Cannot get 4850's to work in M17

Also what chipset drivers are you running?

Are these newer?

http://aliendl.alienware.com/Mobile/m17/M17_Chipset_Vista_x86_x64_9.0.0.1008.exe

 

The vram shouldnt be the problem at all. The drivers adjust according to how much they see available. The ID string will be different from the Asus cards, even though both are m98 cores, they are different "devices" (I believe? - all say "4800 series" in GPU-Z though, at least on desktop the 4850's did)

 

I did try the 9.7 drivers for mobility cards but they are the exact same as all the others. Well im giving up for the evening. Will try again tommorrow but not holding my breath

 

Aye I agree Scook, the memory itself shouldn't be an issue; if the newer cards with more memory are using a slightly different BIOS revision; well that could, and could be why they're not detecting, as the ID string may be different, even if only slightly
Ie

"ATI Pixie Boy" = ati2mtag_R7x, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9598&SUBSYS_B3831002
"ATI Pixie Man" = ati2mtag_R7x, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9598&SUBSYS_B3831005

 

Drivers from AW site are 8.57.

Which I believe were the same version the W90 was stuck on until you flashed both cards to master.

 

Hmm i just had an issue where using updated driver wrecked the use of OEM ones :S (with my 4850) so ive just restored, i may upload the stock MSI ones for you guys as the installer for 8.56 actually worked with a fresh install of windows (meaning i didnt have to manually mod and install them :S).

So the 8.56 i have may work, i will attempt to upload.

Also the drivers i have are 150mb...thats like 3 times bigger then the ATI release ones lol, prehaps theres more in this bundle

 

The AW official 3870 Drivers are still 8.57, so they probably just added the strings for the 4850's into their current drivers for the 3870's. Kinda lame, since ATI has mad a crapton of changes to improve the 48xx series drivers since then.

 

If the ID strings et al are there, would it not be possible to 'borrow them' to mod the official drivers?
I don't have the laptop yet, or a decent connection ATM as just swapped ISP and it's still line testing; with c**ppy throughput.

 

marshall what the problem is, is your gpu's are new. you need the device id in order to in it. run windows update and try to some kind of driver install to identify the device then we can go from there.


it's going to be alittle hard because of the fact you are the first one with these gpu's. but we'll get it.

 

Right have just done a clean install of vista 64. Have got hold of the AW drivers that are on the support site. Just going through a full widows update at the minute then will give the AW drivers a go and see what happens.

 

very good news i will stay up and see what becomes of it

 

Not good news im sorry to say. When running the AW driver an error message comes up saying "Failed to initialize detection manager" then the driver just ends its installation. Out of ideas now

 

well good news is its AW fault the program is incorrecly linked...

AW should update the drivers soon



can you try the Asus w90p drivers please?

 

This is maybe a bit of a longshot, but for the M17 with 3870s using AW drivers there is actually two steps. First you install the 8.52 driver package which has the CCC in it. Then you run the 8.57 drivers update, which is really just a self extractor and .bat file and all it does is overwrite the drivers, and repoint them in the registry, it doen'st update the CCC at all.

Here is the link to the 8.52 driver package.

You might have to modify the inf in the 8.52 with the 4850 information somehow...

So the question is, when you ran the 8.57 driver above did you get the typical ATI installation screen prompts, or did you get a dos-like window saying it was extracting files?

 

Man oh man, hope its a software problem and not hardware. I'm ready to sell a couple pints of blood if I have too to get these cards.............maybe even a few other things since I'm young and need the money.






I'm kidding about the last part

 

Well thats a no to the asus drivers also. Just find it strange that in device manager even the standard VGA adaptor has an exclamation mark next to it. Normally they are both ok. Gonna need to dig deeper I think.

 

Did you check out my post above? What does the 8.57 driver package you tried do, does it bring up the ATI installer?

 

Yeah the catalyst splash screen come up then the language selection then the error message follows. Gonna take one card out and give that ago.

 

Ahh, different driver package then the 3870's then. Like I said it was a bit of a longshot.

 

Maybe you really do need to contact AW about it. Perhaps you could lie and say that your system was ordered with 4850s?

 

Sounds like they had a legit reason to not sell them after all

although I do get the preasion they are not that bothered either

 

1. They are still being sold in "New" laptop orders.
2. AW knows what your system is "supposed" to have in it so "lying" to them that your system came with them is not going to work.
3. If you got them from AW, however, as I know someone did even though they told him to "please send them back", I would think they "might" provide the drivers, so if that's the case, it sure can't hurt to call.
4. I'm still boggled that the ones from AW's website aren't working.

