[GUIDE] - Blind-Flashing AMD 7970M modded vBIOS for Clevo P1xxHM Laptops

hm weird...ill check that when i find the time

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I have a Sager NP8170/Clevo P170HM... My gpu died. i just bought a new gpu (6990m Dell Alienware M15X M17x R3 M18x DDR5 AMD HD 6990M 2GB Video Card CN-0RDRGR) big mistake it should have been a clevo card, but do you now if a vbios of some kind could work?

My problem is my computer now starts with picture but it starts beeping and then turns off.:

 

im afraid theres no solution for this... is it possible for you to give back the card? either that or sell it off on ebay and use the money to get a clevo card instead!

 

Ok thank you..
which card do you think i should go for.. it is hard to find Clevo cards on ebay..

 

well, anything thats compatible id say the fastest cards would include the 7970M and 680M, but both would need some modding....

 

i'm trying to run two 8970m in crossfire but its not letting me enable it, basically saying they aren't connected inside the computer. is there any reason to think i would need a new crossfire cable ? would my OEM one not be compatible being from the 48xx series? both cards are detected, one is just disabled. any help is appreciated!

i've found every single 8970m can work as long as you use a clevo bios.

*edit* Changed out crossfire cable with extra OEM i had and resat everything. working like a charm!

 

weird thread to post this in what machine do u sport, anyways?

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Alienware M17x r2 so its ooooold. but i found your guide to be perfect for the 8970's as well, obviously hitting power issues but i thought maybe if they were under clocked maybe they would work fine, they have almost the same power consumption as the original 48XX.

 

good stuff, glad u got it working so easily then

 

had to take the 2nd card out for stability, are there any good modded vbios for this card?

Graphics Chipset - AMD Radeon(TM) HD8970M
Device ID - 6801
Vendor ID - 1002
SubSystem ID - 043A
SubSystem Vendor ID - 1028
Revision ID - 00
Bus Type - PCI Express 3.0
Current Bus Settings - PCI Express 2.0 x8
BIOS Version - 015.036.000.005
BIOS Part Number - BR44618.001
BIOS Date - 2013/06/03 23:03
Memory Size - 4096 MB
Memory Type - GDDR5
Memory Clock - 1250 MHz
Core Clock - 900 MHz
Total Memory Bandwidth - 160 GByte/s

 

if i remember correctly, there were some modified vbios files over at techinferno....? not sure though!

 

looked around and couldn't find anything, lots for MSI but not much clevo. a little .exe some one made for modding the 7XXX series. when i open it up it says UEFI would be disabled so not 100% sure where to go from here. Thanks for the help! I'm going to start a new thread for this over in the AW section if you could help.

 

Hello I am trying to flash a Dell 7970m on my MSI GX640 but it looks like it is not even making it to the BIOS screen. I have the black screen and I am typing in the command but my flash drive's light is not flickering meaning it is failing to flash. I am also unable to use numlock or any other basic BIOS commands any suggestions?

 

not sure about msi machines, but in clevo models, dell gpus just dont work, no matter what u do! if thats the case with msi as well, the only thing left for you to do is return the card or sell it off again and go for an msi / clevo gpu instead...

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There is the odd exception, but that's the general rule. The rules for MSI systems are different.

 

Well I am leaning towards a total brick my self. I mean it is one thing for it to not be compatible and need a flash it is another that even with my old CPU that has an IGPU on it that the system can not get to the BIOS. I have reached out to the seller who has a 2nd one for sale he is accepting mine back and is flashing the 2nd one he has with the BIOS from this thread so it will be compatible 100% and will be 100% tested. I will keep you guys posted.

In the mean time I would like to get a Plan B sorted out. So anyone have a Clevo or MSI 7970m for sale all the ones on Ebay are Dell and in China (There is one MSI card but it is in China also) I would prefer to buy a card state side personally.

 

be aware that the HM series does not have a functioning igpu, so it wouldnt help u in any case...

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Well the new card arrives tomorrow I will have results soon. Wish me luck everyone. Hopefully it works.

