M18x R1 Tear Down Video: Ivy Bridge CPU Heatsink and 7970M CrossFire Upgrade

M18x R1 GPU Upgrade - GTX 580M SLI to 7970M CrossFire
Parts List: (2) 747M2 AMD Wimbledon XT 7970m (2) 3PVGK Support Plate (1) 8J8TM Heat Sink Assy, Right (1) V4NXK Heat Sink Assy, Left (1) RYVMN AMD CrossFireX Bridge Cable Optional Parts: (1) 0MXJ5 Heat Sink Assy, CPU QC XE M18XR2 Aftermarket Thermal Pads Aftermarket Thermal Paste Tools Needed: Phillips Screwdriver Plastic Pick (recommended) Anti-static Strap (optional) Well-Lit, Clutter-Free Work Surface M18x Service Manual [Download - Dell Support eDocs] Compatible Catalyst Drivers [Download - Catalyst 12.6 Catalyst Mobility] Alternative Driver [Download - AMD Catalyst 12.7 Beta] ​

Hardware Installation

Rather than providing a series of photos (which you can get from the service manual) I decided a video would be more useful for newbies. I hope I'm right about that. The narration did not work out, so enjoy the music. My hope is for those that are apprehensive about dismantling their system, watching me do it will be proof enough that it is easy to do. The entire upgrade, going slow because I was recording it, took about an hour and 10 minutes. Had I not been messing with the camera, it would have been probably 40 to 45 minutes.

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For more teardown videos, please visit Alienwareservices - YouTube.

Below are photos of the parts installed.



Below are photos comparing the AMD heat sinks to the NVIDIA heat sinks. If you are considering upgrading to 7970M from an NVIDIA GPU, you will need to purchase heat sinks. The heats sinks for the 6970M/6990M will fit, although they are not quite as beefy as the heat sink designed for the 7970M. Also provided is a comparison of the QM CPU heat sink (single-pipe) to the XM CPU heat sink designed for the M18x R2 (triple-pipe). This part is a direct fit.



The installation was easy and without complication. I took a few extra steps that anyone considering the upgrade may want to consider:

• Remove all traces of old GPU drivers (uninstall, DriverSweeper, CCleaner Registry Tool, manually delete folders)
• Remove CMOS (coin cell) battery and reset to BIOS defaults before first boot
• Remove HWiNFO64 and obtain new 7970M compatible version*

Despite removing the CMOS battery and resetting BIOS defaults, the first boot threw a 5-beep error code, but corrected after a hard reset. The Insyde BIOS seems to have a "memory" that is tough to clear sometimes. If this occurs, stay calm, power down and, if necessary, pull the CMOS battery a second time.

Although I had plenty of IC Diamond and TX-4 paste on hand, I elected to install the heat sinks using only the Dell/Alienware Thermal Interface Material (TIM) that is pre-applied to the CPU and GPU heat sinks. My 580M GPUs still have the stock TIM and have always run cool. I wanted to give the CPU TIM a shot to see if it is equally effective. The stock TIM is more durable than aftermarket paste. So far, the CPU and both GPUs are running very nice temps.

Initial Performance Testing

To get a good head-to-head comparison for myself, I completed a 3DMark11 run with the 2920XM set at stock Dell Level 3 overclock and the 580M SLI at stock clocks and voltage just prior to the teardown. After installing the 7970M CrossFire, I reset the BIOS the same CPU settings and completed a 3DMark11 run at stock GPU settings. The CPU heat sink is doing a great job as well. (Take note of the before and after CPU temps as well.)

3DMark11 (no GPU OC - Tessellation Off) | 3DMark11 (no GPU OC - Tessellation On)

Side-by-Side: Detailed Results - 3DMark11 Tessellation Off versus On

Stock Vantage Run


Heaven 3.0 Benchmark - Tessellation Off versus On
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Additional Information

Official AMD Radeon™ HD 7970M Series GPU Feature Summary

*New version of HWiNFO64 needed: HWiNFO64 v3.96-1640

HWiNFO64 Settings for 7970M GPU:

(Thanks to Mumak and svl7 for this new version and settings for 7970M compatibility.)

