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

I reckon you will be fine for some time yet with your 6990m's - there are a few games out there that 580m/6990m struggle a bit with on maxed out settings (Metr0 2033/Witcher 2 and maybe a few others) but ont the whole, its still a beast of a gpu setup.

 

Hi Guys

Where can i find what drivers i am running please and where can i download them from? I see this

AMD Radeon HD 7970M

Driver package version: 8.934.2.1-120402a-136466C-Dell
2D version: 8.01.01.1223
Direct 3D: 7.14.10.0889
Open GL: 6.14.10.11411
Catalyst: 2012.0402.2221.38086


Mark

 

Hallo guys,

So as the title said, I have a M18x R1 with a single 7970M installed, and win7 64bit + the 12.5 beta amd driver installed. They work "great" except one serious problem: every I put the computer in sleep mode, it won't be able to boot back into Win7. Lights do go on, fan/hard drive does spin, but screen would be still black.

I'm wondering if it's a well-known driver/vbios problem or motherboard faulty? The warranty is still 100+ days remaining, perhaps I can call them to take a look? (have sent an email to Allan@dall.com already BTW)

Any suggestion would be appreciated

 

I believe this is a known issue with 7970M. I've seen it posted other places on the web already, believe it or not. Although never acknowledged officially, it has been a known issue driver for a very long time with AMD display drivers . AMD Radeon HD 4870M, 5870M, 6970M, 6990M have all had the same issue on all of my laptops when resuming from sleep, so it's just a tradition after all these years. That black screen thing may never, ever be corrected by AMD. I don't even bother trying to use sleep functionality any more. Set your compute to "Do Nothing" when closing the lid and set your power profile to "Never" on the time to go to sleep and you'll enjoy not having that ruin your day.

 

Thanks for the information

But ouch!!! I'm used to using the sleep mode when moving the laptop around, and at night..

Have been contacting AMD and Dell to see if there is any foreseeable solution...or perhaps I should just sell the A card and get a Nvidia....Maybe wait for the 680M

Thanks for the information anyway...

PS: already a month passed, still no official 7970m driver released...! Might be my only and last try for AMD/ATI graphic cards..

 

I wanted to apologize - especially to Mr Fox - for my swearing the other day, I was quite upset.

Just wanted to let you know that the tech guy came and everything is fine again.

My problem was very simple, yet I hadn't thought of it until I saw the main GPU : there was almost no thermal paste left, it had almost completely melted away !

New GPU, with new thermal pads and now it's almost 20°C cooler than before. And for good reason !

My only worry now is that sooner or later I'll have the same problem with the secondary GPU : already it's slighty hotter than the main one even though it's used far less often. It's still in average temps for now.

ps : sure, I could replace the thermal paste and pads myself... or so I thought until I saw the Dell guy take an hour and a half to take the M18x apart, 5 minutes to change the GPU, then another hour to put the beast back together.
And he knew what he was doing !

 

Awesome, NightEye. Glad you have things sorted. +1 Rep

I am surprised it took the tech so long to do the work, but at least it was done properly. Speed without quality is not a good thing. I am used to taking apart the M18x and my upgrade to 7970M CF did not take nearly as long.

 

offical 12.6 beta catalyst from AMD website
appears to be the same driver package on the other thread sorry didnt see the previous thread
atleast this one is directly from AMD website =P

AMD Catalystâ„¢ 12.6 Beta Driver

 

It's generally accepted that AMD has problems including everything with their releases they put on the website, guru3d or these forums are the best places to get new drivers..

Does anyone still have the download link for the .dll files we need to overclock the new AMD drivers?

 

I got to share this tip for people playing Crysis 1 on their dual 7970M:

Whoever plays Crysis 1, I have a fix for you to play the game using Crossfire 7970m.

Use Radeon PRO and use FEAR as the Force Crossfire choice. Then, make sure to play Crysis on 32bit, not 64bit. 64Bit and Crossfire are not friends.

 

Does anyone have an answer for this?

