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    Anyone not have a problem with P150EM+7970m?

    Discussion in 'Sager and Clevo' started by kahles, Aug 28, 2012.

  1. NeoCzar

    NeoCzar Notebook Evangelist

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    So AMD are throwing it onto Clevo. It's convenient since there is no other brand I know of that uses the 7970M apart from AW and Clevo.

    What are we doing with Clevo? Theoretically it should be much easier to pressure them since this forum is teeming with resellers some with very big accounts with Sager/Clevo.

    Where is the official Sager guy that started the original logging thread?
     
  2. arcticjoe

    arcticjoe Notebook Deity

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    So what about Alienware m17x with Enduro enabled, or other Enduro enabled laptops like HP Envy series>I guess they will say these are all separate problems? Oh well, lets quote AMD and go to clevo then, demand a fix from them, they will probably have to issue a statement saying this is an AMD problem which at least will carry more weight than our reports.
     
  3. UrgeLoL

    UrgeLoL Newbie

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    I have quoted the email from amd and mailed clevo. But since i dont own a clevo PC you guys might have more luck. So quote what amd said and email them. Perhaps calling them and telling them what and said.
     
  4. transphasic

    transphasic Notebook Consultant

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    This is what I had feared- AMD is throwing this Enduro mess onto Clevo, in stating essentially that " It's THEIR problem, not ours...."

    AMD is doing exactly what I predicted- claiming no responsibility in the Enduro screw-up that THEY caused, and are just merely passing the buck onto Clevo and making it someone else's problem.
    Each company is pointing the finger at someone else, and thus not claiming nor taking responsibility for it.

    I can't say that I am surprised to hear this.
    I expected it.

    Sager told me last week that "nothing's wrong with your GPU", so there's no need to fix something that's not broken, so they claim.

    We spend Two Thousand dollars on new laptops that don't function the way they should, nor behave the way they were supposed to, based on AMD's own advertisements about how powerful and fast it is, and all we get for our money and troubles, is finger pointing blame at someone else for defective laptops, and a lack of public accountability and responsibility from AMD for their product screw-up.

    The bottom-line for me is, I could really care less which company takes the bull by the horns and creates a resolution for this. All we want, is for someone to GET THIS FIXED!!!!
    No more excuses, delays, and finger-pointing the blame!
    ____________________________________________________


     
  5. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Only way this would have really gained any traction was if all 7970m owners returned their laptops within their 30 days and either constantly reordered with a 7970m before their 30 days until it was fixed, or just returned it altogether without placing a new order and letting them know why. Unfortunately money talks.
     
  6. hackness

    hackness Notebook Virtuoso

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    As they are busying on VMworld/PAX etc, probably wait another week or 2 and you should get an answer from caveman-jim.
     
  7. tdididit

    tdididit Notebook Enthusiast

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    I am just watching this thread and I try to find out how many of you work for resellers :) btw.:

    AMD tell all true. This is not their issue.
    This is even not GPU board issue :)
    I can show you what made EM board work great with 7970m - read: what Clevo forget about for save few bucks and burn resellers hands

    You think it will change anything ??
     
  8. Cloudfire

    Cloudfire (Really odd person)

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    So how many Clevo notebooks with the GPU-IGP-Display solution (EM series) are sold worldwide with 7970M?
    Alienware owners also have the same problem, but they can just disable Enduro and forget everything about it. Hence you won`t see them making a big fuzz about it to pressure AMD to fixing it.

    The reason I`m asking is because, is it enough for AMD to really care?
     
  9. Doryndoran

    Doryndoran Notebook Enthusiast

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    You think that if AMD sends Clevo and AW an unfinished product to put in their laptops they have no responsibility in the issue? Laptop manufacturers sure have their share of the blame for not taking the time to properly test the laptops that they sell but the problem roots from an AMD technology, therefore they are also at fault here in some ways. They just advertised and sold a crippled and unfinished product afterall, no big deal ...

    What you have to understand is that this problem is not only on Clevo laptops. It is also present for any laptop that uses switchable graphics with an Enduro-enabled card, and the switchable graphics technology (enduro) was advertised to be a great feature of this card. AMD themselves said that building laptops with muxless design was the way to go with enduro technology and was working like a charm. Clearly, it does not work like a charm at all.
     
