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

Aha, That did not occur to me, Ill give it a shot! thanks plus rep

installed it without problems! Thanks again

 

I did the auto update to 12.4 and did not uninstall anything. Everything working fine. I dont know we hype up manaul uninstall soo much here. Soo much complicatied stuff. Evidence based?
Amd software autoupdate was easy it worked. Go with it !!

 

That is fine in circumstances when it works. When it doesn't and everything gets screwed up, a thorough Catalyst package removal is necessary to get it sorted. Oftentimes, when not doing a clean AMD driver installation, the old display drivers prevent the new drivers from being installed and CCC refuses to launch. I've been down that road so many times I stopped counting.

 

For evidence wait until AMD releases a buggy driver or install a beta driver that doesn't quite work and then try installing a new or older, stable driver over it. The above method will give you all the evidence you need

 

^^except for the times when doing so causes BSOD and other issues as it has for many people. As a matter of convenience, it is certainly worth trying to save time, but it sometimes doesn't work. Success in doing this seems to vary between driver versions. If it doesn't work, then it's not a big deal to do a clean driver installation to wipe out the rubbish.

 

Maybe someone can help but I'm having trouble with dual 6970's and Diablo III. Whether I run Crossfire or disable it, FPS jumps all over.

I'm on the newest 12.4, tried the Radeon Pro utility with various settings, I'm running out of ideas.

D3 is borderline unplayable.

 

Once the servers are online do the following:

1. Go to CCC, under Power tab option, make sure that PowerPlay™ is set to Maximum performance, both for plugged in and battery mods. Check see if the problem is resolved, if not go to step 2.

2.Under 3D Application tab, try to set all your settings back to default if you had made any changes there, then scroll down and set Triple Buffer "ON". If the issue still persists, go to step 3.

3.Uninstall the CAPs, Uninstall the driver, go to safe mode and do driver sweeper and clean all AMD drivers. Restart and reinstall the latest drivers once again including CAPs.

4.Make sure that your DirectX is up-to-date, you can download the web installer from Microsoft.

Goodluck.

 

Thank you for your suggestions, here is what I did.

Yep, set to max performance.

The triple buffer for OpenGL? This is a DirectX game though right?

Driver sweeper has been discontinued on guru3d, do you know where I can get it?

[/quote]4.Make sure that your DirectX is up-to-date, you can download the web installer from Microsoft.

Goodluck.[/QUOTE]

My DirectX is up to date. Thanks for your suggestions.

 

I'm starting to think my issue is just throttling due to heat. It's super fast and then slows down, that must be it.

How do I prevent it or will I need to but a cooler?

 

You can grab Driver Sweeper direct from Phyxion.

 

Can anyone tell me if they are still having problems more often with the 6970m CF in a m18x R1 compared with the 580m SLI or have most of the problems that used to plague the system since been worked out with driver updates.

 

Does cf/sli work well on laptops? As i was thinking of doing it but people keep saying avoid it like the plague. Might just get a gtx 670 in the future rather than cf'ing.

 

I think the advice of "avoid it like the plague" is a bit harsh.....sure, as with most high end tech, sometimes you get glitches but its normally not the hardware configuration but the driver support behind crossfire or sli setups. Ive had a few glitches in the past but it would put me off owning an immensly powerful gaming laptop now or in the future....

My SLI setup works like a dream, btw....

 

So far nothing runs in crossfire on the R2 with 7970's sadly

 

Sam - this is my third laptop model with dual-GPU and I would not be satisfied with a single-GPU setup. Without CF or SLI you are compromising on performance. I would venture to guess the people that are telling you that are just talking heads, repeating what they've heard others say without anything to base it on. I have had many high performance computer systems and a single-GPU system does not and cannot perform as well as a multi-GPU system. You can see that by doing nothing more than comparing FPS achieved in gaming or looking at benchmark scores and it's immediately obvious which is more powerful. That's like someone telling you to install a 4 cylinder engine in a muscle car and avoid V8 engines like the plague. Some of them don't want you to have something better than what they have, and the rest are just exposing their ignorance.

Sure, there are game developers that do a sloppy job; and, there are driver issues sometimes, like what Speedy and DumbDumb are facing with the new 7970M CF. But, that's because it is new tech and AMD got the cart in front of the horse. It will get sorted before long. When it does, it will literally shred all single-GPU laptops, as well as a fair number of so-called gaming desktops. If there is a game you are just dying to play that does not play nice with CF or SLI, you simply turn off CF or SLI and run with the primary GPU. Pretty simple, really.

