M9750 + ATi Mobility 3870. Does it work?

So are the 7950GTX, 7900GS, and 3870 (all Arima MXM type) compatible?

I posted this question in AW's forum months ago and it was shot down.

 

apparently, yes, as proven by ichime.

 

so basically, alienware was caught in a blatant lie. i hope they read from this forum and learn from their mistakes. people will figure out everything about their computers. no sense in hiding "compatibility issues", as people will try to debunk fallacies within their computers.

i really love my m9750. my warranty runs out at the end of this year, so if i'm not under any warranty, then i guess it doesn't matter if i "void" anything. perhaps these cards might find a home in my laptop next year.

 

Called AW 1-866-287-6727 USA #, some dude from another country told me that they are out of stock! I asked for a ball park in price for a single 3870 and dual 3870's he replied that he can't give me that information at this time. Since they are currently out of stock there is no information, what so ever for me. Told me to check in the next few weeks. Now, I got a little pissed! I told him that if your selling M17's there's gotta be a least 1-2 cards left in your wharehouse. So I asked him to let me buy it now he told me he can't cause there outta stock. There's gotta be something they are hidding for sure! Maybe its the 4870s or something like the 9800GTX's that would work in the m9750's. Don't know but it didn't go well!

 

Well, maybe. I believe the cards come directly from Flextronics/Arima preinstalled in a barebone system and aren't necessarilly stocked individually. This is the case when purchasing an OCZ whitebook and it will determine the number of cards you recieve in your computer. Now.. as for service stock for those who burn out their video cards and need a replacement, that might be something else entirely and reserved for m17 customers.

 

That and people have been noticing delays in orders from what I'm seeing around the forums- may be that they are actually just flat out of them, since they didn't assume the product would be so popular (or so easy to upgrade in past products...)

 

i dont think its worth it to shell an amount of money for a Single HD3870 if you already have a SLI setup.

 

I would imagine that the Mobile 4870's / 4850's would work as well then when they finally release

 

It also works with both in crossfire mode. So it is worth it to buy both cards.

 

Yes, but SLI doesn't always work. To this day, Call of Duty 4 STILL does not support 7950s in SLI. I get absolutely no gains from enabling or disabling it. Since a single card already performs slightly better than 7950s in SLi, it's pretty much guaranteed performance. Also, the added ability for crossfire is just a bonus but largely unnecessary.

If you had 8700's in SLi, I'm sure you'd change your mind as well.

 

Nah many people thought the 8800GTX would work but it didn't. It all depends on who picks it up and what kind of slot they use.

 

I would think with the 4850/4870's being released that perhaps the 3870 is a place holder in the m17 right now?

 

the reason why SLI doesnt work in COD4 is because its based on the Old Quake 3 Engine, hell yeah its not gonna work, any other new games i get up to 107% increase in performance.

Besides, i wont bother with Xfire in laptops, its still new, and for it to get better it will require months, Remember how SLI was?...

 

I hope to see good results with the m9700's comming from the tests. We'll have some exciting reading over the next few days.

 

Thats really weird, it must have something to do with drivers or resolution? In my PC my dual 8800 GT's make a MASSIVE difference in COD4, are you sure that multi~gpu rendering is enabled in the game options?

 

It is enabled... but just doesn't do anything for a pair of 7950s. I'm currently using 178.26 drivers from Xtreme-G.

And surprisingly, Quake 3 works just fine in SLi.

 

That's really weird what resolution by chance?

 

I've tried 1280x800, 1440x900, and 1920x1200 resolutions. I've had to disable shadows and aliasing to get consistent 40-60fps. I *could* play with everything on but it's just too choppy for my liking when the fighting starts to get intense.

 

Did you try running 3dmark06 and see if your score is where it is supposed to be yet? How about temps?

If not, then there must be something with your driver or GPU. Just my 2 cents.

 

Dhoang, everything is good. All temps are good, 3dmark is ok, etc. just CoD 4 does not work in Sli. No other issues. Most of my games work fine in SLi just not CoD 4.

 

Have you installed all of the patches for cod4 yet? I remember that in the Cod4 menu there is an option that allows SLi, Dual cards, check it out. Let me check again...ok

Go into Options, and there is an option for "Dual Cards" have you turned that on yet?

 

Well for those who are interested, results/findings of the same procedure done on an M9700...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4199214#post4199214

 

CoD4 Had Problems with SLI, because of it using an old Engine, but they were fixed for me after the 179.xx drivers came out

 

Also, for those interested, pugetsystems is actually selling just the ATi Mobility 3870 GPU. I assume it's pulled out of the W840 seeing as they sell that.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/store/item.php?cat=Video+Card&id=5652&com=d41d8cd9&que=

BUT:

1) There is only 1 left and
2) Not sure if it's the Master or the Slave card (you'll have to ask them). For those who don't remember, the slave card will not work by itself, but the master card will.

