5850m question

So I've received my 5850m from Table21 and I'm looking to get the drivers and all before performing surgery on my laptop. When I go to the dell site there are 2 different 5850m files. One being the AMD Bios for the 5850m and the other being the driver.

My question is do I need to use the AMD Bios file as well, or is it only needed if I run into a problem with the card not running correctly? Does it matter which I do first the Bios or the driver?

EDIT*: The card has no thermal pads on it, are they a necessity? If so, can I just remove the ones from my old card and put them on the 5850m? Where do they go exactly (pics would be helpful)? Anyone know where I can get thermal pads, which ones are good (bear in mind I'm in Australia)?

 

Hey khetik, congrats on upgrading to the 5850, for starters the card may have already been flashed with the current vbios, and its not really required to run the dell provided drivers u can just grab the current amd drivers being 11.9 ( the dell driver are really old i think its 10.8). Remember before u do anything make sure to completely remove any and all nvidia drivers, uninstall, reboot in safe mode and run drive sweeper for the video card and also cc cleaner, after doing this your device manager should not be detecting an nvidia gpu, but should read out as generic(if i remember correctly). Now u should be ready to begin surgery, remember, to remove battery and POWER DRAIN, and be properly grounded, as for the pads the heatsink should have 2 on it, and it fine if keep using them but i would upgrade them later, some premium thermal pads from fujipolys .5mm thickness are top of the line from frozencpu.com . Once the ati card is installed u can run your amd drivers, then test it out for a couple of days and if u have any display issues check gpu z i believe u can check the vbios version there( i need to do a bit of reseacher here as i dont fully recall) if u confirm that you vbios version is not A02 then this would be a good time to do a vbios flash.

Hope this helps, ill be glad to assist u any further also for pics reference check inaps sig for his repaste guide, and good luck

 

Thanks for all the info there Mexic00l, I def appreciate that. I'll probably be back for some help/questions, because it'll be my first time tearing up my laptop this much. Cuz i'll be replacing the gpu and the wifi card as well. I don't have any anit-static stuff to ground me, but I don't think it should be a problem if I work on a table and tiles (hopefully). So if i'm not on v2 or a02 w/e it was I should go for the dell drivers I'm guessing. Would I still need the amd bios thing or not?

+rep btw

 

If the card was previously used in a Dell laptop you wont need the vbios, as it has most likely already been flashed with the vbios. You should only have to install the AMD drivers. Make sure to remove every trace of those Nvidia drivers because if you don't it can cause some funky problems. I have no experience with Nvidia but there are guides online that tell you how to remove everything. Its highly recommended that use electrostatic protection, but I never do and haven't caused any damage yet. Just don't go shuffling across the carpet with your socks on before working on your laptop .

 

you guys are scaring me with all this static damage, i might just have to tear up my laptop in the nude or something...jokes!

i've got all the guides saved on another laptop so i'll be doing this first thing tomorrow morning and post back with my outcome.

 

u know striping off some polyester jumpers can have quite a static effect, wearing and removing such jumpers might actually kill your card

and yeah jokes aside, static is more likely to kill electrical components than dropping it on the floor. just by taking a few simple precautions you can minimize the risk. (earth yourself prior to working on the laptop, wear clothes which don't generate static - generally cotton, work away from carpet)
best bet is to use an antistatic wrist strap, not expensive and greatly minimizes the chances if used properly.

 

since u dont have any anti static equipment, just touch something thats bear metal before u handle your gpus

 

I seriously want to thank svl7 and inap for their guides and detailed posts on the M15x teardown as well as the pasting process. Also, to the guys who posted in this thread helping me along.

Just a quick update I swapped out the 260m for the 5850m and the dell 1520 half mini for the bigfoot killer 1102 last night. Laptop turned on fine, but I'll be following up with a proper post/pictures when I get home from work tonight!

BTW +rep to those that took the time to help

 

So what I did was just do a fresh intall of win7 home, so I could avoid having any rogue nvidia files lying around. Now for business..The installation went smoothly, but as some have stated to make sure I have the correct vbios - I don't know how to check that. I've posted my gpu-z screenshot 1st pic. Haven't installed the driver as yet because I don't know my vbios version. Do my temps look fine? I used mx-4 to paste, and 100% pure acetone to clean the gpu (horrific old paste job by dell came off very easily).

