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

I havent used 3dMark12 yet, but I'm pretty sure it's your CPU limiting your score. On 3DMark11 its a similar thing with my setup, Increasing my GPU OC does very little if anything.
Check your graphics score to see if that's increasinga rther that your overall score.

 

I got up to 11.3k in the past in 12.xx ccc, so I dont think its the cpu.

 

What drivers were you using when you hit that score?

 

I managed to get good score using 1 gpu
AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor,Alienware M18xR2 score: P7435 3DMarks

 

now I figured out the problem. gpu 1 is unlocked but gpu 2 isnt unlocked. I can't move slider above 850 in gpu 2.
What am I missing or doing wrong

 

Got it finally!! it seems using -xlc dont work, so I had to turn the unofficial overclocking in AB to do the trick.
AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor,Alienware M18xR2 score: P11474 3DMarks

 

nice!, keep going.

 

Hi guys, got a pretty (maybe) nooby question... since i wasn't use my m18x for couple of months i decided to finaly update my drivers... so whats the most stable version (for now) for 6970s? (my current are 8.902.0.0)
Sry, for moders, coz i cant find it in tons of posts bout drivers...
ps: and sry for my english 8))

 

AMD Catalyst 13.2 beta 6

These are working well for me.

 

Hello

Help M18X R2 CF 7970M

Test New pont CF

 

Check the Crossfire cable, perhaps?

 

Yo guys got a quick question for you all =)

What does the BSOD 0x000000001 usualy mean?
It happends when i OC my 7970m CF alitle over 930 mhz, could it be because of lack of voltage or that i just cant go any further ^^

//Marcus O

 

Yap, more Vcore solves the problem. But another question: Where can I find modded Bios-files? At techinferno there is a list with some files, but i cannot find a downloadlink - maybe i´m blind?!

 

You won't be able to download anything from Tech|Inferno unless you're a member with so many quality posts, or you pay the fee to become an Elite member.

You have to use the VBIOS Patcher to modify the 7970M clocks and voltage. Any pre-modified files you find will be stuck at that file's clocks and voltage.

the VBIOS Patcher is essentially the equivalent of RBE ( Radeon BIOS Editor).

Hopefully someone will chime in if a better way has been discovered. My cards don't overclock worth a crap, or I'd be much more interested in this subject.

 

The vBIOS Patcher is awesome. I wish I had a tool like that for 680M. That is, without question in my opinion, the best thing to use.

Some 7970M cards don't overclock very well. At least not any kind of heavy overclock. I think AMD has already pushed the stock specs a long way to make them powerful. It seemed from my experience that they may have cut some corners on the design or quality of vRAM and/or VRMs, leaving less overhead available for overclocking. Stock clocks on 7970M (850/1200) are quite a bit higher on core and memory than stock clocks on 680M (715/900).

That's not a huge overclock. There is a chance that increasing voltage might not help, but test each card individually to see how it responds. A little variance is common, but it seems that there is a wide variance between what one AMD card can do compared to the next. With every CrossFire setup I have owned, one of the GPUs would overclock higher than the other. In two cases I found one that handled an overclock better with more than a minor variance. In both of those cases, I moved the better GPU from the secondary to the primary PCI-e slot and put the weaker one in the secondary slot. From that point forward, I did not overclock them equally. I found the max stable overclock for the weaker card and used that as the limit for that card after moving it to the secondary slot. Although it would be ideal, the secondary GPU does not need to be equally overclocked to see an improvement in performance.

 

Bench at 41/41/41/41 flex 0, Stock GPU Mark3D 11 - 10953

Bench at 41/41/41/41 flex 0, 950/1400 GPU, Mark3D 11 - 10988

Dammit, didnt even crack 11000

UPDATE

Bench at 41/41/41/41 flex 0, Long PWR 99/TimeWindow 56, Short PWR 99, 950/1400 GPU - 10999

Ahhhggrrr!

 

do you guy get pay for benchmark?

 

No. That would be cool though.

 

Pay for benchmarks? I only wish that were true... I'd be running them all the time if I did.

 

Nope,i think it is the dell bios in addtion with cfx. with my clevo i can give the 7970m 1050x1550 without modded bios, but the dell bios just only "allows" 950mhz, because the vcore is limited probably. and i really don´t think that there are better vrms on the clevo 7970. afaik the cards themselves are the same.

