Dell ATI 8.763 (M15x/M17xR1/M17xR2) Driver/AMD 5870 VBIOS **READ POST 1 AND 2!!!!!**

You should still be able to flash the system bios to A07 revision now. It should still work. You can also try Dells new drivers if your having other problems. Cheers.

 

Yep, with this Driver and VBios Combo i would say this is the option which has to be correctly set. If not, the system gets weird!

I also created a thread about that issue:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/513833-multi-gpu-management-hd5870-beta-vbios.html

I'm curious on what changes affects the system setting back to Standard AI and let the system perform in the State 1. I think i will just have to run furmark from now on, to see if i'm good to go...

 

What's the difference between 10.8 and dell 8.763?

And you mean I must flash the system bios to A07,why?

 

Becuase it is recommended if you want to use the new VBIOS and enjoy the Sleep/Hibernate and Battery Functions

Edit: Since i don't see any signature, i need to say that this concerns only the HD5870 afaik.

 

I have some questions, noob questions by the way:
I have the A05 defaul bios version installed, and now, i see this called vbios, is this the same ?
If i do the vbios installation, it will bring my system to the A07 or is just like aplus for the A07 bios released?, and, if i do the windows reinstall must i need to re-install the vbios again?
Thanks for this useful thread

 

Please read Page 1. And no, VBIOS does not update your BIOS to A07, that's something completly different. The VBIOS updates your HD5870 GPU's to the latest firmware, nothing else. And you only have to do this once, and it is permanent (written onto the hardware, for beginners ). Same when you go to Dell's Support Page and install System BIOS A07, Permanent. You can't lose it

Also read this for how to update VBIOS, you need to have BIOS A07 already installed / flashed before:
NEW BETA VBIOS for HD5870 Mirrors and Installation Guide

 

Thanks, God or Goku bless you

 

Here is different question...

The second card on m17x burnt out...so AW is sending a tech to replace it.

Obviously, once I get the new second card it will not have the new vBIOS on it...how do I go about flashing just the second card?

Will ATI-flash recognize that the first card is already flashed and just do the second card? Or do I have to use a bootable USB drive to flash just the second card manually?

 

I can't know for sure, you might have to find out by your own, if the ati flash will detect the first card, not flash that one, and only flash the second card that doesn't have the new vbios yet (It actually should do exactly that). Don't think we can reproduce this, without flashing one card manually back Any volunteers? ^^

 

Just a thought but could you take the one you already flashed out.....install the new one and flash it as a singular card NOT in a crossfire setup?...then you would have two cards flashed exactly the same without reflashing the other???

This is just my noob approach LOL could be barking mad.....(will the slave fit in the master and vice versa?) - this is probably completely wrong mind you, just a thought so maybe ask somone more expereiced.

On a side note....have read about problems with A00 slave cards....being a noob, what does this A00 mean and how do i tell if i have 'em? (i believe A01 are ok)

 

I wouldn't do that, as the second GPU is clearly named on the back of the card as a slave card with a different serial id, i've seen. Call Dell for physical support and holding your hands during installing the new card if no technician is doing it. Good luck on that.

For Stevie
I think A00 refers inside Dell to drivers or anything that is in a alpha or beta stage or intitial release driver and A01 would be an already improved driver Dell releases as an updated release/revision. You might ask brian on inside details on how dell is logically thinking sometimes I can only guess and make understatements lol

I have two different GPU's in my notebook, labeled with different serial id's and both have a sticker on it saying A00.

 

Im sure i read somewhere that dual A00 cards was NOT a good thing.!!! - sent you a PM with a link that mentions this.

 

Sup Grimfan see u testing out that CCC options from what i saw myself it seems the beta driver were prob build on certain ccc settings for now? Also do u notice something wrong with Xfire aswell on some games dont work or it under perf for exampl ffxiv beta card never turns on and i saw u Posted about clocks in card. Im sure this is the -3k score i saw in the 3d mark. Im hoping Dell can release a ccc with diff setting profiles that work cuz just moving 1 option like AA or Cata AI will sent my perf to hell

 

well, I'm still using A05, simply because I saw no justification to update.

