Upgrade a G73-jh to 6970?

I'll measure and see if the clips line up

 

Thanks . Ok, back on topic tomorrow i'll completely wipe the driver with driver sweeper just in case and clean the whole 6970m with alcohol.

 

Have you tried ATI tray tools? I think the best of all of them. I used it tonight and can flip between all my voltages 0.9V,1V,1.1V and 1.2V very easily and change the core and memory clock speeds at whatever voltage I choose.

Perhaps worth a try.

Also could you take a screenshot of all the voltage tables in RBE. Would help shed light on the problem!

 

Here you go, the Asus 5870 vBios and the Clevo 6970m



To answer your question, nope i haven't tried ATI tray tools, it used to crash on the G73 before we got the GSOD fix. I don't know if it works now, i'll give it a try.

Ok, so i tried ATT and it gave me the BSOD even on the newer vBios. I could try setting the voltages to the same ones as on the Asus vBios, 1.15 for full 3D clocks and 0.95 for the rest. I'll also reset the CMOS as the voltages displayed by GPU-Z seem to be off on my 5870 since the swaps. It says i'm at 1.15 on UVD clocks when it should be at 0.95.

 

It is great news!
How the notebook detect the card? (I mean as 6970? Or something else.)
Did you try to run some games? Maybe those 400Mhz were in 2D mode.

 

I tried one game and furmark, i had the same idea as you but it looks like it is stuck in 2D mode. It was detected as a 6970m by windows, GPU-Z and HWiNFO32.

If worse comes to pass, i'll raise the 2D clocks to full with the corresponding voltage. If everything works like it should that way, even if i can't sove the two monitors detected i'll still call that a win .

In the event that i manage to make it clock to 680/900, i'll check the temps and run some benchmarks.

I really want to know what's svl7's take on this though. Since he knows so much about running it in the m15x and he tried the 470m which stayed at 2D clocks as well.

Even with the problems we're having right now, it is good news. In any event, expect screenshots tomorrow. I'm counting on all of you to help me getting it to work. If i manage to get everything working, expect a guide on how to do the swap, i took the appropriate pictures today especially for that purpose. I'm taking a break for the day, let's just say the process was stressful. I did screw the card very tightly in so it might have bent a little.

I could try changing the vendor and card ID in the bios to an Asus one. I'm not crazy enough to try flashing a modified 5870 bios onto that 6970m, it'll probably brick it. I'd rather sell it in the forum instead. I spent 4 hours working on the retention clip to make sure i wouldn't have to modify the card.

EDIT: 888 posts, nice number .

 

Cool work!! The second monitor is a "generic display" or something, right? I had the same issue (when my card was alive, lol), sometimes it caused the clock to be at 300/900 instead of 100/150. I had to chose the notebook monitor and say "show desktop on 1 only" and then it worked perfectly fine.

400/900 indicates that there's a different problem, but try it anyway. Doesn't it gets to 680/900 at all?
Could also be an issue with the clock domains, like with the 470m and the M15x... there it only recognizes the "2d clocks" and the "lower 3d clocks" but not the actual 3d clocks... I had to change the lower 3d clocks to 3d values to make it work at full speed...

As Trixx and CCC can't change the clocks I really think this could be the problem... I don't remember all details, but can't you choose the performance level in ATT and overclock for example the "lower 3d clocks" instead of the 3d clocks?

Otherwise you'll have to try and flash it with a different or modded vbios. As long as you don't use the vbios with which I bricked my card you should be fine I did a lot of flashing and modifiyng, and everything but two things worked so far. The first thing was the voltage increase... the card got forced to lower clocks/voltage instead of accepting the higher value, and the second one was a crazy experiment with a special vbios... which didn't end well

You can't raise the voltage (well, try it, in case it works... wow) but lowering should it should work with ATT.
I'm using (or used, lol) the leaked 11.6 drivers and got the best results with them.