 

I have beat the absolute holy crud out of every AMD card I've owned accept for the 7970Ms. They just won't let you. As soon as you fire up a game or benchmark, freezy-freezy.

The saddest part of all of this is that they run incredibly cool. There is more room for voltage and clocks.

Gerd, you are probably onto something, honestly. I wish there was some way to freely mess with the voltage on the 7970Ms.

 

i don´t have any Problems with my 7970m-cfx Setup. btw. another reason to decide for amd : „TressFX“: Neue AMD-Technik für mehr Realismus (Update) - ComputerBase

hardcore tesselation-(hair-) effects accelerated with direct compute (probably postfx).

 

Are they Clevo cards, or the Dell cards from the factory?

I cannot get my cards to go over 1 volt, even though GPU Shark says there's a 1.1 volt power state.

 

The cards are the same and will produced by foxconn in china. but i think the bios-versions are different. and probably there will never be a slider to tune the vcore with msi ab, because there are digital vrms, similar the newer desktop 7xxx cards. there the user is not able to tune the vcore by Software like msi afterburner. and you ask why the vcore don´t rises up to 1.1v? probably one awfull property of the dell-bios. perhaps they fixed powertune to -10%

 

Do I need to flash a separate VBIOS to each card, or can I just flash the same one to both cards?

Also, I patch the VBIOS to run at say 1.05v or 1.1v, and it will NOT show anything above 1.0v.

Am I missing something? I've seen plenty of screenshots of folks running above 1.0v. Heck, I even used to. Why won't it work anymore do you think?

I'm assuming that the Clevo VBIOS will brick a Dell card or won't work in an Alienware?

 

one reason could be that the vcore is locked by hardware. Another reason could be that powertune is by minus x%. I would not recommend to flash a clevo bios, because you will loose the warranty. I would try the uefi-bios which can downloaded at techspot.
1. Save your old vbios on the usb-stick you will prefer to flash the other one.
2. Edit the new vbios without changing the frequencies. Edit just only the vcore and have a look on the p-states.
3. Flash the new vbios.

The problem with the clevo imo is, that I cannot find a specific saved information if it will work. Some rumours say it is plug and play, onther say it did't work.

Edit: Beta 7 is online, which fix a Problem in c3. I tested it out and think the Performance is a bit better than beta 6

 

The do run very cool, and it is a real shame that many of them don't overclock very well without losing stability.

You can change the voltage with vBIOS Patcher. If you haven't already done so, you might want to check it out. I thought it was a great tool. The reason I think there are issues with the VRMs and quality control is because they are too inconsistent. A number of folks have had issues with the voltage being out of spec without ever having changed anything at the vBIOS level. Some of them don't respond to voltage changes and others do. Some respond favorably and some do not. And, I am talking about two identical GPUs in the same machine, not different brands. The first pair of 7970M cards I had worked a lot better than the second pair. The second pair had issues with the voltage being out of spec straight out of the box. They were also more unstable, with more freezing issues and TDR errors than the original pair of 7970M GPUs.

 

Mr. Fox, I have been using the vBIOS Patcher. No matter what I change the voltage to, the maximum I ever read with HWInfo or GPU Shark is 1.000v. I don't know if there's a newer version of vBIOS Patcher or something, but the voltage is stuck. I'd rather have erratic voltage than one stuck at 1.000v.

This never used to happen before. If I flashed to 1.075, that is what it would read in HWInfo, etc. Started maybe two days ago.



I just flashed them both to run .975v, and everything is still showing 1.000v. I can change the frequencies all I want, and it does respond to them. The only thing that won't change is the 3D voltage, specifically.

 

That is one of the issues. On some of them it works, and on others it does not. Why that is the case is a mystery. It worked perfectly with the first pair I had and not with the second pair. In every visible way the cards were identical and came from the same source, same packaging, everything. What is not known is whether or not the cards are giving wrong data to the utilities reporting the information, or whether the changes are truly not taking effect. It was pretty frustrating. I sent back the replacement GPUs since they were worse than the originals.

I will post some of my own modded 7970M vBIOS files and you can see if they work well for you or not. My guess is they will not because they did not for me on the second pair of GPUs even though they did on the first pair... but, there is nothing to lose and everything to gain if they work.