Also as I'm on a generic vga adapter/driver my resolution currently is stuck at 1440x1050 which I'm assuming will be fixed once my correct driver is loaded.

A few questions I do have though.

1) In the second pic you'll see the amount of paste I used, I'm guessing that was a good amount? Also the thermal pads you can see on the right side I took off the gtx 260m and put them on the 5850m (same exact spot), is that fine, or not needed?

2) Reused old thermal pads that were on the heatsink as they were in perfectly good shape, I guess it present no problem?

3) What are normal idle temps? I idle around 56-58c (having generic driver/adapter). Are the idle clocks fine, or should they be lower? Nothing present for shaders. I don't know if any of this could be due to the lack of a driver.

4) Which driver should I be using?

Also, this isn't related to the gpu. In the third pic you'll see the wifi - killer 1102 - I installed. I noticed a third antennae (grey in color) which obviously isn't being used. Does this mean I can utilize a 3 antennae wifi card? Or is the other end of that grey wire not plugged into anything?

Photos taken from my iphone 4s

 

as for the driver issue u can install which ever one u want whether its the dell drivers or the latest amd drivers. its not necessary to flash the vbios before or after the drivers (and by the way the vbios is up to date)
1. the paste looks good as for the pad on the gpu i dont use them there, i dont think they are needed
2. the pads on the heatsink should always be there on that exact same spot.
3. my idle temps set about 45c, again it doesnt look like u over did the paste maybe give it a day or two they might settle abit down
4. i would say go for the amd latest drivers

and yes that 3 wire is operational and ready to go

 

You already have the current vbios, so no flashing is required. Ready to install drivers. I recommend either the Catalyst 11.9's ( ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver) or Cat 11.7's ( Previous ATI Catalyst? Display Drivers. The official version of the 11.10's will be released tomorrow, so you can update later if desired. Agree that paste looks good, if pushing the upper limits slightly. Temps sound good, not great, but give it a couple of days to settle in before making any final conclusions. Agree with Mexic00ls' comments about the thermal pads. Congratulations on the upgrade operation. Time to enjoy it and then to explore overclocking, a primary strength of the 5850M.

 

Thanks for following up with me Mexic00l, and of course rev for sharing your endless knowledge. Ya I'll give it a few days and monitor temps (i got the paste right after 2 or 3 tries - tricky lil bugger). Any difference between the 11.7 and 11.9 drivers you mentioned?

My main reason for getting the 5850m was purely for the overclocking headroom it has, and definitely happy with the purchase.

If worse comes to worse I'll just do a repaste as I have to clean out my cpu fan/repaste.


Just a side question. I noticed that if I turn my laptop on (ac power or battery) and i lift my laptop up by holding it on the sides with fingers lightly pressed on the backplate my gpu fan makes this weird grinding like noise on startup. It goes away after a 2 seconds or so. However, using hwinfo64 my fan functions perfectly when system is idle or when I game for hours on end. Any ideas?

 

The 11.9's are the fastest for most 6900M series cards at the moment; not sure about the 5850M, but suspect the same holds true for most uses. The 11.7's are also fast and very stable generally.

 

Its hard to say, the extra pressure on the back could slightly move the fan or parts that come into contact with it just enough to cause the sound. The sound could be caused by a missing screw or a piece could be slightly bent or something. Odd sounds are so hard to diagnose, especially when the problem is as particular as yours.

 

Honestly i dont think much about the grinding noise at startup because i felt it may have just been the flex of the bottom case. I can only duplicate it by applying pressure to the bottom case cover, so what you say makes complete sense.

Thanks rev ill try 11.7 and just move forward from there.

 

Alright so I've got the 11.9 drivers installed, screen res now at 1920x1080. 2nd day powering on after repasting gpu, idle temps between 47-51c which looks a lot better.

Can I just AMD overdrive to turn the clocks up 625>700 and 1000>1100. Or is there a better program I should use. Whats a good program for increasing voltage if I find a need to go beyond the basic overclock of 700/1000.

Seriously can't thank you fellas enough, was definitely fun working on my laptop myself.

