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    X7200 with SLI GTX 680m - how it works, Impressions, Benches

    Discussion in 'Sager and Clevo' started by Tirenz, Oct 20, 2012.

  1. jaybee83

    jaybee83 Biotech-Doc

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    oh boy that sounds like trouble... :D

    Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
     
    jaybee83, Oct 24, 2012
    #51
  2. Tirenz

    Tirenz Notebook Evangelist

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    Here I am back again! :)
    The problem was worse than I thought!
    New SSD was needed, of course, but the time I had it and wanted to install, windows setup would freeze right after loading the files!
    First I thought it was the 680m´s, but NO, they were not...
    To make a long story short:
    My CPU (i7-970) and one RAM slot is defective!
    I installed another CPU I got fast and cheap from ebay, an i7-950 (didn´t want to buy a better in case it wasn´t the CPU) and with that CPU, I could reinstall windows.
    But instead of 12GB RAM (3x 4 GB) the BIOS only shows 8 GB and in windows it says "12 GB (8 GB can be used)".
    I exchanged the RAM and soon found out that one slot seemed to be defective. No matter what RAM I put in that slot, it didn´t work (shows up only in windows but not usable), and all RAM was working fine in the other slots.
    I put back my 970 CPU to see if it works without the defective RAM slot, but it still won´t - after the Windows boot logo, it just freezes. That doesn´t happen with the 950, so it is obvious the CPU is defective, too. :(
    BTW I tried it with the GTX 485m, too, to see that it was NOT the GPU that caused the trouble and it was the same thing.

    Well, now I got it all to work, with 8GB and the i7 950.
    Ordered me new RAM, 2x 8 GB, and will put them in the 2 working slots.
    Will now look for some cheap 970/980/990 on ebay, but usually it can take a couple of weeks to get one cheap ;).
    BTW, in my benches it is really clear that a 6 core CPU makes much higher scores than the 4 core CPU´s... and some more FPS, too ;).
    Just tested it, was "forced" too now ;).

    So, now back to the topic:
    Right now I am using the MSI vBios - Myrsprett, did you get any other vBios to work with SLI?
    I tried a DELL vBios and only got artifacts.
    There is a page on Techinferno but I can´t download any vBios there because you have to make 6 posts at least to can download - are these vBios on other places to download?

    Will try out a little, but the real next benches will come when I got my new 6 core CPU ;).
     
    Tirenz, Nov 5, 2012
    #52
  3. sirana

    sirana Notebook Deity

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    I'm testing the new vbios by Svl7 in the T|I Forums you mentioned. It has a default core clock of 915, memory is @stock 1800 and it is slightly undervolted. While 3dmark11 throttles again for me, I'm still testing if it performs well in games.
    Btw you only need 5 posts to download attachements from TechInferno. A few weeks ago a NBR forum member posted a TI vbios here, therefore he got banned on TI because it's appearantly forbidden by the forum rules... so better just post 5 times there!

    And I'm glad you got it running again!! Seems odd to me that the CPU and the RAM died at the same time though.
     
    sirana, Nov 5, 2012
    #53
  4. Tirenz

    Tirenz Notebook Evangelist

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    Maybe I will do, but it´s a little bit strange to have to ;).

    Right now, I am testing a little overclocking with the MSI vBios.

    So far, 3DMark 11; overclocked with nVidia Inspector to 906/ 1000; Graphic score: 13214
    3DMark Vantage; same overclocking; graphic score: 34242

    Strange that the Vantage score is so low compared to 370em scores, while the 3DMark 11 is nearly equal. Maybe it has to do with the old driver, the vBios, and the crack itself...
     
    Tirenz, Nov 5, 2012
    #54
  5. sirana

    sirana Notebook Deity

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    I also suspect the driver.
    Did the guy who made your 301.xx driver respond to any of your messages? Or do you know another way to mod newer drivers to accept the 580M SLI hack?
     
    sirana, Nov 5, 2012
    #55
  6. Tirenz

    Tirenz Notebook Evangelist

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    Til now I didn´t try to contact him because the time I wanted to, my X7200 failed. But now I will try.
    But I did send the other guy from the ALienware-Thread a PM who worked together with the "Different SLI Hacker" on the Alienware GTX 580m-problem, but got no respone.