Had no probs with either the new vbios or the new Dell driver.

 

Im not sure if its correct, but when i flashed my cards using the dos method i had to run two commands which appeared to flash the two cards seperately.
You may be able to just flash the one card you need in a similar fashion.

Might be best to check with 5150joker however since i referred to his post on page 33.

 

Yeh I've kinda tried it when I was flashing my cards. It should work fine. When my 1st card was flashed I wasn't convinced that my 2nd card was flashed so I ran the flash program again and it told me the 1st card was already flashed and then it just flashed the 2nd one only.
I kept checking GPU-z to see if the bios version had been changed for both GPU's. The 2nd one hadn't changed so I ran the flash a few more times (maybe 6 times lol) until I saw that finally both GPU's had been flashed and the bios versions had changed in GPU-z. Also once both cards have been flashed you should get a message saying both cards have already been programmed with the function and flashed so it will just stop the flashing program and exit. After that your supposed to restart the system and all should be great.

Also I was recommended by Brian and others to already have System BIOS A07 and the latest Dell beta 10.8 driver installed prior to updating and flashing the vbios. Thanks. Good Luck.

Perhaps if you have more concerns you could send Brian a PM and let us know what he tells you on your current situation.
Cheers.

 

hi all, been away for some time so maybe someone could help me out here(lots of pages in this thread and im confused.) ill number my questions

1)is this beta driver + vbios just for the 5870 owners who have sleep/hibernation problems and the problem of not being able to install ati official drivers??

2)i have dual 4870s and running 10.7 right now. i know its not the best driver but is there any thing special about this beta driver/vbios(is it even for the 4870?) that i will benefit from?

saw that it said Enhancements:
1.Driver updates
2.Support for new game titles
3.Fixes reported power management issues (Sleep and Hibernate)

3)but is there anything more specific?

4) i also saw in the 10.8 thread that some people had problems removing 10.8's cc completely even with ccleaner and driver sweeper. does this dell beta 10.8 driver have the same problem?

 

Hi all,
I installed Dell 8.763 driver ,It gave me flashing if black screens while playing BFBC2 !!

I tried ATI 10.8 driver +app profiles 10.8a. even worse ,flickering + flashing of black screens in BC2 !!.

I believe that these drivers are meant for 5870 cards only .I went back to ati 10.7 + 10.7 app profiles ,everything seem to be fine AFAIK.

 

The new Vbios is ONLY for the 5870 cards.

DO NOT attempt to flash your 4870 cards to this. It probably doesn't even permit it, but I can assure you it would brick your cards.

 

Yep the Vbios update is only for 5870 GPU cards. It will work for both single and dual configuration.

 

There are two drivers out atm. Feel free to try either one or if you are having no driver or gaming problems and you don't want to mess with it for the moment then you don't have to update to these drivers either.

If you do want to however you could try the 10.8 8.763 dell ones or the official AMD ATi 10.8 drivers. For the AMD ones you will still have to use the workaround=true though in order to install them.
Also don't forget to use the 10.8 or 10.8a CAP profiles for games and stuff if you have a crossfire or dual gpu setup.

There has also been many reports that the combo of using either dell's or AMD's new drivers with the 10.8a CAP profiles for dual gpus has stabalised and increased FPS in certain games.

The problem some are experiencing with removing the 10.8 drivers is because the new Vbios doesn't support any lower driver versions atm. I'm not to sure about the 4870 situation with the new 10.8 drivers but you could give it a go if you like. I'm sure they should be fine.
Cheers.

 

Dell came out with an updated video driver this month. It was pulled because it was unstable and simply didn't work. Than they dump this beta driver on the site on August 26'th. This driver is different it appears to change the vbios as well as the video drivers. Not entirely sure how the installtion works as the release notes are as thin as ice in July. The update comes with a heavy warning

"This Beta Driver has been through limited compatibility and stability testing by Dell on Dell platforms. There may be more stable drivers, including the drivers originally shipped with your computer, available under the video section."

