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

Grim try catalyst 10.6 or 10.5 just for kicks. I know Brian said not to but I'm curious

 

Lol, yeah, I am willing to bet my nethers that official ati 10.6 or 10.5 will work just fine, but dell release wont.

-Ash

EDIT:

Obviously you will need to safemode or sysrestore to undo if it DOES bork

-Ash

 

I actually deactivate both cards in device manager, so i'm already in vga-mode, then i uninstall catalyst (express), uninstall then the drivers in device manager, if it should have reverted back to 6.962, now it was straight to vga, so i tried to directly install 10.6 cat over, before restarting, so there is already a 7.xxx driver installed again. Also you have to have automatic driver update disabled. (I hope if we directly install this with a fresh windows install, this one will be the default driver. or maybe you want to take official 10.5 or something like that)

Edit: I can't seem to find the mobilty version of 10.6... will take a bit longer.
Edit2: Found it finally Gonna test right away, if that one works, we know that today is kinda Christmas
Edit3: Well that was a bit early Christmas, BSOD right before Windows AlienSense Login with 10.6.

 

Brian, please send to [email protected]. It's a one-off email address, so I can turn it off if it gets spammed.

Thanks,
Rourke

 

Ah, so it looks like the alienware OSD/stealthmode stuff is causing an issue?

If you msconfig and disable all the alienware stuff, does it boot fine?

If so, the vbios looks like it stock amd + stealth mode.

-Ash

 

Well it's before that stuff, with 10.5 and 10.6 the driver gets initialized before the login screen and the screen changes, but the changing gets a BSOD. So i don't think that stuff got already loaded, and i would say it needs atleast 10.8.

To verify i try once more with 10.7. If that doesn't work i would say it's not backwards compatible. So we have to test with any upcoming prewiev or beta driver (10.9) to verify if it's really supporting official cat.
10.8 whql is working for me.

 

Now that the site is back up. Install went great, load times and fps seem good on BC2. Except when I moved the laptop and started it, I kept getting BSOD about five times. Finaly I realized the power wasn't plugged in and when I did, everything worked great.

Played BC2 for about an hour, still got the fps lag, very frustrating. Why can't we get a bios update so we can use regular drivers instead of waiting for Dell drivers?!

 

Have been reading through everyone's comments on this new driver release and the possibility of a new vbios release in the imminent future. Would I be right in saying that for those of you who have tested the beta vbios, that it is more or less the Ati/AMD official vbios with a bit of Dellization going on?

Obviously it looks like sleep/hibernate still looks to be a cause of concern when simply using Brian's new driver WITHOUT the beta vbios - has anyone had success without this test vbios?

Now assuming that all is good with the beta vbios, i would imagine Dell still have some tweaks to make to it prior to general release, is this in esscence going to give us future support from Ati/AMD - this is how i read things so far??

Also, assuming that the Dellized new vbios gets a general release in the near future, will that address the isue of having to do the workaround=true thing? - im only asking those more experienced because it would be good to know that to get this thing 100% on the ball AFTER vbios general release, all i would have to do is got to support site, download a newer vbios and driver and bob's your uncle....no need to do the workaround?

 

Thanks for the update!

 

Hallo

First, sorry for my bad englisch, i am from austria.
I install the new dell amd beta driver, and when the notebook reboot or shutdown, the keyboard is lightning, the monitor is off, i can the notebook turn off with 5 sec turn the power button.
I need the new vbios, how can send a PM on brian?

 

You need to make a certain number of posts first, then you will be able to PM.

Brian,
Any idea of a timeframe when the public vbios is going to be released? I prefer that then risking with a beta...

 

@Nafura

Sorry me too for my bad english, i am italian.
I have read the Forum Rules for PM...
I need also vbios.


This is link for PM rule:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sit...-send-private-messages-create-signatures.html

 

1. Question: As these drivers have the same actual issues with power management without new vbios, you can say it is a ati-dellized vbios, but it still contains the same hardware and subid's. Also it looks like the vbios needs atleast 10.8 catalyst, doesn't matter for me which one i take, dell 8.763.0 or ati's 8.762.0, they behaved the same without the vbios and they behave the same installed with (except with newer vbios they work!)

