[GUIDE] Installing and Overclocking the AMD Mobility 7970 in the M17x R3,an illustrated guide

vBios version = 015.018.000.000

according to the rear of the card. The guys actually told me that it would be tested in an Alienware before sending. :/

 

5597 on 3D Mark11.

Is that the norm?

 

lol...you worry too much. Follow the overclocking guide and use afterburner to log your temps....another way is to run furmark and see what your stressed temps are

yes that is in the normal range...your drivers and clocks will account for the variations that you see posted

is this a dell vbios though?

 

Thanks slick. Your guide was awesome btw.

 

I honestly don't know. Googling the vBios number only brings up clevo results. :\

Kevin at Eurocom is looking into it right now. He just asked for a picture of the rear of the card...

 

you're welcome mate! glad you find it useful

Its very important that Eurocom send you a card with the dell vbios on it...or it won't work

 

I really, really hope it is, considering that I confirmed a total of SIX times that it was going in an Alienware M17x R3.

Still waiting to hear back from the guy at Eurocom.

 

after installing afterburner and following with the info to OC I noticed after every bootup right when I get to the desktop I see a black command prompt window pop up and quickly close without seeing any text in it. I uninstalled MSI afterburner and went back to normal on everything but for some reason I still see that thing popping up.

I have a feeling this is something very fishy as I just got it after installing afterburner. Any ideas?

 

that's not afterburner...its the ATI driver. It is a noted issue that will get resolved in the next drivers

 

Somethings up. Re parsted it, just to check everything was ok and noticed a big blob of solder, looks in the right place but looks larger then the ones next to it, like its heated up and melted.

I had back screen freezes last night, re installed the drivers, 12.7 and that problme has since gone but drivers wont install correctly and ive lost HDMI out functionality.
Temps seem fine.
Performance is down, cant run Skyrim at ultra, maxing about 25 fps at best on Arkham City is the same. Im hoping its all driver related.

Short of a full re install of windows, i dont know what to do next.

Would really appreciate some help or advise.

 

Well ive noticed that the Drivers provided dont seem to include HDMI audio codec. perhaps that could be part of the problem?

 

Well since nobody seems to be interested, i'll just have to go for a fresh install. thanks. 3 threads and no response. Awesome.

 

Sorry nobody has a reply to your issue. Perhaps someone with the answer is away for a few days. There's no point in getting upset at the community for not knowing an answer to your problem after half a day.

My suggestion would be to do a clean uninstall of all your video drivers. Reboot into safe mode and run driver sweeper. Click on AMD, and if you want, the HD3000. Reboot. Go into the registry and delete all AMD folders (not necessary, but that is something I do). Go into your hidden folders and delete anything AMD. If you don't know where to look, just do a search on clean unistall of AMD drivers. I'm at work and not able to link for you.

If you haven't already, give that a try. Other then that, I would say a clean install.

 

Joe, as skylineLvr has suggested...you need to do a clean install...something is buggered up.

I would do it this way:

use catalyst install manager and..."uninstall all amd software"

Then download and run Driver Sweeper...select "amd display" only. run...reboot

Now install the stock Dell drivers...reboot

Now do a custom install of the amd 12.7 drivers...click custom install, select "display driver" only. Install. reboot.

This should maintain your hdmi functionality and have you running the fastest in games

PS...you posted that london time...in this part of the world, we are sleeping lol

 

Hello all,

First of all, thank you SlickDude80 for posting this guide! (using 2.2.3 following this guide)

I was able to unlock my MSI Afterburner but I have been failing miserably with overclocking.

First attempt: OC to 1000/1500 – BSOD due to Switchable Graphics mode.

Switched to full discreet GPU mode (Fn+F7)
Second attempt: OC to 1000/1500 – PC kept on freezing and I keep getting an error stating (Graphics has been recovered etc.)

Third attempt: OC to 950/1400 – Same results as second attempt.

Am I doing something wrong?

 

you may need extra voltage in order to stay at 950/1400 or above.

 

Start small. Those are some pretty substantial OCs. I started running into stability issues at anything above a 950Mhz core clock on stock voltage. You want to gradually work up from stock, not gradually work your way down from the stratosphere.

 

Hi.

Thanks. Maybe you're right. But the OP did mention "THrough preliminary testing, it appears that upper stable limit on stock voltage is 1ghz core / 1.5 ghz ram"

Hmmm.. any other suggestions?

What OC are you running at?

 

You maybe right here. Never thought of it that way. I just read the OP's post stating that he was stable at 1000/1500 so I assumed it would work for everybody else.

I will try 900/1400 tonight. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

You're welcome! Yeah, they're all different. I was stable at 950/1200, so you way want to just play around with it and see what gives you the best results. I'm going to try to stick to 950Mhz core clock and bump up the memory.

 

zipidy, all cards are different...you see people running over 1ghz on stock voltage and then there are some that can't get to 900mhz

What i have seen is that many cards need to run at 1.075v to be stable while overclocking. My card tops out at 1ghz using stock voltage

 

Thanks for this info. Great post btw.
What do you recommend I start with? I want to keep it at stock voltage and stability is more of a priority than performance and heat.