 

Could you link me those drivers. ATT gives me the BSOD with the 5870, i don't know if the card is the problem or if it is deeper than that. I hope i can get ATT to work with the 6970m. I'll definitely try changing the clock tables tomorrow too. If i can get this baby stable at full 3D clocks, i'll be one happy camper. The loss of VGA will make presentations at uni a little bit harder since the VGA port doesn't seem to work. Ah well, i got my N50 as a backup.

Do you have a link to the DELL vBios for the 6970m? I suppose i could try that too without bricking the card or do you think it is too risky?

For the worse case of all, i'll find myself a cheap base config np8150 and slap that 6970m in it . Was your VGA working on the m15x? If i could trick my G73 into somehow thinking it is a 5870, it might solve the problems too. Last question, by looking at the screenshot of the 6970m vBios, do you know which clocks are which except the low battery clocks as well the full 3D which are rather obvious.

EDIT: Is there a version of the GPU clock tool that works with the 6970m in case ATT still gives me the BSOD. As for the 2nd display, yeah it was some generic thing.

EDIT2: In case i forget when i create a new post with my full 6970m experience in order to make it easier to find the info since this thread is fast becoming unwieldy.

Thanks to:
svl7 for trying the 6970m in the JW
@tilla for the 5870 from MSI in the G73
tudordewolf for first trying it and confirming it went through POST.
Everyone who provided support and suggestions.

 

Can you please check if HDMI works? Because if not I'll stick with 5870. I can't live without my audio and TV :-( Not anymore.

 

I'll work on getting it to clock properly first, then check HDMI only if i manage to get it to 680/900. You can expect new results sometime tomorrow (eastern time zone definition of tomorrow ).

For now, i'll go play the game my avatar comes from in order to release some stress.

 

Oh god I stopped looking at this thread a few days and now I just saw the good news!

Congrats and can't wait to get more news about it!

 

Here's the modded, leaked 11.6: [email protected] - Credits go to asder00 from guru3d


Here's the Dell vbios (from the M17x r3). It enables the audio through DisplayPort in the M15x, as HDMI audio in some MSI systems afaik.

You won't have a problem with this vbios, some other people with Clevo cards used it and it works, I flashed it several times along with other vbios versions. Just keep your fingers away from the vbios of the ES 6970m...

Make a backup of your original vbios (with atiflash) before flashing, also only flash per DOS bootable USB stick. You'll need to force the flash since it will change the subvendor ID as well as some hardware IDs, you probably have to reinstall the drivers afterwards because of this.


You could try editing the vendor information as well as the hardware IDs... but I don't think it will change much... at least it didn't help with the JW and the 470m, where I changed quite a lot of things.



I never tried VGA, I don't even have VGA cable laying around... sorry. Maybe someone in the M15x section can answer you this question.
The GPU clock tool is outdated if I remember it correctly, and thus very unlikely to support the card. I'm able to adjust the clocks with ATT and Trixx, as well as undervolt the card with ATT. When I mod the vbios (undervolt) I can also adjust the voltage with Trixx.

Does ATT allow to choose e.g. the 2d profile for overclocking? Never played around much with it tbh, but I know that it's possible to overclock the different performance profiles with Nvidia Inspector on Nvidia cards.


About the clock domains... Clock info 00 are the 3d settings, 01 the 2d settings, that's obvious, and I also tested it by modifying them. 03 are the idle clocks when you connected your system to a second monitor. I'm not sure about the rest, and unfortunately can't test it at the moment, sorry... will take a while until I can use my card again.

You'll have to test it. Adjust one (or both) of the profiles with 400/900 to 3d settings and look if it changes anything.

 

I came across yall's post after a quick google, i saw your old post on the g73sw attempt before, than i came across this.

Cool! is all i can say.
As a hardware repair tech, i was gonna offer a small hand
there are 4 wires that go to the fans on the g73

red,black,blue,yellow

Cut the blue Pwm fan wire, that will keep the fans at 100%
You can also cut the yellow wire too, cuz that just feeds back rpm readings
i did it on mine and my temps drastically improved and its not loud at all.

I cut both of them on mine , just to keep it cleaner looking inside.

Also i haven't noticed a drop in battery life and i get my g73 to last almost 4 hours with throttle stop and power 4 g hybrid.