2. Question: You see that right, it doesn't seem to work for anyone without new vbios. And i can assure you i have factory installed cards, and they were actually working, like everyone else, with the same issues most of the time. The vbios should be definetly a more compatible one, although it's not backward compatible (at the moment) prior 10.8

3. Question: That would be the plan, to have it run by a few people that understand a little of the process and the functions that come with it. So just keep patient and there will be surely a public release, if we don't find any other issues. (At the moment with installed 10.8 i could not see any BSOD or other bug yet, that would make you feel uncomfortable)

4. Question: You will always have to do the workaround, as they are still labeled as dell hd5870 cards, and dell uses the workaround ASWELL in their installation process. You can look it up, if you know about the workaround install in the config file. Also when you download dell's driver the workaround has already been set, so with dell drivers it's install the latest drivers, update vbios (1-click flash, very easy) and you're good to go.

So that said, with the newer VBIOS + ATI or Dell Catalyst 10.8+ (we will see with another set of official ATI preview or beta drivers e.g. 10.8a or 10.9 preview) if the official drivers are actually still supported. there might be also a small chance, only WHQL certified drivers work properly along with possible windows update (which are not really all well documented, what update fixes what from microsoft)

You can look at these drivers+vbios as a new default driver starting from 10.8 and below that, drivers are not 100% supported (but maybe dell gets that fixed aswell, looks like the same BSOD all the time while loading windows)

So at the moment i can actually recommend using this driver if you know it'll work as they should in your games, so test all your things expect sleep and such things first a bit without vbios and see how the driver mostly perform. Of course if a game locks up or doesn't give the same performance as previous drivers, then you can assume that the new vbios maybe doesn't fix that either, and you have to count a bit more on ati, that they get their act together and develop a better driver.

PS: If you are still not bored reading thru this, you might want to count the words, vbios and drivers

 

Also i still like to have someone with the new vbios (if any) try testing official 10.8 cats, and confirm what i already did, or maybe i did something wrong in that process. But then it wouldn't make sense, since without new vbios both drivers acted the same and they act the same with new one, but there they work.

 

@Grimfan
pls send my the vbios

thx

 

Sent, you may remove your email again from your post by editing it Also use at your own risk. and know what you do, i don't want to give personal support for any issues that concern prior installed catalyst drivers.

 

Grim, can you send it to me real quick? Thanks!

 

thx grimfan

 

No problem.

Sent, enjoy. Read Instructions.

Also please post issues or a little feedback about how they run.

 

So let me get tis straight in my head....Dell use the "workaround" so that they can adapt Ati Drivers for use on our systems.....basically "Dellizing" them.

Obviously, if we want to use official catalyst drivers from Ati, that is when the workaround is required.

If Dells new driver already includes that workaround process, it should just be a matter of getting the driver and/or wait for the new vbios and then ANYONE would be good to go (using the new Dellized ati driver) without doing the workaround?

If someone wants to use official ati catalyst reference drivers with the new vbios, is that when the workaround is required???

Just wanna know so that when my new system lands, i dont mess things up....i will be leaving well alone for the time being until its a proven successful partnership....god, i hope it is!

 

Thanks Grim, and I'll post any issues if I run into them

 

There is no adjustment needed whenever dell will release a driver. It's already set to true. Dell will always try to make their drivers as easy to instal, as clicking next.

However with official drivers, we have to use that workaround option set to true, so we can force install an official driver(ati) on an unoffical card (dell). It does not necessarily have to be a vbios thing, but a real hardware thing that demands us to force workaround install with ati drivers to use with our cards, so let's say for now the Dell cards are the Dellized part in this. So it might be possible, if we wanna use official cats, we always have to do that. Which is a matter of extracting the files, stop the automated install that follows, set the workaround option to true in the config folder, reinstall the drivers. Done. It wouldn't be too much of a hazzle to do this all the time, once a month. But sometimes you might feel comfortable with a previous driver. Anyway it's up to you what you want to use, that is if the future catalysts aswell dells drivers, stay compatible with that vbios from now on.

