reported today, it appears they are overheating. It's very odd that one day they are overheating and another day they are not, unless the fans are only intermittently working. If they haven't been cleaned out before, it probably needs to be done anyway, so there is nothing to lose by trying and everything to be gained if it works. For Harry's sake, I certainly hope that is all it takes to make things right. That would be awesome and it's a great suggestion as a starting point. I suppose it is possible they are so horribly clogged up that the dust and lint build up is actually preventing the fans from turning.

I'm OCD about cleaning my system, so I've not had any issues that can be attributed to needing to be cleaned. But, I have experienced some of the problems Harry described with 6990M CF. The symptoms reported sound remarkably similar to my last 6990M CF setup that was defective from the moment it was unboxed. The cards died less with than a month of use. If Harry's system was one of those affected by the overheating and thermal shutdown with malfunctioning fans, that may have damaged one or both of the video cards and may be causing them to fail prematurely.

 

I will give them a clean out when I get home, I don't have the tools where I am right now but hopefully it shall fix the problem because I do not want to this system to be tech fixed/depot because this is pretty damn amazing. I have had this system for 9 months or so and I am very, very impressed to be honest.

EDIT:

Well, after cleaning out the fans, idle temps dropped from 60C to 35C both cards, as for full load I have not tested yet but I expect it'll be good. When I opened her up I got the impression that someone did a light gray paint job on the fans, and the metal part on the exit side of fans going out the back. Will test if it works properly now

 

I think I have same issue , everytime I play games , it just random frozen or auto shutdown , even bios A05 does not help. Recently my m18x acting weird , it when I power on it , it just stay in black screen with fx color is light on. (only happen randomly)

 

Try downgrading back to the " Dell Recommended" driver for AMD 6990M with a clean driver installation and see if the problem goes away. If it does, try a different driver than the one you are using now.

 

I tested the system in game during a swarm match of Section 8: Prejudice where there can be a lot of enemies, my temps were 73C at full load. Problem solved I say Thank you for all the help guys.

Also, I was not sure if the A05 BIOS is for the M18x R1, it says "Applies to M18x R2" but the file name refers to the R1. Can someone clarify?

 

Hi everyone !

I have a problem with my M18x (bought in August 2011, not a single problem until now) and I hope someone here can help me. It's a pretty long story but I think it's the only way to get a clear picture of how I got there. And if perhaps I did something wrong trying to fix it.
(I apologize for any awkwardness in my phrasing, english is not my birth language)

So, last week, playing Trine 2 with a friend in multiplayer, the game would go to a completely black screen after a few minutes. The game itself did not crash, I could still hear the music and my character doing stuff if I pressed keys on the keyboard. Alt+Tab would give me the desktop back after a few try, I could go back to the game but the same thing would happen after a few minutes.
On top of that, after a while of this, the game would return but very slow + the random black screen. Trying other games, they were all suddenly slow.

I looked around the internet and found about the CCC bug that would keep the GPUs stuck at 2D frequencies. So, I edited the registry, turned on Catalyst Overdrive and slightly changed the frequencies : it worked ! Games were back at normal speed.

But the black screen thing remained, and I began to have it in other games too (Deus Ex : HR for example). So I thought it might be an overheating issue.

Another possibility I thought of was a Crossfire issue : I've never had the black screen while playing my MMO, Everquest 2 or indie game Legend of Grimrock and the thing they have in common is that they use only a single GPU.

I did several things :

Install A05 bios (I was running A02 before that)
Install HWiNFO64, disabling the LPC & EC support, as advised here : Hwinfo64 Discussion - otherwise it would crash / get stuck.

I haven't had the black screen thing in last couple of days but I didn't get to play a lot so that doesn't mean it's solved.

What I DO have now is the screen "scrambling" sometimes. It's hard to describe : for no apparent reason, the lower half of the screen would flicker, then the screen would turn completely white, then a mix of white and "artefacts" for lack of a better word except this happens while I'm on the desktop, with no 3D program running !
When this flickering happens, the mouse is slow and laggy as if the computer is about to crash or something. This lasts for about 30-60 seconds.

At first, I thought it was overheating, maybe I didn't configure the fans in Hwinfo64 properly but no.
Just now, I played an half-hour of Warhammer : Space Marine (no black screen) while HWinfo64 was running in the background with fans on "System Auto" : both GPUs were around 70°C and no problem.
10 minutes after that, I got the flickering thing while I was on the desktop doing nothing (no game, no video) and I looked at the sensors in Hwinfo : CPU and both GPUs were at around 50°C, so I don't think it's an overheating thing anymore.

Is it maybe a software conflict of somekind ? Because of Hwinfo ? (I also installed Speedfan) Because of the new bios ?
And I'm not even 100% sure that the black screen in games is solved !

