Clevo P170HM: AMD Radeon 6970m goodness. :D

Guys

Is the gpufan locked? Its not making more rpm as normal. While the temps are going up..
And is there a way to let theme spin faster?

 

The only way to mess with the fans is fn + 1 for max speed. Press it again to turn off max speed.

 

Yeah fn+1 is the only way for now. It would be the best to see a BIOS update that allows manual fan control within certain safety limits. Maybe a way to set the threshold. Anyway the idle temps are not the ones worrying me, it is the load temps that are. I see temps shoot up to as far as 96 degrees with furmark burning in, which is beyond safety point and card gets near 90 when running games, which is too hot so if one day I have to run something very GPU intensive, I would not like to see temps near 95 because that is too hot.

 

THX Guys
fn 1 is it. But damn that noise..
Its only getting 5 degrees lower.

many thx

 

A couple dumb questions, as I just got my rig from Mythlogic. (P170HM + 6970m)

What tools are being used to monitor the temps?
FN + 1 = turn fans on full or auto?
Color map for the AUO Matte screen?
Other must have tools/utilities??
Special BIOS setups I should do? (Been ages since I played in a BIOS)

Not sure if I will OC, getting too lazy to do constant tweaking!

 

Most people use speedfan, cpuz/gpuz, or a host of other third party apps. It's mostly personal preference. FN + 1 turns the fans on full power, not auto. The color map for the screen has been posted on the forums elsewhere, though search tends to be wonky to find it. Tools/Utilties are again mostly personal preference, though obviously anti-virus/firewalls/browsers are the most commonly suggested (and usually free versions of the former).

The Bios is pretty restrictive. There is not a whole lot you can do there outside of boot order, enabling/disabling integrated components, and setting system date/time.

 

I have a question. I think I may have figured out why my 6970M runs so hot. Could a small dent at the base of the heatpipe (near where the fins are attached, on the second heatsink that covers the core) cause the card to run and idle hot? And if so could I just purchase another heatsink assembly?

 

Thanks! Yeah I know about antivirus/browser/firewall utilities, I was thinking more along the lines of HW utilities like you listed. I've just been out of the utilities loop for a while.

Yeah, the search seems wonky was trying to find something yesterday that took like 20 minutes. Would have almost been faster opening random threads.

 

Can you make a picture of it?

 

i want to make the notebook cooler to.Mine temps are ok but te lower it gets the better its is.
So a picture say more than words..

 

I didn't want to actually remove the heatsink as that would mean having to do another repasting job, but the area where I circled is where the dent is located. It's on the bottom though instead of the top, which is why I would have to take the heatsink off for you to see it. It's just a very small dent on one of the heatpipes (the long slender tubes), like if you were to take a screwdriver and hit that area.

I know these heatpipes have liquid flowing through them to help dissipate the heat, so I'm thinking that a dent would restrict the flow and cause temp issues.

 

Yes these do have liquid flowing through them. In the picture it is hard to see, however if it is dented in to a degree contact your reseller for an exchange RMA for it...
_

 

Whoa.....we have liquid cooling??? This is awesome!

Mr. Mysterious

 

100% Problem as all my mates with the R3 are complaining about temps with the 6970 could this be a fault with AMD ? possible driver malfunction ?

 

It's really nothing special. All heatpipes are designed this way. The liquid inside carries the heat to those fins at the end and then the fan blows it out the back. They look like simple devices but they are quite intricate.

 

Hey, don't rain on my parade This is a big deal for me...

Mr. Mysterious

 

? ok listen to this ....

My mate has corssfire 6970 cards ok ?

My other mate has single card both alienwares laptops R3.....

Corssfire cards 2c cooler than single card ? how the fk is that even possible ?

Same specs I7 2720 or whatever 16gig crossfire 1 single other ..... same exact builds yet crossfire bridge has lower temp ?

 

2c sounds to me like it could be as simple as measuring error or differences in ambient temps. If the difference were, say, 10C or 20C then I'd wonder that myself. However, the cards most likely have their own heatsinks and fans, so I'm not surprised crossfire runs at almost the same temps as a single.

 

Just for future reference the heatsink pipes for the AMD 6970M should look like what is pictured below.