 

With the new drivers (not the vbios) they are basically the exact same thing as 10.8 official except they have an older GUI and they don't require you to take 10 seconds and do workaround = true, correct? Also, Grim, you had mentioned that the new vbios allowed you to enable crossfire. Were you not able to have it enabled before? I've never once had an issue with crossfire being enabled so I just want to make sure I have an accurate handle of what these things are trying to fix.

From my understanding, the Dellized Ati driver is the exact same thing as the new, official 10.8 (minus having to do workaround = true). Also, the only thing that they new VBIOS really accomplishes is allowing the ability to put our babies into sleep and use them without being tethered to their gigantic lollipops, right?

 

yes, that's the only issue that was present with the 10.7s, so that's the only issue that was fixed.

 

Not having the new vbios doesn't bother me much at the moment. I think I'll just adopt the 10.8 drivers and wait for the VBIOS to get out of beta mode. Also, according to the dell site yesterday, the new dell 10.8 are in beta. Is that correct? I feel terrible for all of the people who own m17x's and don't utilize these forums. Just imagine calling tech support every day asking them when a new fix is coming only to get different answers every single time you call. That's what happened to me the second I visited these forums for the first time when I found out that the m15x that I ordered had a throttling issue. Thankfully, I returned that and got my sweet baby (insert retarded eastern European name here - if you have a good name for me that'd be great too).

 

Well the driver's have all previous hotfixes and previews in it, 10.8=10.7preview+10.7a(sc2hotfix), aswell as some game improvements, but there might be still the same errors you might had on some games, you might want to check the release notes if it's a common issue with the drivers...

Also you can update to latest CCC using atis whql 10.8 and just installl command center The drivers even work without CCC installed

and yes driver says beta, but i don't remember now if i got a security prompt for not having a signature to the driver, to me it looks like they are signed.

And crossfire wasn't the whole issue to disable, i think it worked in CC before, but not if it should automaticly do that when you hit the stealth button (on 10.7)

 

you can signup for email alerts when new drivers become available. I got the TSB for the beta driver last night, so it's pretty quick too.

 

grimfan,can you send me the Vbios?Thanks very much!!!

[email protected]

I have the M17X R2 with 5870cfx

 

Welp, good flash and started playing BC2, fps seemed good but 10 minutes into the game it crashed to the desktop.

 

Can anyone send me vbios for test?

I take any risk of sort and resposability.

Thank in advance and sorry for my english

 

Are you saying that Xfire doesn't automatically reenable when you go from stealth to performance modes? I'll probably never use stealth on this computer, so it doesn't bother me too much.

Do you see any reason for me not to just go with the official 10.8?

 

Please do not demand for vbios on my end, if you only signed up and created a spam mail adress for that and are not willing to share some feedback, that should be like a deal. I do an exception if you provide a personal email adress, you can always delete it afterwards in your message.

Thank you for your understanding, for people that have already been on here for quite some time, it's ok for me.

Edit: Stealth and everything else releated in windows worked so far, no issues. Also don't forget to install Application Profiles 10.8 after you installed the drivers. Or just repair if you already had them installed.

Shouldn't matter which one you choose, i don't think there have been any special changes made to the driver inf.

Also the Battlefield issues are maybe related to the ati drivers, which dell probably has not any influence on it.

 

Anyone else try any games with this driver? I'm going to try Metro 2033 later after work and see how that goes

 

Yeah we should probably test more games, as we already listed everything nicely i guess so far, releated to "non-existant" issues on a correct install in windows.

 

Right, so would i be right in saying that the conclusion thus far is that yes the new drivers DO work but they DONT cure the sleep/hibernate without the new vbios that people are testing?

 

Correct, they are just like any other 10.5+ plagued driver, but with the new vbios, no issues so far!

Gonna have some break for now, will be back later on.