  10. tdididit

    tdididit Notebook Enthusiast

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    AMD made a chip and sold it with design files to manufacturers.

    Maybe Clevo doesn't have AMD driver specialist to rebuild drivers and software to work with their vBIOS or maybe they did it because they know this card can work with power usage of desktop card and this can make RMAs count start growin' - not only " I have 40% of utilization of GPU "

    btw. Barebones made after 1 May, 2012 with strong PSU really will work with 7970m :) same like alienware with minimal enduro issues.

    If you have older MoBo try to find what is on schematic diagram but not on the main board

    Regards
     
  11. Montage

    Montage Notebook Evangelist

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    Alienware has the same Enduro issues with 7970m as Clevos.
     
  12. tdididit

    tdididit Notebook Enthusiast

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    AMD is a chip designer. Same like nVidia. For both companys work people that design drivers far beyond chip is made. Main difference between those two ?? Without 7970m nobody will have GTX680m now.
    nVidia is a corp they think about profit only. Same like Intel. AMD just try to take a bigger part of "mobile cake", but manufacturers screw it.

    Start sell 7970m cards with early beta vBIOS and drivers, and now they think users will made software for their cards ( I am sure Dell dev center still working on it ).

    Day when Clevo Dev do something for this card will be last day of the world. I was looking in their BIOSes and other SW - looks like "chineese" brick construction. Part taken from this platform, part from other, make a compilation and send as latest to our beta testers / clients...
     
  13. arcticjoe

    arcticjoe Notebook Deity

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    You are talking crap man. 7970m with older motherboards, even ones with weaker power supplies like in AW m15x runs fine because Enduro is not supported. As soon as you have Enduro enabled 7970 has the under-utilization issue, regardless of motherboard or PSU.
     
  14. Doryndoran

    Doryndoran Notebook Enthusiast

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    Enduro was designed and advertised by AMD, not Clevo or Alienware.
     
  15. transphasic

    transphasic Notebook Consultant

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    The answer to your question is no.

    AMD via Sager has told me that it is NOT their problem, and they fully believe that there is NO problem to begin with, so neither one of their companies will own up to the problem. As I have said, the finger-pointing blame pointing in the other direction, and is going to the OTHER company, not theirs, so in the end, neither AMD, Clevo/Sager will accept some kind of responsibility or accountability on some level with the Enduro issue, and will just ignore us and our pleas for a resolution to this.
    From the emails that I have gotten on this, and from what I have seen thus far, my guarantee that AMD/Clevo/Sager will NOT have a resolution to this still stands.
    What all these companies are more concerned about doing, is to just ignore us and the faulty Enduro nightmare, and hope that the loud noise of complaints that we have will just go away. By the time Spring of 2013 rolls around, their hope is that their NEW customers will pay more attention to their newest and latest laptop and GPU offerings, and leave their old customers (us) in the rear-view mirror...

    _____________________________________________________
     
  16. transphasic

    transphasic Notebook Consultant

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    To answer your question- no, I do NOT work for a reseller. I am just an unfortunate customer of AMD, Sager/Clevo, who like everyone else here, bought a high-end gaming laptop with a DEFECTIVE AMD 7000 series GPU (the 7970M) with Enduro, and am suffering greatly for it. :mad:

    I have been in contact with my Laptop reseller, and with Sager about this as a customer, and was very rudely treated by them in their attitudes about my concerns, problems, and overall situation.
    I was told about the exorbitant $800 replacement cost to upgrade to the Nvidia 680M, and then quickly dismissed and essentially told to go away when I suggested that I would like to get it fixed at a lower cost with using my two year warranty THAT I PAID FOR.

    I could almost see the looks on their faces when I got their email reply- they were either laughing at me, or they were just rolling their eyes in mock disgust, because of the tone of their reply to me. :mad:

    Very nice of them.

    ______________________________________________________
     
  17. hackness

    hackness Notebook Virtuoso

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    Probably best to wait for caveman-jim to come up with a response regarding to AMD's progress/outcome. PAX 2012 was just over yesterday and VMworld 2012 was over on the August 30th. It shouldn't take more than 2 weeks for him to come up with a response.
     