    Will start thinking of new ways, but something like the "different SLI Hack" seems to be very professional and hard to understand.
     
    Tirenz, Nov 6, 2012
    #56
  7. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    Welcome back Tirenz. Ive been worried about you.. :)
    There has been 2 more vbios updates since your computer went on a vacation. One of them has stock voltage but are more stable than the original.
    And one is slightly undervolted to prevent throttling. Am currently using the stock voltage one and got mine stable at 895/2488.
    Some claims to reatch 980/2400 with the UV vbios, but there has also been some who cant get there computer to boot in windows after flashing it, and had to do a blind flash.
    I can give you the vbios if you like? For now I recommend the same as I using. Am gonna do some testing later tonigth and see if there is any performace increase with the new driver and compare the scores with the one we are using.
    Also I got a i7 970 cpu lying around here unused. If you like we can make a deal. :cool:
     
    Myrsprett, Nov 8, 2012
    #57
  8. sirana

    sirana Notebook Deity

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    Myrsprett, the guy who was unable to boot in windows after flashing the UV vbios had a HM series laptop with a disabled iGPU. We x7200 owners don't have an iGPU at all so we don't suffer this issue. I have this UV vbios running at 915/2200 24/7 as I don't want to overclock too much to ensure a long lifetime of my card :D
     
    sirana, Nov 9, 2012
    #58
  9. kolias

    kolias Notebook Evangelist

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    from 719 to 915 and 1800 to 2200 is very high oc.
    but there is no problem with the card.
    is this with stock volt?
     
    kolias, Nov 9, 2012
    #59
  10. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Thats nothing compared to 1040/2300 ;)
     
    Meaker@Sager, Nov 9, 2012
    #60
  11. sirana

    sirana Notebook Deity

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    This is with a slightly UV (Undervolted) vbios as I stated.
    And yeah @Meaker running the card at those clocks can't be good for its health in the medium/long run...
     
    sirana, Nov 9, 2012
    #61
  12. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Long run of 3-4 years when it is obsolete.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Nov 9, 2012
    #62
  13. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    Myrsprett, Nov 9, 2012
    #63
  14. Tirenz

    Tirenz Notebook Evangelist

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    Send you a PM :).
    What scores do you get with the 3DMark Vantage? And if possible, what score with 3DMark 06?
    Will do some more benching, but with the slow i7-950 it´s really not that impressive. I compared some Benches with the 950 with the Benches I did with the 970, and sometimes the difference is a huge as up to 20 FPS...
    I think that was in the Heaven 3.0 Benchmark...
     
    Tirenz, Nov 9, 2012
    #64
  15. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    hmm cant get that UV vbios to work with my gpus.. Not stable at 915 mhz undervolted :(. So I went back to the stock voltage one.
     
    Myrsprett, Nov 10, 2012
    #65
  16. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Every chip will be different, you could try lowering the clocks a tad.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Nov 10, 2012
    #66
  17. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    Myrsprett, Nov 11, 2012
    #67
  18. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    It will do since with graphics cards of that caliber are totally cpu bound in 3dmark vantage! It would be the same for 06.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Nov 11, 2012
    #68
  19. Tirenz

    Tirenz Notebook Evangelist

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    Tirenz, Nov 11, 2012
    #69
  20. sirana

    sirana Notebook Deity

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    Yes they're overclocked quite a bit. He runs his Memory at 2488 MHz, Core is not known since it only shows 324Mhz for 680Ms.

    And I'm really fond of the 915 Core UV vbios too! :)

    I have a question for you 2:
    In Battlefield 3, my GPU usage hovers between 60-95%, it is nearly never used to it's full potential. It only runs at 99% if I set it to the "Ultra" preset of course taxes the GPU a lot more, but also results in only 45+ FPS.