Back to the topic of the 6970m in the g73jh , Make this simple and make a backup of your partition with hirens boot cd and do a fresh reinstall.

That will knock out 99% of software related issues.

Also the motherboard bios was stopping the 6970m from working in the g73sw, there is a part in the bios that relates to nvidia based video cards.
I would say flash the g73jh bios to a g73sw, but you have usb3 and etc on the sw models. The only way to get around that would be to mod the bios,
to get a 6970m to work in a SW.

If you still have that problem , it could be a power limitation keeping it in 2d clocks, caused by the power brick.

Sounds like you got the 6970m to work , nice job!
i saved those pics so i can mod my heat sink as well, thanks for that info btw.

(btw, there are people that do high level board repair, so if by chance you didnt burn up your core on the card, you can get other components replaced on the card. Just so long as they arnt too small. Depends on the persons soldering equipment....

http://www.bitronic.eu/en/high-level-board-repair/
http://www.sisnc.com/services/electronic-repair/default.php

 

This is very interesting information especially as this could help massively when overclocking the 920xm being able to have the fans running at 100% and the wires can easily be bullet clamped afterwards. +1

 

You can use R&W everything and do a small EC tweak via software to get the fans at 100%. No fan mod required. That's what i did the second i booted into windows with the 6970m in case the fans weren't working. The do work normally though.

Oh and attempt two will be underway soon. I seriously doubt it is power brick related, i'm using a 180W instead of a 150W. We'll know soon enough though. The power problem could be internal. I already confirmed that i can go higher than what Asus intended though. I managed to draw 85W with my xm at full brightness, running prime95+furmark. Wireless enabled and USB mouse plugged in. Either the issue can be fixed with a vbios tweak or the mxm socket can't deliver the juice.

Today is vBios day anyways so i'll try different ones. Starting with Dell's 6970m vBios.

I'll be checking the thread periodically during the procedure using my N50 so i'll keep you updates as things go as well as check for further suggestions.

EDIT: I thought I'd pipe in to tell you that with ATT, i'm now running at 680/900 and running furmark at the moment to check the temps. *4C after 2 minutes and rising... At least now, I know that the problem is with the clock settings in the vBios and not the lack of juice from the computer.

I do have a problem with windows update now though, it gives me an error message that it can't get updates for some reason. Now, that sucker is running hot, 90C after 10 mins in furmark...

 

Tijo did you get the Laptop Monkey deal by any chance?

Really looking forward to your results because I will jump on one of them as soon as you can confirm its working. How fantastic is would be to have a 6970M before they get pulled from the shelves.

 

I got mine from upgradeyourlaptop from eBay. They have cards for Eurocom notebooks and givent their location and all, it is probably coming directly from Eurocom. They are the ones who appear on my paypal charges.

There is still that windows update problem i have now which annoys me to no end. I need to force the clocks using ATT right now to get to 680/900, but i can get to those at least which is great. I'll try different vBioses to see what happens now.

 

Didnt see your edit above. Correct clocks this is fantastic news cannot wait to see your benchmark results +1 weekly for the rest of the year. To be honest 90oC in Furmark for 10 minutes is outstanding for a 100watt beast of a card in our little G series........I WANT ONE!

 

You are not the only one Dallers. Got my eye on one of their cards to


Strange on the update. What update is it anyway? might need a format to start fresh.

 

Actually it is an error message saying it can't get updates at all. Maybe something got. I still have no idea why. Error code 800728F8 for the record. Ok, i'll run some benchmarks then run the Dell vBios. Worse comes to pass, i'll reinstall windows 7. Thank god i have a second HDD. It will make backups way easier. I'm not looking forward to reinstalling windows 7 though and i'll need to go and get blank DVDs.

Oh and another update, VGA out is working despite the second monitor being always displayed. I haven't tested HDMI yet, i'll get working on fixing everything first.

It's benching time now hehe.

