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

I am positive I have a M17xR2 the beta dell driver and 2 HD 5870 m

 

did it fail on the first flash (master 5870) or on the second flash (slave 5870)?

if only on the first, you can take that one out, and try to boot just with the secondary 5870. Try leaving it in the secondary slot, if no boot, try it in the primary slot.

if it boots, then your master might be bricked...

 

So one ongoing problem I'm really starting to notice so far is the secondary GPU is hardly taking on any percentage of the load when it should be. I've been testing it with BF2 and SC2 for the past few hours and constantly I notice the secondary card stays at its default clocks (100/150) while the primary card is being used fully at 700/1000. The secondary card will jump even now and then but I'm not seeing its load percentage go anything higher then 35%. Any speculations?

 

How many times did you try to flash?

For me, the primary card flashed correctly on the first attempt, but the secondary card took 3 attempts. (Do not restart until both cards have been successfully flashed - I believe these instructions have already been listed).

 

anyone here already did flash back the old Vbios pls show me how to do it easily pls? I have probs with all my game I play with new driver,don't know why but I wanna use the old driver by Dell! Thanks...

 

This is a bricked card from a failed flash on the master gpu and has to be replaced by support. (Actually it should be scroll + caps blinking)

And no, you can't use the secondary slave gpu in the master slot, it won't accept the card, as it is physically a bit different than the master.

I'm sure you did something wrong when flashing the card, especially you should not have restarted the computer when you get the message programming failed.

 

It's possible, it's the same method Joker describes on his forum, page 33 is a link, using the DOS method. You will need the old VBIOS.

But i wonder why people don't test their drivers beforehand and see if they work nicely with their games, before flashing the vbios, which more or less only cures sleep/hibernate/booting on battery issues.

 

After Installing the Beta VBIOS and the Beta DELL Driver gaming is a lot of fun on the R2.

I have not seen any stability issues so far......

MAFIA 2 with all settings set to high is running super. Before this update I used to get some screen tearing while driving but it is no longer there. The GPU temps go up to 74C, Is that okay? should I be worried about it ?. BFBC2 never goes above 68C....... so just wondering.

Rivatuner is not able to recognize my card so I am not able to set the fan speeds manually. However this issue was there even before the updates (VBIOS and Driver). Since the temps were always normal I did not care.

Will try ATI tray tools and see......

The game that I am having problems with is Saboteur.
Get a lot of tearing while driving. Tearing is not visible when u are doing all the other stuff but you get to see some funny small pixel kind of shapes in the blue skies and water. Don't know what that is.
I tried the Joker method with VSYNC ON and triple buffering using Radeonpro but that does not seem to help. These kind of problems were usually solved in other games by disabling Xfire but even after doing that the problems persist. Is anyone facing this kind of an issue? I think the problem is with the game..... i guess its not designed to well.... to work on ATI cards.

 

74 degs and 68 are super nice and low max load temps. Normal temps!
You should be very happy with those temps.

Once you start hitting over 90 degs and 100 degs then you might want to re apply your thermal paste and change mem pads.

I'd say the problem is most likely just with that particular game. Perhaps in future driver releases or game patches it could be fixed or improved upon.

Enjoy the gaming and testing.

Cheers.

 

Could anyone supply the vbios to me? I am not able to pm erawneila / brian.

 

Page 33...

 

Thanks for your infos...
I had lower performance with old driver and I see many people out here can run the new one smoothly so I tried that out but with that new I have some probs with games that I play so just come back,it's better than waiting the next one to fix something!

 

Hell yeah.... thank you!

I've read the first ~10 pages and there was always the hint to send brian a private message. since I've not been very active in posting here, I guess, this is the reason for not being able to send pms.

 

That's too bad, most people are very satisfied with the new drivers and the vbios. I hope you installed the new drivers correctly, or more important, uninstalled previous drivers correctly, which would be Catalyst Express Uninstall via programs, then driver sweeper and maybe a registry clean with ccleaner.

Did you also try installing the catalyst Application profiles? Those might come handy for CrossFire, especially new games take some big advantage out of them.

Yeah that's how i got it in the first place. And yes i think you need to have atleast 5 or 10 quality posts on this forum and get activated (auto i guess after some time) and then you can send pms. Please follow the advices carefully, also about being comfort with known issues and things that could happen. I think i can't stress this enough. If you follow the instructions carefully for installation, along the info on page 1, you should have no trouble at all, if you always know what you do.

Good Luck.