 

I see, im probably only hearing half of the story then. People do keep going on about how bad micro stuttering is with cf/sli but i dont really know if its as bad as people say.

 

Exactly. Aside from the talking heads that really don't know anything, some people get hung up on small details that affect one thing, and cast broad statements from a very narrow frame of reference. They assume that because they have a problem with something that everyone does and that their isolated issue affects everything. It's like "throwing the baby out with the bath water" as the old saying goes. If that were not so sad it would be comical. Honestly, I don't remember the last time I had a problem that I could directly attribute to having video cards in CrossFire or SLI. I give credit where credit is due, and attribute most problems (as infrequent as they are) to the driver or game developers that dropped the ball.

 

I'm back again (from a few pages back ).
http://forum.notebookreview.com/8503047-post488.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/629367-m18x-amd-crossfire-driver-questions-performance-problems-discussion-thread-49.html#post8503047

So the the screen turning white thingie hasn't stopped.

I *think* I tracked it down to ever a simple overheating issue or an overheating issue on damaged GPUs (from when the fans didn't work properly).

The first thing I do now when I start my laptop is to launch Speedfan.
It tells me neither fan is running so I put them in medium position : 35% or about 2100 rpm, I hear both fans working, everything is fine.

Now, when I launch something that makes the GPU heat up, even a simple video, with these fan settings, I'm gonna have the white screen thing.
For example, with a HD video, the GPU is gonna get to 72-73°C tops (if the thermal diode gives accurate readings) and I will get the flickering white screen for sure.

But if I put the fans on the higher setting, 70% or 3800-4000rpm, the GPU will stay in the 45-55°C while playing the video and I won't have the white screen.

Same thing for games.

So my thinking is, either the thermal diode is buggy and my temps are way higher than it tells me or my GPUs start going nuts at relatively low temps (around 70-75°c) possibly indicating damaged GPUs.

I have the full warranty thing up to August 2015 so it's not a money problem but I'd really like to know for sure what's going on before calling Alienware : don't want them to change some parts and still not solve the problem.

What do you think guys ?

 

Sounds like you have a dying GPU issue or a motherboard issue, or both. Time to call 1-800-ALIENWARE for hardware support. Most likely it's one of the GPUs is crapping out.

Depending on when you bought the machine, your GPUs could have been damaged because of a defect that was covered in detail here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...d-re-dell-aw-conference-call.html#post8030512. My last pair of AMD cards died, I believe, as a result of the overheating problem.

If they give you the run around and try to do stupid stuff instead of fixing the problem, send a PM to AW-FedericoH here in the forums and he can help. I would give Level 1 support an opportunity to make things right first. That way, if you need to ask for help you can have a support request number to reference.

 

Anyone getting the annoying issue where their 6990m's don't run at full clocks? I have to restart windows a couple of times before it will decide to run at full clocks. Really annoying now, every time I go to game its pot luck if it will run at full clocks, like it should.
(AC plugged in, PowerPlay off, Discrete graphics on)

 

I used to have this frequently. Use Trixx and overclock the cards. Even a tiny amount will do.

 

Is there any further word or rumours regarding drivers for xfire 7970m's ? Looking to buy but wont shell out on something that doesnt work

 

It is still not performing up to its potential due to driver issues, but it's only a matter of time before it gets worked out. If you prefer AMD over NVIDIA, I would pull the trigger now. It's not uncommon for driver support to be spotty with new GPU releases, but it always gets better. The 7970M, despite really lousy drivers, already outperforms 6990M and 580M, so there's no reason to hold off except for seeing if the 680M outperforms the 7970M. One 7970M has similar performance to 580M SLI.

 

Many thanks for the reply. As you may of guessed the 680m is the thorn in my side I have no issues with AMD gpu's and will quite happily spec them if they are a clear winner and the best choice.

Personally speaking if the performance is on a par with the 7970m then its sli nvidia's for me as I just find them easier to 'live with'.

I fully expect the 7970m's to be quicker in benchmarks but its real world gaming that I would be looking at. If the same tech from the desktop version is carried over in the 680m then they would 'self clock' when required , but draw less power , run cooler and quieter when not being stressed ? Well thats my understanding , rightly or wrongly

I hate this waiting game But when splashing quite a lot cash I want the best choice for me thats available.

