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

It's weird. GPU 0 idles at 100/150, 700/100 under load.

GPU1 runs at 300/400 idle and 100/150 under load.

 

Ha! Changing AI from standard to advanced did the trick! Ash you are a champion!

Great stuff mate!

 

eheheheh trues trues.

Yeh I'm kinda like you atm Stevie. I only just got the system lol. Its like a day old. So didn't really want to flash anything just yet. So will hold off as long as I can. Although it is getting quite hard for me now to now just pull the trigger and install the new VBios eheheheheh LOL. I have the new VBios and have been sending it out to others but just haven't tried it myself yet. Guess I will enjoy just observing here for a little bit longer eheheeh.

Cheers.

 

Ash, both cards are running now, however the screen is flickering with games. Have you come across this?

 

Ohs heeheh the old buddy flickering has returned ey. Geeeeeee....... I hope that is an isolated case and easily fixed.

Which games was it flickering in?

 

I'm just running futuremark06 at the moment. will load up dirt 2 again in a sec and confirm. futuremark is flickering too.

Yea Dirt 2 is flickering

Jebus. What is the magic setting configuration. It's so close to perfect. if anyone has any ideas on what to change I am more than happy to try.

Currently:
Vbios Update
Latest beta drivers from dell 8.763
Powerplay enabled on maximum performance
AI Enabled

 

Hmmmsss wonder whats going on there. Perhaps try checking your Vsync settings? Set it to off unless application specifies. I believe that is the standard setting. Not sure if it will help. But still hmmmsss .......

What score did you get for 06?

 

I wouldn't worry about flickering in a benchmark, i even get the same tearing at the same spots all the time in vantage no matter what settings i have in CCC. Just make sure your games are running fine

 

It was 14,000 something. Big difference from 3200 a few hours ago. yea I thought it might be refresh too, but no difference when i change those settings. It's like the Crossfire isnt synced properly.

I did install the 10.8 Application profiles earlier too. Not sure if that is relevant. I'll keep playing and see what I can come up with. One thing to note, is that GPU 1 (2nd card) idles at 300/400 after running instead of 100/150.

 

Try to revert to factory defaults once within CCC under options/settings upper right corner. Try Furmark Multi-GPU and see if the clocks are throttled from 100/150 to 700/1000 (default clock).

Also that 14k score is that 3dmark06 or vantage? because i get almost exactly 14k on vantage with my setup.

 

That seems to have fixed it Grim

Just rerunning Futuremark now. No Flickering. 14k on FutureMark06

 

Yeah that 300/400 clock is normaly a battery releated clock profile used. Of course this interferes with the dual gpus not synced correctly if one card is faster than the other.

I really hope that was the fix you needed, good luck.

 

The machine is certainly running in a respectable range now. I am still unsure why the clock speed on GPU1 (2nd card) drops to 300/400 on idle after being on load. Setting default did fix the flickering, and both cards are running now, but futuremark dropped about 600 points.

 

Scratch that. it would seem that GPU-z doesn't report the clock speed correctly after the second card is on load, then goes to idle. If I close GPU-Z and re-open it, both cards are clocked correctly on idle.

 

well im glad everything is working for you roidz! i had an almost exctly the same scare a few days ago related to installing drivers.

how are those temps?

-ash (on phone)

 

It is very dependant in a bench what runs in the background at that time, so your score may vary from rerun to rerun. BTW. Which GPU-Z version are you using? i use 0.4.4 just for comparison. Also you might give 3dmark vantage a try, as it's not as dependent on cpu and what it does in that benchmark. You should get a gpu score of 14k there like me approx.

 

Installed the new VBIOS the day before yesterday and installed the Catalyst 10.8 mobility driver from ATI. (Not the one from Dell)

I've ran LoL, Bad Company 2, Starcraft 2 since installing. I noticed some random stuttering when I started a game is SC2 but it went away quickly. Bad company 2 seems to have a slightly slower framerate than the original Dell CF 5870 drivers did but the game loads much faster and I no longer get flickering so I'll take it.

