GX740 succesfully upgraded to AMD7970M

Hello,

I just wanted to share my recent experience with You.

I have ordered a Clevo 7970M from R&J Tech. It was supposed to be flashed with a vBIOS compatible with Clevo P150HM laptop. When I put it in my GX740, the stock card would display no picture after power on (screen completely black, no backlight). Laptop booted to Windows though.
After digging up the NBR forum, I performed a blind flash(using DOS bootable flash + atiflash) with a Dell 7970M vBIOS. The card displayed picture, laptop booted to Windows, all was fully functional except for the clocks, which would remain at 450/300 (GPU/GDDR5) under full load. Again, after digging up the NBR forum, I performed another flash, this time with Clevo 7970M vBIOS for the HM laptops. The card is now fully functional, full load clocks are 850/1200. Powerplay fully functional.
I have a GX740 with 7970M.

CONCLUSION:
R&J Tech have sent a 7970M for EM type laptops, not the HM one I have ordered. Fortunately, I was able to blind flash the card and the HM vBIOS worked.

Unigine Heaven 3.0 Screenshot:


VantageP Screenshot:


3DMark11 (with GPU overclocked to 920/1400):


FurMark temps (no laptop cooler used):


Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War 2 (1920x1200 maxed out with GPU overclocked to 920/1400):



PS.
I control the fan speed manually, it is set to 100%.

PS2
vBIOS attached.

 

Your vantage score is waaaay lower than it should be, but also, youre running a first gen core i 7. Prolly its due to that, on Sandy and Ivy scores are above 20k. Did you try OCing the card?

 

Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge quadcores score over 20000 in Vantage CPU. My i7-820QM scores half of that. Yet, the GPU score is over 18000. This value is very satisfactory to me. You can see, that the card is somewhat limited by the slower CPU, however performance gain is still huge. My GX740 with stock 5870M would score around ~P7800, when OCed ~P8800, with 6970M stock ~P11400, now over P15000 on a stock 7970M card. So far I am happy with that, I will experiment a bit with OCing and/or undervolting the card.

 

Impressive ! Very well done !

 

Niesamowite. Nice work!

 

So HM vbios has diabled Enduro on 7970M?

 

Yup it has.
Clevo EM users should test it as well to see if it helps.

 

I thought that the em users would not get an image on their internal display if they use the hm vbios.
From what I've read, the motherboard is designed in a way that makes disabling enduro impossible.
I don't know the exact details though.

 

Yep Moral, because of the mux. The dGPU must through the iGPU, so if you disable the iGPU you disable the dGPU. AW don't have this issue because of the mobo routing. You can disable the iGPU and the dGPU will be dedicated.

 

I apologize for asking newbie question, but how do I flash vbios with different one? For instance, em version to hm version. Do I need some type of equipment or can I do it with the computer I am installing the card?

 

You can do it on a computer, in which You are installing the new card. As I have written before, I have performed a blind flash, which means that the new card was in the laptop, but it wasn't displaying any picture.
All You need for flashing a vBIOS is a bootable USB flash (with DOS files on it), a flashing utility (such as atiflash for AMD cards or nvflash for NVIDIA cards) and a vBIOS file. Just make sure that both flashing utility and the vBIOS file are in the main folder of the USB flash drive.
There are many guides on how to do it available online.

 

Thank you for the information. I will research more about it.

 

Hi Marecki_clf

Can you please post some temps & also some gaming bench marks please

 

I've updated the first post with FurMark temps. I will add some screenshots with game benchmarks a bit later.

 

Thanks Marecki_clf, Can you please do me one more thing and tell me what your idle temps are

 

Idle temps are around 40C. For some reason the clocks stay at 300/1200 when idle.

 

Marecki,

Does VGA out and HDMI work with the Clevo vBIOS? I'm curious because I am thinking of putting a Clevo 7970M in my 16F2 and need to know if they will work. Unless I can get a good deal on a Dell card. Thanks for the good work.

 

Updated the thread with 3DMark11 score and Warhammer 40000 Dawn of War 2 1920x1200 maxed out.

 

Wonder if my green team gx640 can beat your gx740

Why would it work on your 16f2 just because it works on the gx740? They are 2 very different laptops.

 

I don't have any HDMI display at home to check this out (no TV - television sux big time ). Sorry for the late reply.

Bring it on! My Kung Fu is better than Yours!

 

Why someone does not use MSI's own bios: http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/692264-offical-msi-gx60-owners-lounge-6.html

 

Errr well the msi one is an enduro card for a machine that has no muxing so it might not work.

 

If you have not tried it, you can not say that does not work.
I believe that the vbios is not related Enduro.The more so because the Intel GPU does not work anyway.
Ok.I have to try yourself.

 

I am always extremely careful with the words I use, in this example I used "might" as no, I have not tested it myself, nor am I aware of another person.

The boot issues have been due to the cards assuming Enduro was enabled and the Vbios start sequence. Since the MSI card is similarly only in MUXless setups there is a chance it will experience the same issue.

 

Hello. Please help to deal with the Radeon 7970m, he got me with a broken msi gx60 as the power supply 180 watts. When installing an msi gx740,the image on the screen was not. Flashed the BIOS from dell 7970m,the image is a driver installed,but any 3d application running at 450 / 300. Flashed the BIOS from clevo 7970m, the image is there,but the driver is not installed. Tried the BIOS for allegedly gx740,driver installed but after installation blue screen with error atikmdag.sys. Guys help me,and that already twice had to lift his feet BIOS that would return the card to the normal state after a failed firmware. Sorry for the bad English.

 

And your BIOS from the notebook also modified?

 

Hi,

I don't have many knowledges about the subject, but can I do the same with a 7970M from a GX60 (a dell card made to work with an AMD APU and not an Intel CPU) with Enduro enable (I think)? Is this possible in a x7811? And will it be the same procedure than you did with the GX740? With a blind flash or not necessary?

Thank you and sorry for my non perfect english, but it will be a great opportunity to replace my old 5870M at a good price.