  18. Cloudfire

    Cloudfire (Really odd person)

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    Yeah I agree, this is my view as well. Since its just the EM series that is severely plauged with the Enduro problems, the user base that is struck by the issues, are too small for AMD to prioritize. Don`t get me wrong, AMD have noted and know about the problems, its just that they won`t escalate the priority of Enduro because of the small fuzz.
    That said, I still think this problem is too complicated for a quick fix because we already have seen AMD working with Clevo to fix it, but it didn`t help at all. This was how long ago, 2 months?

    Personally I believe they deleted that thread here at NBR because now you the 7970M owners that struggle with the Enduro problems, have no place to point your fingers. If the thread was still there, you could have replied to Sager/Clevo when they sent you an email where it said "there are no problems with our 7970M in the EM models", that "look here, this is a thread were you tried to fix Enduro. Are you saying you tried to fix a problem that is not there?"

    Who knows, Clevo might be downplaying this because of 7990M which is rumored to release in Q4 2012 will sort of replace the 7970M. And along with it perhaps new hardware revisions of the EM models where you have a MUX like Alienware where you can disable Enduro.
     
  19. transphasic

    transphasic Notebook Consultant

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    Has AMD announced the 7990M for Q4?

    If so, I wonder if they will have the Mux problem figured out for the next chip. Of course, if they do, then that DOES mean that they KNEW about this Enduro issue, and have for months now, as we have suspected.
    If you are correct about this, and the fix is within the 7990M, then it is definite that this is an AMD issue, and has been all along, and they must KNOW that they have to fix this themselves at their cost.
    If they are willing to do a swap out via Sager for a replacement to the 7990m in our laptops for free or a very small cost, then I would be amenable and agreeable to this, and would allow them the opportunity to make right what mess they have caused from the beginning.
    This is all contingent, of course, on IF IF the 7990M is a fix to the 7970M, and it is a much faster and better GPU with NO Enduro issues.

    Either way, I am not wanting to wait for several more months of needless delays and posturing by AMD and their Public Relations department, who all sound like they are playing the waiting game right now, in hopes of washing their hands of the mess that THEY created.
    ______________________________________________________

     
  20. TrantaLocked

    TrantaLocked Notebook Deity

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    Dude I would love to swap for a fixed 7970m/7990m. It probably won't happen though.

    BTW I was thinking of some thing about the 7970m. Most of us OCD owners know about the Optimus Copy Engine by now. Some of us were hypothesizing that the 7970m lacks this special hardware feature. It's a simple but important though: maybe the 7970m DOES have its own version of the copy engine, but BIOS/driver support just sucks for that specific feature. That would explain why some games run so well, because the 7970m's copy engine isn't completely dysfunctional.

    BTW the AMD thread is here: AMD Game Forums - The Clevo 7970M Enduro/under-utilization debacle.

    For some reason the links made before stopped working but the thread still exists.
     
  21. mortalcombat

    mortalcombat Notebook Consultant

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    Honestly, I have had my laptop for about 1 month and encountered no issues at all. I can play all games at 60 fps at 1080p full graphics except for
    1. Postprocessing / Bloom: I hate it
    2. AA: I find that I don't need it

    Games I have played:
    Assassin's creed revelations, Arma 2, Crysis 1 & 2, Batman Arkham City, COD MW3, HoN, Diablo 3, GTA4, HAWX 2, Max Payne 3, Tribes Ascend...

    I was concerned before receiving it about all the issues I was reading on the forum, but I couldn't be happier with my purchase.

    I also love enduro, I wouldn't imagine having the 7970 on battery power. My battery lasts about 3 hours watching videos the whole time. The integrated graphic card is pretty powerful for all day to day tasks (even some games with medium/medium-high graphics).

    I haven't been too active on the forum lately but I just remembered the rants about the 7970 and thought that I have to say something about it.

    Satisfaction 100%.

    I am confident that the issue will be fixed in the future by the time more demanding games will be released.
     
  22. arcticjoe

    arcticjoe Notebook Deity

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    Seeing as enduro issue affects virtually all 7970m cards its not really possible that you do not have that issue. I would like to see you get 60fps constant at either ARMA 2 (at all high settings) or Crysis 2 with in DX11 mode, or Batman AC. If you can please post a screenie with MSI Afterburner overlay showing utilization and fps.
     