 

This is quite perplexing. If AW really is selling 4850s with new systems then they MUST have drivers that work, however the ones on their site don't?

Maybe we just need to wait for a Mobility Modder that works with the 4000 series.

 

we dont have it confirmed they have shipped any new m17's with 4850's

just because they are selling them doesnt mean they have left the factory working

 

Hmm, that is true. Maybe they're working with ATi to get a working driver or something.

 

Have you taken a look at these? They're based on 9.2 Drivers, but maybe worth looking into.
http://cleansharez.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/ati-catalyst-92-high-performance-driver-3264-bit/

 

Interesting development. Tried one card and still the same. Put the 3870's back in and funny old thing they are not recognized and no driver will install for them either now. Just the two vga adaptors with yellow marks against them lol

 

strange that bud, but seeing as that has happend i think thats a good thing as its just vga driver or chipset driver issue...

just a thought bud

in device manager where you have the yellow question marks in the vga

right click and delete them

reboot your pc and let it find its own graphics adapters

see if this fixes 3870s.... if so do the same for 4850s

 

Also uninstall anything that you already have installed from ATI, and run a driver sweeper in safe mode. You've got something hosing them up.

 

Do this. I had a problem installing CCC with 9.7 and it was a renmant of the old drivers stopping it.

Delete ANY folders in Program Files related to ATi and then try it.

 

On it now. Although between each driver attempt I did that anyway. Even went through the registry deleting any ATI or CCC entries but to no avail still. Just sticking new chipset drivers on then gonna try again.

 

good luck Marshall....we are all following this mate!!

 

Man, please get them to work. Do a sacrifice if you need too!!

 

wait are you having problems with your 3870's as well,

also follow the moo's advice download drivers for the asus w90 and also for the msi gt725 with the 4850

 

yeah he said now his 3870's are having problems

 

Which therefore suggests there is another problem. If he can't get the drivers working on his 3870s then there's a problem with something else on his system.

 

its an outside call but it might just be that he confused the hell out of his system lol

I wonder if a bios flash IS required for this which is why we have had some different answers regarding having to send the machines to AW

 

nope it will work. well that mean two things. your os isn't installing the gpu right or his notebook is having a hardware problem.


what os is he using and if it's win7 what build there are some that won't work with crossfire no matter what you do.

 

he has tried both windows 7 and vista 64 i think

 

Do the master and slave cards have to be in specific slots when installed?

Also what's the driver version of your chipset?

 

Yup tried win 7 first then a clean install of vista 64. Funny thing is that on one occasion win 7 actually installed a generic driver and both cards showed in device manager as 4850's. Gonna start from scratch again I think. Have also tried the AW and the Asus and the MSI drivers all to no avail.

 

When my machine is here I'll try and see what drivers are included, and upload them if at all possible; it's likely this will have been solved by then; but just incase. I doubt AW would ship a laptop with non-installed GPU drivers!

 

Alex, when will your new machine get to you?

 

I'd format the entire hard drive and try to start again! (Backup any data first obviously) There's some conflicting driver problem most likely. If you format everything it will fix it easily. If you can't install drivers on your 3870s then you have something seriously wrong.

 

wait there you go. ok give me the device id for the 4850 here's a screen shot.
that is where you find them in the device manager and in that inf this is how it looks

uninstall all those drivers and use the beta ones from windows 7

 

Right i got the 3870's working by using the search for new drivers online which all went well. So before I did anything else I swapped the cards over to the 4850's and tried the exact same process. No go again. Says the best drivers are already installed. Im gonna try a clean install of win 7 RC Build 7100 as this was the only OS that actually recognized the cards. If this does not work then Ive had enough lol.

 

Would it be possible to get a picture of your cards? I am interested to see what type of connecter they are using and if they will fit in an M9750. I am going to purchase either a new M17 or M17x in the near future but would love to upgrade my M9750 to these cards so when I hand it down to the kids it will play games for a long time to come. Failing the 4850's I know I can at least go with the 3870's.

 

I cant get the device ID as they only show up as VGA adaptor and not 4850. Am doing a fresh install of win 7 now and will start from scratch and see if I can get the device ID

 

please don't give up. that's how ati's are and there a pain to install. it takes me for ever to install drivers some times. i don't think the 4850 are in ati's driver.

i know for a fact it isn't in 8.5-9.5. for a fact. i have seen them and i have them. that's why it's not installing. you just need that device id and put them in the inf's.

 

Right installing win 7 now so hopefully I can get the device ID and all will be good. Hope someone knows what to do with it though as I dont have a clue.