 

I hear you, bro. Assuming no wide gap in performance exists, given the choice between the two, I'll take green every time simply because there is less drama with them. Gaming optimization and driver support is generally much better than the reds. But, I'm not particularly loyal to either brand and will ultimately choose 7970M CF over 680M SLI if 7970M CF turns out to be more powerful.

 

I'll give my 2 cents. I've had no problems (other than I miss my ssd's but that will be resolved this weekend), trixx did not work and ati does not even show the 7000 cards yet. I've been burning through diablo 3 with no issues. But that was the same when the 570m came out also, we had to use the modified ini to install the drivers and eventually smoothed out. The 6990's worked smoothly for me and I see a pretty big improvement so far even without certified drivers. You could always wait till the 680 comes out and hopefully it will be all that and then some. Be kind of funny if the 7990 magically came out about then....

 

Hi, everyone.

So, I called the Alienware hotline for my problem :
Previous post

I don't know where the American hotline is outsourced to (India maybe ?) but being in France, mine was clearly somewhere in Maghreb (Tunisia ? Morocco ?).
Understanding a word out of two (even though the person was speaking french) doesn't make things easy. Anyway...

I explained my problem, the white screen thing at 70°C, that I had upgraded to bios A05 and latest Dell driver. The driver installed on my laptop

She asked me to make the laptop "do the bug" and recheck the temp when it does, so I started a windowed furmark test with Gpu-z on the side, and again, as soon as the main GPU reachs ~75°C, bam, white screen.

So, first, the lady asks me to insert the Alienware Resource DVD to launch the diagnostics tool and check the fans. Ok, fine, I do that, and both fans pass the test, unsurprisingly.

Then, she wants me to disable Crossfire but since I installed the Dell driver, I don't have the Catalyst control center anymore. She tells me I should have it and that means the Dell driver is installed incorrectly.

1) First of all, is this true ? Should I still have the CCC with just the Dell driver installed ?

Then she tells me to reinstall the Dell driver, then changes her mind and tells me to installed "just the CCC program".

2) I know about just the AMD Driver or the AMD driver + CCC, but I've never heard of the CCC as a standalone.
She says, it's this and i should install it :
AMD Catalyst 12.2 Pre-Certified Driver

Am I dumb or is this a normal AMD driver + CCC ?

 

Yes, go ahead and do that. Cooperate with your support rep as much as possible. I'm actually surprised you had just the driver installed without CCC anyway. That normally only happens through the process of manually installing drivers in Device Manager instead of a proper installation using the executable installer package. The AMD display driver and CCC are always installed as a package by default, including the recommended driver package available for download at Dell Support.

The more you can cooperate, the better the outcome is likely to be.

 

So which one do you think I should do (since the person changed her mind) ?

Reinstall the Dell driver or just the 2nd link to the AMD driver ?

 

Do the one she last told you to do.

 

Well according to the catalyst control center i do have crossfire enabled, but when i play games only one of my GPU's is running. The fan on one of them is going and working great then other is not running at all which leads me to say that it is not running. I have installed CAP 12 and i have crossfire enabled, i can not even find drivers for these gpu's on amd's website so im just using the ones it came with.

 

Lol everytime i post a topic the website like freezes then unfreezes and posts 2 topics

 

Everyone is in the same boat with 7970M right now as far as drivers are concerned. Hopefully, AMD is making this a priority and there will be some relief very soon.

The fan problem does not sound good. That hearkens back to 6990M CrossFire systems with similar problems. I hope that is an isolated issue and not something we are going to see begin to surface.

AMD 6900M Series - Overheating and Thermal Shutdown

Be sure to keep close tabs on that and monitor the temps, as your cards could fry. A number of us (me included) had 6990M cards that died a premature death. You may want to call 1-800-ALIENWARE and speak to a manager in Tech Support give them a heads up so their engineering department can be aware of a potential issue. (Don't rely on a Level 1 rep to handle the information appropriately, that's why I suggest speaking with a manager.)

 

* Note to self: never get another AMD GPU again*

 

Hello! Is there a need to do OC on both cards or not yet? also can we reflash 7970m's at this moment to OC clocks? i think ill go with 900/1250 on both cards..

 

I believe the answer to both questions is "not yet" for multiple reasons.

So far, I haven't seen any new modded ROM files that would give a basis for flashing the vBIOS.