 

So your gaming became better after installing the v-bios.. just want to know if its worth trying the v-bios.. You never know if your sitting with a non working laptop after reading in here..

 

As long as you follow the directions on the first page, you should be good to go. I have had zerio issues with the VBIOS and DEll Beta Driver, I also am running the ATI Profils too.

 

yes follow the directions and if the vbois fails run it until it completes successfully. When do you think they will release this and not be a beta?
Mine is fixed already hehehe.

 

You will be able to PM after the following -

I encourage you to go this route rather than following 'un-official' guides. Contact Brian. Anything goes wrong, you are dealing directly with Dell.

 

Yeah I aready tried a few times to reinstall this driver with everything clean with driver sweeper, but not ccleaner, maybe do it again to see what's happenning.
I don't really want to flash back because I have very good performance with this new one, my only problem is in every game there are always the wavy line and some noise ( like when you're watching TV with not exactly frequency) appear in the darker screen scene,atleast with 4 games that I had: Street Fighter 4, NFS Shift, Mafia 2 and Crysis, in every game it show the same wavy line and noise like that. As what I've been read on that thread, there is no one have these prob, maybe I'm gonna give you some screen shot and I hope we can figure that out.thanks again

Oops I've forgot to mention, I can't use any tool for this card, for ex ATI tray tool, I tried to install that and I've got dump memory, it happen to you?

 

If there is a V.Sync option ingame, enable it, and the wavy lines and noise should be gone. I can see it in Mafia 2 aswell, if its turned off, but if its turned on, it's all smooth.

Also AtiTrayTool is outdated, you might want to try RadeonPro, but i heard it can conflict with the Catalyst Application Profiles.

 

If u do it the right way, as explained in the initial posts of this thread...... then its totally worth it. I was way too frustrated with the gaming exp after buying my M17x.

But after this update I feel the money is well spent.

I Only HOPE that Dell keep on releasing updated drivers.

Many Thanks to Brian.....

 

Confirm with V.sync on everything disappear in S.Fighter 4, Mafia 2 and Crysis, I can't make it better in NFS Shift but that means I can stay on this one longer and thank you so much Grimfan!
++ rep

 

lol guys, did you all just copy my sig and edit it a little, just like i did when i found to these forums...

And for NFS, you can try as mentioned before radeon pro to force V.Sync, but then you may also want to enable trillinear optimization or triple buffering along with it.

Maybe it already works by forcing it in CCC.

 

o

Yeah,I did copy it, so thank for that copy one and everything else

And with NFS couldn't make it better, everything is terrible within or without Vsync lol

 

Well let me tell everyone about what happened to me post beta vbios/beta drivers:

I got the beta drivers installed. Did the whole clean install, driver sweeper combination thing so I know it was a clean install.

I do the vbios flash and both cards get flashed (took 2 attempts for the second card to work) but in the end both cards flashed 20,000/20,000 bytes...everything looks great.

I reboot all is well. So I start up BFBC2 and its great...getting 60+ fps most of the time except when there are lot of explosions and smoke effects. Wonderful.
So it was I late night and I shutdown, determined to try more the next day.

Next day, I boot up its all good. I start up Fallout 3 and everytime I get near a door I get screen rolling (vertical) and studder (but FPS still at 60 pretty much constantly). The wierd screen roll thing happens sparatically in all different places. I mess with setting in game for VSync and in CCC...no change. I figure, ok, must be a patch or something...so i'll look at that later and try another game.

Try Metro 2033 (steam version). Get that same screen rolling in the intro screen. I go to "continue game" and game locks up everytime. Cant get it to load. Now I am freaked out...games that had worked great before the betas are now crazy. I uninstall/reinstall Metro 2033...no change...

So I get on the phone with AW and we spend 2 hours trouble shooting and we cant get any change. So he decides its my cards and sends me out 2 new cards.

So now I have the two new cards installed with the original vbios and driver...and am too scared to pull the trigger again on updating to beta vbios and beta driver again (did a clean install of the original dell driver before installing new cards).

So my questions are:
1. Is anyone else having these specific issues with these specific games (fallout 3 and metro 2033)?
2. Anyone having anything similar with any other games?
3. Do you guys think it actually could have been the card (or cards) and I should just install the beta driver/beta vbios again or is this asking for more trouble? (I dont think I can take the laptop being down for another week because its all messed up again..)

I would appreciate some input from Grimfan and/or Joker as you guys seem to be the resident experts here...but any advise/info would be awesome at this point.