Windows Registry Tweaks​ To enable overclocking and improve CrossFire functionality, it is necessary to change all of the EnableCrossFireAutoLink DWORD values to 1 and all of the EnableULPS DWORD values to 0 in the registry. (There are more than 20 keys for each of the above in my registry. Some DWORD values need to be changed, and some do not.) ​

Afterburner AMD Overclocking Tweak​ Are your Afterburner sliders already as far as they can go to the right with no more room to slide? (See before and after examples below.) If so, this MSI Afterburner tweak should fix that for you. You will need to edit the MSIAfterburner.cfg file in notepad to change this: to this?​ Before -and- After ​

The AMD Radeon HD 7970M is so powerful that I can sustain a 3DMark11 frame rate as good or better than what I was getting with GTX 580M SLI even while capturing full frame audio and video of the benchmark. There is still about a 20% drop in frame rate due to the overhead, but still awesome FPS while recording. Here is an example of 1080p screen capture of 3DMark11 32bit. Feel free to change the resolution and go full screen if your internet connection is up to the task. Just for fun, I ran the 3DMark11 demo as a lead-in before the benching begins.

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I have been asked by forum members, so here's a Battlefield 3 clip showing how well the game plays with 7970M CrossFire... Without any GPU overclocking and everything set on "ultra" the gameplay is in the 100 FPS range. Even while screen recording, it's consistently 75+ FPS.

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Below is a TessMark run showing how well the 7970M handles tessellation. (Compare the results to your 6900M series video cards.)

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7970M Updates

For those considering 7970M CrossFire for a new M18x R2 or as an upgrade to their M18x R1, think carefully and read up on the issues in our forum before taking the leap. You may want to consider GTX 680M SLI instead, as 7970M CrossFire still has issues and performance results are very inconsistent.

Best (but not great) driver for 7970M: [ Download Catalyst 12.7b hotfix]

New (not awesome) 7970M vBIOS: [ Download vBIOS 118]

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Edit 07/22/2012:

UPDATE 08/05/2012

In addition to the Catalyst 12.7b hotfix driver, I have been testing a tweak that worked well when I was having behavior issues with the 6970M and 6990M graphics cards. It has been a couple of weeks now and I am ready to share with the forum since it is working so well for me. If you are having issues with your 7970M CrossFire setup, this might help. This addresses some issues relating to the integrity of AMD Catalyst drivers and AMD PowerPlay malfunction.

In a nutshell, here is the tweak:

• Turn off Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR)
• Set 2D core to stock 3D speed (850Mhz)
• Set 2D memory to stock 3D speed (1200Mhz)
• Set 2D voltage to stock 3D voltage (1.05v)

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This has cured most of my instability and gaming performance issues with 7970M CrossFire and I believe I have isolated the unresolved issues to a problem with vRAM on at least one of my GPUs. I was having significant issues with my screen going black in DirectX 11 games and benchmarks. 3DMark11 was constantly going black and freezing when loading Test 1. Below is run of 3DMark11 with this tweak implemented and no GPU overclock.

AMD Radeon HD 7970M CrossFire benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2920XM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: P10336 3DMarks

Spoiler

STANDARD WARNING​

Third party BIOS Modifications, vBIOS Modifications and other system level tweaks (including fan control) can potentially cause damage to your system. Be aware of this before blindly flashing/installing anything. If you brick your system or cause damage, chances are very high that your warranty will be useless. Know what you are doing, as you alone are responsible for your actions. This is not a fix that Alienware or AMD can endorse, and you assume all risk if you break something by not doing it correctly. If you are incapable of performing these steps, or reverting to your previous settings without assistance from others, it would be best to not perform them.

