M15x & 6970M / 6990M - What you need to know - upgrading, problems, solutions

I'll just wait on flashing vbios for now.

I just got the new thermal pad through mail, is applying new thermal pad makes some difference in gpu temperature?

 

Hmm, there's no way to know how hot the vram actually gets, and as long as the vram runs at stock clocks I'm pretty sure new thermal pads won't make a difference. Cooler temps will help when you really push the memory, but the difference won't be too big I guess.

 

Thank man that fix the problem.

 

My vbios is exactly the same as slv7 vbios. I had my vbios post in earlier thread for slv7 to take a look at it and he said it exactly the same as his. What do you mean by my card is the only one with overdrive enabled?

 

I undervolt my card to 1.05v and run it at 750/950. Test it with vantage and 3dmark 11 and got the same result as stock voltage. By undervolting I see a decrease of 4C in my temperature.

 

This is my stock voltage

680/900

0.900V

Any advice regarding undervoltage?

 

.900 is your idle clock which is 100/150. When you game it will go up to 1.1v. If you want it to run at stock clock then 1.0v is find but if you want to run it at a higher clock then I recommend 1.05v. I had run further test and 1.05v is stable for me at 750/950.

 

The temperature is my biggest concern.

My temp goes up to 68-69 max just for watching youtube and online videos.

I think I need to undervoltage my card for cooler temp.

 

Yea that kinda high. My go up to 58C while watching youtube. I recommend you should repaste the gpu and also if you can buy some new thermal pad.

 

I've already done that but still didn't help.

 

As a side note of your interesting discussion about the voltage and the vbios versions, I just wanted to share that I got a couple of days ago a 6970m card from upgradeyourlaptop in ebay. After reading the problems you had with the soldered mountings on the bracket holes I asked them if they have cards without those soldered mountings and they do! So I received the card and the bracket holes were free of anything.

I sent them an offer by email of 360 USD for the card and they accepted. The delivery costs were 69 USD so the total cost was 429 USD. The bad part was that I had to pay more than 100 USD custom fees... Anyways, it was a pretty decent price.

As many of you, I had to undervolt the card to avoid throttling, I'm currently using atitraytools for this and it works great so far. One of the cons is that I have to switch between different profiles manually but still I don't dare to modify the vbios.

The performance of the card is amazing, on stock I get double FPS using the same settings on Dirt3 than with my old overclocked 460M. The only issue I am having so far is that, after I flashed with the dell svl7 vbios, I can't get the card to use the whole size of the TV, and either is too small or too big when changing between different TV profiles (16:9, 4:3, etc). With the original vbios version it automatically adjusted to the TV size. It'll be great to have your feedback on this.

Thank you all guys

 

Great, fantastic price...!! Now let us see some benchmarks:

I haven't heard of a single user that had to undervolt the card to avoid throttling...


Anyway, I didn't that atitray tools can undervolt the 6970m, I'll give it a try as soon as it is back in my machine. I'm still having trouble overclocking the 470m.

 

I think dttran83 had the same issue as well. But good that you don't have this problem. I wish my system wouldn't throttle on 1.1v, more room for overclocking.

Good luck with the 470m!

 

Hmm, ok, yeah... I read those posts, somehow forgot it. I had higher temps from time to time and never experienced any throttling. I'll have to do some testing when the card is back in the system.

 

I unlocked it by editing the regedit. The method is like that" WIN-run-regedit,than search "OverDrive", and you can see 3 items "OverDrive2""OverDrive3""OverDrive5",edit the value of Accessible from "Nobody" to "All" (3 items needed). At last reboot your nb."

 

Hey guys I need your help. I downloaded Atitray tools and use the overclocking function to change my voltage to 1.000V and use default clocks. Somehow, when gaming, the voltage still jumps to 1.100V. Why? Does Atitray tools only edit the idle clocks?

 

I'm not an expert using this program but as far as I know, you have to change both the voltage and the clocks manually in order to make it work. You can create a profile just for gaming with 680/900 Mhz clocks plus 1.000V voltage, then click on apply and then save it.

You can run that profile when gaming and change to the default clocks/voltage once you finish.

You can also create three different profiles 100/150Mhz 0.800 V - 400/900 Mhz 0.950V - 680/900 Mhz 1.000 V and swap between the different profiles depending on which are your needs.

Let me know if this works for you. Cheers

 

I did ran into some throttling issue when I first install the card but I had fix it. It wasn't relating to heat though, my temperature were the same as slv7. I just undervolt to see if It ran any cooler which it did. So the card run just find without any need of undervolting but if you want to get a couple celceius cooler I recommened undervolting .

The way that I fix my throttling is really weird. I have to uncheck the powerplay in CCC to stop the throttling. If I have it check then my card would throttle. Also I have to use overdrive to overclock the card, I try to use trixx but it would throttle when I use it. So I just use overdrive to overclock and uncheck my powerplay and it work perfectly. My card clock still change accordingly to the program that I'm running which is weird because my powerplay is uncheck.

 

I use a different method, with Atitray tools, even with the voltage maxed, using tray tools to "overclock" to default 3D clocks prevents my GPU from ever downclocking during gaming. It's great, I just now have hotkeys assigned to gaming and revert to default. I can even have my CPU running 26x (overkill I know)

 

This "weird" fix it also works on my card No need to use atitraytools anymore to avoid throttling. Thanks!

 

You guys are lucky you have Overdrive enabled because I don't, CCC doesn't show it I wonder if svl7 has it?

