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

For example here: M15x & 6970m from MXM-upgrade - Page 2, thanks goes to Strigae. Also Inap and RogueOP tested the Dell 6970m and dind't have fan issues.

 

i did and another member did too. the dell version is plug and play with everything working.

edit: dam why are you so fast today, hahaha

 

Ok... well maybe I'll have to pay the extra for one then. So many decisions and only so many purchases I can hide from my gf.

 

Good luck getting one from Dell. I had try it two time and both time my card is getting delay so I had to cancelled it.

 

I have a source for one, but it's more expensive than the Clevo/AMD cards.

 

Thanks. Need M15x change the adapter from M17x if I overclock the 920xm and 6970m? What's the proper frequency of 6970m with the 150w adapter?

 

Thanks a lot! We have at least 3 people used DELL card and worked well, is it right? However, a administor (he lives in US now)from our Chinese forum has tried the card from R3 as well, but the fan cannot work normally as the CLEVO did. I don't want to take a 6970m because of his report until I came here and saw your one.The administor said he will try another card after he return China, but I almost couldn't wait anymore, maybe I will do it first. And if the seller agree to let me have a try, I will do it definitely. The price is 3500￥=540＄, is it nice?

 

According to the M15x users with the 240W PSU (Inap, Rev) It doesn't let you draw more power, which makes sense. The max power draw is limited by the mobo to protect other components.
The only advantage of the 240W PSU is that it gets less hot.

Standard clocks for the 6970m are 680MHz core and 900MHz memory, if you have a 920xm in your system I recommend getting something to measure the power draw and find the limits of your system.

 

Got it……Please tell me some avaliable overclock frequencies of those 6970m users. I have improved the volt of my 5850m and make it working at the 850/1100 by refreshing the vbios. And it has more than 10K score with catalyst 11.4 in 3dmark vantage Performance-GPU. If the 6970m has not any place to overclock, I worry it is only a little advantage than 5850m OC.

 

35-40% isn't exactly a little advantage.

 

35%?According to the data from others, 6970m has about 11500 score without overclock. Do you mean 6970m can oc at least to the 13500 score? In fact, 35% isn't a satisfied improvement. I wished at least 14500 with OC by the 240W adpter before (but now it seems impossible)

 

You can hit 14k with a good OC.

 

You have the P14400 as your signature? What do I need to hit this score? And what's the meaning of 1120 shaders? 6970m has 960 sp……

 

That's also just the 3DMark scores, in real games it's a bigger difference.

 

What do you prefer? Vantage points or fps in games? The 6970m performs almost as good as a 5870m crossfire setup if you look at the framerate. The 6970m is really superior to the 5850m, take a look at the DX11 capabilities of the card... pretty amazing imo.

Also about vantage... to get 10k with a 5850m you have to push the card quite hard while the 6970m gets 11k at stock...
The 6970m is the second best mobile GPU atm, and the one with the best price/performance ratio... if you want more power you can always wait and hope that a future card will work in this system.
I don't care whether you get the 6970m or stay with the 5850m, that's up to you... if the difference isn't enough for you, don't buy it...

 

I have an ES version of the card, it is the Blackcomb XTX with 1120 shaders (basically a 6990m) that's why I can hit that score. If pushed hard enough, the 6970m can hit it too.

 

I don't mean 6970m isn't a nice card. But only by oc it to hit the limitation can the advantage comparing to the 5850m OC be fully represented. However, with the limited power and no enduring guaratee as DELL(I dare not to push the card so hard) we cannot have the whole potential power of 6970m. Sorry, perhaps I wished so much, because people are all greedy At last, I think I will take 6970m for the coming battlefield3. Although it is not satisfied, 6970m is more powerful undoubtedly.

 

I heard the news that someone got a mistake mobile card from DELL, and it has the same specifications with 6870. Oh, it is here! I also saw the image of the score

 

Well it was complicated, the original owner got this card from eurocom (Clevo based) he flashed it with a Dell vbois and boom unlocked the extra shaders. Can't complain. With the new drivers, I can now run it with an overclocked CPU no problem.