Oh yeah, one more question...do we have any estimate on when the WHQL versions (or whatever they call the approved ones) of the vbios/driver are coming out?

**Edit**
Specs:
m17x-r2 cosmic black/i7-720/4GB 1333 DDR3/5870 in crossfire/17" 1920x1200 screen/1 TB HD raid 0/win 7 home premium 64 bit

 

Don't have those games but...

How about only testing the beta drivers WITHOUT flashing the vbios and see if it's actually the driver. Besides the VBIOS Flash should "only" cure Sleep/BSOD/Battery Issues in windows. And if you get this far into it with the BETA Drivers, go test the games, this way you can always go back without having to manually flash back to the previous vbios.

If the driver does not perform well for you, you might have to wait for a new driver or fix from Dell, the vbios should not have any influence on performance afaik, only on stability within windows with these new drivers.

And no, no time frame announced yet.

And if you get the same issues again while playing, i think it wasn't the cards, and it's just fact the drivers are not optimized for those games and you should forward your issues to erawneila/Brian.

 

So to summarize, you are saying the VBIOS shouldnt have anything to do with the screen rolling/metro not starting...
and you are saying that I should just try the beta drivers only to see if these issues still persist...
and you are saying I would have the sleep/battery issue if I use the beta drivers without the new vbios...

Right?

Thanks btw!!

 

If your entire screen was rolling, you had defective cards. If you saw rolling lines, which is a completely different symptom, then that's just a case of needing vsync.

 

What Joker said + 1. Correct 2. Correct and 3. Correct = Right!

If you run your games, with the only difference in updating to the beta drivers, where before everything was working just fine, i'm positive it's the beta driver, not your cards, not the vbios.

 

Well...

Thank you Grimfan and Joker...you were right.
I guess one (or hell even both) of my previous
cards was defective because I did in fact have
the whole screen rolling like an old fashioned TV.
So basically...I went with your (both of you) advice
and first installed just the beta driver...no
issues...then flashed to the beta vbios and now
also NO ISSUES!!! Woo hoo after weeks of
trial and error...failure after failure...5 video cards
and 1 system replacement...at long last, my
m17x-r2 is the gaming monster I paid for!!! WOW!
All I can say is...despite all that crap...it was
TOTALLY worth it!!

 

Man that's just sad. Dell needs to get a handle on QC.

 

Hi there,

I just updated to the new driver and the new bios. But now to my problem.

With stock drivers and everything but some catalyst driven handicaps are working. hibernation etc.

With every other official driver I was always getting either problems in 3d mode or problems with shutdown / hibernation / standby.

So I was very lucky about the new beta drivers and users here saying, this would handicap would be done. Some users also needed the new bios, so I tried the new driver.

3D seems to run quite well, but when it comes to hibernation or standby the system initiates but also leaves the system running with black screen and no response to any input.

So I flashed the new vbios, but also no improvement.

Any Idea? Should I reinstall the Alienware Command Center and OSD? Do these tools cause problems?

 

Installing the new dell drivers along with the beta vbios should have solved those above problems you were having with standby, shutdown, black screens, sleep and hibernation.

You need to make sure that you have uninstalled all other previous ATi or gpu drivers and install dells new 10.8 7.683 drivers fresh. Then you flash to the new vbios.

You should try and uninstall the gpu drivers. Run driver sweeper and cc cleaner in safe mode. restart back into normal OS mode install the new dell beta drivers again. 10.8 8.763 and then restart. If all goes well the problems should have been fixed with the new dell drivers and vbios combo.

Double check both your gpus if you have two are running on the new vbios as well in GPU-z.

Cheers.

 

Yeah right... I've done this...

maybe I'll run another attempt later on...

thank you anyway

 

Oh you have ey. Hmmsss seems weird that you are still having the sleep, standby and black screen issues then. The vbios is supposed to fix that right up after you have installed dells beta drivers.

hmmsss very odd.

What are your system specs by the way? Just to double check we aren't missing something out.

Cheers.

 

Heavyware M17(kg)x-R2(b) - i7-720qm - 4GB DDR3-1333 - Dell castrated Mobility Radeon 5870 - 1920x1200 RGB-LED - 2x 500GB 7200rpm @ RAID 0 - BR-RW

 

Did you flash the new VBIOS after installing these Beta Drivers? A GPU-Z screenshot would be handy. Thanks.

 

Of course I did.



There it is.