Turning Off TDR:

• Launch Regedit
• Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers
• Add a new DWORD named TdrLevel
• Set the DWORD value to 0 (zero)
• Close Registry Editor and reboot Windows

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers]
"DxgKrnlVersion"=dword:00002005
"UseXPModel"=dword:00000000
"TdrLevel"=dword:00000000

To undo the changes and restore TDR functionality, simply delete the registry key you added.

Dell vBIOS Changes:

(The following is offered as information only, and no tutorial on vBIOS flashing is being provided in this post.)

Save your vBIOS using GPU-Z and use vBIOS Patcher to set the 2D core, memory and voltage to match the 3D values. If you have the newest vBIOS (version name/number ends with 118) the vBIOS Patcher will not work. I am including a link (below) to my modded vBIOS for anyone that wants to use it instead of modding their own. A word of caution... DO NOT flash your vBIOS within Windows using ATIWinFlash. Use ATIFlash in DOS and a bootable USB thumb drive. Assistance with vBIOS flashing using ATIFlash is available numerous places on the web.

Dell 7970M vBIOS 017a

I hope this helps some of you that are experiencing sub-par results with 7970M CrossFire.


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Very nice Brother Fox!!! +rep!!

I knew it was just a matter of time before you turned "red" again LOL - those scores make the 580m Sli seem like really old tech

I will await your findings on various games and how they are performing. Is that 12.5 Beta you are running? - with what CAP?

 

Yes, 12.5 Beta. No CAPS installed yet. I have about 2 hours to sleep before getting ready for work, LOL. Maybe tomorrow.

I haven't turned red, though. I'm just enjoying the fastest GPU beasts available at this moment in time, which happen to come from the red team. Red and green are both Christmas colors, and we all love Christmas. It's not a matter of if, but when, NVIDIA releases a 7970M killer. That's just life in the performance computing jungle, LOL.

 

Cool. Get some rest after your hard work !!

 

Oh you are upgrading? I thought you were waiting for 680m. Well documented project, though. Good job. What pads did you use and how thick were they? Phobya XTs offer 7W/mk.

 

Someone needs to update their signature now.

Great post. How much you looking for the 580's?

 

congrats Mr Fox I will like to know your findings playing games with crossfire enabled what kind of performance you see vs single card.

 

I have a question about your MSI afterburner.
You settings slider are at about 50% and its 850/1200
Mine the sliders are maxed out and at 850/1200

 

Wait a minute!!! That's cool brother Fox! Excellent work.

 

I am using the stock pads and factory TIM. It works excellent. The factory heat sinks need nothing extra. The 680M is taking too long and we don't know how strong it will be. I can always buy them later if they are more powerful than 7970M. Or, I may just buy a M18x R3 next year with 680M or whatever is most powerful at that time.

I'm going to update my signature as soon as I run the 7970M a bit longer to be sure it's a keeper and no problems I have not discovered yet. The 580M cards will not offered for sale.

Thanks, Brother Speedy. I will be posting to this thread, good or bad findings. So far, nothing bad to report except my cards are still called "Generic VGA" like DumbDumb cards. I don't know why 3DMark11 and Vantage do not identify them correctly like it does for yours. Also, cannot overclock with Afterburner. Even though I changed all EnableULPS to 0 in the registry, just a small increase like 900 on core works OK for a little bit, then screen goes black and locks up. Do you have a better vBIOS for overclocking yet?

Hey Brother Steve. Easy fix on that. Change all of the registry keys for EnableULPS that have a DWORD of 1 to a 0 (zero). Mine were just like yours before I did that. It was like that with 6990M also. But, see above comments to Speedy about overclocking.

Thanks, Bro! I hope I can get that video off my camera so I can post it. I'm going to have to break out the M17x R2 because it has firewire and the USB part of the camera just doesn't work right for some reason.

 

Congrats on the upgrade Mr. Fox! I have to admit, I have the upgrade bug myself. Just not sure which way to go at the moment.

Must......Resist.........

 

yeah for some reason the R1 is not recognizing the device ID of the cards or something but if they work who cares right?