What happens if the vbios is unstable and than people try to revert back to the original drivers? Too much of a dog and pony show every week to take seriously. I sincerly hope it works for everyone but why doesn't Dell thoroughly test it before using us as Guinea pigs? Their instructions are run setup.exe, they have got to be kidding. Since from the instructions it appears the vbios and video driver are combined in the executable file how does one revert back to an older vbios if this one is unstable?

 

Howdies,

The VBios isn't publicly available. Not from dell directly anyway. It was only meant to be a trial and test for those here on the forum who wanted to get it early and test it on their machines. So those who wanted to would have to originally PM Brian and he would send it out to them privately. It has since been made available on page 33 of this forum thread. (To be used at your own risk of course). The main fix of the Vbios was sleep, hibernation, battery unplugging and plugging in, blank black screen hangs and shutting down issues. It is true though that the driver dell puts up would and seems to work better when also using the Vbios update.

If you do use the vbios however there is also a warning that you won't be able to use drivers before 10.8 and so forth. So those whom have updated the vbios are most likely willing participants. Great results and the mentioned issues have also seemed to be fixed. Also another bonus atm is that the AMD 10.8 drivers seem to be working well on the new Vbios setup as well.

Dell is currently trying to put a package together and release the updated vbios publicly sometime soon. Cheers.

 

I had PM'd Brian to get the new VBIOS, but ended up downloading it from the link and installing it.

All is good so far. I'm no longer getting sleep/BSOD issues, and games are running smoothly. Let's hope this is the end of the whole 5870 driver issue.

 

ok...

Updated the vbios.
Updated to the beta dell drivers.
Updated system bios to A07.

All is well in games, increased performance, no noticeable issues.

However, I'm still having the system freeze issue where if I'm afk a while, I come back and the system is completely unresponsive. Can't move the mouse, use keyboard input, ctrl-alt-delete, etc. Only thing to do is to turn off the machine by powering it down w/o shutting down windows (my RAID loves this...has to re-verify every time I hard shutdown).

Ironically, I never had a power/shutdown problem prior to installing the new driver. Any suggestions?

 

Hmm wow this is odd. Most of the users who have updated to the dell driver and new Vbios have had that issue fixed. Hmmmsss..

Just wondering did you have the dell beta driver already installed before you updated the vbios?
It is recommended to have the 10.8 dell driver fully installed before attempting to update the vbios.

If you did that already then I can only say to double check the flash bios versions using GPU-z for both cards and make sure they are indeed showing that both cards are now running on the new Vbios 012.020 instead of 012.019.

If that checks out then I guess try reinstalling the drivers again. Dell 10.8 or AMD 10.8.


What were your system specs by the way? Just in case we missed something.

Cheers.

 

I've been away for two days and this thread grows quite fast, so I've only read about the first half.

I'm running three copies of Windows on my M17x (1 is the OEM version, without any mods, 2 are VHD-Boot versions) and last night I cleaned the old ATI drivers off of all three and reinstalled the new ones. On the OEM Windows and ony my Games Windows they installed just fine. Even smoother than the original Dell ones, they would crap out half way through the install. The thirs copy of Windows (for work) wouldn't allow the drivers to install properly. The ATISetup manual method worked in the end.

All three copies of windows had problems shutting down or going to sleep. In both cases they would hang.

After flashing the new vBIOS, which went fine the first time, the problems went away. Now everything seems to run great!

This is - as you can see in my sig - on a single 5870 system.

 

I think you have to do these in a particular order (i havent done it yet) and if you went off the order above, i dunno, but it may be giving you grief because of that. Im no expert so again, i could be wrong.

My assumption is that you have to have the A07 bios already updated PRIOR to proceeding.
Then you need to have the drivers and only once you have done this should you attmpt to flash the vbios.

Is this right guys?, if this is the correct order of things, would doing it any other way result in these problems?

 

Hey everyone is anyone able to reproduce issues concerning Flickering and Tearing, upon having a Game run in Crossfire Mode with these drivers (Dell Beta 8.763 with new VBIOS)?

I only have this problem when CrossFireX is enabled in Catalyst Control Center, there is no Tearing or any Flickering when only 1 GPU is running even if V.Sync is off, i'm also out of ideas on what settings to try, i don't get rid of it.

I tried testing it on Starcraft 2 and Mafia 2, with V.Sync Off. Catalyst AI to advanced and everything else to application controlled or default. I also reseted CCC to factory default, no luck.

Would be grateful for any info, on how to solve this problem, thanks.

 

Nothing can be done about it, it happened to me in Mafia 2 as well. Until AMD updates the Catalysts to better utilize CFX for these games, the slight flickering will be there in crossfire mode. What you can do to alleviate it is to download Radeonpro ( RadeonPro :: Radeon Profiles Tool) and create profiles for each game. Check the boxes for vsync + triple buffering, this way you do not get much input lag and your framerate stays high.

 

Thank You Joker, Yeah i think i just have to use V.Sync on then until a fix gets posted. I also created a thread concerning this issue, so others can post there and tell their experience.

Can you tell me a game i could test Crossfire and V.Sync off with, where this does not occur? Would be great, so i can be sure it only concerns those 2 games so far.

 

None of my other games have it. Such as bad company 2, mass effect 2, dirt 2, alien swarm etc. BTW do not use vsync only, make sure to use radeonpro specifically with triple buffering enabled. This ensures you do not go from 60 fps one second to 30 fps the next.

 

Ok, cool, that comforts me a little again, will test one of those if i get my hands on it, when i go into city again. (I'm not a FPS-Fan tho )

I normally had it just like you said enabled, its under tweaks for games. But is this the same V.Sync and Triple Buffering found in CCC?

Also is ATI death? Just went on amd site, and what is going on, everything is new branded with AMD. lol? Is there a post about this, did they finally fire the ATI Team for good? Just fooling around, hahaha

 

Just an FYI:
Updated BIOS to A07
Cleaned old video drivers off and installed the 10.8
Manually flashed vbios - (thank you soooo much Joker for the Howto)
Installed the 10.8a profiles
------
No problems in game, great fps(unless you guys need details I'm not listing)
I still have the CTD's in BFBC 2 but I believe it's because the profiles were not installed into the proper directory (my doing for putting all ATI into its own directory and not default). I ran out of time to troubleshoot that issue and if that's the case should be a simple fix.
It was really the performance issues and marching lines I wanted to fix and this combo has done so. Also it fixed the sleep/hibernate and on battery issues for me.
Grim - can you give a short description of what you mean by tearing, if I am understanding it has something to do with how the two gpu cards synchronize their rendering on screen. I get this sort of thing in cutscenes. Don't want to sound like an idiot when I try to describe what I see and I think I am getting that same 'tearing' as you are.
Wasn't Ash working on this kind of issue using Radeonpro?
Joker - I like your avatar, very appropos. Will try Radeonpro and advised settings to see if it fixes the issue.

 

My tearing is graphical/video distortion, normally on fast/moving pictures/frames, i think it's like you say a sync issue between the two GPU's not working properly together, so might be possible without a fix, i'm not able to solve that problem. (I can wait, and use the method mentioned by Joker again, as i did previously).

Was just not sure if i was doing something wrong on my end that could prevent this, but doesn't look like it. That's already a reliefe for me

Also let me find an example pic on google, how it looks like in a snapshot.

Of course in an animated picture, this is almost seen all over the screen or also locally on screen.

 

Thx Grim. No hurry, I have to go to class in next 30min so I can't work on any of it til I get back this evening. It is always helpful when we use the same term/description for the same issue. Like flickering can mean a whole screen flashing or just small lines depending on the person. Will await the pic or youtube video. And I'll install Radeonpro when I get home. Looking forward to seeing if it works for you.
Also will test Mafia 2 after the Radeonpro. Finished the game on the desktop and going to install to laptop tonight.