I'm starting to panick a little here guys ! :cry:

 

the 12.4 drivers are the best so far. cold boots no longer gets the 2nd gpu stuck at full clocks like the 12.3 did and brightness works as well.

the only annoying issue with amd drivers left (that has never been fixed) is that resuming from s3-standby steals about 5% gpu performance until a reboot. once standby is initiated the drivers won't allow the 2nd gpu to reach full usages, usually gets stuck around 93-95% whereas it will be pegged between 97-99% on the same application if standby was never initiated.

amd drivers really have been a nightmare. i was nvidia user for like 10 years. first time with amd.

 

NightEye, welcome to NBR Forums, we're glad you joined our community.

Does your M18x have 6970M CF or 6990M CF? Try downgrading back to the " Dell Recommended" driver for AMD 6990M with a clean driver installation and see if the problem goes away. If it does, try a different driver than the one you are using now. It looks like ARGH is recommending 12.4.

Doing a clean driver installation is very important with AMD video cards to avoid problems. If you are not familiar with the process, it is outlined at the beginning of this thread. (See the link in post #1.)

Let us know how it goes.

 

Thank you for your answer Mr Fox.

Yes, it's a 6990M CF system and I'm currently running under Catalyst 12.3

I'm gonna try the Dell driver then.

 

Mmm...

I followed the procedure in 1st post but at the point where I'm supposed to get "Standard VGA" in the Device Manager, I still get AMD Radeon HD 6900M Series with a yellow exclamation point.

I ran Driver Sweeper again, as Administrator, and it still finds AMD display registry entry. I tell to clean, it asks me to reboot, I do that and when I run it again, the registry entries are still there, like it's not deleting them.
And CCleaner doesn't find any more registry entry to clean.

EDIT : couldn't get the VGA standard for the life of me, so installed the DELL driver anyway. Fingers crossed.

 

What you describe above looks like CCC and/or the display driver is about to fail. It happens to me every time I push my video card clocks above their limits, right after a 3D benchmark (where 3D acceleration is active and the GPUs are pushed hard).

Did you ever get any warnings about the display driver failing and being recovered during/after the flickering? Any system warnings/Errors at all?

Also, before 12.3 you must have had other driver versions. Was everything OK with previous driver versions?

I think the first thing to do is to see whether your problem is driver based or hardware based. The dell drivers are pretty stable so let's see what happens after you install them. Test the system without any overclocking first.

Then download Sapphire trixx and make sure ULPS is off before you attempt any overclocking (even from overdrive). If the problem persists you will need to inform dell tech support.

EDIT: For your post below try this:

Perform the steps below to turn off automatic driver installation and see if the issue can be resolved:

1. Go to Start, type change device installation settings in the Start Search box and then press ENTER.
2. In the Device Installation Settings window, select No, let's me choose what to do.
3. Select Never install driver software from Windows Update.
4. Click Save Changes.

 

Well, as I said, I installed the Dell driver anyway : no flickering so far but it's only been a few hours.

Just to be clear, I only upped the frequencies in Catalyst Overdrive by 1Mhz to "unlock" the frequencies from being stuck in 2D mode.
After that, I put them back to defaults : I have no overclocking whatsoever, neither on the GPUs or the CPU.

I'm hoping the flickering thing was a driver issue and that it will be solved with the Dell Driver. As I said, fingers crossed.

As for the black screen, it's definitly an overheating problem : i ran FurMark in windowed mode with Hwinfo next to it and as soon as the GPU thermal diode reached 80° (or 85° ?), boom, black screen.
I just had to wait for Furmark to finish and then as soon as the temp was down a little, the image came back.

The thing is, with system default, the fans only start running at full speed after 70°C, so when an application (like Furmark or Trine2 which is very demanding GPU-wise) needs a lot from the GPU, the fans don't have time to bring the temp down.

 

I bet it was an AMD driver issues.

 

Hey I just installed 2 6990's to replace the 560s that were in there. Do the 6990m's have seperate card 1 and card 2 bios? I have been able to find the honeycomb.zip, but im not sure if the bin file is for crossfire setups.

Thank you in advance for your help,
Mak

 

CrossFireX™ 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 7970M M18R2 is out in USA

 

Same vBIOS for both cards. There is no master/slave. You can put the 6900M series cards in either MXM slot as well.

 

Hi all,
anybody having any issues with AMD 12.4 whql? Been trying to get it installed, but it appears to be incomplete. I got the driver from Guru 3d whicj has so far worked for me. tried it twice, downloaded it again from Guru 3d, just in case it was a bad download. No luck. Went to the AMD site again no luck withthat download, tried the 12.4a from AMD and again no luck, so back to square one.
Any thoughts anyone?

 

I have a feeling that you are downloading the desktop package, make sure you get the mobile version. I post the link for you here AMD Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver