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

Hmm, I have the latest HWiNFO64 and I am not seeing anything adverse with CPU cycles or lowered FPS. Below are my HWiNFO64 settings.

 

Hi guys.

I need some help. Recently I had to format my m18x and reinstalled everything. But as new fresh system, I thought I would be better served with the most recent drivers.

But that's when my head started to ache.

First, it was intels latest driver, giving me frequently crashes upon usb drivers. Reinstalled everything and went to a old version and seems ok, but my external drivers are inconsistent, I mean, giving crc errors. Driver issues, maybe?

Then was the video driver. I installed 12.7, 12.7 hotfix, 12.6, 12.4... everything is giving crashes screens (those video driver crashed and recovered).

So my question is: which driver you guys recommend as THE MOST stable for video and intel rst?

Much much appreciated the help.

 

Hey Brother Alcaloid. Sorry to hear of this frustrating situation. Try Dell's drivers first and see if you have any of the same problems. That would be my recommendation at this point. Need to first make your system stable. If it is not with Dell's drivers there is something else happening.

If I may ask, what caused the need for reformatting and reinstalling Windows? (Only curious if that was the start of something that is affecting you now.)

 

Thanks for the tip. I will do this.

And I reformatted the drive just because I flashed my ssd to a new firmware and did a secure erase just to get things right.

I just realize that catalyst 12.8 is out. I will try that after making a backup copy of everything.

But what is your experience with the stable drivers, what do you recommend?

And another thing: do you use anything to control your fans or let the system do it by itself?

Thanks in advance.

 

I don't know what would be the best overall driver for 6970M CF. It has been too long ago that I had that GPU and I could lead you in the wrong direction. When I switched to GTX 580M SLI was about the time that 11.9 came out and there was kind of a roll of the dice whether or not display brightness control would actually work after installing AMD drivers. There is certainly no harm in trying 12.8. With my 7970M CF it is working basically the same as 12.7b hotfix, or so it seems thus far. It did lower my 3DMark11 score 200-300 points.

I usually let my fans do their own thing. I only manually spin them up to 100% when benching.

I think installing Dell drivers first and making a drive image is a great idea and you can always use that to restore things if your system misbehaves.

 

reading through the AMD 12.8 drivers release notes it doesnt say anything about 7000m support only 6000m series. they may have forgotten though.
did you guys just install over or did you do a uninstall/reinstall?

 

Hi Arcticsoldier... hope all is well with you.

See what I posted here and here for response to your question. I tried it the easy way first and it turned out poorly. It might work out better for you. The end result for me is it works OK, but no improvement over the Catalyst 12.7b hotfix that I was using, and a slight drop in benchmark scores.

 

Mr. FOX!

Good day. Juat want to say this tread is very informative. I have been following this thread for sometime now. I have read that there are a lot of problems withxfire 7970 as you have mention. But i think in time the drivers will be updated and it will be ok in time.

My question is that im going to receive my laptop on 1st week of september. And i orderd xfire 7970.
I would like to ask on how can i check if both gpu is working?
And what defects i should look for because its brand new?
Because im in the philippines, and it will be hard to replace the laptop if there is a defect parts.
I would like to check the laptop if its working first before i pay for it.

Hope you can help me. Cheers!

 

Kamusta kabayan, congratulations on your new purchase. May I suggest you transfer the warranty to an international warranty (if you havent already done so) then you could have your m18x serviced in the philippines. That's what I did, it only takes a few minutes on the dell website. As for the xfires, I use MSI Afterburner to test it out. It displays lots of great info on your cards. You can find the link somewhere here, or you could just google it. I've been using the Dell drivers and so far i have noticed minor problems with Skyrim and Starcraft 2. Occasional flickering on SC2 and constant flickering in the Menus in Skyrim. I downloaded the dell driver that came after the 12.5 version (July 2012). But somehow it disappeared almost a week after they posted it. I believe the only driver there now is the one last june which is based on the 12.5 AMD drivers.

Hope that was helpful.

PS. I was just as worried as you when I purchased my m18x r2. After reading the forums I was wondering if I made the mistake of switching to AMD. After lots of gaming on my rig, I find that the Xfire problems aren't THAT bad. I get to play BF3 Diablo 3 and DOTA 2 flawlessly. (but I think the experience differs per user)

 

Thanks again for your kind reply.

I will do just that and see how it goes.

Looked up your signature and the link you mention there and discovered a lot of material that is plenty of helpful info. I am going to read all that applies to my concerns and probably will solve my issues.

Thanks again for giving back to us.

Best regards.

 

Hi Rocky. Glad you find this thread informative.

There are a number of things you can do to test your GPUs. Here are a few:

• Run AlienAutopsy Gaming Test (mine fail this test)
• Run 3DMark11 and Vantage
• Run Unigine Heaven Benchmark
• Run MSI Kombustor
• Run Metro 2033 Benchmark

7970M CF is a real beast if you get good video cards. I hope yours are trouble-free.

You're very welcome. Glad I could be of assistance.

 

Thanks kabayan. The games i will play on the rig is sc2 bf3 max payne.
Cant wait for the laptop.
What are the defects should i look for newly delivered m18x?

Mr fox. What are should i check or what defect should i look for on a newly delivered m18x?
And question. On the us dell m18x does this include the leather black manual?

 

Thought i would share some benchmarks with 12.8 CAP 3.

specs in sig

Metro2033

View attachment 82341

Metro2033

View attachment 82342

Sleeping Dogs

View attachment 82343

 

Hello guys,
i tried an advanced search before posting this and didn't find anything relevant.

I own a M18X with 2x6970M with 12.8 WHQL driver and 12.7CAP3.

When i play games like Battlefield3 or Tribes Ascend i get a black screen that sometimes flashes and sometimes stays black for a long time.

Sometimes alt-tabbing to windows and back solves the problem for the moment but it continues happening over and over again.

It's impossible to play this way, i updated to 12.8 because the problem was present even in 12.2, but with no success.

My temperatures under very heavy workload are around 85 celtius degrees for each videocard, when not under load the temperatures are 60 celtius degrees.

This problem doesn't happen in Unigine Heaven Benchmark, the final score is 1222 so it's ok.

Does anyone here knows any trick to stop this madness???

M18X R1
6970M XFire
12.8 WHWL
12.7 CAP3

Everything is working fine, no BSODs (for now), no glitches, no jitters.
Unigine Heaven Benchmark gave me 1222 point with 48.5 average FPS.

 

Carlovfx - Does it happen with CrossFire disabled in CCC?

I am moving your post into a thread specifically for AMD video card and driver issues. Read through the posts here and see if anyone else has run into this before and found a fix. Also try searching our forum with Google. There is a link in my signature explaining how to do that.

The screen going black is not normally a driver problem. And, 85°C is warmer than they should be. It's not crazy hot, but not ideal. Try cleaning out your heat sink radiators and fans first, and then repaste if the temps are still that high. Also try forcing your fans to 100% using HWiNFO64 if the temps remain high. See if getting them to run cooler helps with the black screen issues.

Also, try using the Dell driver for 6970M/6990M and see if it changes anything. (It may not work with BF3, but you can still test with the other games.)

If that does not work, maybe your cards are just worn out. If you are still under warranty, call 1-800-ALIENWARE for hardware support. Explain what you have done to resolve the issue and nothing you have done is producing good results. You'll want to have the Dell recommended driver installed before you call them or they may spend your time installing that and ask you to try it before they agree to take further steps. So, be proactive and do that before you call.

 

That's exactly what was happening here... Now I am installing dell's driver for the graphics and see what happens...

 

Hey man i just found a solution that solves the problem completely. It's a problem with BF3 itself and it's not related to the graphic cards at all, so yippieeeeeeeee


Open your Origin menu.
Go to the settings tab.
Now select settings and then select the in-game tab.
Un-check enable origin in game’ option.
The game should run fine without glitches.

If you still encounter the problem the also do the following:
Go to your Documents\Battlefield 3\settings folder.
Find the file PROF_SAVE_profile, open it with a program such as notepad.

Find the line "GstRender.FullscreenRefreshRate" and remove it.

(Re)Start your Battlefield 3.
Play.

 

Thanks for the tip! Good stuff.

Disabling the in-game community crap in Steam helps a number of games behave better also... just an FYI. Doing that stopped my issue with games minimizing to the task bar after launch and stopped MW3 multiplayer from crashing.

 

Mr Fox,

Thanks for posting up your HWiNFO64 settings on pg 106.
It seems to be working fine but I swear I am taking a CPU hit in performance.
I did a screen dump for Heihachi88 here if you want a peek.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/684327-sleeping-dogs-cpu-temps-issues.html#post8795291

 

how do i know if my GPU's are 6970m or 6990m?

I tried everything but it all say 6900HD series, I felt like the Dell depot trick me, they switch my GPU's tp 6970m after fix my laptop

 

The best way to check is to run the tests I suggested. I expect you will not have any major issue. If all of those tests work good, you should be in fine shape. The M18x is an excellent machine and I know you're going to love it.

Hey bro. Click the link in my signature and you will find a link in the index to help specifically with that question. (That question used to come up all the time.) It's the third link down from the top. You can tell using GPU-Z right away. I hope they did not downgrade you. I expect they did not, but if they did they will need to take care of that.

 

Hi Fox..So basiclly the 6990m has 1120 Shaders, and GPU clock at 715/900 ? It seems like people still firgue out in that thread

 

Yes, that's correct. It can be very confusing for people that don't have the specs memorized.

 

Yes..So it's 6990m..they didn't trick me..I feel like the performance drop a bit in BF3 though..Maybe because of the driver..
By the way that driver and CAP are you using now after the 3dmark11 not working ?

 

I am using 12.8 right now, and 12.7b hotfix before. They are just about the same. For 6990M CF it might be better to drop back to Catalyst 11.12 or similar. I am using CAP3 and it should be backward compatible.

 

so what is the best driver for duel 7970ms? my laptop has be getting repaired for the last 2-3months so i'm out of date

 

Catalyst 12.7b (I use the hotfix version) and Catalyst 12.8 so far seem to produce the best results for most. The drivers still have some issues, but they are moving in the right direction.

 

Why 11.12 ? I thought the newer is the better? And when I search driver for 6900M HD series on AMD site , there is only 12.8 available

Can someone pls explain ?

 

I flash 7970m vbios "017a.rom" to my 7970m and crossfire X working fine but 2d/3d volt is not 1.05(stock). It display 1.08(overvoltage). Is it normal?
Can I get 017a.rom wih 1.05v? (I hate overvoltage)

I attach my clock and voltage.
first gpu is 118 vbios with 1.05v
second gpu is 017a vbios with 1.08v (2d/3d same clock&voltage)

 

So whats the word on the 7970m drivers from Dell? I see speedys thread was closed and the last update to the topic was 7-17-2012

just wondering if Dell has taken a stance on the card one way or another?

 

i just got the newest drivers from dell version 8.934.2.1000 and seem to be working ok. i dont know how good this 3dmark 11 score is though graphics is 11143(duel 7970ms stock)

 

Does it fix the flickering in skyrim and other games? Please post link

----------------Update
This seems to have been released two months ago. People wouldn't still be complaining if it worked...T.T guess we will have to wait

 

i'll give it a try but it was just flickering in lol so proboly not

 

This may be somewhat long-ish, and I apologize if I'm just re-hashing some info that is elsewhere in the thread. I'm a new AW owner and just got my rig yesterday. I sat down with it to bring everything up to date before I took it for a real test-drive, and here are my experiences:

1) Issues installing 12.8 (8.892.0). I downloaded the mobility util from AMD and was confused for a few seconds because I thought it would run something, but it just installed in "C:\AMD". I ran the util from there, and it downloaded the 12.8 package, which I then tried to install. The first time, everything seemed to be running okay, then the screen did the standard flicker-to-black that you get when a lot when updating video drivers, then just stayed black. I left it for a bit, then did a hard reboot when it never came back from the black screen. I tried this another 2 times with the same results, so I decided I would just update the system entirely, uninstall the CCC software entirely, then try again. Same result, so I tried it in safe-mode and it couldn't even detect the hardware, so I tried it once more in regular mode and left it for 6 minutes. Again, just a black screen. I was getting pretty frustrated at this point, but I happened to look at my device manager and saw that the 8.892.0 drivers were installed! So my guess is that for whatever reason, after I got that black screen they had actually successfully installed.

2) Slight issues with CCC. I tried to play some LoL with friends and performance was pretty underwhelming. I had the game play regularly for a few seconds, then go in to slow-motion for a second or two. This would happen over and over. After the match, I created a profile for the game and disabled xfire. After I created the profile, the two buttons in the lower right just kept blinking at me. It appeared to save the profile, but the buttons never stopped flashing. I forget exactly how it changed, but the UI that I was using briefly for 12.7 was very clunky compared to what I was using in 12.8. I can't remember if it is just a new UI or if I enabled some alternate skin. (I don't like the one with "Start" at the top.)

3) LoL and Skyrim. After disabling xfire for LoL, performance improved but I would occasionally see the game stutter for a fraction of a second maybe every 5-10 seconds. Disappointing, but I can play through that. The other issue was that I was getting about 55 fps. My old desktop w/ a 560ti would run the game capped at 60fps with zero issues. In Skyrim I was seeing that same stutter, but it would occur every 2-4 seconds. Googled a bit, and recalled CAP. Downloaded CAP3 12.7 and installed that, which fixed performance issues in Skyrim and LoL but leads in to:

4) CAP screwed up my extended desktop. I had plugged in my old monitor and was using it to watch Netflix while I did other stuff. After installing CAP, the screen was just black. The computer functioned as if the desktop was there, but I couldn't see anything. Turns out, CAP helpfully toggled the "Alternate DVI operational mode" to on when it installed. Finding and toggling this to off fixed my issue.

5) Firefox crashes. I had read about these and saw that some people recommended disabling xfire to fix the issue. I saw someone suggest disabling hardware acceleration inside ff, and that's the route I went.

All in all, my first day with the computer ended well. I'm pretty happy with where it is now, but I feel I had to struggle too much to get it to that point. If I were to give concrete suggestions to AMD:

a) fix your installer; it might have turned someone else away from your products entirely
b) bundle CAP with CCC
c) don't change my options on me, or if it is a new option then do not have the default state for "use this option if stuff doesn't work" options as "on"

 

I hate to say this, but that's pretty much a typical occurence when dealing with AMD video card drivers.........consider it the price you pay for saving so much vs buying the Nvidia card. From what I've read on here and my limited experience with my two AMD equipped Alienwares, it's not going to change any time soon.

 

Yeah, haha... I mean, I would love love love to see the experience improve and I hope someone from AMD sees the post, but it would have cost me 2x the amount for 680Ms, and I would have gotten similar performance in the end. Considering the significant savings, I'd say the extra bit of work was worth it.

 

i'm getting like 350fps in lol and rairly ever get any stuttering etc(it happens when the nexsus blows for some reason and when i put it in v sync

 

Can someone pls explain ?

 

Using such an old driver was offered as a joke, bro. Sorry if you thought I was being serious.

Short story is, there is not one. There can't be because AMD hasn't produced a good driver for 7970M yet... at least not one good enough to meet their (Dell's) standard for a "Recommended" driver. Remember, Dell (and other OEMs) do not write drivers. They may tweak a driver now and then to support proprietary needs, and "brand" it with their name, but the reference drivers come only from the hardware manufacturers. They primarily validate a specific driver as not introducing problems or conflicts with the other components and confirm it should provide satisfactory performance for customers before labeling it a "Dell Recommended" driver and hosting it for download.

I can vaguely recall one of the AW reps stating they have not received a better reference driver to work with than what we can download from AMD. I don't want to read more into it than I should, but I think it must be a predicament of AMD not providing anything for them to work with. If they cannot tweak what is out there it to make it work any better, then there probably is no point in them burning any calories on that. If you stop and think about it, that makes sense.

Plus, as long as there are folks that prefer, (or can only afford,) to take the cheap route and keep buying AMD's stuff to save a few bucks, I think AMD will just keep on producing poor products with poor driver support. I would not expect them to get better if they have no incentive to prove they are capable of doing better.

 

Effective temporary solution for 7970m crossfireX problem in my case is this.

I always had crossfireX problem that freezing, flickering, etc...
So, I tried this way.

1. vbios flash
- gpu0: 118 vbios flash.
- gpu1: 017a vbios flash(this is updated by Mr. Fox - 2d/3d setting same clock(850/1200) and voltage(1.08 displayed/not a stock)
If you are flash 017a vbios to both of gpu0 and gpu1, clocks and voltage are always 850/1200, 1.08v, even if idle.
But if you flash as I done, gpu0 powerplay is working and gpu1 going to sleep mode when idle without any corssfireX problem.
(Caution, If you want to flash vbios, you must read Mr.Fox update and have to reinstall ati driver.)

2. Ati driver
- 12.8 had performance issue, so I install 12.7b(not hotfix) with cap3(It's good)

However, This is my the best way for resolving 7970m corssfireX problem.
I test some games.
Darksider2 - good performance(vsync off problem seems another issue)
Prototype2 - good performance(no issues)
Sleeping Dogs - good performance(no issues)
Diable3 - good performance(no issues)

Dear Mr. Fox, would you mind 017a vbios modded voltage 1.08->1.05(stock)?
Please look into this

Have a nice day.

 

Sorry to have to break the bad news to you, but the vBIOS is already stock (1.05v) but your GPUs are either not displaying accurate information, or the voltage regulators are malfunctiong. This seems to be one of the issues with 7970M. The replacement video cards that I sent back to Dell had that as one of the problems. (So do the cards Riri-Fifi has, as he has posted screen shots showing it.) If your cards are working well enough to satisfy you, then there is no need to worry about the information being displayed. Here is what my cards show using the same vBIOS...

 

Thank you for your reply.
I attached my gpu sharck info.


As you says, even if I was flash 017a vbios to gpu1, it shows wrong information. However, my system is stable and working good.

Mr. Fox, your are great!

 

for somereason i cant enable crossifre with my duel 7970m version 12.8 any one know why

 

Thank you. I am humbled by your compliment.

Does GPU-Z show it as disabled, or is CCC just preventing you from turning it on?

Probably the CrossFried bridge cable is disconnected or not properly seated.

 

Hi im having some issues with my 7970s, gpu #0 wont clock up past 300mhz yet the second card clocks up fine, I have had a bit of a search around but I can find anything that seems to work with my system
So far I have tried clean installing dell driver and amd drivers 12.7 and 12.8, also disabled ULPS is there any thing else I could try or I have missed?
Thanks

 

Hi Kenny27. That's not entirely uncommon with AMD video cards. I had the same problem with 6970M and 6990M prior to having it with 7970M.

There is a solution when disabling EnableULPS and forcing EnableCrossFireAutoLink in the registry is not enough.

Have a look at post #2 in this thread, under the "8/5/2012 Update" section.

Hope that helps.

 

I tried flashing you modded bios but the check sums are different ?(0x5000 vs 0x6400) I would have modded the bios myself but I'm unable becasue TI wont let me (post count etc)
I'm not sure if it goes again any forum rules but is it possible you upload the Vbios patcher in NBR?
Thanks

 

The checksum will always be different, but that does not keep you from flashing the firmware. If you read what svl7 has said about that (repeatedly) you don't need to be concerned about this matching your old vBIOS. It only matters that the checksum of the one you downloaded is the same as the one posted on the server to ensure it is not corrupted. If I take my stock vBIOS and mod it, the checksum will be different with the saved file than the original.

Even if it does not violate forum rules, as much as I would like to do that, out of respect for the people at T|I it would be inappropriate to re-post the app here at NBR to allow our community to circumvent the controls in place there. Why not simply add a few posts to reach the required number to obtain it legitimately from the author's approved download location? And then, if it works well, a small donation for the effort it took would provide an incentive for continued development.

 

Ah that make more sense, so its for corruption purposes not so much different revisions/models as the check sum changes when the bios is changed.

I didn't even think of that! I will do it the legit way and support a community so willing to support me

Thanks for your help Mr Fox, I'll update if it after I flash my cards.

Edit: Still no good I tried both the modded 017a vbios and modding my own bios, I think gpu #0 must be faulty as gpu #1 is force to stay on 850/1200 clocks, time to give dell a ring.

 

I might be misunderstanding your comment, but that vBIOS should force each GPU to stay at 850/1200 all the time. I made it that way on purpose because my 7970M cards were refusing to increase to 3D clock speeds under load and at other times they were downclocking when they were not supposed to be.