We want support for GCN based Mobile GPU, AMD Fix Enduro think tank Thread

This is not a AMD vs Nvidia thread. This is not for anyone to say, ha! Nvidia better. Nvidia doesn't have these problems. Don't even bother mentioning Nvidia in this thread!

Hello,

I thought this issue was relegated to the 7970M for Clevo, Alienware owners. But was told this is not the case, it affects ALL GCN based mobile GPUs. This is why I thought maybe posting it in this forum.

The intent is to galvanize AMD to acknowledge, admit the problem exists and provide a solution now. This should have been fixed 3 months ago.

Code:

Example: The AMD GSOD issue was ignored by AMD.  Then Hard|OCP said enough is enough, AMD acknowledge and fix it.
[url=http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/02/23/amd_ati_radeon_dongle_gsod_issues_addressed/]HARDOCP - Dongle and GSOD Issues - AMD ATI Radeon Dongle and GSOD Issues Addressed[/url]

It worked.  AMD reached out to the community, people sent in their GPU's and feedback and got it fixed.

This is the synopsis I have so far:

- Enduro causes GCN GPUs to throttle, even though the temps are less than 70C, GPU utilization drops to 30-50% with framerate dropping by 50%

- No drivers works. We've tried WHQL drivers, Leaked Drivers, Beta Drivers, modded drivers by LeshCat (Because AMD doesn't think it prudent to release drivers that support switchable, weird), and drivers from Benchmarked. And of course the official drivers from our notebook brands are fail.

- Third party methods do not work. We've tried throttlestop, we've tried disabling core parking, disabling ULPS with Afterburner, changing every setting in CCC, and Windows Power Management.

- Lowering in game settings doesn't work. Same framerate, just lowers the GPU utilization even further. Bizarre.

- Sager reached out to NBR to try and resolve this. Sager as NBR mods have said, tried and were nice enough to recognize this issue and look for a solution. They asked for feedback on drivers and when we see under-utilization (of course that is all the time). AMD requested these threads to be closed, deleted etc. NBR did so to help Sager keep good relations with AMD...

- This issue affects all GCN based, not just Clevo and Alienware

- So far the only solution at least in Clevo forum is, get a refund and get a different GPU. How terrible is that?

- For Clevo we know it's not the muxless design. It works perfectly fine for the green team.

What can we do as customers of these GCN based GPUs? I've tried creating threads in other forums, hopefully get more attention.

Get the word out Threads!

AMD Gaming
AMD Game Forums - The Clevo 7970M Enduro/under-utilization debacle.

Rage3D
7970M Enduro Issue - Rage3D Discussion Area

HardForum
AMD Enduro Problem - [H]ard|Forum

Guru3D
AMD Enduro, AMD Response Help - Guru3D.com Forums

 

yay someone speaks out! This sucks. I dont understand how amd isnt providing drivers for switchable graphics even tho its their own software, enduro.... it doesnt make sense?

 

I doubt AMD will have a fix in the 12.8 WHQL they were so nice enough to have lots of fixes that aren't detrimental to desktop users ability to have games.

Just shows you what priorities AMD has. Fix minor crud for desktop users, give the finger to mobile users who don't have GPU that aren't functioning properly.

You got any ideas on how to get AMD to provide drivers that support switchable graphics? As you said, it's very weird they don't do it. I don't understand why they claim they have unified drivers and provide mobile support when they don't even support switchable graphics which the majority of laptops with AMD graphics use that tech.

 

Hi ppl,
I've been actively sending emails to Clevo, posting posts in other forums in order to aware everyone that has a 7970M or thinks on buying one that AMD/Clevo need to do something first to fix this huge problem asap and/or at least give us some kind of feedback!
I liked AMD and Clevo, but now I feel unsupported and confused.


@hulawafu77 keep up the good work!

Best Regards to all

 

Its a total disgrace and the reason why I am staying put with the 6990M even though the 7970M looks so promising.

I am AMD supporter through and through for high end every single year until now I would easily pay for the 680M over the 7970M looking at all the issues with Enduro its lazy of AMD to release something not tested on 2 of the major resellers just need to remember this when they release the 8 series because if everyone went Nvidia AMD would pull their socks up.

 

The problem wouldn't affect you since you've got a P170HM

Although I totally agree, always disliked AMD for the horror they caused me in my desktop era.. and now this, I am sad
- and nVIDIA is overpricing insanely, makes no sense why the 680M is clocked so low.. oh well

Lets just hope AMD is trying to fix this damned issue!

 

There's no way to disable the integrated chip and force your laptop to use the dedicated graphics 100% of the time?

 

There is for Alienwares, but not for Clevos. That's how the issue was discovered in the first place. The m18x would run faster with Enduro disabled than enabled.