I have read a post within this thread mentioning that the memory clock has a higher effect than the core clock in terms of performance and improved FPS. Is this true?

 

Thanks, shouldnt have got the hump. Problem is im tryuing to solve this after finishing night shifts. I must have tried 3 different drivers 5 times. Driving me nuts. (no pun)

when you say Dell stock? You mean the ones that came with the Laptop? 6970 drivers or 7970m dell drivers?

 

Just go to the Dell website and search for the drivers. It's under the R4 driver list. It's the 7970M drivers.

@zipidy928 Every card is different as others have stated. My card can OC and run 3DMark11 on 1020/1560 (I'm sure higher, just never felt the need to try more). If needed, I can comfortably OC to 950/1500+ for gaming, except for some reason, I can't OC and play Crysis 2. I always get a black screen during the opening sequence (although I haven't tried to actually OC after loading up a saved game). So you may find that what you can OC your card to, might not be good for gaming clocks. But I have found it unnecessary to have to OC for most games that I play.

 

Thank you

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

No joy. It detects another screen in CCC but it says Unknown below it. when it try to connect it via FN+F6 it brings and error up "no projector connected".

I tired to install the Dell drivers for the 7970 but the install manager would only let me install Catalyst instal manager and SDK app profiles.

Azalia HDMI codec? Supposed to be disabled along with Azalia PME and LAN?
In bios under Advanced> Perephials

Also, slightly concerning, after talking to Eurocom, they tell me the 7970m does not support HDMI functionality.....???

Huh?

Oh well. Mid way through a fresh install of windows.

We''ll see what that yields. No confident. When I came to installing GPU driver HDmi driver was still missing.

Mobo or gpu may be damaged.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Yep, no change with fresh install.

I actually think im getting screwed over here (by eurocom) I mentioned to then there is an unsightly large blob of solder ment for the transistors (i think) that seems to be covering other parts of the card, i asked is this normal? having looked at they're own image of the card (knowing it isnt) they told me it was.

LMAO

Intresting, out of curiosity, i tried juliants IGPU fix. Initially it worked and whilst on IGP HDMI out comes alive!!!!!!!!

As soon as went to 7970, whole thing becomes unstable, white screen'd, switched back to intel 3000 and windows reports ATI drivers not working. Oh well, Disabled and went back to PEG.
At least i know i haven't funked my Mobo and this is definitely a card issue.

Im left with 2 choices, buy another 7970m or just go back to 6970m. Eurocom are dodging everything i throw at them about this being a Clevo card or bring faulty. Perhaps, if they are so confident in ti being ok, i'll just return it and take a hit on the restocking fee.

 

I believe this is an issue with all clevo cards that are installed in the M17x lineup(I could be wrong). I think its a hardware deal and has nothing to do with the software. Thats why you have been able to get HDMI running on the Igpu, but not the 7970m.

 

Thanks tony for replying.

So it is a Clevo card.

 

7970m does support hdmi..but you shouldn't have to do fn f6...for me i plug into to TV and i Get my desktop on the lcd almost immediately...the guys at Eurocom need an education...maybe the Clevo cards don't support hdmi but the Dell cards do? a simple post in the Clevo forums should get your answer

Sent from my SGH-T989D using Tapatalk 2

 

well from what I read the eurocom cards in the m17x r2 don't have HDMI either. I'm thinking its just an incompability between brands, but who knows for sure.

 

Its confirmed by Eurocom now, on there 7970m Ebay page. It stated its "flashed with Alienware VBIOS" but "you may lose HDMI functionality"

I asked them, are they Clevo cards? they said yes.

So a warning to any hoping to purchase card with Eurocom for M17x, Don't lol. Got to Dell.

 

Things are going from bad to worse for me. So, I orginally ordered a card from Eurocom 31 days ago. They sent it 8 days ago, and it was flashed with the Clevo vBios so didn't work. They agreed to replace it from their Belgium office (for quick delivery to the UK, and I agreed). I did, however, tell them that if I didn't have a tracking number the next day I'd be cancelling, as it already arrived well over a week late initially, and it came cash-on-delivery. So yeah, they were late and didn't pay enough shipping, and sent the wrong card.

Last I heard from Eurocom was on Thursday, when they told me for the second day running that the card was being stress tested and had 'probably been shipped'. No confirmation, no tracking, no giving a whatsoever. I returned the non-functioning card to them on Thursday by Royal Mail, and it probably arrived with them today. That is despite them saying they'd send the GPU without waiting for me to send the RMA back.

I have since emailed Kevin from Eurocom on Friday, and twice again today asking for an update, and I'm yet to receive a reply at all.

Terrible experience for me so far, and I'm giving them until tomorrow before I file a paypal dispute to get the far-from-small-change amount of money they've had from me for over a month.

I rarely write up negative reviews, but this has to be the worst experience I have had buying computer hardware, ever.

