7970M survey!

Because everybody loves surveys I'd hate to be the one making the 32876423th thread about the 7970M but this one I believe is important and beneficial to all.

Basically, in every 7970M thread you've got those accusing the naysayers of being technically-inept/exaggerating and the naysayers accusing the other crowd of being the same five lucky people with flawless 7970M posting in every thread.

So ... lets poll and see which it is. As with all polls, please don't lie and make me go through the daunting task of checking every name that voted and their signatures I'm expecting that by the end of the week we'll get a rough estimate.

 

Is there a way to edit the survey by the way? I made a mistake in adding the last option because it confuses things.

 

Only low fps/utilization. No BSODs or overheating. Made sure I can change to a 680m IF the problem is not solved within a reasonable time range.

 

I have mine ordered, should arrive in a couple of weeks (international).

Does low fps/utilization affect every 3D application, or just some games? I'm assuming it also affects benchmarking software like 3DMark 11 ..etc?

 

Does not affect 3dmark 11, it does however 3dmark06. So far the only games I have found to work at near full utilization were Metro 2033 and Max Payne 3 (for most maps, there are a few maps where utilization drops to 30% very suddenly).

 

How about older games like WoW or EvE online? Is it more of a "affects majority of games" or "A handful of games" situation?

Btw the only person to answer by "I don't have any issues" after checking him out owns a Schenker XMG p702, one of the rare ones with 7970M it seems, not a Sager albeit also built on the Clevo barebone chassis. Is it possible that Sager is the only Clevo builder with the issue?

 

That person probably hasnt checked. There have been plenty of users insist they dont have this enduro issue until they test properly and find that they actually do. Also all Clevo / Sager barebones are exactly the same.

 

Oh really? So why buy from a reseller of Sager, when Sager is a reseller of Clevo?

There is an option for "I haven't checked" so we'll just have to take his word for it. I'll try to get him to post here his specs and settings/drivers/BIOS ..etc.

 

i consider >90C to be overheat

 

Well all the resellers are downplaying the heat issue and saying that the max temp before the 7970M would auto-shutdown is 111 Celsius and 120 before any dmg, so I thought I'd play along and set it at 100. I'm sure if someone is experiencing consistent high 90s they'd poll accordingly. I had to set a high threshold because some users here have been spamming the forum for weeks because their Ivy idles at 40 celsius (lol?!) and their 7970M reached 85 on Furmark, so I didn't want to indulge that variety

 

trust me, all clevo barebones have the exact same motherboards, exact same, chasis, same 7970ms.
re: i havent checked option - most people dont know they have the problem, they run 3dmark11, get a decent score and assume everything is working as it should.

 

I have a Schenker XMG p702, and the low utilization/fps issue.

 

Only issue I've had is the Enduro/utilization thing, but other than that things have been working great with my 7970M.

Note that I did get the GPU temp up to ~95C but that was after overclocking to 1025/1560 with stock thermal paste and playing Skyrim for about an hour. Time will tell if the temp lowers after I repaste, do the foil mod, etc

 

LOL what a sad survey

 

I get both low utilization and BSODs.

I frequently BSOD in league of legends with ati driver.

I gave up playing games on my laptop until this is fixed.

 

Sager is a clevo builder, not a reseller. And usually the sager resellers have better warranties as well as friendly service

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

Send it back and ask for a refund. Spend $240 extra and buy yourself a 680M that works perfectly like it should and never look back. Or maybe try your luck with Alienware with 7970M.

You can`t just sit and wait for a fix while not being able to use your expensive system. AMD have a long history of screwing things up. God knows how long you have to wait

 

I dont know why you make a survey about this enduro issue, 100% of laptop with enduro have this issue. Even alienware ! Until AMD find a way to fix enduro you need to live with it.

 

Two reasons:

1- Because as I expected, this looks really bad for Sager/AMD and expressing it in a poll format applies more pressure on them to get this fixed, after all this is the biggest laptop forum and Sager/Clevo forum on the web.

2- So the trolls/fanboys/company reps ..etc would stop telling us that it's only an issue "some systems" experience in "some scenarios", because clearly the vast majority have issues with this card, so it's a gigantic blunder. Even if only 20% of users suffered some debilitating issue like the Enduro one it should be enough to crush a product line and necessitates some form of free RMA/compensation or whatever.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant my friend.

 

still haven't managed to overclock my card although everything was done as described by slickdude -> other issue

 

Seems like there are about 15% of people using their 7970M happily which is very counter-intuitive. They can't have a driver ver. that we don't have, and it's unlikely for some industrial "glitch" to happen for 15% in the right direction, but we'll have to take their word for it.

If your card is working great, can you include some info about your drivers/BIOS/setup/OS and the way you tested for the Enduro issue to help the rest of us?