 

With that 920XM as well I can see your house lights dimming as I say this

 

open notepad

Type in the follow
sc delete "wuauserv"
regsvr32 wuapi.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 wups.dll
regsvr32 wups2.dll
regsvr32 wuwebv.dll
regsvr32 wucltux.dll

save file

if you dont have your file extensions unhidden , than press alt, go to tools and folder options and click show extensions.

Now right click, rename ,del .txt , put .bat

Right click, run as administrator, that SHOULD fix window update

As far as the power brick i wasn't aware you were using the 180 wats.

 

Hmm, i'm getting a GPU score way lower than what i should get. I'm at around 9000 in vantage while it should be at 11000/12000 if i'm not mistaken.

 

Sorry if iam asking the same questions others did, but what bios are you currently using?

What is your GPu usage when you are stress testing?

If its below 100% than you video card is not running at its full power under load.

Make sure your cpu isnt overclocked right now btw

Also see if overclocking your GPU makes your less performance than stock clock values.


Are you getting any shuttering between frames?

 

Hmmmmmm did we ever find out what regulates the GPU power? Is it the card or the mobo that is hardwired??

 

Clevo vBios and 213.

Will check GPU usage

CPU is running at stock clocks. I'll try to underclock it later.

Never found out what it was, but it might be the mobo, in ATT i get two available VDDC values 1.1 and 0.8 while the Clevo vBios is set to run at 1.1/1/0.95/0.9 depending on the circumstances.

Oh and if you ask me, there is a problem with certificates i get a message to accept certain certificates on nbr now whch i don't get on the N50. I guess i shouldn't have used driver sweeper after uninstalling the drivers.

 

Well sounds to me like its software or bios related

Well i gota get going , CONGRATULATIONS THO , once you get it figured out you should make a guide for others.

Your gonna be famous now XD

Just keep messing with the bios and or try different ones, just make sure you remember how to blind flash and dont flash to a bios that has a different sharer count

Either way this sounds software or bios related
So i would be jumping up and down XD

 

Running GPUz alongside furmark windowed will show you whether or not you are running at 100% load or not.

I take it you found a version of att that works?

 

Well, i do get a higher score with the card OC'ed by 30MHz so i'm not so sure it's a power issue now. I want to know what are svl7's scores at stock clocks using the modded 11.6 drivers if he still has some saved. It might have to do with the drivers or something. I'd also like to know what are the 3Dmark11 scores i should get to try that one too. I get higher scores than with the 5870 that's for sure but i did expect higher than that.

Same version of ATT, t desn't seem to like the Asus 5870 though. That's all i can say. It may very well be the asder modded drivers that enable it to work properly but at this point it's an unknown. If others could try ATT on their JH it would help pinpoint the problem. Anyways, the GPU usage stayed at 100% during the whole benchmark a reported by HWiNFO64.

 

Did someone put it in a SW? Anyway, since I heard that the JH boots with the 6970m I thought about flashing the JW with the JH BIOS... (I tried the 6970m in the JW without success), but since it's not my JW I don't know whether I can convince the owner of the system to do such experiments, lol.

Cool news, but seems to be a similar problem as with the Nvidia 470m and the M15x... hope you can figure out some more details and bring the performance up.

 

Ok, so fat chance of flashing the vBios, i get an adapter not found error message in ATIFLASH which i find kinda weird considering the display and everything is working properly.

I'll start with a clean windows 7 install and retry the benchmarks as well as the bios flash. If i still have no luck, i'll call it a fail and revert back to the 5870.

 

So how much performance you think your losing 10%?



adapter not found!? wth..... random as crap


Well it cant be a power issue because when you overclocked, you gain performance and you didnt have instability.

you gotta die trying bro, your soooooo close, its something sooo small it HAS to be.



Look up Ati flash command , or do a /help or -help

There is a way to specify the adapter

For example for some odd reason, it might be seeing it as adapter #1 instead of #0 on pci bus, iam not sure how that would happen tho, because there is not 2nd slot.


Do a google for ati flash commands, i know its in there, i had to do it on my desktop when i had 2 cards in crossfire.