Tested booting on battery, putting computer to sleep on both AC and battery and everything seems to be working correctly.

 

Thanks for the confirmation on official 10.8 Did you install 10.8a app profiles released today i guess? It's all about BC2 , read up HERE. Good Luck!

 

You could try this perhaps to improve BF2.
It was discovered a couple pages back. Thanks to them.

CAP 10.8a - ATI CrossFireX Application Profile 10.8a Performance | [H]ard|OCP

Cheers.

 

Install the profiles that Joker posted a few pages back, this is a MAJOR difference when playing BC2. I had major stuttering but it went away with the profiles

 

AHAHAH GrimFan.
We seem to be posting the same things but you beat me too it just LOL while I'm typing ehahahah LOL. Too good eheheh.

Okay I just ran Vantage and scored 13398.

Cheers.

 

I think that picture speaks for itself: 10.7a cat + 10.7 profiles vs. 10.8 cat + 10.8a profiles:

Ooops lol, yeah i should give others a chance aswell to give an answer, sorry my bad

Hmm is that overall score or just GPU (without CPU and those small tests)? You're really missing like 600-700 points up to mine. Strange. Or did you write it wrong e.g. 13983 or something like that?

 

heheheeh nah man thats fine hey love reading other posts. ehehehehh its all good. Keep posting eheheh.

Yeh it was my overall score for Vantage. I ran the full thing. Felt like it took ages LOL.
I still have my CCC settings set to maxed quality though. I might change them down and do another run later. I was also running dls and other things in the background. Cheers.

What was your overall score again? 14k somefing?

 

My stock score was around 14+ but I have the 920 cpu.

Grim, I have the A05 bios, you think there is any difference with the A07?

 

I didn't do a full run recently, i always test gpu only (shorter and it's what me interests the most), as i know the 720 is not really that great. But i still like it for video editing / encoding purposes. Might upgrade to a 940xm later, they seem cheap at the moment for about 580$ on ebay.

Not at all what the bios influence concerns! I think GPU score only has been around 14k for everyone on stock even with better CPU. If i'm wrong with such a statement, please correct me i get about 15.5k when i overclock my cards to 825/1100.

 

Ah true true. Yeh i might consider the 940xm later as well. See it goes. I might try just the GPU test as well then.

LOL i just scored AVG 9fps in the Mafia 2 benchmark LOL. It seemed to not detect that I was running a game and the fans never got loud during the benchmark. ehehehe weird. I've noticed this a few times when starting up games too from time to time. Takes a while for it to notice lol then the GPU power kicks in.
Was playing some Blur as well just before. Runs alright with everything maxed out. Not super impressive buy fine. Cheers.

 

For some reason I cannot go over past 15K on mine but yet I'm not a die hard oc'er. I'll probably mess with mine when I get done with work later though, I'll try your specs and see what I get

 

I did a stable vantage run once with OC cpu 720 147mhz fsb and 850/1140 gpus, that scored me 16.3k gpu score. that's more or less the maximum i can get out with my setup, without any hardware mod or external cooling along it, with just software OC.



Gonna try to reproduce that now again, on 10.8 and see what i get

 

Not sure if im helping here but...Im running a single 5870 and the 720 cpu.

had previous factory dell driver..uninstalled them and installed the newest ones..8.763 and everything worked good.

Had to reinstall Dells MyColor after uninstalling it sometime ago. First reboot and boots to black screen. Had to manually power down to get laptop back up. Now laptop wont shut down properly and just hangs at a black screen after attempting to shut down.

Oh, i do not have the Vbios.

 

You need the Beta VBIOS for all those windows issues, write Brian a message about it Good Luck!

 

Thanks Grimfan!

 

Can someone please send me the new Vbios?
TY

 

I have been given strict instructions not to send it to anyone. I would be willing to bet others have been given the same restrictions. I'm sorry.

 

Did you not PM Brian?

 

A tip for those who want to proceed with the new Vbios and beta drivers.

Make sure not to disable the Ethernet under BIOS. It won't let your laptop wake up from sleep. (It took me 2 formats to isolate the problem and exclude the drivers or the vbios)

 

It seems the vbios + new drivers work great. Can't wait until they pass it to urgent update...