 

I see utilization issues in the games I play. GTA IV is of course horrible, but even in Bad Company 2 I can go to a new region and see down to 35FPS, and I have to wait for Zerocore to take a few seconds and bring up the utilization to get back 60FPS. Zerocore just isn't responsive enough. Max GPU temp is 80C in BC2 and max temp is mid-70Cs in GTA IV. Max temperature in Kombustor was 93C after 6 minutes (1920x1080, D3D11), where I started to see indefinite cycling from 93 and down and back again. I was stupid in not recording my Kombustor temperatures BEFORE I foil modded and repasted.

 

Are you sure it's Zerocore doing it? I thought it was an Enduro problem? Or are they both linked?

Also, to give you a slight indication, I haven't foil modded mine but I did repaste with IC Diamond and I'm sorry to say this but I am getting lower temps than you in BC2. This could of course have to do with ambient temperatures as well. Mine tops out at about 78-79 most of the time.

 

The 5 people who voted for their 7970M having no issues:-

1- Prasad: Owns an AW mx17, no idea why he voted.
2- Tornator: Has two posts on the site, has private messaging disabled, can't get through to him.
3- Wonka_vision: his last post yesterday on another thread said that he has just decided to order from Malibal, so no idea how he can vote when he doesn't have the card.
4- Slekkas: Got an XMG p702 system over a month ago, no more posts from him about his experience, sent him a PM.
5- Clintre: On the Beta drivers Feedback thread he says "I am not seeing much gain in the games that I am playing. However, I have not been having as many problems as some of the others probably due to the games I play." So apparently some issues with utilization but not "severe" whatever that may mean.

I told you peeps not to make me check the sigs /facepalm

 

Mythlogic (I believe it was him) said that when certain parts of the GPU aren't being used, they power down. I am confidently assuming that when you enter a new region that requires more utilization, Zerocore may not respond correctly and either not power back on those parts or take a bit of time to do that. I also agree that Enduro as a whole is causing problems, not allowing the GPU to just stay at a high utilization.

I would guess you have seen it but the original post is on this page:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...s-i-sent-ticket-clevo-hq-get-yours-too-6.html

I will say it again, just as every one does: it would be nice to a have a feature that allows us to keep utilization at 99%, and then also be able to use a working Enduro/Zerocore setup that makes sure we see a solid frame rate.

 

I'd be more than happy with a new BIOS that has an OFF button for Enduro and that will be the end of the "issue". They can iron out the Enduro issues on their own time while we get what we paid a premium for, 99% of a high-end gaming card.

 

True, but I recall somebody disproving this straight away as apparently all current AMD cards have this feature so in theory they would all have the problem. I think Zerocore software is quite mature at this point.

 

... not possible in Sagers/Clevos. The image being rendered by the 7970m goes through and is outputted by the Intel integrated card. It is simply not possible to create a BIOS fix for it as it is a hardware limitation.

 

so can we mod the hardware to make it like dell?

 

My only condolence is the fact that the 675M is less powerful than an "afflicted" 7970M, and a 680M is still way too expensive, so it's not like I would have opted for any other card, but still, this is quite annoying.

I don't think anyone but the most technically adept (and monetarily comfortable) would try hard-modding the MOBO on a Sager to bypass the Intel HD iGPU. I for one would not go for it even if it had a 99% success rate. That's like modding a Lamborghini at a knock-off Toyota workshop because the factory forgot to install the pistons in the engine properly.

What was AW's route then?

 

Assuming Meaker's post is correct (and I have no reason to doubt him), the Alienware laptops use a multiplexer (MUX) to allow signals from different sources to be routed to the display. The Clevo directly wires the card to the iGPU which then goes to the display.

See http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/673455-why-you-cant-disable-enduro.html for a nice diagram.

It is physically impossible to re-route this to the display outputs, and unless you are really good at cutting and soldering circuits directly found on a PCB, there's nothing more that can be done except wait for AMD to flush all the performance problems from the 7970 drivers.

 

I'm still not entirely convinced this is true. I mean... obviously it's true that it's a hardware issues, and that Alienware uses a hardware MUX which is why they can turn it off, but unless i'm wrong the old HM series still uses a pass-through just like the EM series, but the HM series doesn't "support" enduro, so it just doesn't turn on. So why not mod the BIOS so that the EM series doesn't support enduro, or have a toggle so that it doesn't, or something like that?

Or if not a modded BIOS, maybe a modded vBIOS that just makes the 7970m not ever initiate enduro.

 

The HM series also doesn't have an integrated card like the EM series does, that's why it doesn't use Enduro. All evidence points to it being a problem with Enduro.

 

I see. I haven't done much research on the HM series, I just assumed they had the older intel HD3000 integrated video like most Sandy Bridges. Anyway, would a modded vBIOS that disables enduro directly on the card be possible? I mean... it's not like there aren't BIOS mods that disable hardware features.