There is also a list adapter command too

Make sure you using the newest version of ati flash www.mvktech.net

 

I have still some screenshots of stock runs, but with older drivers... see GPU-Z on the screenshot:

Like I said, you'll need to force the flash since the Dell vbios has some different IDs on it, and you'll need to reinstall the driver afterwards.

Code:

atiflash -f -p 0 filename.extension

 

Actually, i tried forcing the flash with a modified Clevo vBios and it didn't return anything. atiflash i returns an adapter not found message too. Will try forcing the flash in any case with the Dell vBios right after the clean install before i try the drivers. I got the installers for most of my programs on my 2nd HDD fortunately. This will save me a lot of time after the clean install. It will also be nice to run on the minimal amount of processes and get rid of that creative software i was too lazy to uninstall.

Currently backing up my steamapps folder. Gonna take a while. After that clean install with minimal drivers and back to testing. I suppose i could take my N50 to university instead and keep the 6970m in the system for a week and continue with the tweaking. Thank god for backups. There's something gimping the card though or it is defective but since everything tuns fine, no crashes artifact or anything i'd be surprised if that was the case.

If anyone in montreal or laval has a clevo system where i could test the card, let me know. In any event, i'll order another tube of ICD7 i'll be running out soon i think and i'll also try a heatsink mod to keep the card cooler. Even if it fails, i think i'll post a guide on how to swap the G73 GPU for anyone who feels like trying another card be it in the JH, JW or SW.

 

Hmm, can you post a picture of the screen with the error?

You could try chaning the IDs to the ones that the 5870m uses, this may solve some issues.
Though I don't even know whether this is possible with RBE, I have to check this.

 

Will post the pic of the error shortly. Still waiting for that backup to complete.

Still backing up, i've decided to run the week with the 6970m to try and figure this out if everything works fine after the re-install.

Here's the pic:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Starting the re-install process now

Ok, so clean install and windows updates still fail. I'll try putting the 5870 back in to see if it is hardware check related. This is starting to seriously bug me.

 

which version of ATiflash are you using?

 

That is a very good question, the one Asus provided for the newer vBios. Actually, that might just be the issue. Silly me, i'll check the version and report back.

Well, the windows update problem was kinda obvious once i found out what is was. The service is simply missing from the service list. Attempting recovery from the factory partition right now. Back on the 5870 and atiflash does recognize the GPU so that's a start. I don't think i'll do another 6970m attempt until the next week at least. I will still try it again but i'll have to order new thermal paste which i hope i'll be able to get soon considering that canada post conflict.

I'll nurse my G73 back to full health first though. I still can't figure out where i screwed up with windows update since the service was missing with a clean install too. If i have to, i'll backup to the external HDD and nuke both drives.

Ok, looks like i'll be able to recover my G73 to the state it was before i tried the 6970m Next attempt scheduled for the next week end when i'll have the time. I haven't completely given up on making it work yet. Will try the latest version of ATIFLASH i can get my hands on and see if it works. At least i don't think the issue is power related.

Ok, so i'm in the process of reinstalling everything. Can't say i'm too happy about that but hey i'll live. I managed to get all of the software problems out the window so that's good. Expect an update during the next week end when i will once again try the 6970m in my JH. At least i can now confirm that aside from the usual clock and performance issues, the problems i was experiencing were software related. Once everything is back up and running i'll do said guide on how to completely disassemble the G73 and proceed to GPU/CPU swaps as necessary.

To do tomorrow:
Post screens of that show the 6970m works partially in the G73.
Guide on how to fully disassemble the beast and heatsink mod to fit standard mxm GPUs.

Things on the list for the next week-end:
Change the vBios to the Dell one.
Mess with the clock settings if needed in the vBios.
Get performance where it should be as in p 11000 to 12000 in vantage.

To conclude, today wasn't my day. I had problems unrelated to the 6970m i think and i might have gone overkill with the measures to get rid of them.