Hi Guys

Where can i find what drivers i am running please and where can i download them from? I see this

AMD Radeon HD 7970M

Driver package version: 8.934.2.1-120402a-136466C-Dell
2D version: 8.01.01.1223
Direct 3D: 7.14.10.0889
Open GL: 6.14.10.11411
Catalyst: 2012.0402.2221.38086

But that's not clear what the driver version is. Also where is the best place to download from as AMD just says it cant recongnise my machine and they don't even list a driver for 7970s in their dropdowns. Not that i could find anyway.

mark.

 

As long as I know, only M17x R4 has it's official driver from Dell....7970M still waiting...

We're all using modded driver for 7970M currently

There are a few modded drivers for 7970M, here is the one I'm using now:
AMD Catalyst 8.97 18 April – 7900 MOD – BenchmarK3D

found it from the following page while searching for a driver that can at least work for 7970M:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/661918-m18x-r1-7970m-crossfire.html

-------------------
Let's pray that AMD or Dell release an official one soon...

 

Forgot to mention the driver...

Here is the only official driver for 7970M from dell, and it's only compatible with M17x R4
Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

Others, modded versions. They work OK though.

 

The only Mobility driver that works properly at this time with 7970M CF on my system is Catalyst 12.5 beta. (Catalyst 12.6 beta does not do very well for me, at all, and 7970M is not on the list of supported GPUs for 12.6 beta.)

 

Does anyone have a fix for the inability to overclock the newer drivers? The .dll file fix for 12.3 and 12.4 no longer works.

 

Have you tried the tweak for MSI Afterburner that SlickDude posted in his thread on the 7970M upgrade for the M17x R3? That is what I am using for overclocking the 7970M CF and it requires no .DLL files. Trixx does not work, at all, with 7970M CF. Everything is grayed out.

Also, have you done the proper registry tweaks?

Edit: OK, guys, I just found a driver that seems to be doing better for AMD 7970M CrossFire. I initially downloaded it from Clevo Taiwan, but it appears the same driver is available for download from Sager's web page. When the driver was finished installing, it ran WEI from a command prompt. There is also an app I have not seen before, called AMDZ.exe. I just ran a quick 3DMark11 without doing anything fancy and got a really good score for no tweaking of anything. Almost as good, in fact, as my much heavier overclocked run.

Here are the links: ftp://ftp.clevo.com.tw/P1xxEM/VGA/7970M.zip -or- http://www2.sagernotebook.com/Sagernotebook/video/02Video_A91X0.exe

Let me know how they work for you guys.

 

how do you install this? when i try out right it doesnt find the cards.. when i point to the driver.. it says it is not compatibly with this version of windows..

also it pulls up drivers for intel HD3000 thru 4000 and wimbledon XTA

any advice would be helpful.. thanks

 

from the gpuz screenshot those drivers are based on 12.5 beta (8.97)
I think I'll stick with the 8.98 for now, no issue with those for me. Not yet at least.

 

Anyone here is experiencing darker picture on 8.934.2.1-120402a-136466C-Dell?

 

Ah ok thanks for that. But looking at my numbers which one is the actual driver version? 8934??

 

I've been running the 12.6 beta drivers since this Saturday and I'm getting good results. (I think) I'm running BF3 maxed out anywhere from 60-100 or so FPS depending on what's going on. I found out the hard way you have to install the 12.5 drivers first before installing 12.6. I'll do some actual scientific benchmarking tonight and let you guys know how it goes. So far I'm very impressed with my new laptop, but after some baseline benchmarking I want to start OCing a bit.

 

After uninstalling it, now it will not install again. So, there must have been pieces of the old driver lingering. I cannot make it work now.

I cannot get 8.98 to work properly on my system. It's unstable in overclocking, possibly because it doesn't support 7970M CF.

Yes, I found that to be the case, too. With 12.5 beta the screen will work at full brightness.

 

Thanks, Fox. Won't i have issues in Diablo 3 with these drivers? Can you please throw me a link again THanks

 

I am in the same position as Dumbdumb as the setup file won't show the option to install the display driver and device manager won't comply. And my apology if I'm mistaken but it doesn't seems like you got it to install properly either as the driver version of this one should be 8.951 (from the INF files).