 

Need a bit of help. It seems some at Rage3D believe I'm trolling AMD just for the sake of trolling and actually calling me a jerk and a lyingtroll for looking for a solution. Would be nice if I could get some support from you all on NBR to demonstrate that I am not alone looking for a solution....

 

I'm a little confused, forgive my ignorance.
I have a alienware r4 with amd 7970. is assumed that when resolve the problem of enduro, (a problem that i can not understand) the gaming performance will be enhanced between 30 and 50%?

 

As AW M17x R4 owner, you have the option to turn off Enduro, switch it on and off. When you want to game, turn it off. When you are mobile and want battery savings, turn it on. This is something you should have to do, it should just work!

But I'd like to clarify this Enduro issue was first proven with Alienware notebooks., since performance was shown to be much different with Enduro on and Enduro off. Unfortunately for HP and Clevo owners, we cannot turn off Enduro.

 

This scenario seems eerily reminiscent of the problems with the Nvidia 8600-8800 line, the manner in which AMD is acting is almost exactly how Nvidia did when they were accused of producing faulty cards. Deny, deny, then deny some more............it took legal action to get them to admit anything and I fear this is the same route those that purchased the 7970 are going to have to take.

AMD is obviously trying to censor the spread of knowledge about the defects in order to curb potential losses, as you can already see just by the amount of people here on NBR that have already returned their 7970's. Sager at least took a shot at fixing it but were quickly shot down by AMD and their/our efforts were lost to deletion.

 

then if I turn off enduro. I will have better performance in games?
how i turn off enduro ?

 

Is this proven? I assume Enduro would not be able to work with my SB CPU but I was expecting problems so didn't bother.

Maxing Anno 2070 so still not worth it atm I would consider the 680M when it is fully working in a HM though.

 

Yeah, you should be ok. Just make sure yo get the 7970M that has the modded vBios. RJTech or example sells em with the vBios on it ready to go.

 

As long as you dont need to send the video signal over the Intel IGP it performs flawless.
So the 170HM series owners need to flash a vBios that disables Enduro and its ready to go.

Like Optimus i really hope second generation Enduro is fully fixed.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

too bad i cant do that

 

Let's not hope the problem is so bad that it will be denied by AMD. It may be completely fixable. Maybe Sager and AMD will be able to just change some thing or force some thing in a driver or add an option in a new BIOS. The 7970m does get consistently high utilization in many games. I know I am saying what we were saying two months ago, but nothing has changed. The problem hasn't gotten worse in reality, just in our minds. We should stay positive. Let's all agree on one thing: never buy another new GPU without knowing exactly how it performs in every game you want to play or might consider playing. No more buying the latest and greatest just because it is the latest and greatest. Whoever screwed up (whether it be Clevo, Sager or AMD) will lose the trust of early buyers if the problem isn't solved. If the problem is solved, well, that would be pretty damn awesome.

Any one with Enduro in ther laptop models, make sure to spread the word. Post your experiences in multiple forums, contact Clevo, Sager and AMD and express what is going on. Referring to the Shawshank Redemption, keep sending those letters, and you may eventually get that bit of funding for your in-prison library.

 

When I updated to 12.6 (8.980) mythlogic drivers I noticed 99% util in D3, L4D2 and alan wake, which I didn't have before with 12.5 stock drivers. I tried different graphics settings as well and it stayed up there. I still have MANY other games with terrible utilization but I believe it definitely can be fixed with some solid drivers.

Enduro is pretty dang unstable to begin with.. it keeps trying to power down parts of the GPU or something, as the utilization just jumps up and down. If Nvidia took awhile with Optimus IDK how fast we can trust AMD to fix this?

 

I added links to the active threads on other well known forums/blogs/tech sites that AMD has good relations with to the OP. Check em out, post, reply, demonstrate some solidarity and conviction in this effort. Thanks.

We are gaining some traction. Guru3D and Rage3D is most active so far with users of variety of notebooks and GCN GPUs that are affected. The AMD forum as expected is a tape recorder of fill out the driver feedback form and it's the OEM's fault. HardForum needs some more love.

Example: The AMD GSOD issue was ignored by AMD. Then Hard|OCP said enough is enough, AMD acknowledge and fix it.
HARDOCP - Dongle and GSOD Issues - AMD ATI Radeon Dongle and GSOD Issues Addressed

It worked. AMD reached out to the community, people sent in their GPU's and feedback and got it fixed.

 

In M17x R4
Click FN + F7 to disable enduro.

OR

In M17x R3
install unlocked bios and disable integrated graphics

OR

In m18x R1/R2
Run dedicated graphics mode in bios

To those with enduro issues in the clevo EM's, have you guys tried running the 12.7b drivers in conjunction to using msi afterburner? You need to set the "UnofficialOverclockingMode=2" in the MSIAfterburner.cfg file

 

To 2 or 1? I have it set to 1.