 

https://www.sapphireselectclub.com/ssc/TriXX/TriXX.aspx

Trixx is the best for oc tool i've ever used and and u can slightly up the voltage as well but i forget its voltage increase limits

While playing bf3 i go 800/1100/1.05v

 

1. looks good
2. no problems, try to keep finger oils off it if possible.
3 seems rather high for idle

about the nic, yes if you have a card which can use all 3 (like the killer 1103 or intel 5xxx/6xxx) then yes you would use all 3.

 

I've recheck my temps and they now idle around 50-51 so that's a lot better. I'll look into trixx thanks for that!

 

One thing I've noticed is that both gpu-z and hwinfo64 show my vddc (assuming thats voltage) as maximum .9v no matter what I do.

 

when your gpu kicks into 3d clocks (625/1000) it should go 1.00v
unless your not reaching actual 3d clocks either, if your not reaching full clocks the try toggling stealth mode on and then off

create a gpu z log and also check the refresh in background, either run a game(about 5 mins) or furmark (for about 45seconds) them upload the file here so i can take a look at it

 

I uninstalled 11.9 drivers and went with the 11.7, seem to be better. More stability as well. Also, I do see the voltage go up to 1.0v with this driver. strange is all I can say.

 

lol well at least u got it working

 

Aaahhh help khetik

I screwed up my amd driver install on my M15x.Now I can't install any drivers without freezing my screen.

Ok so I received my amd 5850m from table21 today. I bookmarked your post to guide me. Here is what I did

1. uninstalled my nvidia gtx260m drivers and rebooted. Used driver sweeper in safe mode to remove all traces of it.
2. Opened up my M15x and removed my gtx260m and put in my 5850m. Used antec thermal compound to put up a nice layer and put everything back in place.
3. Powered up the system and logged into my account. Downloaded latest catalyst suite(11.10).
4. Installation completes and asks for a reboot. I do the reboot and things go downhill from here. It Gets stuck in welcome screen after I type in my password.I mean the screen freezes( I noticed it was frozen when noting came up after 15 min)
5. I reboot into safe mode and remove every trace of 11.10. Restart and I can log back into my account but now I have the standard VGA crap driver.
6. I go through your thread and see that you have success with the 11.7 driver and did the same steps but no luck even with this driver.

I even tried the dell drivers( even though they r old) but still no luck. I have the a09 bios and my gpu is flashed to the recommended one.

After 3 hrs of driver sweeping and installing I found this.
1. Will let me install the driver but when It asks for a reboot and I press ok the reboot fails.( Shuts down fine but during restart the screen flashes once and whole sys dies). Only way to start after this is to remove my power cord cuz if I try to start up while the power cord is in The sys does the screen flash thing.
Wait a few seconds and power up while on battery and go into safe mode and repeat rinse
2. System works fine but if I try to install driver and reboot ...... Well u get the pic.
3. Temps goin to 93c during the whole process. I can hear the fan running so I definitely did not screw up the connections. I even have a Targus laptop cooler.
4. Just to see how long it can remain at that temp I left it like that with a movie running ( 15 min later temp hits 100c and it crashes) wait for a few min to cool down and it starts up again.
5. Driver or no driver I cannot restart my system successfully. can only do it from safe mode.

So is a fresh win 7 install my only option. Will that at least fix it? I'm so tired.guess I'll go to sleep. Ill try to post some screenshots tomorrow so u guys can better idea.

 

Some more info

when I restart from safe mode it restarts fine but If I try to restart from normal mode it dies.( then if press the power button with power cord it does the screen flash but if it's on battery and I hold the power button for a few seconds its kicking into gear)

 

tbh i'm still quite a newbie in terms of a lot of troubleshooting with these things but your temps are extremely high. That could be a reason as to why your facing some problems. When you changed out your graphics card did you clean out the vents as well? As for the paste, you need a nice thin layer without any air bubbles. I followed inap/svl7's guide for changing the graphics card and the pasting job. Make sure your heatsink is making proper contact as well. As for the driver issue, I didn't face any as I figured I might as well do a fresh OS install. You followed the correct steps in removing the old drivers and installing the new ones, so I'm not sure why you are facing driver issues.

When I uninstalled my 11.9 drivers I too was reverted to a simply VGA generic driver. However when I installed 11.7 I had no problems after that. Mind you I didn't do it in safe mode.

Hopefully someone with more experience can jump in here. If not try to start a new thread for it.

**EDIT: my 5850m is from table21 and is running flawlessly so I would rule out that its the card.