And also I assume you just simply pick express install? From custom install I can see there are new options for AMDZ which is basically system information and one small check box that tell me it will run WEI after restart.

 

ok i got the driver installed by editing the config but after its done it says its not compatible with the current version of ccc lol

also on a side note.. what are your hardware ids for your cards if you got a clean install with these drivers? because with out editing any thing theres a small amount of cards that would install..

see?

51051558
"%AMD6800.2%" = ati2mtag_R576B_PXAI, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6800&SUBSYS_71021558
"%AMD6800.3%" = ati2mtag_R576B_PXAI, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6800&SUBSYS_71021558
"%AMD6800.4%" = ati2mtag_R576B_PXAI, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6800&SUBSYS_71021558
"%AMD6800.5%" = ati2mtag_R576B_PXAI, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6800&SUBSYS_71021558
"%AMD6800.6%" = ati2mtag_R576B_PXAI, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6800&SUBSYS_71021558
"%AMD6800.7%" = ati2mtag_R576B_PXAI, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6800&SUBSYS_51051558
"%AMD6800.8%" = ati2mtag_R576B_PXAI, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6800&SUBSYS_51051558
"%AMD6800.9%" = ati2mtag_R576B_PXAI, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6800&SUBSYS_51051558
"%AMD6800.10%" = ati2mtag_R576B_PXAI, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6800&SUBSYS_51051558
"%AMD6800.11%" = ati2mtag_R576B_PXAI, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6800&SUBSYS_51051558
;

 

Sorry for the suggestion to give this driver a whirl... as I mentioned earlier today, it's not a good solution after further testing. False alarm... still waiting for AMD to give us a proper driver solution.

 

Yeah, I have been having issues with it since downloading it on Friday. Clocks that were stable on the old 12.5 beta drivers are causing some pretty big problems with 12.6. I can't get anywhere near as close to the overclocks I was getting with 12.5.

 

just did a fresh install to delete the recovery partition created from dell
installed 12.4 then 12.6
im in the same boat with crossfire not working.
using temp monitor i can see 1 card idle and 1 card at full load
swtor on max settings - 100fps
i love my m18x r2, even though it doesnt work 100%
might uninstall and go back to 12.4 and see if crossfire is working

MR.FOX - tried the reg hack with 12.6
didnt work but i probably did it wrong
will try again with the 12.4

 

I just tried to OC those 7970m (for the 1st time) with the 12.6 beta and I was not stable in diablo 3 at 930/1300(black screen with system lockup). That might explain it ...
It seemed to be stable at 950/1300 in unigine heaven tough.

I might just wait until we get proper driver before trying to OC the GPUs again.

 

are you guys bumping the voltage up when ocing the card? If so are you using msi afterburner? I've got it setup to raise the clock but the voltage is still locked. I went into the settings and checked the two boxes that say unlock voltage; restarted first and nothing. Rebooted still nothing. I locked up running 3dmark11 @ 950 1300.

 

Why is it that when I turn off powerplay , my performance goes down the drain ? I mean , shouldnt the ATi card listen to my power plan settings on windows / the aliewanre command center ?

 

I have the exact same issue... sigh. I just turned on my machine now and I received the same message. Now I get to have a tech at my house. I'm just going to do it myself.

 

It's pretty simple. I don't blame you... no sense in having a tech do something like this.

 

I just reconnected it and it's saying the same thing... -_-

The BIOS is hella buggy with the base clocks too. It jumps from 10000 to 11005 with one stroke of the + key.

It now also says "Made in China" all over. They also put the ugly windows 7 and core i7 stickers on the palm rest.

Edit -- 2nd try and still a no go. Clearer inspection reveals that the connector is chipped on one of the gold contact teeth.

Really lame....

 

It does that on my system as well. I don't remember it doing that with 6970M/6990M, but AMD may have changed the way PowerPlay works. It was always a little buggy. I'm not having any issues related to PowerPlay malfunctioning. If you are not, then it's probably not something that needs to cause concern.