**EDIT** that is exactly what I'm getting. Thx again.

 

Sorry to read that, but i definetly agree with Joker, that while you may have read the thread, you might not have understood it all. This thread is about contributing issues, therefor it's natural you will read about issues...

Also the avatar Joker shows, is releated to AMD getting rid of the ATI brand, and has nothing to do with Dell.

Dell and Alienware/ Brian and his gang are doing a great job on listening and reading our oppinions and issues, to have them fixed, the way it should be.

Also if you have seen the VBIOS on the dell site you did not read carefully enough AGAIN. (The VBios is only available via this thread or Jokers linked thread if you want, or via pm) And yes, it's the VBios that fixes the issues with sleep/hibernate/run on battery, the System Bios A07 influences differently on that, and shouldn't be the big influence factor we try to get fixed along THESE drivers, as some people are able to use the VBIOS correctly with Sytsem Bios A05 for example.)

There is no need to bash one person or company twice in the same thread. Please leave your negative comment out, and post something constructive regarding the Drivers.

PS: Please don't hate me for pointing out the obvious, what everyone should interprete the same, except you maybe. No hard feelings, just saying

 

Well said!




p.s AMD did a Julia Gillard!

 

Just a question....ive read that alot of people use radeonpro with triple buffering and i understand the logic behind it i think (helps with tearing issues when the frames are generated too fast for the monitor to handle by gpu's - is that right?)

So, i noticed a setting in CCC for OpenGL Triple Buffering...is that the same thing? - is one better than the other at doing this?

 

Me and Infernia have to test it how it works out when we get home, as already mentioned i think i have the exact 2 games (SC2 and Mafia2) that cause the flickering with Crossfire so far.

Will see if i can minimize the effect, tho already enabling the V.Sync option in any of the two games will solve the problem, but i don't know if that should be like this with only that option, as for other games it seems to be not necessary activated to work properly with CrossFire.

And yes you got the right idea on how the tearing is handled by 2 GPUs and the LCD Screen not able to keep up with the produced framerate / image.

Cheers!

 

I for one am very satisfied with the Beta Driver and the "beta" Vbios. I see no downside at lest for me, many improvments. I don't benchmark my systems very often, I just read others results here . I do game alot, and have seen major improvements in fps, and no sleep issues. Flashing the Vbios does not void your warranty, Dell gives this and other Betas out to people on this forum to help them test in the real world. So if your willing, go head, We are but the pioneers here who are helping all of us in the end, and have a pretty good rep in the web too . Thank you Brian (Dell), Grim, Joker, and others for getting us to this point..

 

Im assuming here that as many people are reporting success or vast improvements with this new vbios/driver/profiles combo that at some point in the near future, Dell will release it as an optional/recommended update on support.com.

I am hoping that this process will be fairly simple to apply (same fashion as regular updates) and that it will be kind of a "one click fix" to these ongoing issues.

There seems to be lots of ways to downloand and execute this new vbios....dont know what Brian has been sending out to people (vbios AND driver or just vbios) or how he has told them to do the flashing process. Some seem to have come up with their own way of doing this. Reading Joker's method of flashing from DOS or from a flash drive etc...its hard to know as a noob which is the RIGHT way! (maybe their isnt a right way, just various ways to do the same thing)

As a noob, im looking for the easiest "no hassle" way to get these changes done to my system without risk - seems like alot of people have ran into trouble by trying to perform this process and they are probably more pc literate than my good self! - noticed that a few people have reported failed flashes etc etc suggesting to me that there is a specific way to do this correctly.

 

VBIOS only. Since you can get the Beta Drivers from Support Site. And yes, it's a 1-click-flasher, after extracting it. Not much influence you can take into it. And if you read the instructions carefully, it will work. If it fails the 1-click flasher, restart the flasher until you get the proper verified message upon flash was succesful, that's all, to know for the installation.