---

Edit: I will have to hunt and see if I saved them on one of my external HDD. I have at least a half dozen if I did not delete them. The only one I could find is in my GoogleDocs (see below) and it is 1.05v. This one worked the best out of all of them for me. It is the one I got my best benchmark scores with.

Modded 7970M vBIOS ROM
Voltage: 1.05v
[ Download Link]

 

You´d just upper the vcore and not the frequencies? if yes, then i´ll give this bios-file a chance

btw. the new digital vrms cannot be programmed. the vcore is locked - the same problem some users have with i. e. a gigabyte hd7970 desktop version. they are not able to change the vcore,neither with a tool, nor with a modded bios-file.

 

So I am able to flash the same ROM to both cards?

 

Yap, parameter 0 ist for the master Card, parameter 1 for the slave. The procedure is to flash the first Card (atiflash -p 0 newbios.rom), then the second (atiflash -p 1 newbios.rom), after flashing reboot and well done but Attention: do nothing during the flashing process!

btw. can anyone upload the vbios patcher and the unlocked a10-bios file (sry 4 ot) or give me a downloadlink, because fox´ rom-files are just only 775x1050...

thx in advance

 

Wow, that truly sucks. Perhaps my first pair of 7970M cards was an earlier version that had not been crippled. I wonder when they crippled them? That may also explain why not many people are benching M18x R2 with 7970M CF. Not much point in doing it if you cannot overclock effectively with stock voltage. I did not know this. Thanks for the info.

Yes, unless your cards are not matched. If they are mismatched (i.e. one Dell and one Clevo GPU) then I don't know. If the Dell 7970M and Clevo 7970M vBIOS are interchangeable, then you should be able to. The Dell and Clevo 680M vBIOS are not swappable, but that may be due to the Clevo having different memory chips and 4GB versus 2GB. If you are able to use the same vBIOS now, then this one should work the same. There is no master/slave vBIOS arrangement on any of the current AMD or NVIDIA GPUs.

And, a word of caution to anyone reading this. DO NOT use ATIWinFlash. Flash AMD GPUs in DOS from a bootable USB stick only. AMD cards are prone to bricking due to failed flashing when performed in Windows. The failure occurs during the ROM writing stage, so the vBIOS is erased and unable to be written to in Windows, which renders the card unbootable. This does not happen all the time, but the convenience of flashing your AMD in Windows is not worth the risk. I am speaking based on first-hand knowledge here. It happened to me twice and several other members of this Community. Fortunately, I was able to correct a failed 7970M GPU flash quickly and easily with a BIOS tweak forcing the IGFX and GPUs to be active simultaneously. However, this workaround is NOT possible with an M18x R2 motherboard, as the M18X R2 is not bootable with the required setting enabled.

Gerd, I set them that low on purpose, as the 2D and 3D states are equalized to make the 7970M GPU more stable. Additionally, some of the 7970M cards have issues with not ramping up to 3D states when they should, or the second GPU in CF dropping to 2D performance when it should not. My better pair were like that, and this vBIOS fixed that issue. You can use MSI Afterburner to set whatever core and memory values you would like. You can download that awesome vBIOS Patcher utility from Tech|Inferno. Be sure to provide feedback to the development team on how it works for you.

I would ask that nobody distribute the file or post it here. I will delete links if I find them. Please go to the proper source, and give credit to the vBIOS Patcher developer for a job well done.

 

what a pity.

am i able to set the clocks of your bios with rbe?

 

Unless it has been updated, RBE does not work with 7900 GPU series. Likewise, none of the tools that worked with Fermi work with Kepler GPUs. It's unfortunate, because there were some nice tools available for working with the older AMD and NVIDIA GPUs.

Is there a reason you cannot obtain it from the proper source?

 

The reason is very simple: There´s no thread, where i´ve something to post. all that i want to know would be solved by the answers of the users there. and just only do a post that i will able to download the files that i want is not fair, in my opinion. probably i´ll post slv7 a private message: Wieviel kostet denn ein Bier in der Schweiz (how much does a beer costs in switzerland)?

 

RBE won't touch the VBIOS. I think the last release was from 2011.