    I suspect the CPU to bottleneck the card, but it's not logical... unless the Frostbite 2 engine only uses 4 cores. My CPU load is only ~50% with HyperThreading off, so that's with physical cores.
    The GPU usage goes even lower and results in microstuttering if I enable HyperThreading.

    What is the GPU usage in BF3 for you 680M SLI guys?
     
    sirana, Nov 11, 2012
    #70
  21. Tirenz

    Tirenz Notebook Evangelist

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    I play in "Ultra" and the GPU usage is about 60-99%, seems to never got under 50 FPS so far...
     
    Tirenz, Nov 11, 2012
    #71
  22. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    Yepp 900/2490

    My gpus also howers between 60-99% in battlefield 3, but stays over 50 fps. Its the same problem in GTA 4, SC2 and GW2.
    For some reason they work best if you got multidisplay performace on in nvidia controlpanel.
    I had it on singel that resulted in 35-80% usage. But I dont think the cpu is not good enough. The reason for the low usage is bad optimization for the cpu in the games.
     
    Myrsprett, Nov 13, 2012
    #72
  23. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Could also be a lack of PCI-E 3.0 and an Ivy bridge CPU not giving you the maximum increase.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Nov 13, 2012
    #73
  24. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    I think my i7 990x are more then enough to handel BF3. But when I monitor cpu when playing its locked at 10-20% usage..
     
    Myrsprett, Nov 13, 2012
    #74
  25. jaug1337

    jaug1337 de_dust2

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    THROTTLESTOP TO THE RESCUE

    Just saying, it might the problem
     
    jaug1337, Nov 13, 2012
    #75
  26. sirana

    sirana Notebook Deity

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    Never tried Throttlestop, how do I set it up for my 980?
     
    sirana, Nov 13, 2012
    #76
  27. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    When you say 10-20% what is the level on each core, as a 6 core CPU could be 20% but that's 1 core at 100% and one core is 20%.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Nov 13, 2012
    #77
  28. Tirenz

    Tirenz Notebook Evangelist

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    Tirenz, Nov 15, 2012
    #78
  29. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    Myrsprett, Nov 15, 2012
    #79
  30. imglidinhere

    imglidinhere Notebook Deity

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    EDIT:

    Neeeeevermind. >.> Had a st00pid moment. :p

    Didn't pay attention to the Mark11 run. XD Clearly says i7-970. My bad. Sorry bout that. ^_^
     
    imglidinhere, Nov 15, 2012
    #80
  31. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    Tirenz do you need hyper SLi to get your 680m to work or only the SLi hack?
     
    Myrsprett, Nov 16, 2012
    #81
  32. Tirenz

    Tirenz Notebook Evangelist

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    I need both - don´t you, too? :confused:
    When I just use the different SLI hack, it won´t work, until I start with Hyper SLI...
     
    Tirenz, Nov 16, 2012
    #82
  33. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    Are you sure? Im only using the SLi hack.
     
    Myrsprett, Nov 16, 2012
    #83
  34. Tirenz

    Tirenz Notebook Evangelist

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    Strange. When I boot into "normal" mode and install the hack, SLI doesn´t show up as with Hyper SLI...
     
    Tirenz, Nov 16, 2012
    #84
  35. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    Myrsprett, Nov 25, 2012
    #85
  36. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Interesting, going to have to test that when I get my new 680M machine...

    It was already pretty beastly. But this is great for SLI since they could not use the ES bios.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Nov 25, 2012
    #86
  37. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    What computer do you got meaker?
     