  23. transphasic

    transphasic Notebook Consultant

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    Sorry, but I cannot believe this.
    All of us who own and use the 7970M GPU are having problems with under-utilization and low FPS rates.
    I play quite a few games that really suffer because of Enduro, and this is AMD's fault that they MUST fix NOW!

    I have seen my games drop to as low as 10 FPS, and those same games will NOT allow the 7970M card to be used at all, because of Enduro switching my GPU over to the Integrated Intel HD4000, and Enduro will NOT allow it to switch back over to the 7970M.

    AMD's Enduro IS the problem, and it is for everyone, except for AW owners who can shut off Enduro. They are the lucky ones.

    ________________________________________________________________
    Quote Originally Posted by mortalcombat View Post

    Honestly, I have had my laptop for about 1 month and encountered no issues at all. I can play all games at 60 fps at 1080p full graphics except for
    1. Postprocessing / Bloom: I hate it
    2. AA: I find that I don't need it

    Games I have played:
    Assassin's creed revelations, Arma 2, Crysis 1 & 2, Batman Arkham City, COD MW3, HoN, Diablo 3, GTA4, HAWX 2, Max Payne 3, Tribes Ascend...

    I was concerned before receiving it about all the issues I was reading on the forum, but I couldn't be happier with my purchase.

    I also love enduro, I wouldn't imagine having the 7970 on battery power. My battery lasts about 3 hours watching videos the whole time. The integrated graphic card is pretty powerful for all day to day tasks (even some games with medium/medium-high graphics).

    I haven't been too active on the forum lately but I just remembered the rants about the 7970 and thought that I have to say something about it.

    Satisfaction 100%.

    I am confident that the issue will be fixed in the future by the time more demanding games will be released.

    _________________________________________________________________
    Quote Originally Posted by articjoe

    Seeing as enduro issue affects virtually all 7970m cards its not really possible that you do not have that issue. I would like to see you get 60fps constant at either ARMA 2 (at all high settings) or Crysis 2 with in DX11 mode, or Batman AC. If you can please post a screenie with MSI Afterburner overlay showing utilization and fps.
     
  24. arcticjoe

    arcticjoe Notebook Deity

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    transphasic, what you are having does not sound like the so called "enduro issue" where 7970m is used, but GPU utilization is low. What you are having sounds like your laptop is using HD4000, which is not the same as the problem we are discussing. Yours can be fixed and you should get some better fps than HD4000 gives you, but you still will have the under utilization problem.
    I would check if you are:
    a) plugged in and not gaming on battery power
    b) have the game's exe added to high performance section in switchable graphics config panel
    c) monitor your temps to check its not thermally throttling due to overheating
    d) check that your 7970m has the correct drivers installed, in the correct order (intel hd4000 has to be installed first from manufacturers CD, 7970m driver second)
     
  25. Vozier

    Vozier Notebook Evangelist

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    YEAH, please post some videos and screenshots, at this point there is so much evidence about the underutilization enduro issues that saying otherwise would be GREAT news, but if you wanna help you will have to do the work.
    AND if its really true we will be asking you about how the hell do you get it to work properly, maybe you have the miracle we are all praying for.


     
  26. Invincible10001

    Invincible10001 Notebook Consultant

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    Initially, it was horrible gaming with the 7970M. Major issues with some games (Skyrim) & a lot of under utilization with others (Battlefield 3). But with the right driver installation, these have been minimized. For me atleast. There is still that occasional screen flicker & random FPS hit. But overall, it's pretty good now.
    I've had the NP9170 for about two months now. First month was bad, second month's been pretty good so far.

    I would just suggest trying different versions of the drivers (Modded/Unmodded) to see which one gives the best results.
     
  27. NeoCzar

    NeoCzar Notebook Evangelist

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    Could you recommend some then please, and the difference in performance you noticed with each?
     
  28. Invincible10001

    Invincible10001 Notebook Consultant

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    Remember that thread that Sager had started about a 7970M Driver fix? Something about some guy coming down to their facility & discussing about driver re-installation methods. Well, anyways, I followed that thread to get the 7970M & Intel 4000 Graphics Drivers posted by Sager & followed the installation instructions specified by them. The result was the best ever. Well, significantly better than the previous results I should say, as things are not perfect. But I'm content for the time being.