 

I asked mine reseller if there is a better cooler or heatsink for this card..
I hope there is lets w8 .
Its BTO in Holland.

 

I went ahead and took a pic of the dent on my heatsink. Just FYI, if your temps are higher than they should be you might want to check for something like this.

 

many thanks for making those picture's. Mine heatsink is just fine.
BTO let me know that this is the best heatsink and fan for the gpu..
Bit odd. Specialy if you repast the gpu and the temps drops about 7 degrees.
So i think there havend test this 6970M very well. Because of hes power?
Before this laptop i owend a Alienware M17 ati 3780X2( the real AW)..
There was a heat problem to. i fixed it by making a special bottem. So the cold air from the notebook cooler blows on the heatsinks.
There was a gpu temps drop of 15degrees celcius..
This guide i found on the Alienware notebookreview forum.
Mayby something for the P170HMx?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...eneral-information-thread-40.html#post5941087

And This?:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/tominator2005/three.jpg

What do you think guys? I know it helps me for the m17.

I have done some test by remove the bottomplate. put the laptop strayed on the notebook coolerfan.
Before temps: CPu 62C GPU 81C no Fn1. FN 1 on is CPU 60C and GPU 76C.
Temps removed the bottom: CPU 62C. GPu 76C no FN1. FN1 on full load 69C gpu and cpu 54C.

All tested on about 20 min of gaming.

So i think if you can fix this bottom like in the M17 guide it wil be a big advance..

Try the undervolt guide it will help a lot.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/576540-6970m-undervolting.html

 

Heatsinks on a heatsink... hmmm. And I'll have to check my pipes too, because my temps seem to run higher than others for some reason. Not by much, but still higher.

 

Oh wow I just read up on what I missed. Now I'm definitely going to take a look at my heatsink just to see if I have any dent. Also a new thing has been coming up. Sometimes I blue screen when trying to do regular work. It started when I installed Windows Live Movie Maker 2011. As I was installing the screen went funny as in there were funky colored lines everywhere and then when it came back on the computer switched to basic view from aero and said the video card driver has recovered from a serious error or shutdown or something along those lines. A couple of seconds later there was a blue screen with some amdxxxx.sys file. I will take a look at the name next time it happens. For now it has happened twice. First the driver crashed and then the computer worked fine until I tried to play some youtube video, then bsod. Could this possibly be due to a hardware error or is it really just a mucked up driver? Also I am not happy this is happening to a brand new laptop.

 

News here. I just took the base off to look at my heatpipes and there are no dents to be seen, but what I did realized is that the area of the heatsink that runs around the video card near the fan was slightly higher up than the heatsink behind it. It was just 1mm higher up and you could feel a difference between the heights of the two heatsinks behind the fan. I literally just decided to push on it a little to maybe slightly bend it back down and I think I might have gotten that 1mm to be .5mm and to my surprise the card is now idling around 50 degrees, but only when it really is in idle as in 0% load. Interesting because this is around 3 degrees lower than before.

 

It sounds like your heatsink isn't seated correctly. I'd suggest removing it completely, repasting the GPU, and reseating the heatsink so that it's sitting flush with the top of the GPU. Anyone that has overheating and that doesn't have unusually high ambient temps probably has a loose heatsink connection or faulty fans. (easy to DIY if you want to get to the bottom of it)

 

The weird thing is that I was actually messing with the heatsink that uses the pads so I can't really re-paste that because I don't have new pads for it. Is there a place to buy better pads? I could re-do the pasting on the other heatsink that sits on the chip itself. What paste do you guys suggest? Right now there is icy diamond on it.

 

Icy Diamond and Arctic Silver 5 are still the most common enthusiast thermal pastes out there. I'd recommend either one of those (or even a thermal adhesive to stick the pad to the heatsink.. but NOT from the pad to the GPU- it'll be a pain to remove if you need to)

 

Ok I'll look into it. The idle temps went back up to just about the same now between 51-53 so it was just temporary. Can I re-use pads or where can I buy new pads for the outer heatsink? I'll probably go ahead and try some arctic silver to see what happens some time later.