    Myrsprett, Nov 25, 2012
    #87
  38. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    The plan is a powerpro 11:36-680 with:

    3940XM
    Gtx680m 4gb
    8gb ddr3 2133mhz hyper-x sodimm
    2x256gb crucial m4 ssd
    Dvd-rw + external Bluray
    1920x1080 matte display
    Custom modified 230w delta power brick
     
    Meaker@Sager, Nov 25, 2012
    #88
  39. sirana

    sirana Notebook Deity

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    I already tested it, seems great so far.
    Here is my 3dmark11 at 954/2198, my temps max were 69°C lol, but I also only got 7,1k points.
    [​IMG]

    Maybe I should OC my CPU, but I don't need it in games as unlike 3dmark11 the games mostly utilizes more than 1/2 cores.
     
    sirana, Nov 25, 2012
    #89
  40. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    Sirana what vbios did you use before (volt- frequency)?
     
    Myrsprett, Nov 25, 2012
    #90
  41. sirana

    sirana Notebook Deity

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    The second latest by svl7, it is slightly UV (0.962V), has a default Core clock of 915 and memory is stock at 1800.
    It's filename is "Clevo 680m - 80.04.33.00.10 - 915MHz - 0962V - OC.zip" in the second post in his thread: NVIDIA Kepler VBIOS mods - Overclocking Editions, modified clocks, voltage tweaks

    *Edit:
    @ All GTX 680M users, by all means get the new vbios from svl7 (also in the second post of the mentioned thread).
    Just 2 3dmark11 runs:
    Ghz-Edition (1006/2250)
    [​IMG]
    Max temp: 67°C (of course FN+1)

    Nice gaming oc (954/2200)
    [​IMG]
    Max temp: 59°C (also FN+1, plus I was coming home & it's cold outside [~0°C], started off 28°C lol)
     
    sirana, Nov 25, 2012
    #91
  42. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    Is it stable at core 1006 in games? any artifacts?

    Nice score btw
     
    Myrsprett, Nov 27, 2012
    #92
  43. sirana

    sirana Notebook Deity

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    Thx!
    Tested ingame: 1006/2250 becomes unstable for me after 30mins. I just have to lower the memory a bit --> 1006/2000 is stable over 2 hours now.
     
    sirana, Nov 27, 2012
    #93
  44. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    Im back after a serious computer crash...

    I tried to flash the newest vbios from svl7, flashing was successfully. But when I tried to boot the computer couldn`t get pass the bios loading screen, It just went off.
    So there was no way to flash back. I then decided to put the old 480m back inside as master gpu and the 680m as slave. I was then able to get pass the bios load and flash 680m back to normal.
    Im now abit afraid of flashing lol.. Anyone experienced the same issue?
     
    Myrsprett, Dec 5, 2012
    #94
  45. Tirenz

    Tirenz Notebook Evangelist

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    Glad you got it back to work! :)

    Maybe some of the mods svl7 made for the current models didn´t like the X7200 :(.
    I only got problems when I flashed other vBios on cards - like a 8800m GTX vBbios on a GTX 280m. Sometimes it ended up with a black screen, but always was able to blindflash it back. So this is new to me.
     
    Tirenz, Dec 5, 2012
    #95
  46. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    He does state that the HM series does not like any of the bios versions past .01. Since the x7200 is similar in it's bios requirements then it may be having the same issues.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Dec 5, 2012
    #96
  47. sirana

    sirana Notebook Deity

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    Wow what a nightmare you've been through... glad you got it fixed! Did you try the 80.04.67.00.01? I will keep my fingers off it, then :)

    The 80.04.33.00.01 is working superb for me anyway.
     
    sirana, Dec 5, 2012
    #97
  48. Myrsprett

    Myrsprett Notebook Guru

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    Can you send me the vbios you are using?

    do you get a vbios message before anything else when you start your computer?
     
    Myrsprett, Dec 6, 2012
    #98
  49. sirana

    sirana Notebook Deity

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    I'm using "Clevo 680m - 80.04.33.00.10 'OCedition' revised_01.zip" from the second post of this thread. And no, I just get the Sager logo screen (using their latest BIOS), then it boots up without anything unusual.
     
    sirana, Dec 6, 2012
    #99
  50. Tirenz

    Tirenz Notebook Evangelist

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    Tirenz, Dec 8, 2012
    #100
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