 

Brian, just so you are away, the corrupted display when using crossfire, extended desktop and displayport still exists when using HD5870m crossfire.

Tried it on a different monitor, no go.

Change the crossfire mode to supertiling, and it works. Change it to scissor or afr, and it doesnt.

Clearly a driver issue as I dont have this problem with the original dell driver. The engineering team is missing a specific dell fix that was in the original dell driver.

-Ash

 

Ash is that with the latest vbios already, also that is a not so common setup, right? Still like to see that fixed for you, and possibly hooked of the issue list. Maybe you want to check if this is a ati releated issue described in the release notes that came up with newer drivers.

 

Who can send me a new Vbios?
I want to test it very much.I only want let my m17x perform more strong.

 

After a good install and flashing, everything on battery is working great. I'll have to double check on the BC2 desktop crash a little later

 

Guys, me or someone that has alot of time later on, still has to check how that affects a fresh window install, without installing any prior drivers, and if that works... Until then you are always at risk when you uninstall catalyst again, that you get alot of BSOD's until you are back to 10.8 drivers! This driver along the new vbios should be seen as a new default driver, that is the base for future updates, and not prior ones.

 

Can you send me the vbios?

 

i already send it out to like 3 people, want to gather some more information first until we know the exact state of these drivers, and we can get an actual base when installing from nothing. I have to admit that if you don't stay on 10.8, you will have some issues you might need to come across.

Try 10.8 first with the old vbios, check your games, look how it performs. The vbios actually "only" fixes the power management issues we have with this driver and the official drivers, you cannot install any other prior catalyst version (<10.7a minus) at the moment, afaik.

 

In regards to installing the new drivers - how do you go about disabling Window's automatic driver install from web function? I don't want the windows drivers to install before I'm able to install the new iteration. This would probably be helpful for a lot of people as well, given that they're probably getting BSOD's from improper driver installation due to conflicting drivers.

 

Yeah, i'm also not 100% sure, sometimes i got BSOD when the actual display driver was installed, and sometimes right before getting into windows login. So it looked like the new bios is very picky with prior releases, and we know dell has worked the last month solely on the 10.8 beta and now on these (whql?)... And i tried to have windows driver update deactivated, when i did so. But i also should have activated it again later, so it's on activated vga cards. Mine were unknown sometimes, where i think they should be vga under graphic card, no?

The optimal thing would be now, to have only standard vga driver installed (without any 6.962 dell driver installed before), as lowest base, and then the 10.8 driver as first choice ati driver, after that you should be able to upgrade your drivers (e.g. 10.9), without even uninstalling.

 

Disconnect your ethernet cord or turn off your WiFi.

Or, this:

 

This is what Ash told me when I asked him about 10.7a when I was having issues:

Heres what i usually do:

NOTE: Before doing this, make sure to REMOVE (yes, remove) all antivirus software. You can re-install somethign good like panda cloud antivirus afterwards (free).

1: Uninstall cards from device manager, checking the box to remove the driver.
2: BEFORE rebooting, uninstall all ccc software.
3: After rebooting, run driver sweeper (not in safe mode, or it wont work properly)
4: Reboot again
5: Make sure to do the workaround=true fix
6: 10.7a should install fine.

If not you have some kind of hardware issue and need to contact dell.

Good luck!

-Ash

 

It will still search on the comuter for ati drivers, the goal is to have them as activated vga cards under graphic cards.

Oh well since i'm too curious and like to have everything work properly as i imagine that, i'm gonna install a fresh OS and try again different cats. Also i'm not sure if those will activate the cards properly on first install, so you might need these betas here for the initial installation of the cards.

 

Should I just install official 10.8 on top of 10.7 official?

 

IntenseIGFX, you could do that, with workaround = true

Grim, the new drivers and the new Vbios work as a charm. no lockups anymore.
also... it seems like the default clock is set at 700/1000 and not at 155/300... at least, it is on here.
no issues anymore regarding playback of video and such.
I dont have rivatuner or amd gpu clock utility running to tweak it up.

can anyone confirm this?