    Prior to using the drivers from Sager, I was using the modded drivers from Benchmark 3D, which can be found here: http://benchmark3d.com/amd-catalyst-12-6-beta-june-4-7900-mod. These are pretty decent. Almost no screen flickering on Skyrim. Good overall performance. However, severe under utilization in games like Rage & Sleeping Dogs.

    Prior to trying out the 7900MOD, I was on the default drivers from the disc that comes with the NP9170. These were the worst. They were giving me a lot of screen flickering issues with Skyrim & consistent under utilization.

    Also, all official drivers from AMD have never worked for me. As in, they would just either crash the system (BlueSoD) or after restarting, would just give me a blank black screen. Very sad.

    So yeah, hope this helps other people.

    & if someone wants the installation instructions from the original Sager post, I can post them here. Wonder why it was deleted. Anyways, I didn't get a chance to follow up on the newer posts. Just read the first couple of pages.
     
  29. IronsighT

    IronsighT Newbie

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    Thank god that I found this thread....I was About to buy this compo....now I am scratching my head and waiting for answers, or considering another options.

    again thank you for this thread
     
  30. Vozier

    Vozier Notebook Evangelist

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    What invincible10001 says seems very usefull, a link or driver upload would help tho, since we dont have sagers beta drivers.

    It would be nice to hear from mortalcombat, and its setup to get 60 FPS stable on most games, we are eagerly waiting to see some solid data on that claim.

    A thought on sagers contribution and their deleted thread:
    It might be good news to know that sager AND Anandtech (and probably other reviewers and resellers) have unreleased beta drivers that at least seem to adress the underutilization issue. To me this sounds like AMD has not been sitting this out, but actively working on a FIX, that obviously hasnt come easy (wich explains the lack of official info for ex.). This scenario is a lot more reasonable than the one many depressed and highly angered forum members have pictured and displayed for us.
    For me these arent as bad news as they seem, of course AMDs silence and a NBR thread being deleted is NOT GOOD, but still we can interpret that as more than a big AMD conspiracy to **ck us all....

    regards
    Voz
     
  31. arcticjoe

    arcticjoe Notebook Deity

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    If they do, we havent seen them. The drivers invincible referred to have done nothing for all users of the thread where they were originally posted. I was one of those testers and utilization remained the same for me.
    Also, unreleased drivers anandtech have tested still have the issue as well, so I am not particularly hopeful.
     
  32. Montage

    Montage Notebook Evangelist

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    I think it was stated pretty clearly in the Anandtech article that the next drivers won't adress the Enduro utilization issue. They are meant to be the first unified driver for AMD/Intel switchable graphic configurations + the Enduro facelift, and the one that AMD will later build their drivers upon.

    They mentioned that performace optimizations will come with the drivers following the first Enduro 5.5 release, or with the ones after that. AMD needs those unified drivers as much as we do, and hopefully they will make future driver updates easier and faster to produce and to apply.
     
  33. Red Line

    Red Line Notebook Deity

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    Invincible10001

    could you, please, provide this installation guide with the downloadable links?
     
  34. Vozier

    Vozier Notebook Evangelist

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    I just meant the scenario is not as bad as it seems (at least i see it bit brighter), that there are some misterious beta drivers around IS good news, even if they dont work at all, because it means work is undergoing.
    Where the next releases will get us is a matter of wait and see (beta dirvers might not work, but thats why they are beta in the first place), but they are coming for sure. And even if the next release is not the answer to the underutilization issue that doesnt mean there is no work towards fixing that.

    Just take a second and remember where we were at BEFORE Anandtech published their article. Even sagers deleted post can be viewed in a different way after Anandtech's article.
    If you cant agree that now at least we know they are working on the drivers, then we just live in different worlds.

    I do agree with many: it aint enough, 4 months is too long, that we deserve our money back, silence by AMD is disrespectfull and that probably the solution wont make everyone happy, etc, etc, etc.
    BUT now there is hope were there use to be only speculation.
     
  35. Montage

    Montage Notebook Evangelist

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    Those drivers were modified by Sager not AMD.
     
  36. Vozier

    Vozier Notebook Evangelist

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    Of course, but my guess, and its only that, same as many other's guesses.. is that sager was and is working in conjunction with AMD, maybe sager could correct me if i am wrong... That would explain the posts deletion after sager went mad about the non approved drivers coming out??
    Just speculating anyway, but to me it sound more reasonable and understandable that and AMD against ist own customers scenario..

    jsut saying

    Voz
     
  37. Invincible10001

    Invincible10001 Notebook Consultant

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    Well, all of the other drivers from which the users got decent results didn't even install properly for me. Just saying. I don't understand this discrepancy.
     