 

Can two master cards work together.

 

Cool topic

 

It's nice to see these cards for sale, too bad their $257!

 

very tempting though...my m7950s are starting to burn out already. Games that use lots of graphics memory are starting to dump all over the place. For me maybe this is worth the investment....

 

i can assume you're on vista

 

hehe...I know what you mean but this isnt a 32bit memory limit bug. For an example, I'm on XP, and running Sacred 2 with SLI and max res and textures. It will run fine for a random length of time, but after some point the screen will freeze with the game still running. CTR-ESC will get me back to windows after a couple of minutes, with me stuck in 640x480 res and 16 color (not 16bit, just 16!). Sometimes I actually get the error that the nv4xx.dll has stopped responding, but most times it is only stable long enough for me to restart the computer.
Given these symptoms I'm willing to guess that the slave card has a bad memory module because running non-SLI avoids this error. I still have to do a memory stress test on the video memory, but right now any chance to possibly buy a new video card is music to my ears

 

are you sure you have the right driver mate? i dont have any problem maxing out the game over 60 FPS..

EDIT: oh, and before anyone hops, i'm on 1440x900 res

 

well brainer, as you often swear by on the driver board, I use the xtreeme g mobile drivers. And I have tried alienware drivers, and laptopvideo2go as well. I really think there is either a low level os failure or hardware failure.

And if you dont mind me asking, can you PM me how you got 1440x900 res? The only options I get are the standard 4:3 and my max 1920X1200.

OK, back on topic: want free ATI Crossfire in my m9750!

 

ok, just FYI rsgeiger, the XG driver will give you the lowest performance for that game.. why? because when you have SLI, you'll need to use the newest drivers to get the best SLI profile, so try going on one of these 180.xx drivers (Maybe DOX 180.70) and i'm sure you will see a hell of a difference, trust me

EDIT: get Stock 180.70 till Dox releases a none-installer version

 

the 32-bit Memory limit, was not a bug. it was a design flaw. When the 32-bit OS was designed (circa Windows... version 1... the first 32-bit CPU was the 80386), 4GB was an unrealistic amount of memory to ever have on the horizon. considering at that time we were more than pleased with 2MB of RAM; the thought of having 2000x that, must have been perplexing.

Now that we've reached the limit, I'm sure there's a few OS designers *cough microsoft* that are kicking themselves for not thinking far enough ahead to say "hey, let's support 64-bit" ... nevermind the Hardware developers *cough intel*

I'd agree that everyone was guilty on this particular failure (though Intel tried to push a few 64-bit chips prior to the Core 2) but I'm not here to split hairs.

Point being: 32-bit memory limitation... not a bug.

 

Anything that causes an application to unexpectedly quit from normal use I call a bug, whether it is a software or hardware issue is inconsequential. I will just be waiting for the day when more apps, especially games, go 64-bit so there is one less thing to worry about.

 

We'll get there eventually.

 

I've never seen the 32-bit limit for memory cause anything to crash.

I don't think it could, unless you're occupying the entire 4GB of memory and try to load something :S in which case windows would tell you you're out of memory.

 

I hate to bring to life an old thread but did anyone figure out where to buy the single ATI 3870 from?

 

they'll be all over the place when the HD4870 for the whitebook comes out, but until then... good luck.

 

I figured that. I may find one if I start calling around.

 

Eurocom has them for $303 US, $345 CAD; €230, £195.

Full price list.

 

Cool thanks. Now I'll see if i can score a cheap m9750 on ebay.

 

is that all stuff you can order aftermarket and separate?

 

Yep that's entirely an aftermarket listing.

 

huh, fancy that.

 

For those interested, got one of these cards (Master 3870) for sale in the Marketplace section.

 

is that eurocom company legit?

 

Eurocom sells the 3870 for $303. and the one listed in the marketplace is $175. which btw, is an awesome deal!

I imagine when the 4870's are finally available we'll see the 3870's for a lot less than they are now. Maybe a hundred bucks?

I'll be getting a pair of 4870's unless I can get my Nvidia stained hands around a GTX280!

comparison of 4870x2 vs one GTX280M:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidia-GeForce-GTX-280M-Review.14565.0.html

Nvidia "fanboy",
Rob41

 

Yeah, I am sure there is going to be at least a nice mini "glut" of 3870's showing up once the 4870's start to show up en masse for upgrades.

 

I sent an email to Eurocom that i want to buy from them the Ati mobility 3870 and ther answer was:

Anyone knows where can i get one of these cards?
My m9750 videocard fried and im looking to install this baby.