Update, here are the pics of the device manager as well as the 2 monitor problem:

 

regsvr32 wuapi.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 wups.dll
regsvr32 wups2.dll
regsvr32 wuwebv.dll
regsvr32 wucltux.dll

Thats the batch commands to reinstall windows update as a service, that will fix your problem with windows update

 

I fixed it. I got an error when i tried the batch command saying wuaueng was missing. In the end, i ended up doing a clean install, but that isn't too bad i still had some crap i didn't want on my G73. It's working even more buttery smooth now. I will make another attempt in a week. I haven't put the nails in the 6970m coffin yet. I was too stupid to make an image of my system but reinstalling from a USB drive is still fast enough. Again, i have to thank Chastity for her awesome driver page.

 

This is awesome news! I expected it to work at some capacity but I believe this will be fully functional at some point. A fresh install of windows and 11.6 drivers should get this going (BF3 should play at decent settings). You may still have to force the clocks and manually adjust the fan for now but hey it works. This could be promising for the next 7***m series as well (If we are lucky). This could greatly extend the life of the G73JH for many and it gives something to play with. Good Luck with your next test! Is the 920XM really worth it? I can get my 720qm to 1.9GHz stable 3.2GHZ Turbo Boost.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Current Notebook:
G73JH i7 720QM @1.9GHz (3.2 GHz Turbo Boost) 5870M 825/1100 8GB DDR3 1333 @ 1600MHz Western Digital Black 500GB Seagate 500GB

 

Good job tijo! +rep
Good news that the fans work and the temps also look fine. Since the only problem now are clocks, the easyest way to solve that would be to give up powerplay (if the Dell vBios also has the same issue, do try that first ofc) - flash a modded Clevo vbios with all clock profiles set to 680/900. If you cant flash on g73jh try finding someone with a compatible Clevo to flash the GPU in. If you can try that let us know if it works...

 

The clocks aren't really a problem since he can set them with ATI Tray Tools. Flashing the BIOS would just make it more convenient.

 

As Sarge said, i managed to get the clocks at what they should be with ATT. Or at least that's what HWiNFO and GPU-Z report. There is still the issue with poor performance in 3Dmark Vantage. Normally, i'd ask svl7 for data, but he bricked his card so that option goes out the window. I sincerely hope i can find a Clevo to test the GPU. That would rule out any defect possibility. I still believe the inability to flash was due to me using a version of atiflash made before the 6970m though. In any case I'll know for sure next week-end.

If the Dell vBios is a no go as far as clocks go, i'll mod it. When i'm plugged in i don't care too much for powerplay.

 

@tijo Your Vantage scores may be due to drivers. Are you using 11.6? They have updates in it that specifically address 6970m. It could be the drivers for the 6970m are not mature enough yet.

 

I tried 11.6 modded by Asder and 11.5b hotfix, same scores both times.

 

11.6 work pretty good with the 6970m, best driver for the card imo. 11.5 was fine as well.
Like I said, you should get about 11k vantage GPU score on stock clocks. Maybe you need to reinstall vantage.
A while ago I got pretty low scores as well, even though everything was perfectly fine in games... I guess Windows update messed something up. Could be the same in your case.

 

Yeah, could be. I did experience some problems with Vantage when i benched. I'm on a clean install now so that should be out of the windows as far as potential problems go.

I'll work on getting it to perform as it should, changing the vBios and if i manage to get everything performing up to specs, i'll work on a heatsink mod to make it run cooler .

I have some other crazy ideas but they'll have to wait. In the end i hope to have a 6970m JH-G74 keyboard hybrid but i think that may be pushing things a bit too far.

 

I don't know how you will get the G74 Keyboard to fit the dimensions and chassis are completely different. It would be nice to have a full keyboard however. How much was the retention back plate for the 6970M.

 

upgradeyourlaptop sent it to me for free with the card , however the bracket i ordered didn't fit well with the heatsink due to a screw problem. I wasn't able to find the right hardware to fit them either so i ended up modding the asus bracket to fit both cards. It fits well, but screwing the heatsink in place is a bit harder.

I was more interested in fitting the whole palm rest/kb panel to the G73 chassis. The dimensions seem to be roughly the same. As long as the connectors are in similar places, it should work. Of course, i would have to mod it to fit perfectly as well as fit the buttons on the top left of the unit if i can fit the connections in the right place.