 

set it to 2 then reboot...game and report back to me. UnofficialOverclockingMode=2 prevents downclocking. I want to see if it has a positive effect or improves your throttling

 

hmm if the msi sensors say my gpu is going at 99%, is that reliable?

 

yes, that's very reliable

 

hmm guess that i dont have enduro problems then afterall lol. it says my gpu is going to 99% for like almost ever game/benchmark besides killing floor which i got the fps limited with vsync

 

Nothing changed. Still low FPS and still low GPU utilization.

 

hula, what is the oldest driver that you have tried using?

So just to get this right...even if you have it set to 2 and you overclock the core and ram slightly, say 875/1250, it is still throttling?

 

hula, what is the oldest driver that you have tried using?

So just to get this right...even if you have it set to 2 and you overclock the core and ram slightly, say 875/1250, it is still throttling?

EDIT: ooops, double post, please remove

 

It's totally dependent on the settings and games you play.

For example, if I raise BF3 settings to Ultra everything at 1080p, then sure I get 99% usage.. but my frame rate drops to ~ 22 fps.

I want higher frame rates... and it does not matter if I use 1080p @ Medium or 720p @ Low, I get ~ 40-50 fps with GPU usage around 60-70%.

I need 60+ fps to play competitively.

 

another question, its suppose to be full utilization with an OC? what if its not OCed? cause mine is fully utilized with the OC

 

Question: What is the triggering mechanism for the throttling? Is it temp related?

have you guys tried undervolting your 7970m's?

 

We don't know why the throttling but... somehow if I increase some settings in CCC or games, it helps to increase the GPU % usage so as consequence I have more FPS, but it's still very unstable...
Temp related cannot be because my GPU never reaches 80ºC while playing, most of the times I play in 60-70ºC.

I tried to install ATT to undervolt but the software is too old :S And since we can't flash a new vbios on 7970M on Clevo, it's not an option for me :S


Thank you,
Best Regards to all

 

AMD Enduro, AMD Response Help - Guru3D.com Forums

 

CatalystCreator says they are investigating the issue. Nothing, more, I have no idea what that means. Caveman-jim says he has forwarded the information posted to AMD and they will have an answer for him tomorrow.

Hooray! Finally some headway.

Twitter / CatalystCreator: For those with 7970M - Enduro ...

 

Nice. Hope they actually do provide a workable fix/workaround, and hopefully SOON.

 

Nice to see some results of our desperate posts around the internet !

 

Can You elaborate?
I have tried a Dell vBIOS on my Clevo 7970M and it worked (my Clevo 7970M works in an MSI laptop though), although the full load clocks were stuck at 450/300.

 

Looks like they are working on a fix for the 7970m / Enduro issue:

Twitter / CatalystCreator: For those with 7970M - Enduro ...

 

At least we've had an update! Although its as minor as a single tiny sentence posted on twitter it still takes ownership of the problem and recognises it needs to be fixed.

After all this tho, I still dont expect AMD to acutally fix this issue until 12.9 or 13.0 simply because they'll be far to busy playing with windows 8 compatability.

 

Good job so far hulafu. I really wanted a 7970m and was excited after seeing the first benchmarks, but this issue shouldn't even exist, or should have been addressed promptly first time it was brought to their attention. I really hope they fix this because I would hate to see AMD fail and be left with only nVidia. One thing I was thinking is Sager could help their clients if they designed a board that muxed the dGPU instead of piping it through the HD 4000 and replace people's boards at cost. I'm sure many users would pay $150 to fix the issue if that's what it took.

 

This rumour is like three months old... come on, seriously...

 

svl7, It may be only a rumor, however, 680m has been completely removed from the alienware website. And then we got this today:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-offering-680m-any-laptops-3.html#post8774985

 

I see... Still, I can't take anything serious which comes from a Dell phone... the past has shown that they usually have crazy stories to share Oh well, we'll see...

 

ya, i know lol...we have a dell rep on the alienware forum that will confirm what the heck is going on. Hopefully it is nothing more than just a stock issue

 

That would be nice. But yeah, for high end gaming, I don't see how AMD can compete if they can't fix this. Nvidia providing a solution with high end performance and battery solution.

 

Strange, the 680M has been removed from the UK site too. I dont rekon its just a stock issue if its been removed fron the UK and US sites at the same time. This whole mobile GFX card thing just gets more and more complicated!

 

i totally agree. i wonder if there is just a global stock shortage of the 680m...or if there is something more interesting going on lol

No one knows the answer right now

 

hi guys. i turn off enduro and I have to say I feel like I've been driving a BMW with the spare wheels. the difference is huge. fps rate now is a lot more stable and slightly better . I can not believe. I feel cheated

 

Strange because Clevo's are still selling with 680m's.