 

Nah there is absolutely no way. It is a hardware limitation caused by the image NEEDING to go thru the integrated card due to the way it has been wired. There is no way to circumvent this unfortunately as the 7970m itself isn't wired to the display, only the Intel card is. We will just have to wait for updated 7970m drivers.

 

Did they just delete the Beta drivers Sager thread? I can't find it anymore ...

 

Yup. Seems like it.

 

I understand that it passes through the Intel display adapter... that's not the same thing as using Enduro. Enduro is an on-card feature that turns the dGPU into a sort of "sleep mode" and lets the Intel iGPU take over when the dGPU supposedly isn't needed (like watching blu-rays or surfing the web, which the iGPU can handle just fine). Even when the dGPU is being fully utilized, it passes through the iGPU... so why not just disable it's ability to go into "sleep mode" so that it always uses the dGPU and just passes it through?

P.S. I'm not trying to be contrary, I just don't understand why passing through the iGPU means that enduro has to be enabled. I'm pretty sure the functionality of enduro can be turned off and still have the data pass through the iGPU on the way to the display.

P.P.S. The thing is, with Alienware, the MUX doesn't allow them to turn off enduro, it allows them to turn off the Intel iGPU. THAT is what we can't do on P150EM because of the pass-through.

 

I think because the AMD card is wired directly to the Intel card, it has to use Enduro. I could be wrong but this is the way I understand it. There may be a way to circumvent this on a driver level if people are keen to experiment I guess.

 

AMD will not do that even if it's possible, it'll defeat the purpose of the original design, what they can do now is only the optimization of Enduro.

 

Trudat. This is my thinking on the matter.

 

So far we have :

14% saying they don`t have any problems with their card,
18% having different problems than Enduro (Possibly more since additional 8% changed to 680M due to problems but haven`t explained what problems they had)
61% having Enduro problems (Possibly more since additional 8% changed to 680M due to problems but haven`t explained what problems they had)
8% that couldn`t deal with the 7970M problems and changed graphic card because of that

 

I chose Other issue (specify)

My card has been working good, but I have noticed some annoying issues in some games. One I made a thread for, Skyrim, which was having some stutter issue where it felt like the FPS was dropping really low, but Fraps showed it sticking to about 58-60FPS consistently... However it felt like it was fluctuating like crazy... This was very apparent when looking at flames in the dark. Also Diablo 3 was having a sort of microstutter issue as well (every couple seconds it would freeze up/stutter)... This along with lack of driver updates has really bothered me.

I submitted an RMA though I am past the 30-day mark. I am hoping Xotic will help me out in light of all these issues people are reporting.

 

More like 0% say they have no problem with the card. 2 of the 7 people own AW 7970Ms, another 2 have posted very recently that they JUST ordered their machines, and the remainder 3, one voted he has no issues here but posted elsewhere that he indeed gets down-utilization sometimes (wonka_vision), and the last two have joined the forum a few days ago, have little or no posts and have their PMs disabled. Best case scenario 2-3 people have fully functional cards out of 52.

It doesn't make any sense for anyone to have a Clevo 7970M that's fully usable because this isn't the wild where natural selection with mutation ensures that a few specimens will develop natural immunity to the "virus" lol ... No one is yet to emerge to prove to us that their 7970M (On a Clevo) is running as intended and advertised.

 

Anyone who claims they are having 0 issues just isn't knowledgeable enough to notice the issues probably. That or in denial, I wouldn't blame them.

EVERYONE with a Clevo 7970M is going to see the Enduro issue... To me that is a given. It's looking past this to other issues that is my beef, like the issues I've been seeing with my games. Diablo 3 should flawlessly, that game should be a cakewalk for the card... Should not see these silly little issues.

 

Yeah, I see the Enduro issue but the card already performs well enough to still stay a steady 60+ fps I'm lucky I don't play BF3, lol.

 

Haha me either... But it bothers me to know there is issues with any game that really shouldn't HAVE an issue.

It's one thing to compromise, but we all paid way too much for our laptops to compromise on these things imho.

 

/facepalm

The poll is not a subjective one. You voted for your card working flawlessly, when it obviously doesn't. Yes some people might get a 7970M and only browse the net suffering no effect, that doesn't mean that it objectively isn't afflicted with the Enduro issue.

We're asking you to check as objectively as possible to perhaps find those fabled "lucky ones" and compare settings/setup/BIOS/drivers ..etc.

We're not asking your opinion about how the card works for you on your games.

 

But Runescape runs flawlessly I don't see the problem.

 

Sarcasm noted.

Anyway, I just started a thread about the Enduro issue on the official AMD help forums. Feel free to sign up and weigh in on the issue. If anyone can help it's them, and we don't know if Sager is taking us for a ride hoping we'd all just RMA and get the 680M, they lose nothing if they can blame AMD for it all.

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