  38. Invincible10001

    Invincible10001 Notebook Consultant

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    My external HDD just crashed on me yesterday. Lost all the backups which included the text files with the instructions & the download links. :( Just bad luck.
     
  39. transphasic

    transphasic Notebook Consultant

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    Arcticjoe,

    Yes, I know about this, and have done all those things, but they weren't part of the primary issues that I am having. The particular game I use, automatically defaults to the HD4000, because Enduro will not allow the 7970M to be used.
    The game I play is Hard Reset, from Kalypso games. I play quite a few other games as well- Bioshock I & II, Doom 3, for example, but this one is my favorite First Person Shooter games, and I play it more often than others, so I see what is going on with this game more so than others, too.
    All CCC settings are maxed out, and none of my programs/games settings are ever set to Power Save (battery).
    I have run 12.5 (Sagers' own CD drivers), 12.6, 12.7, and 12.8, and the results are still the same.
    My laptop is constantly plugged in, and I have never ran it on battery yet- never have, and never will.
    I view my Sager as a Desktop replacement only.

    I have been in contact with the Game designer in Europe (Kalypso), and they know of this issue, but they are unable to fix the problem, because the default HD4000 issue/flaw is not within the game software, so they said that there is no flaw to fix it in the game. They cannot create a patch for a problem that doesn't exist within the game that they themselves created.
    ( I would LOVE to see if someone out there has this game, and also has a 675M or 680M card in their laptop, and see if they are still getting the same low FPS rates that I am and HD4000 default setting. I am betting that they aren't, and don't.)

    I asked them to give me some ideas as to how to get around this automatic default to the HD4000, and they said short of disabling it (which is something that cannot be done without disabling the laptop), there is nothing that they nor I can do about it.

    The flaw is within Enduro.

    As far as FPS rates go, the game has a built-in meter which displays FPS rates, similar to 3rd party programs, and I am getting varying FPS rates which go from a low of 10 FPS to an average of 50 FPS overall. It does go higher to make that 50 FPS rate average, but the point is, that there is NO WAY that I should be seeing 10 FPS with this game at any time during game play as I do.
    These rates are indicative of how Enduro has weakened, in a sense, the overall power and ability of my Sager to play this game to it's full abilities. It is inhibiting my/our abilities to play 99% of games to their max capabilities as was intended.

    As I have said before, since Sager doesn't recognize that there is a flaw with the 7970m, they won't create a Enduro BIOS patch for it, and neither will AMD. Sager WILL swap out my 7970m for a 680m, but I cannot afford the $695 + return shipping cost ($800) total price tag that they told me they would charge me for it, so it looks like I/we are screwed Sager customers in that regard.

    ______________________________________________________

     
  40. arcticjoe

    arcticjoe Notebook Deity

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    With the latest beta you can set enduro to use 7970m by default, based on the power source. I have used this and found that most games I dont even have to add to the switchable graphics list, they automatically use 7970m when the laptop is plugged in. Try using that, it may resolve your issue.
     
  41. Srikar

    Srikar Notebook Evangelist

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    Maybe that's your problem? Set everything to use in-game settings.
     
  42. transphasic

    transphasic Notebook Consultant

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    Is this within the latest/newest CCC 12.8?
    I have looked around within it, and have found nothing that would seem to indicate choosing a preference.
    Let me know where that default setting is within 12.8 (if that is the one to which you are referring to), and I will give that one a try.

    It's a pity that AMD can't come up with something as simple as this, and create a software "switch", so to speak, that allows us to disable Enduro when we want to, similar to what AW owners can do.
    I am not a software programmer, but it would seem to be a somewhat easy thing to do to permanently end this AMD Enduro utilization/FPS fiasco mess that they created.
    Yes, it sounds simple and easy enough to do, but maybe that is why it is so hard for AMD to do, because these easy solutions seem to be beyond their capabilities...

    Thanks for your help and ideas. I will see what this can do, if I can find it in 12.8.