Maybe you would like to know that I'm also using the A08 system bios

 

The same thing happened to me: only the master card is flashed. That is why your crossfire is disabled Just run the flasher until it says the second one is done too.

 

But just as I posted above, I'm just running a single gpu system ^^ With all the problems with xfire I stepped back from upgrading a 2nd 5870 later on.

 

Only has one gpu I think.

Should try a fresh driver install one more time if you havent since before. Just to be sure.

If it still fails then give AMDs 10.8 driver a go. You will have to use the workaround=true though most likely to get it to install.

Cheers.

 

Yeah, this is what I was thinking of next.

My posts are also meant to be a feedback to brian. and of course request for help if I missed something ^^

another try clean install will be made tomorrow I think. Am I right I am supposed to tidy up a bit since I will have friends here tonight?

 

eheheh yeh we're watching the game on atm. Everton just scored against man united and now United just scored oles!

Yeh give the dell driver another fresh go. See how it goes. Otherwise if it fails again then give the AMD one a try.

It is interesting though that your still having issues with those problems that were supposed to be fixed. hmmmssssssssssssssssss

Yeh perhaps you should PM Brian as well just to let him know whats going on with your specific situation. Seems to be different to the experience of most other users who have had great success with the dell beta driver and vbios combo.

Cheers.

 

You're sure sleep is not working? Give it atleast 2 minutes to let everything gather and have it shutdown correctly, sometimes it takes longer. I don't see why it should not work with a single gpu aswell.

If the issue persists, contact Brian and let him know about your situation.

 

Yeah, I went away from notebook and back to my desktop... about 3 hours later I passed the notebook and wondered about the fan...

 

hey Grimfan can you play Mafia 2 without any probs? Mine I had some noise when the game show a movie scene,special in dark screen, that noise look like the dynamic coulour,for ex when it show black it's not really stay in black,it changed lighter and darker or something like that, I don't know the word to describe that, offcourse that one happen with Vsync on, when Vsync off everything like that but look much more serious. Everything else in game playing it's more static and nearly perfect. In another game like SFighter 4 or Crysis the coulour behavior like that when I was on menu, and it's better when playing, ofcourse the Vsync was still on, with NFS Shift similar things were happened but much more serious, as you said Grimfan I tried many times to reinstall driver in clean condiction but maybe it is still probs with this driver, maybe I should PM brian for that info, but some one can confirm that? thanks

 

Now that my major headaches are gone...how about we tackle my one remaining little annoyance:

When I hook the old R2 up to either of my external displays (one a 46in Sharp LCD TV @1080p and the other a Sony Bravia 42in LCD TV @1080p) it looks bad for one. Kind of fuzzy...not unbearable but not like it did with my previous laptop. Also...it doesnt take up the whole screen; on either TV there is a 1/4inch black bar all around.

Anyone think this has to do with the drivers? Or any other ideas? BTW I had this same issue even before the driver/vbios upgrade.

 

Yup its a known problem with ATi drivers it seems. Works fine plug and play with my R1 Nvidia.

Also the solution you seek is on this very thread as well. Quite a few pages back. I asked the same question back then and Mkelliny provided me with the solution. Have a look over here chiefs.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...driver-amd-5870-vbios-read-post-1-2-a-74.html

Bottom post on that page will fix you right up.

Cheers.

 

Wondering if someone could help me pinpoint the problem i'm having here. Since upgrading to the new beta driver + vbios everything has seemed to run fine as well as performance in games such as BF2 and SC2. Last week I was able to play SC2 with everything on ultra just fine with zero to minimal fps lag at certain moments but recently whenever I try to play SC2 my computer refuses to play the game even at high settings the fps is just terrible and almost impossible to play. Most melee games start fine but then after a couple minutes I notice the performance just instantly starts to degrade and before I know it the whole game is extremely choppy. I've been monitoring the game on GPU-Z while playing and I'm noticing that while the first card remains clocked at 700/1000 the second one is constantly staying at 100/150and hardly ever takes on a GPU load percentage of above 5-10%.
Although when I try playing BF2 I can play the game with high settings on max resolution and 8x AA and 88xAF just fine (low shadows though) and get around 55-90 fps without a problem. I'm confused here as SC2 was working just fine a week ago AFTER installing the driver + vbios combo. So I leave it to you guys as I can't figure out the problem here. It seems to me that the secondary video card is being tempermental and only wants to work when it wants to.

 

I actually have the same problem in SC2. The game seems to run better with ultra settings than with high or lower settings.