I don't know what could be limiting your overclock maybe DumbDumb know more about that I just disable ULPS in the registry and edit the CFG file on afterburner to try the overclocking but my GPU's are running stock now

no vbios that I know.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Afterburner config file. Thanks for mentioning that. I think I saw that on SlickDude's thread. I will check it out.

Edit: I must have already changed that before... it already has it...

 

Very cool. Some of the images are broken for me (could be a image filter at work here) - how are your CPU temps going from the R1 XM heatsink to the R2 XM heatsink? Did you see an improvement?

 

They're very good. I just ran 3DMark11 at 4.7GHz and the temps peaked at 90°C. I had a unique 3-pipe heat sink before, and this new one is more effective.

 

How much you paid for R2 XM heatsink? Ordered directly from dell?

 

It's should be under $50 to order it from Dell, depending on where you are located. You'll need to call for a quote to be certain on the price.

 

Way to go Fox... Nice up ugrade!! +1 for you.... but sadly this will be the last time we sir are now enemies!

Where did I put my NVIDIA t-shirt?

 

Mr Fox use little pressure washers between the springs and screw like I did that will improve the temps up to 10C

 

I have some from my other heat sinks that I can use. Thanks for the tip.

You must not have read my earlier comments about getting 680M later on if it's more powerful. There are definitely some things missing without NVIDIA, for sure. The image quality is not quite as bright and crisp. But, the horsepower isn't one of the missing elements right now, LOL.

 

it s possible from 6970m??

 

amazing work, I can't believe those are stock scores!

well done!

 

Grats Mr.Fox, I knew you would come over to the dark side sooner or later haha.

 

congrats man! Now we have one more heavy hitter on the red side, though as temporary as it may be . Also do you have a similar part lists for the M17x R4?

 

No reason it should not be. The heat sinks and CrossFire bridge will fit. You would only need the cards and support plates to make it work.

Thank you. It is pretty dog-gone amazing, especially considering the poor driver support at this time. I really liking the horsepower. Should be interesting to see what happens when AMD releases drivers with proper support.

Ha ha, I was already there and had to switch to green because of repetitive hardware failures with red. I have been an ATI customer for years and they came close to losing me forever with all the issues I had with 6900M series.

I'm sad about not having Cuda and Digital Vibrance any more. Those are awesome features. I am still eager to see what GTX 680M runs like. Depending on how it fares against the 7970M CF, my time in the red zone may be limited.

But, seriously, I'm a fanboy for neither brand. Whatever runs fastest and lives to tell the story. There is zero brand loyalty with this hombre when it comes to graphics cards. They're only a means to an end in my view.

The GPU part number is exactly the same for the M17x R4. Part numbers are posted in the http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...lienware-m17x-r3-r4-owners-lounge-thread.html (opening post) but I was not provided with a heat sink part number from Dell. The 6970M/6990M heat sink should work fine.

 

Mr fox Digital vibrance is the same as saturation on AMD CCC

 

I have been playing with that, but colors are not as "vibrant" as the 580M. It's still good, though. I'm not unhappy, as the difference is slight and depends on what you're look it. If I did not have that before I would not know any difference.

 

thank you for this although I already know it. I'm a bit more interested in the CPU heatsink for the R4 in hope of it getting a similar treatment to the M18x R2.

 

Dang, these things are real beasts. 3DMark11 (Tessellation On

 

wow! that's a real horse power brother Fox! can you run some games spec. metro2033? thank

 

Heyo Mr. Fox-

Question about the actual ordering process- I assume you have to call and specifically quote part numbers to buy them direct from Dell? I only ask as looking in the 'upgrades' section of my M18x details on my Dell account there is only RAM listed...

Otherwise, holy hell those things are beasts- congratulations!

 

That is correct. You might get someone that asks too many questions and tells you that you're not allowed to. If that happens, hang up can call back to talk with another rep. Technically, they are "not supported" because Dell have not tested it on our systems as an upgrade.

The video is in the process of being uploaded. It is one hour long, so it will be a few hours until it is posted. It is the complete disassembly and reassembly process, from start to finish.