    _____________________________________________________


     
  43. Montage

    Montage Notebook Evangelist

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    You can't disable Enduro since there is no mux cable. If you disable Enduro, you get no picture (the image always goes through the igpu). AW has mux, Clevo don't.
     
  44. Vozier

    Vozier Notebook Evangelist

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    Yeah, sadly thats the case.
    One question. Is this mux cable TOO hard to add to a clevo? IF there were a chance to "upgrade" the motherboard to have this hardware piece it would give us AW capabilities. Probably its too hard or not possible, but has some techie thougt about this?

    regards
    Voz
     
  45. transphasic

    transphasic Notebook Consultant

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    Okay. Thanks.
    I was thinking that it must be a simplistic way to just create a software patch to change the BIOS around to where you COULD disable Enduro via software, but not having to do a hardware approach to it.
    AW owners also have a muxless design, but they are able to shut off Enduro via a hardware switch, if I am not mistaken, so that has to have SOME kind of software means to it, I would think, shouldn't it?
    I don't know either way. Just guessing.

    If this IS true, then it would seem that there cannot be any kind of software patch/solution to this Enduro fiasco, and it implies that only a hardware fix is necessary.
    That would therefore indicate that there is nothing that we can do about this via the party responsible for making this mess (AMD), and that we are all screwed.

    This news just keeps getting better and better...
    (obvious sarcasm)



    ____________________________________________________

    ____________________________________________________


    To be honest, even though the price tag is REALLY HIGH, I am almost at a hopeless point now, where I am actually starting to think that switching over to the 680M and saying adios forever to AMD and it's pathetic P.O.S products probably is a far better thing than just waiting for AMD's response to this, which is the same as me doing nothing at all.
    Either way, I lose- I have to spend the $800 dollars for the switch over to Nvidia, or just accept the fact that my Sager Laptop will always cheat me out of the money I spent on it and keep the crappy 7970m, and move on.
    As I said, either way I lose.
     
  46. Montage

    Montage Notebook Evangelist

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    AW has a mux. That doesn't mean that things can improve for Clevo's. Its just that the original drivers were rushed out, and AMD kinda left the resellers to deal with the driver issue. But now they have been developing unified drivers for switchable graphics configurations, which should install on every machine. The performance fix should be out by the end of this year, or early next year. If not, then it is time to lose hope.

    Optimus got fixed, hopefully Enduro gets fixed too.
     
  47. transphasic

    transphasic Notebook Consultant

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    Question for you and anyone else regarding game FPS checking:
    I use MSI Kombuster 2.4, and would like to know as a newbie how to use it (or another one that is better in your collective opinions), so that I can test and check what my games that I play are running at (FPS rates)?

    How can I test, let's say Bioshock for example, with MSI Kombuster to overlay Bioshock to test and see what my utilization rate is, along with the FPS rate?

    Any ideas?

    I want to see what it shows, so that I can display my results, so I can see how Enduro is negatively affecting my other games I play, and add them to the data and discussion for our community here.


    Thanks.

    _____________________________________________________


     
  48. transphasic

    transphasic Notebook Consultant

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    No, sadly, it didn't work.
    I reset all setting's within CCC 12.8 back to original factory settings, and still remains the same.
    I am now bummed out and very disappointed. I was hoping for a simple fix, and there isn't one.
    I wish there was a way to get my game to recognize and use the 7970m GPU, but there isn't one, and the Software people at Kalypso said that there isn't a way to get the game to change from IGPU to DGPU via software patch either.
    As I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt, this is an Enduro issue, and it won't be fixed IF or when Enduro ever gets fixed.

    As I have said before, I am very cynical now, and am betting that it won't- either in 6 months or 6 years, we will still be talking about the Enduro fiasco for years to come.

    _____________________________________________________

     
  49. Srikar

    Srikar Notebook Evangelist

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    You want MSI Afterburner and I believe the MSI Afterburner Remote Server is needed as well. Kombuster is just a benchmark thingy. In the settings of Afterburner, there is a tab called "Monitoring." There should be a few things there under Active Monitoring Graphs. Click on the ones you want to show up in a game, then check "Show in on-screen display."

    After that, click the "On-screen Display" tab up at the top, and set your hot keys to enable and disable the overlay.

    Also, if you click "More" down at the bottom, it gives you other options you can do, like select what part of the screen the display shows on, color, etc.
     