As for why I am choosing the BIOS you provided Jaybee83 is because of this post

https://www.techinferno.com/index.p...40-260us-supports-7970m-nicely/#comment-56664

and many like it according to that user and a few others I have found both here and techinferno the BIOS you provided is the best bet for fixing the issues with the 7970m.

Also while we are on the subject just wanted to say thank you for writing this guide it is very well written easy to follow and as someone who has searched all over for info on the 7970m it is highly recommenced and I can see why. Keep up the great work

 

SO the card came in flashed with the BIOS (Sorry for late response I went on vacation shortly after the last post) I have full BIOS access I am also able to boot into windows 10 with no issue and use it to my hearts content.

Now there is an issue I am facing that is catching me off guard. SO every time I go to install the driver I get a blue screen and the error is atikmdag.sys I have never seen this error my self. I have tried using a few different drivers including some catalyst era drivers but they all give the same issue. Right now as I am typing this post I am putting a fresh install of windows 10 on a spare drive to see if I need to do a reinstall to have it work. I am wondering if anyone else has had this error?

Now I have done a few other tests on the card. I am able to get it to work with the default windows drive the Generic Video card one. I also checked to see what GPUz was able to say about the card and it sees it as an AMD card lists teh correct amount of shaders and states the card is a Clevo card. So does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this and how to fix it?

Thank you in advance for your help and advice

 

http://appuals.com/best-fix-steps-to-fix-bsod-error-atikmdag-sys-on-windows-10/

looks like a lot of people have that error running amd gpus in systems upgraded to windows 10 from win7 or 8.1. either try a fresh OS install or follow the steps described in the link

btw, happy to see HM series machines still rockin' the community out there, keep it up guys!

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Thank you for the guide Jaybee but sadly it didn't work I got to the AMD installer and as soon as it said installing the video card driver I got a blue screen I followed the guide to a T also and uninstalled ALL 7970m drivers from windows and had it offline so it could ONLY use the one from the installer and still blue screen.

I also finished my testing with the fresh windows 10 install and as soon as I went to install the driver i got the same error.Do you have any other ideas? I have not tested win7 for the record only windows 10. I will try Win 7 in the mean time to see if it is maybe a windows 10 only issue.

 

Ok I finished my test. I installed windows 7 installed the drivers restarted and I am stuck in a blue screen loop so the issue is persisting in windows 7 also.

 

this might be a bit premature, but bsods while installing the gpu driver can also be an indicator of a defective card...

edit: heres another option - http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1656824/atikmdag-sys-error-bsod-startup.html

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NO dice with the steps sadly any other ideas

 

not good... can u visually inspect the card, make sure it doesnt have any burn marks or funky lucky components? might very well be failing on you...

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It looks clear to me no burns or anything out of place I will make an imgur of it front and back for you when I get home maybe you can spot something that I missed.(I have REALLY bad eyes IRL so I may have missed something). I know there are known electrical issues with using the 5850's bracket but they should not be an issue because I covered the bracket in electrical tape so it is non conductive do you think maybe the tape is causing the issue? I tried to use an older driver 13.5 I think (yeah went and got the launch drivers) I am able to install the card but but it gives an error (I can't remember off the top of my head and I am away from home right now so I can't check I will post the code when I get home.) I was able to load up Just Cause 2 with the windows driver (The generic one) and it was able to play in slide show mode but did play so I know it can accelerate 3d GFX.

I am kinda wondering if it is dead or not I mean if it was dead it would have been like my old R9 290x where it would crash for no reason or just not post with this one it is 100% stable when using the MS generic driver it just dies when I use the AMD driver.

I am also kind of wondering if maybe it is the vBIOS like maybe I need to reflash the card maybe the first flash was not successful. Do you think maybe it is the vBIOS like because I don't have an iGPU at all not even a disabled one it is causing issues and I should try to switch to the stock Clevo vBIOS?


The following link is for a few pictures of my laptop GPU so you can do a closer inspection. The white is old thermal past from the previous owner the copper is my shim and the white on the Vram is a bit of the paste from shipping. Please excuse the image quality the HTC one M9 has a truly awful camera.


http://imgur.com/a/xVVlM

 

Yep. Still rocking on new card.
My 6990 survived 2 times in the oven, 3rd time it died.
I'm not gaming, so I looked for a cheap replacement. Waited a long time and then just took a chance and bought a gtx260 from China eBay.
Fast delivery and the card was plug and play.
59 usd was all I gave plus a few euro for local taxes.
Very happy .