I am keeping my word, now that the issues are fixed, I am ordering.

 

Stamatis, can you clarify for others? Is this prior to the VBIOS flash or after?

 

This is after the VBIOS flash and the installation of the beta drivers.
It is a known issue that if someone changes the default values, BIOS won't POST most of the times correctly and will need the power drain method in order to proceed. It is mentioned on the A07 BIOS thread I think.
In this case disabling the Ethernet affects the wake up of the laptop from the sleep mode.

 

Thanks for clarifying. Figured if it was a VBIOS issue others should know. Didn't see how ethernet would have been tied to the VBIOS -

 

Did and the first one he sent got gobbled by symantec.
He did resend, TY Brian.

 

I think i have a similar issue, i had everything working correctly, but when i set some things different in bios, oh was a lot of things, it wouldn't wake up anymore and will kinda hard boot like itself, then it would not display anything on screen. Had to unplug everything and start again. Didn't understand completly why it wouldn't wake up properly, until i set everything back to default again. I think i turned on virtualization (everything was enabled then on that page), usb wake up, and the performance options ddr3ram 1.7 and cpu vcore 150mv, when it wasnt waking up anymore.

So it can be not only ethernet that produces a no post while trying to wake it up, might try other options disabling and enabling one by one, which options all have influence on said problem.

I also can confirm stamatisx post, that it is not driver nor vbios related that issue. Good work there, we almost found the same problem at the same time *g*

 

Ah, that's a good thing to know and find out. Cheers guys great work.

 

How's the games testing and running going?

 

Hows it goings? Did you manage to repeat your high score again with the new driver and Vbios update?

Which games are you running or have tried so far? How are they going?

Cheers.

 

I think it's a foregone conclusion by now that the new vbios is mandatory for everyone that wishes to use the newest driver.

 

Ok i can confirm that enabling virtualization or usb wake support does not influence waking up.

But when i set ddr3 voltage to 1.7, that's when i get that nasty post lock up while trying to wake up after it went to sleep (correctly). Not to mention the system runs very unstable when it is set to that.

I have Bios A07 by the way.

Regarding the games, only tested a bit starcraft2 with all set to ultra on 1920x1200 and was getting like 45-80 fps with AAx16 AFx2 set in catalyst.

And no wasn't able to try any overclocking yet.

I second that.

 

I updated to the latest driver, which seemed to fix the BFBC2 slow loading time issues. Woot.

When the screensaver kicks in, machine stays on but both the laptop and external monitor go black and there's no way to get it to respond other than a hard restart. Not so woot.

I have not updated the vbios...too many posts still flying around about issues with the updating process for my taste. Since it stays plugged in 100% of the time going to try just disabling the timed screensaver for now.

(I have not updated the system bios either, still at the shipping A04. No overclocking changes or the like.)

Lastly, I haven't seen this reported but I've now had it happen multiple times from jumping back and forth from the stock setup to updated drivers so I'm sure its related: I'm running RAID1 and when I update to the latest drivers somehow my drives get out of sync. The Intel Matrix Storage Console reports there are verification errors and starts "Verifying and Repairing", which takes around 3 hours or so. Definitely not so woot.

 

Conclusion so far:

1. Beta VBIOS is essential to have the new beta drivers work properly.
2. New Beta drivers are essential to be installed prior to update the vbios.
3. Bios A07 is recommended to properly install and update vbios with default bios settings.
4. It is highly recommended after updating the VBIOS to do a fresh windows install to exclude any influence from previous drivers, where you will be able to install the beta drivers over the default vga drivers upon starting windows the first time. (I think you have to have chipset drivers and all other drivers from dellls support page installed before you can install the video drivers)

Cheers!

 

And hows it looking? - any snags or glitches or anything else up with it or is it good to go? - what do you think?

 

Pretty good on my end, all my games have worked perfectly. I fell asleep watching a movie last night on my M17x and when I woke up this morning, I found it in sleep mode like it should be. Pressed a button and it woke up perfectly.