  50. Vozier

    Vozier Notebook Evangelist

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    Since we are speculating i might as well do..
    Only one thing is clear for now, and that is that ENDURO technology is responsible for underutilizing the dGPU and consequently rendering low FPS for some games and/or game maps and/or game configurations.

    Now as a scientist i first analyze the empiric data and then try to formulate an hypothesis, and then test it to prove or discard it. Having avidly read many users info and comments, my current understanding of the problem is this:

    I DO NOT think this is hardware issue. Why? well, the proof is everywhere, not only the 7970M performs flawlessly and very well in Alienware with enduro shut off, but also in clevo machines it performs perfect in some games and even in most games affected it performs normal in certain maps, multi or non multiplayer settings, etc, etc. The most common complaint is that FPS go up and down along with GPU utilization.
    My understanding is that a hardware piece is inherently DUMB as a rock, and that its performance is only dummer as its operator (in this case Enduro) and the instructions it receives to operate.
    Another evidence on this subject is that different catalyst driver versions do affect the performance, maybe not in the way we want, but it doesn just "stay the same", either worst, better or weird would be proper terms.

    That said and taking the comments of the most knowledgeable people around, the issue IS driver related. The fact that Nvidia had very similar issues some years ago when they launched Optimus, just adds to this notion.

    Another fact that can be interpreted in many ways is AMDs and most resellers silence about all this:
    We can go all paranoid and think there is a huge conspiracy to shut us down and make this problem go away.
    I can even picture some black clothed NVIDIA agent pouring a misterious liquid on the hardware or hacking AMDs drivers with a hidden flaw to cause all this.... the options are infinite...

    Now, taking into account Anandtech's article, Sager's few deleted comments, mythlogic's comments, even short and very scarce AMD posts (Mark AMD), wich can be regarded as the most "official" position on the matter, the conclusion for me is this:

    1) AMD has been slow to detect, understand, adress and moreso recognize this issue or its mere existence. This is not necessarily bad, only unfortunate (for them and us customers).
    2) AMD took the usual attitude towards these kind of issues and remain silent, doing nothing at first hoping it was a mere configuration or driver installation issue and that other users would help the affected ones.
    3) After seeing the issue was real, not fixable by users and configuration combos, not even reseller drivers, and that even some resellers were complaining to them and in open forums, AMD decided to put some people at work and asked their associates (i.e. sager and others) to back up their silence policy for the time being, releasing a few short phrases to gain time. "We are working on it"
    you can argue this decision but i aint something so weird as it seems. I would say this happened only 1 month ago or so.
    4) Viewing some light at the end of the tunnel AMD starts to release some info to their resellers and reviewers like Anandtech, in order to have them quiet and informed that they are "on to it". They still remain silent either because by now they might as well and because the fix is NOT ready or complete and they do not want to enter any debate without answers. This is happening now.

    So as you see there is no need to be paranoid, there is much more simpler explanation to events.

    Some would say AMD should have detected the issue before launching the 7000 cards, but seriously speaking this aint so true.
    Why?
    Well you need just read some of the first reviews that came out for 7970M, i dont think any of them were biased, they even mentioned enduro and its need to be improved. But if you test 20 or more games, you run only 1 or 2 minute benchmarks for them, you dont have someone playing hours and switching to multiplayer modes and what not. Also many games perform correctly so there really wasnt and still isnt an instant crash of sorts to detect a major issue. Also, the card works, even if it underperforms some times, so detecting this anomaly wasnt so easy to begin with. Not saying AMD is to be absolved of all charges, but i really dont see them as the villains many are picturing, they have been just too slow, too dumb and too arrogant, but then again who isnt sometimes?

    Whats your fckng point you ask?????

    Simple, the issue will be fixed to a good degree, not 100% probably, not for all games, but no card works flawlessly in all games, thats a whole different topic.

    so have hope and dont crush the only option we have to avoid total monoploy in the graphics world.

    What can we do then? sit back and wait?
    NO, absolutely not, the ball is rolling and growing and we need to stop it soon or it will become an avalanche.
    You can cry.
    You can shout and spit.
    You can test and inform your results.
    You can post or just read.

    Whatever you do will be more or less usefull and might help getting this boat to port.

    best regards
    Voz
     
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