 

No, never seen any overdrive, not with the 5850m and not with the 6970m.

 

^^ oh well, guess I'll settle with Tray Tools. The F7 and F8 keys are free so I assigned them to Default and 3D settings respectively and now I also get no more throttling! Guess I'm going to put getting an M17x R3 on hold for a while longer

 

Edit: After restarting, this fix didn't work . If I disable Powerplay the clocks will stay at idle even enabling overdrive. I'll have to stick with atitraytools.

If I flash the vbios with the dell version the Overdrive tab will disappear. I had to reverse back to my original vbios in order to get it back.

 

You have to use Overdrive to overclock the card then it would work. Don't run it at stock clock. Try that and see what happen.

 

Did you have overdrive before you flash with the dell vbios? I haven't flash mine with dell vbios yet so I don't know if it will dissappear once I do.

 

No, not as far as I remember.

 

Oh man, you are absolutely right. I was enabling Overdrive but still running at stock. I disabled powerplay and overclocked to 750/950 and no throttling at all. And yeah, I have restarted this time. Overdrive keeps my clocks constant at 750/950 running furmark 5 minutes. Also the card idles normally. However my temps get crazy!!! How are you managing such high temperatures?

You can always save a copy of your original bios and if overdrive dissappears reverse it.

 

What is your temperature? Mine max out at 80c now after the undervolt. I use 3dmark11 and vantage to test it.

 

The crazy temps are running Furmark. I just ran a 3DMark11 and got max 79C. I still have to test how the temps go when playing some games overclocked cause I presume they could easily reach 90C.

 

Thanks for the bios XeroXide. With that bios i can now change voltage between 1 and 1.1 in Sapphire Trixxx. Also the temps are fantastic now. They dont go over 80c .

 

I usually use game, 3dmark 11, and vantage to test for temperature. Futuremark will stress your gpu to 100%, I don't beleive that will happen in a real world scenarios. So I don't base my temperature on that.

 

Actually Crysis 2 has my GPU pegged at 100% although that may be because I'm also using D3DOverrider to force triple buffering and vsync. Now that my throttling has been fixed thanks to all you guys, time to get me a copy of 3DMark 11.

 

have a try using the method of my #465?

I have the way to unlock it (at #465), but it may be unavailable at someone's notebook.

 

Tried that, there isn't an option. OverDrive is built into the card's vbios. Currently the best version is the Dell version with audio over DP and it does not have it enabled.

 

my original bios that came with the card has overdrive i'm pretty sure. think i saw it in the drivers. but i installed the dell one over it as soon as i could.

i'll attach it if you want to give it a shot or something. personally i'd prefer audio over dp though. can always overclock through sapphire trixx instead.

View attachment eurocom.zip

 

After testing with some games, I can get temperatures up to 95C with my card overclocked on 750/950! That's really a lot... I'm gonna try repasting using MX-4 (I'm currently using AS5 and it needs some curing time).

My card is not undervolt and runs at 1.1V. I'll see how it goes after repasting and if still is too hot I'll have to undervolt the bios using RBE. It will be my first time using this software and I don't want to brick the card Anything that I should take in consideration before?

I'll let you know how it goes!

 

ddtran83, where did you buy your 6970M? I am having no luck at all with Dell's Spare Parts Division. How long did it take for delivery?

 

Pkhetan sells the Clevo cards very cheap.

I have managed to flash my Clevo card in my MSI GX660R to the Dell BIOS and now I have sound from HDMI!!!

 

It's advisable to make a backup to the USB stick (via atiflash) before flashing the file. But there shouldn't be any problem, just make sure your AC is plugged in and the stick doesn't loose the connection.

 

Do you have a 6970M? How is performance? Overclockability? Temps? Fan control? I have not heard much about Clevo cards (other than the Eurocomm cards, which are presumably Clevo underneath). Where is Pkhetan located? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/568347-ati-6970m-gx660r.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/mar...feedback-direct-clevo-dealer-spare-parts.html

There is no fan control. I have to use turbo fan. Heat is so much that I can't OC!

 

Hey guys,

why you don't enable Overdrive in the vBios through RBE?

Btw: would be nice to have the different vBios' from all cards.

 

What's the advantage of having overdrive enabled?

 

Just for "yes you can".
Easy auto-up/down-clocking.

 

After repasting with MX-4 my temps are much better. 83 C max after one hour playing Dirt3. I am now overclocking my card to 700/920, I have had a couple of sudden shutdowns on 750/950 and after lowering the clocks it didnt happen again Fingers crossed. However I have never felt my PSU sooo hot... Can't hold it more than 4 seconds on my hands right after gaming cause it burns

Thanks for the tip. Since my temps are fine now I'll stick to my original vbios 1.1V.


Has anybody got a stable overclocking on 1V or 1.05V?

 

You'll have to try it yourself, this will differ from card to card. I'll put my 6970m back now and do some testing with undervolting during the next days.

 

Ichime was able to solve the fan issue with the 6970m in the M17x r2 with using the vbios from the clevo p150hm .

I just flashed it to see whether it solves the issue for me, but apparently it doesn't change anything...

Some of you guys have different cards, especially if you have the card from phektan I'd give it a try. Let me know in case it solves the fan issue for you. Remember to disable HWinfo32 before testing it

Checksum of the vbios is 0x7700

Good luck!

 

I brought mine from aikimox not from Dell.

 

Guys my motherboard got fried... don't know how this happened, my temp was stable enough... dunno if this is related to gpu problem or an isolated incident.