Not necessary to overclock to achieve good benchmark scores at the moment. It might be when 680M arrives to remain competitive, but nobody known the answer to this one yet. If you are not into competitive benchmarking, then the answer is the same as GTX 580 and 6990M... it's not necessary for normal use or gaming, as those cards are generally powerful enough to run all current games with relative ease, assuming the drivers or games don't have issues caused by sloppy developer workmanship.

 

after playing some games for like 20minutes this is what im getting
one of the GPUs isnt running, while the other is pumping out some air... the air isnt hot at all so idk why its running so strong, like i would understand if it was hot, so its trying to cool down by turning the fans on faster.

 

What games are you playing? - some games dont utilise crossfire which may explain the lack of heat output from probably your right gpu?? - if crossfire isnt getting used, the secondary wont heat up anywhere near as much as the primary due to lack of use. Also, if the left or primary gpu air flow isnt "hot", it may just be an indication that the game you are plaing isnt that gpu intensive, so they dont work as hard, which leads to less heat output.

I think we all know that, at the moment, AMD crossifre functionality with 7970m is a very sore point. I would hope that one driver issues are corrected, the hardware will live up to full expectations and crossfire will work as it should.

 

It may be a situation where, because of spotty driver support, AMD PowerPlay is letting the second GPU "go to sleep" because it is not being properly utilized.

I know it's got to be a bit frustrating, but I am expecting problems like this will be getting better or be fixed with new drivers in the next 30 to 60 days.

AMD has not provided Dell/Alienware with a driver they can put their stamp of approval on yet, but they are working with AMD to try to get that expedited for the early adopters with GPUs that are not working properly.

Here is something you can try as a temporary workaround with 7970M CF that used to work very well with 6970M/6990M CF. Go to this post:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/601148-6990m-crossfire-guide.html#post7784719

Under Tips & Tricks, follow the directions in the second and third spoilers to disable ULPS and enable CrossFireAutoLink.

Essentially, the goal is to override PowerPlay. You will want to locate every instance of EnableULPS and change every registry key with a 1 (one) DWORD value to a 0 (zero) and all EnableCrossFireAutoLink registry keys from a 0 (zero) DWORD value to a 1 (one). This should prevent your AMD cards from entering a low power state to save energy, and it should enable CrossFire to link with both GPUs whether the driver is telling them to link or not.

 

I don't get it. we have to wait about 3+ month with the 580M to get a good driver.

 

Well what was concerning me was how much air it was pushing out ( a lot ), and i didnt see a reason to push out that much air if it wasnt even hot. As in why turn your Air conditioning ( in your home ) all the way up if your house isnt hot.

So like the fan is running at top speed but the gpu its self is only like 120 F

 

Ahhh....gotcha.

Abnormal fan behaviour isnt something that suprises me after the problems with AMD cards overheating in the past because the fans were NOT coming on....seems like you have the opposite. Try what Fox suggested and se if that helps regards to PowerPlay....

 

Some people want perfection immediately. Sadly in the world of Mobile Gaming, that's just not realistic

 

True statement, brother Macs. People that ordered 7970M, especially those that are current AMD owners, should have been somewhat aware there might be a slight lag between the drivers and the hardware. It will get sorted, and those who have been high performance PC/laptop owners for a good while will not find that terribly unusual.

 

Slightly out of topic, back a few years ago, when I got the m9750 with 7950GTXSLI, it took several months (and several driver releases) before Blizzard eventually got out a SLI-capable version.
From that point on, I learned a lesson: that I should never take it for granted that a game should be dual-gpu compatible, whatever the size of the user base.

Which didn't prevent me from happily getting another dual gpu (AMD, this time)...

Today, all what I wish is to be able to play all games at maximum designed quality, without caring whether it uses a dual-gpu or not.

 

Exactly!!! But most people don't know it, especially a fan.

 

Is anyone else getting random occasional BSOD's with the 12.3 or 12.4 amd drivers on 6970 crossfire???

I think it might be to do with using SaphireTrixx with the new drivers.

 

I just decided to check this my speeds for my 7970 are

850mhz by 1200 mhz memory

is it not suppose to be 850 by 1250???

AMD Radeon HD 7970M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Here is a SS with my gpu speeds

 

My next problem i followed Mr. Foxs reg edit to always have xFire enabled and so far its working.

But for some reason my first GPU is throttling down while the second stays at 850x1200 even though it should be 850x1250



^ thats the pic of the first throttling down

 

Throttling down is because of AMD PowerPlay. It's normal, as long as they speed up under load it's OK for them to do that.