What Brian gave as instruction and what me and Joker added some more comfort info along is...

This:
NEW BETA VBIOS for HD5870 Mirrors and Installation Guide

 

Thanks Grim, I had read your post on p33. Also, read Jokers forum posts on the same. He says that there is a risk of bricking your cards by flashing from within windows so is that advised? - is that how Brian told you to do it?

 

It's a risk if you DON'T flash it completly or half, or it gets aborted and you REBOOT with a failed flash.

Yes, that's how it was more or less described with the installer (with additional useful info). I changed my previous post a little so you can see the picture that it should show upon succesful installation.

If not just REDO the flash, you can't overflash it. Once both cards are flashed correctly, reboot your computer.

If you follow these steps there is no concerning in using the installer provided by dell. Fullstop. No more discussion about how to anymore, i will ignore such posts from now on, and just post that link to jump back to page 33. Should be clear now.

 

Yeh Brian just gave us the file in a compressed format so all we had to do was rename the file as a .zip then extract the files out. Run the ATI flash setup and let it do its thing. There are also a few other notes Brian posts in his PM if you asked for the vbios to be sent to you in your email.

Lists here;

Notes – read before you flash – I’ll keep it brief.



- This VBIOS is for 5870 cards ONLY. Single or dual configs are fine – it will flash both.

- You MUST load the 8.7xx video driver stack BEFORE flashing your VBIOS. If you flash before you load the newer video drivers, the result will be endless BSODs. Safe mode or VGA mode will work around this… Once you have the new VBIOS, you can’t use the 8.6xx driver stack any more.

- You will not be able to flash back to the old VBIOS.

- You can use this flash in Windows – run as Administrator.

- Please post comments, positive or negative on the NB Forums. If you need to reach me directly, please continue to do so through the NB Forums.

- Do not share this email address with anyone please.

- This will not void your warranty.

- Rename the file to .zip, extract to desktop and run .EXE to launch.



Thanks,
Brian


I like you Stevie was also scared about bricking my cards. So i just stayed on the forum when I did the flashing. Grim and others helped me through any questions I had during the process. You should be able to read my experience a few pages back.

Pretty much as long as you don't restart your system until you are fully sure that the flash has been successfully completed on both GPUs then all will be well. Also you need to make sure that you have Dells 10.8 7.863 driver installed prior to flashing using the Vbios.

You can use GPU-z after the flashing stage to keep checking after the flash to see if both cards have indeed changed flash version to 012.020 from the previous vbios version which was 012.019. (PS as Grimfan stated it is best and recommended to have nothing else running during the flashing vbios process).

Once both cards have been successfully flashed you will get a message that both cards have already been flashed and that you can't flash them again. Then all is good and you can restart the system. Then your good to go, start your engines and test away.

Cheers.

 

Reborn, i don't recommend to have GPU-Z open while flashing the cards, as it will probably read info from it. So don't have anything open. Close everything, and the flash should work correctly as it did for most.

Ah Brian even mentioned that it will NOT Void your warranty, so i assume even if you do something completly wrong to the opposite we were suggesting, Dell will replace your card for sure.

 

Ah yeh woops thats true. I should have stated that I checked after each attempted flash. Thanks for pointing that out. A very good point.

Cheers.

 

Thanks Reborn/Grim.

I have one final question..(honestly!) . Got the vbios thing sorted in my head but prior to doing the drivers, do i uninstall the old drivers/CCC? - do i then need to run driversweeper from safe mode to get rid of nasties?

I only ask as i really wanna do things correctly IF i attempt it (which i may well do as the system i will be testing it out on is gonna be going back to dell anyhow.....time for a bit of guinea pig treatment LOL )

Good to know about the warranty too........

 

Yes you may want to uninstall the drivers correctly, so Catalyst Express Uninstall and after that DriverSweeper. I still recommend a fresh windows install, as this makes your default driver to VGA, which is the best base in my oppinion to install drivers upto.

PS: will be soon home, then i can test again, and see what i get.