 

My 6990 has been through the oven 4 times, and now my laptop is sitting unused on a shelf; I've been wanting to replace it with a basic card to get some use out of the laptop, but I couldn't find anything cheap.

Did you have to buy anything extra for the 260m card? The ebay listing I'm looking at mentions needing an X-bracket...

 

I did a few more tests over the weekend and nothing. Any one have any other ideas on how to fix it? I have tried the other BIOS listed and it didn't work I was wondering that DELL BIOS that is mentioned on page one do you have a link reason is maybe if I change the BIOS back to DELL just a modified one it might work.

 

this is really weird...have u contacted the seller of the card about this?

 

So I did some research I found out that the Gen1 Vbios for the Dell 7970m didn't have enduro. I am thinking if I turn the Dell card back into a Dell card with out enduro it will fix the issue. On one of the pictures I took of the back of the card I found a stick that states the vBIOS version it came with from the factory. The vBIOS it is currently running is the newest one and a version that is known for having the enduro issue.

There was another user on this form who had an MSI laptop and tried the 015.017 and it worked on his so I am wondering if it will fix mine. At this point the card is pretty much a paperweight I tried one of your other BIOS's with custom volts thinking maybe that would work and I hit the same wall so maybe this will fix it. Wish me luck.

 

definitely wishing u luck, but all vbios versions in the OP are already without enduro, thats the whole point of making them work in the HM series

and whoa, wait a second... did u say that card ure sporting is a dell variant?!

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Yep it is a Dell card. I flashed the card back to that older Dell BIOS revision that didn't have enduro. I am able to get a post I am able to get to the OS and I no longer blue screen but I get a black screen when I go to install drivers :/ I am out of ideas big time at this point.

Yeas I went with a dell because I have not seen a clevo based 7970m on ebay yet. I waited half a month for a Clevo card to come on ebay and just gave up in the end I figured I would go with a Dell card and try to get it to work. Do you have any other ideas?

 

Sorry for Dup post my computer glitched. Can you please delete this post Thank you.

 

um...might i say its a friggin miracle that u got a dell card booting at all! as stated in the OP, dell cards generally dont work in the HM series! aside from u, ive seen exactly one other guy having been able to boot up his clevo machine with a dell gpu, thats it. im 99.9% that this is where the issue lies. as annoying as it may be, ur best bet is still to be on the lookout for an amd or nvidia card pulled from either a clevo or msi machine. dell mxm boards just dont work...

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So do you think I should just stick my card on Ebay and hope to find a Clevo card on ebay? The BIOS is the stock BIOS for Dell so chances are if I where to put it in an Alienware it would start right up.

And well I may as well ask you the question. Do you have a Clevo 7970m for sale by chance?

 

u shouldve asked me that about one and a half years ago, my friend... then i couldve said yes

 

No extra was needed, just the card as it came. I was surprised how easy it was. Just replace old card with the 260 card and done!
Only make sure that the seller mention p150hm in the add.
So far it run Linux and windows 8 without problems.

EDIT: @redcandle - a little late, but here is the card.

 

If it comes with a clevo X-bracket the heatsink should be fine (though double check the pad placement).

 

I purchased a clevo 7970m v1.2 and just installed it into my P150hm. I followed the instructions and blind-flashed the card successfully. I used amd's driver cleaner tool to get rid of any old drivers and installed the latest Crimson 16.6.1.

The drivers install successfully and Aero gets re-enabled when its done but now I'm having trouble running anything in 3D. When i run anything in 3D my display driver crashes and the program itself crashes. I tried furmark for example, it crashes instantly when the window pops up. I tried several old sets of drivers (15.4,13.11) and the same exact issue happens.

Is there a special set of drivers that I need for my newly installed 7970m? My driver seems to crash only when i open anything in 3D.