Thanks for the BIOS, Mr. Fox. Unfortunately it does the same thing. Stuck at 1.000v.

 

Darn it, man... sorry to hear that. What a bummer.

 

It isn't a big deal. They run everything very fluently at stock clocks. I paid just over $800 for the set. In comparison to the alternative, that's not bad.

I already do miss overclocking though. A few Mhz here, a few more there. It has been ages since I had cards that just had to be run at stock, and that was the end of the story. It's really weird.

 

I rarely oc the gpu's but a mild 900mhz clock for Cysis 3 performs very stable and stays cool. I don't think the 7970's OC so well.
I've noticed the 2nd Gpu will sometimes stay on 850mhz .
Does the Svl7 flash fix that ?

 

It sometimes can be used to fix it. Some users see that and some do not. Some may be unaware of it. I was always aware because I always use the on-screen display monitoring when gaming and benching, so I could see it instantly. I had trouble with this randomly and the only way I could ensure that both of them reached full clock speeds when called upon to perform was to set the 2D performance state (including voltage) to match the 3D performance state. I used the vBIOS Patcher to fix that.

 

Thanks for that Mr Fox, at stock clocks I don't have any probs. Sometimes when I OC with AB I notice this, usually resetting the clocks will fix it but its just a little annoying.

 

So... just got done flipping through the last 50 pages of posts since the last time I posted. Looks like the BSOD on boot still happens and no one has a fix short of molesting the drivers with old files. I haven't been able to get it either, and yes, I know you can disconnect the power cable and it will boot every time. Anyone else seen or know anything on how to stop the BSOD on boot?

 

Gosh, I don't remember that being a problem for a while now. I think the last time I saw that myself was like 12.5 or 12.6 Catalyst. Are you still having that problem with the latest Catalyst drivers, too?

 

It happens to me about 50% of the time on boot. I am running the latest 13.1 beta drivers. It has happened to me on every version of drivers except those posted on the Dell website. I have 7970s.

 

Yes, I had the problem initially when I still had 7970M CF and with drivers after 12.5 or 12.6 that went away. I have not seen complaints about it for a while so that is why I asked. I'm sorry to hear you are still going through that. I wish I could suggest something, but don't know what it would be since it fixed itself in my case. Are you still running the original Windows installation? Maybe a format and reinstall from scratch (not a Respawn) might help if you haven't already tried it more than once recently.

Edit: just read your signature, so unless you cloned your original Windows installation to the Mushkins, please ignore my suggestion.

 

Yeah, mine is a fresh install off DVD. I was debating trying to clone it across this weekend to see if it would help, but I ended up spending half my weekend troubleshooting Citrix server issues for a project go-live where I work. If anyone else has ideas or wants more information, please let me know.

 

I doubt cloning from your original HDD OS will do anything other than maybe degrade your SSD performance. If you have the original drives with the factory installation intact, it would be interesting to see if the same behavior exists with an update to the current Catalyst package. It is very unlikely, but it would be interesting to see if the Mushkin SSD RAID0 has any kind of causal relationship to that problem.

 

Hey PWn3R, forgive me if you've tried what I'm about to say already. Mr. Fox is right though, you shouldn't still be having those issues.

Uninstall your old CAP and then the driver through the Control Panel. Where applicable, make sure to tell it to uninstall ALL AMD stuff.
Install DriverSweeper, and then boot into Safe Mode by rapidly pressing F8 during boot up.
Run DriverSweeper while you're in Safe Mode; tell it to get rid of all AMD driver remnants. Once it is done, reboot.
Once you're back into windows, there may still be a folder named 'AMD' in the root of your C drive. Delete that too.
***OPTIONAL***If you want, you can even go into the device manager and uninstall both of the cards.

Download this: AMD 13.2 Beta 7
Download this: AMD CAP 2

Install the driver. It will likely ask you if you're sure you want to install it. Say yes.
Install the CAP.
Hopefully your symptoms go away. If not, I agree with Mr. Fox. It might be time to start looking at other hardware.

 

I've got two mushkins 240gb running Raid0 with no problems at all with my duel 7970 setup. He needs to uninstall all AMD software then cclean and driversweep in safe mode and then install 13.2 beta 7 with the 12.11 cap 2. Dell drivers are garbage don't use them.