 

Time to bust out some beers and nibbles, kick back and watch you rip your beast to bits........gotta beat watching TV lol

 

ahh hell yeahh baby!!! someone definitely def. need to change his sign. well now head will glow reddish XDD

 

Futuremark has fixed the problem with Radeon HD 7970M not being identified in benchmarks. The benchmarks now show them correctly, instead of Generic VGA.

OK, Brother Steve. Break out the brewskis. The opening post has been updated. Sorry the audio narration wouldn't render properly, so there's music instead.

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Beer in the chiller already Bro! - might even put you on the big screen !!

 

Ha ha... in the process of adding annotations to the video now. Should be helpful to the first-timers.

 

Thanks for the video! Did the thermal pads come already applied to the GPU heatsinks, or did you have to put those on yourself?

 

Already applied... had to put a couple back in place because they stuck to the bag they shipped in, but not a big deal.

 

Pour some sugar on me! in the name of love!
In the jungle! when your high you never want to come down!

Say your prayers its the one dont forget my son!


god now i want to bust out my guitar that is all dusty and hasn't seen the light of day in ages!

I can play all these songs you play perfectly.. solos and all lol....
brb...


damn it now my finger hurt lol.. and the neighbors are mad and i even had a cop stop by to say high!

I guess with a 5000watt amplifier set up turned up almost all the way in a non studio setting your bound to disturb the piece!

 

Absolutely amazing upgrade, Mr. Fox!

In regards to calling Dell about getting one of those triple pipe CPU heatsinks, what department do I contact?

Also, can you just pay right then and there with a Dell Preferred account?

Again, amazing Sir!

 

Great Video. Bookmarked because I'm sure this is going to come in handy.

 

Impressive stuff man!

 

Thanks, guys. Glad you like it. I have not finish adding annotations to the video yet, but I had other things that needed to be done today.

And, LOL, DumbDumb... I'd love to hear you play some tunes.

TurbodTalon, why don't you reach out to Allan @ Alienware or one of the Alienware reps in this thread about upgrade parts... http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...e-us-canada-upgrade-new-system-purchases.html

 

Nice video, Foxie But the music is too hard i think

 

Absolutely FANTASTIC video, Bro. Loved it all.....great music, great subject matter, great guide.....I especially loved the bit where you anottated the part with the screws being longer with "see, I told ya they were longer" LOL

My only criticism of it would be that you could have had some scantily clad nubile young females "assisting you" - you know?, like handing you the parts, taking screws off you etc etc - joking apart, I am sure that your hard work and dedication in creating this guide will only help and encourage more "less experienced" owners tackle what, otherwise, may seems as a very daunting task - my hat goes off to you.....(if I had one)

Great work again, my friend!!!!!

 

Too hard? What would you rather have? Some Bieber?

That's the special thing about this guide: music is finally okay. I can't stand all those bumpy shallow house backgrounds people always use.

I just tried MP3 the other night and 580M sli rock the game. I am calmly waiting to see what 680M stand for before making any decisions. I really don't want to go AMD.

Very helpful material, Mr. Fox. Thanks!

 

Thank you all for the compliments. I still want to finish annotating the rest of the video when I have some time to kill.

Here are some 7970M CrossFire Vantage screen shots I took a few minutes ago... and Heaven 3.0 runs with tess off/tess on.




@DarkSkies - I can hardly wait to see what GTX 680M SLI does. It it is just as fast as 7970M CrossFire, (or more so,) plus has the better NVIDIA driver support, Cuda and all the other extras, it will be beyond fantastic.

 

Awesome VID and guide Foxxy!!!

WOW Just look at those FPS numbers in Vantage ey Amazing stuffs. 200+ FPS lol + the temps lol!!!! Brilliant.
I sure can't wait to see the 680M rocking soon.

Hows that new 3riple pipped CPU HS going FOX? You noticed an major or noticeable improvements in idle temps or max load temps or overall cooling usage? Improved or different CPU fan behaviour?

Cheers.