The card itself works when I run OpenCL benchmarks and I see 100% utilization, my temps reach a max of about 78C when I run them with no driver crashes.

 

which OS are u on? also, have u tried the latest catalyst drivers? link: http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/latest-catalyst-windows-beta.aspx

if that doesnt help, go ahead and try DDU to clean up your gpu drivers before reinstall. and if THAT doesnt help, maybe try a fresh windows install

also, did u have such problems beforehand? it might also be related to a different system component, say, RAM or cpu?

 

I'm on Windows 7 64bit and never had these problems even when my 6990m was on the brink of dying. This is partially my work machine that I'm trying to save so it's too much to ask for a clean windows Install but if it has to end with that then oh well. If that's the way to go I may as well take a chance and move to a clean install of Win10 while its still free. I left memtest running throughout the night so my RAM seems to be fine.

edit: I might try a linux/Ubuntu live usb to see if 3D acceleration works, if it does then it's maybe an OS issue
edit2: Well, the Ubuntu attempt failed. Ubuntu can't even boot into its GUI because it can't initialize the GPU. First it gave a "Radeon VCE init error" which seems to be a very common issue with linux + recent AMD gpus then later it kept up with a scrolling "Radeon ring 0 stalled for more than XX ms" and kept on counting up.

 

Well, almost no problems. It does run well for my use, but now I really need a secondary screen. I have no luck setting that up. Linux don't see other screens and same for windows. Tried to install nvidia drivers in Win8, but they did not find the card.
I know it is an old machine and it ought to be replaced, but it does what I need, except this dual screen stuff.

So, do I need to flash BIOS or vBios to get secondary working?
How?

 

Hi everybody,

I had a clevo p170em with an 7970. The mainboard is dead so i locked arround to find another notebook to install the card. I could get my handy on a p150hm with no grafic card. When i understand it right i have to flash the 7970 make it work on an p150hm. The problem is that i can not download the vbios here on this site, nothing happens when i push the button to doanload it. Is the link still active active? I there another place where i cant download it?

 

thats the problem with external screens on the 7970M: HDMI out just doesnt work on the HM series...there was one freak case where a user upgraded his HM machine to a 7970M and had HDMI working, but we never figured out what exactly he did differently than everyone else...

try and use a smartphone browser to download the files, my box account sometimes acts up that way... in any case, i still have the necessary files, so no worries btw, check and make sure that youre sporting a v1.2 7970M (sticker on the mxm board), thats the only one that can be flashed to be compatible with the HM series laptops! also, be aware that u wont be able to use external screens via HDMI...

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Thank you. I worked with my old glalxy s2 . Yes, it is v1.2, so it should work. For a laptop it is a great card and. One last question, is the dvi out working nether or is it just the hdmi that ist not working?

 

no idea to be honest. could be that DVI works, but no promises in that regard...

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Hello! It's been a while since I visited this forum, as I've not used my P150HM for a while now. The 7970m GPU died out of warranty a year ago, and after 2 reflows that fixed it for 3 months each, I've overcooked and completely killed the card the 3rd time. It was collecting dust until I thought I'd try for another reflow, but I completely killed the card.

What's weird is that the sticker on the GPU says it's an AMD WIMBLEDON V1.1 2G, and I just noticed in the first post of this thread that it shouldn't work. It also has double-stacked diodes, which is weird.
And with that card the HDMI port was working, while it shouldn't. Is it 100% sure that the V1.1 doesn't work in HM laptops?
It's a Malibal laptop, and it had a vBios that I think was different than the usual modded one.

BTW I'm not sure about keeping the laptop. I may try to sell it for parts if it costs more to replace the card than a whole laptop.

 

Interesting ... especially that vbios. Have an identical card somewhere that I've never managed to get running on my W870CU (non-enduro), though a v1.0 worked fine. Do you have tools to read vbios eeprom from a bricked card? If not; willing to ship the card to Europe? Will pay shipping expenses and upload that vbios, of course.

 

wow, that could potentially explain that freak case where the hdmi port really worked with a 7970M in an HM machine. really curious as to that vbios...

and yes, the knowledge base thus far was that v1.1 and v1.0 cards just did not work!

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