 

Hey slv7, have you try to flash your vbios with widezu69 vbios to see if you get those shader unlock?

 

It won't work. The original vbios actually disabled the extra shaders. It was the Dell one that unlocked it.

 

You got the card from Ichime, right? I'll ask him whether he still has the original vbios... I want to take a look at it.

 

Do it. No harm...right?

 

No harm with asking, no :d But with flashing maybe, hahaha, no, I don't know whether I'll flash it, I just wanna take a look at it first.

 

off topic but anyone tried 6970M in m17x R2 already?thanks in advance

 

Can you post your vbios widezu69? I probably will do it and see what happen.

 

Yes they did and it work as well but also have the fan issue. Only a single card had been test. I don't think anyone try doing crossfire with it yet.

 

thank you for the info, could you link me to somewhere with that result if it exits

 

Here's a thread with some info: M17x-R2 + 6970M

 

thank you so much svl7!

 

hey slv7 I noticed that widezu69 gpuz show dell(1028) under subvendor but our show sapphire/pcpartner(174B). Wonder that had to do with the unlock shader? Didn't you flash your to dell vbios as well?

 

Yes... and let me count... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ...
...

...

...

...

... 959, 960. Damn, still 960 shaders Widezu, do you have some shaders you don't need?

 

Lol, man we still left behind. Does your subvendor show as dell(1028)?

 

Yes of course, check the benchmark thread, there you can see GPU-Z on the screenshot. The subvendor is flashed with the vbios, it's not bound to the hardware.

 

Would love to dish out shaders for all the great forum members. Need to find a way of extracting them and handing them over. I hear pixie dust is good.

 

So I've been out of the loop for a while and don't feel like reading the old thread and this new 34 page one lol.

So what's the consensus on the 6970m in the m15x? Has it been running ok?

 

It runs fine. With the new versions of HWInfo32 fan control is also pretty much sorted as well. Plus the newest ATi drivers allowed me to run games with an overclocked CPU problem at all

 

Yeah, it works very well so far. PSU gets to its limits while overclocking (might be less of a problem with a non-extreme CPU), so it's useful to have a kill-o-watt or similar around to see the power draw.

Proofread your posts carefully to see if you any words out.

 

Haha oops I meant with no problems at all but I'm guess you knew that

 

Hey guys, what is the best way to clean the previous thermal paste? And do you put the paste on both gpu and the heatskink or just the gpu? Also, is it alright to use 70% rubbing alcohol instead of 99%, since 99% is nowhere to be found in stores.

 

Yeah, isorpopyl alcohol or similar will work. I only have 70% as well atm and it works fine, no problem at all.

Only put paste on the die of the die of the GPU, that's the easiest and most accurate way. With paste on both you will have a mess and too much paste.

 

Sorry for constant noob questions, but how do you take out the retention bracket from the previous gpu and put it on 6970? Will my 5850 retention bracket have a problem fitting into 6970? Also, is the retention bracket must needed?

 

Yes, the back plate is a must, otherwise you can't fix the heatsink on the card. The one from the 5850m will work, but it doesn't fit perfectly, nevertheless it works. See the first post for more infos and pics about this issue.

 

Hi guys, just to say that with the Dell vBios on my ES card, audio over DP/HDMI works also. Looks like the Dell vbios is a keeper for all

 

Fan situation stayed the same?

 

Fan is the same although I have rarely tested it without HWInfo32 but I guess it is still the same.

 

It's a bit weird... I'm not sure what's causing the fans to run on high speed all the time... with the 470m for example the fan control works perfectly. (But the card doesn't, lol)

 

allergy to awesomeness

 

Just successfully installed 6970M.



Good thing I had the Dell card, otherwise I would have had the same fan problem like some people.

 

Nice one, now for some benchmarks!