 

So quick question (and I know this has probably been asked) - but as a new owner, with GFX_AMD_A00_8.934.2_F9X96_SETUP_ZPE (from 3/29) installed - should I bother with any of these "new" beta releases? Seems like it's a mixed bag...

 

Brother sk3tch, I've tried a ton of different drivers, and this one seems to be doing the best for me AMD Catalyst 12.x (8.980.0 June 4) Unofficial BETA download from Guru3D.com in case you haven't grabbed it. It has the correct info in the INF, too.

 

Thank you! +rep

Giving it a whirl now via 3DMark 11. Also tweaked my OC settings a bit. 45 across the board made things a bit toasty and throttle-y last night...heh heh.

 

If you haven't already, grab HWiNFO64 and manually force the fans to 100% in benchmarks and it might help with the temps. Also, prop up the back end with a couple of plastic soda pop bottle caps (or something similar) under the rear feet. This is every bit as effective as using a laptop cooler.

 

Thank you for notifying us of the AMD CFX (CrossFireX) issue. We are looking into it.

 

Thank you for the speedy response, Frank_L. It is much appreciated by me and I am sure the new M18x R2 owners with CrossFire bridge cable issues will be very appreciative to know that quick help is available. It is also very satisfying to know that you and that your team will be looking into correcting it at the source as much as possible. +1 Rep.

 

They are sending me out a replacement CFX connector that should arrive tomorrow. There was also some plastic crap underneath the keyboard frame that shouldn't have been there. There was also some plastic piece that I have no idea where it belongs.

The quality control in China is really making me sad.

 

Not that it makes us feel better, but I've come to expect this on anything labeled "Made in China" any more. It's nothing unique to Compal's products... they're just staying true to form with other products that originate there, LOL.

It doesn't need to be that way, but it is what it is. At least we can get awesome hardware and do what needs to be done to correct what Chinese workers didn't do right. With Dell's awesome warranty and service, it's not a deal breaker, although it certainly would be absent that coverage. Because I know they "have my back" I don't lose any sleep over it.

 

Thanks - I will give this a try when I want to go "extreme" - I'm trying to get stability without any measures outside of standard operation (other than the OC, of course) since I prefer a day-to-day OC. So far I think I have my CPU figured out for day to day. The GPU is also "stuck" at 950/1350 unless I get into volt modding (which doesn't yet appear to be possible via Afterburner).

Also - I've hosted the two "recommended" AMD Radeon 7970M drivers here. Let me know if this is against ToS or anything...figured another mirror would not hurt and I'm just sharing it among my NBR brethren.

 

You need a vBIOS mod for overvolting. Let me know if you want one and I'll show you where to get it. I'm getting good OC results at 1.1v so far. Very steady at 950/1400 for everyday GPU clocks and no heat issues even at 1Ghz on core. The 7970M is not very OC friendly right now. Not sure if it is immature drivers or if the hardware has already been pushed to near limits by AMD in stock configuration.

 

Awesome, will do. Right now I'm working on getting my XM CPU OC'd using your Flex BIOS tips. Running XTU to test stability now. So far, so good.

Yeah, if I push past 950 AT ALL it goes bonkers. However, at 950/1350 I can play BF3 with no issues. So I'm pretty happy. Quite sure I'm sticking with M18x R2 now...got the call from Dell RE: returning and I told them I'd think about it. I have 2 weeks left so I may bring it on a work trip next week. Not sure if 680M is worth the hassle of returning/re-ordering especially at $600 more.

 

I'd like this 1.1v BIOS. I'd also like to know how to enable overclocking. It's not showing in CCC and Trixx says 0/0 for my clocks.

 

Get MSI Afterburner and use this guide:
GUIDE for Unlocking MSI AfterBurner - OverclockersClub Forums.

Worked for me.

Mr. Fox - can you send me the 1.1v BIOS, too? I can host it on my site.

 

I had thought (rightly or wrongly) that with stock clocks on the 7970m as they are, there wouldnt be much room for OC - tend to think that AMD put everything into this beast at the get-go and didnt leave too much room for anything else...

 

Always room for overclocking! The worst overclocking card I've ever had was probably my 8800GTS (desktop).