 

Most places that sell thermal paste will probably also sell thermal pads. I'd recommend not reusing thermal pads either for the same reason you don't reuse thermal paste- once they've been used and set, you just won't get the same performance out of them being reused. (and they're not expensive)

 

*bump*

Another one has joined the 6970m club. Today I got my P170HM.

After some installing of applications and internetting I ran some benchmarks (ran 3Dmark06 and 3Dmark11 right after eachother) with Hardware Monitor running in the background and this is the result:


I'm using Artic Silver 5 compound and no FN+1 was pressed.
Ambient room temperature is 24°C (77°F)

 

May be he does use his laptop for work, way be it was just a great deal from his reseller or his just like big numbers But that was his choice and he doesn't regret it, i'm sure! Why do people always do things you personally wouldn't even count on doing? - cause we're different and that's the huuuge "+"

Thanks for sharing your results, mate

 

Nobody's gonna argue with you. Who knows what does he use his laptop mainly for. And it's video card thread, not RAM. You're right, 16Gb is an overkill, 8Gb is perfect)

Hope to see some OC results with temps DemonRage, what's your room temperature anyway? Do you use a laptop stand?

 

I'm sorry I don't do OC... maybe in the future.

Little update:

After 1 full hour of Crysis 2:


Room temp: 24°C

 

Well, with 16gb of ram i would do a blazing fast ramdisk for my locak network Minecraft Server. :3

 

Awesome temps for the CPU, no wonder there's a little war between resellers in setting the max CPU overclock for i7-2920XM. This laptop kicks!!!

 

8GB is barely enough when I'm working with my Virtual Machines though.

 

I noticed something today. Has anyone tried to connect a TV through HDMI and enable the second screen as extended desktop?

After I watched a movie and checked the temperature in HW monitor it was steady at 59°C. Once I disabled the secundary screen it went back to 43°C which is the usual idle temperature.

 

Its because the card clocks up. Its a known bug. If you use the external as your main monitor, it idles as normal.

 

Some people have their own usage...

8GB is not enough for me to run my virtual machines... 16GB is the way...

 

Wow those temps I saw on the previous pages are awesome for the 6970m. Right now I am idling at 55 degrees and there is nothing under the laptop (as in it is elevated) I might re-do my thermal compound just to see if that changes anything because after playing maybe 30 mins of gta IV I hit 90 degrees and I am afraid that this is causing damage. It is really awful that the cooling is not as good as it should be.

Edit: Room temp is around 72 degrees so it is not hot in here at all.

 

Hi all, can someone please make a youtube video of Crysis (OG) running one of the more intensive missions with settings at very high and 1080p? Preferably one with OC and one without OC?

 

Do you have a secondary monitor? the 6970m clocks up with a secondary monitor regardless of computer activity.

I use ati tray tools to set the clocks manually (and greatly under volt in the meantime).

 

What do you set your clocks at when connected to an external monitor? My 6970m temps go up to about 68 degrees C when using both my laptop screen and an external monitor at the same time. Is that normal? I assume it requires more GPU activity to power two screens at once, but are the temps too high?

 

Can anyone confirm if I, having a 460M card in my laptop right now, will be able to upgrade to a 6970m without needing a bios update or any software? (Yes, I know I'll need a new AC adapter)

Mr. Mysterious

 

You'll also need a new heatsink I think, but it should come with it if you're buying a Clevo card.

Edit: Nevermind, they use the same heatsink, so it should be upgradeable.

 

So that's going to be $500 for the 6970M and about $750 for the 485M.

Not including shipping and installation costs.

Mr. Mysterious

 

No, $470 including shipping and with a new heatsink

http://forum.notebookreview.com/computer-components/584965-fs-6970m-brand-new-free-heatsink.html

 

Ohhhhh that is SO SO tempting right now, especially since I have The Witcher 2 sitting on my desk, unopened because I'm waiting for my HDD caddy to arrive on monday.

But what is ultimately preventing me from pulling the trigger are the new 7000M series and 500M series that are promising to arrive soon.

Namely the 7980 (or something like that) and the 580/585M. I'm pretty sure those will improve upon the previous ones by at least 15%, in which case I'm emptying my poor bank account LOL.

Mr. Mysterious