 

weird. Also when I OC my screen starts tearing as if electricity is going through it... and I cant go back to stock clocks, had to return to restore to a safer time lol... any idea what in the world is going on?

Also wanted to ask, in reg edit there is a setting EnableUlps_NA
DO we set that to 0 also???

 

Edit: SOlved

 

That's good to know...thanks for sharing your experiences (guess you'll have to live with it for now lol)

Wow...sorry to hear about your headaches with eurocom

No, do not set that to 0

Your screen tearing could be because you need more voltage. What is the best clocks you can do without the tearing?

 

Hello every1. First of all thank you for a grate guide Slick! But I've a little problem regarding the overclocking. I am using an Origin pc (but i suppose that will not change anything?). My problem is when starting MSI Afterburner there are no ways to change the clockspeeds because all the numbers are missing. This happens after i update the Afterburner CFG file (Eula and unofficial = 1) (before changing Eula everything was fine). I have also changed the registry settings (0001 Ulps = 0), mind you the only folder that contained the Ulps was the 0001 folder (only have the 0000 and 0001). Do you guys have any ideas why it doesn't work? I can't seem to figure it out at least. It's ofc possible that i'm doing a really silly mistake.

I have tried with 2.2.0, 2.2.1 and 2.2.3

 

When you saved the cfg file, did it save as a .cfg? Sometimes, it saves as a txt file which screws everything up. Also, make sure that there are no duplicate files in that directory. Another thing to do is to double check all your config file and registry settings.

Make sure you are running 2.2.0 as the newer 2.2.3 is missing a dll that allows overclock on the ATI cards. You can add the DLL back in but it isn't necessary with 2.2.0 or 2.2.1

 

Well I sold my card on and bought Skyline'S via the NBF trade page.

So far so good. HDMI drivers installed first time. (Can't test HDMI out as I'm on holiday) I'm pretty sure it will work.

I'll say again.M17xr3 owners, steer clear of Eurocom, go to Dell.

And thanks to Skyliner, exemplary seller.


Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

That's awesome dude! The dell 7970m is definitely preferred but it's just more difficult to get sometimes.

 

Ok, i'm running on 2.2.1 now (somehow the install of the 2.2.0 is a bit buggy sometimes. But anyway I've checked everything you suggested, but i can't find out what's wrong. I've posted a couple of screen shoots, because the only thing i can see that's a bit odd is that i've only got 0000 and 0001. Can you see what i am doing wrong?

 

looks good to me...did you reboot the computer?

 

It's SkylineLvr, lol.

I'm sure you wont have any issues Joe85. My card works just fine with HDMI out, and seeing how the card I sold you came from the same batch (at least the dates on the boxes matched up), yours should work just fine.

 

I did :/ several times. Hmm now i'm a bit lost. I guess i'll try again tomorrow. Got a lot thinking to do :S

This was really odd.

 

I ordered the 7970 2 weeks ago, and still nothing. I got a call saying it was the wrong card and the part number was wrong.. im confused cause this is what it says.

Module,Card,Graphics,AMD WIMBLEDON XT
Status: In Production
Estimated Delivery Date: 8/14/2012(updated)

What is included with this order?
Quantity Item Number Description
1
3RJH8
Module,Card,Graphics,AMD WIMBLEDON XT

This is correct, no? I got the R4 model, 3610, 660m in the computer at the moment.

M17x-R4
8DG8P AMD Wimbledon XT 7970m Kit (Video Card 747M2 + Support Plate 3PVGK)
0MMPT AMD Wimbledon XT 7970m Heat Sink + Fan
747M2 AMD Wimbledon XT 7970m Card
3PVGK AMD Wimbledon XT 7970m Support Plate

which one of these do I ask for, if it is the wrong part? also what did it cost you for the card with everything included? one more question, the guy told me the part would NEVER come in dont bother trying because he's seen cases in mine ( 2 delays) and it never comes. anyone have success ordering through Dell? i got mine for 217.00

 

So in case you guys haven't been paying attention to the Enduro threads on the Sager/Clevo forum... AMD filed a take down of their thread reporting issues and it seems that Enduro is NOT a software issue but a hardware issue. Alienware m17x r4 users can just disable the iGPU and get around the throttling, but m17x r3 user might be left in the dust.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/681999-make-7970m-enduro-public-get-backing-prominent-blogger.html

Should we all be rushing to refund our cards?

 

Why would it be an issue for R3 owners? I have no issues with the 7970M in my R3. I just disabled the iGPU.

 

Wait, so youre saying R3 users can disable Enduro? Since when/how?

 

we were never able to use Enduro in the first place lmao

 

So where does the downclocking from 900/1200 to 400/300 come from? My understanding was that Sager/Clevo/Alienware m17x r3 frame rate drops/downclocks were all because Enduro which could only be disabled in M17x r4/m18x r2.

I've been on Sager/Clevo/Alienware/Hardforum for weeks where they all blamed it on enduro and now people are saying we never had enduro? Simply booting with PEG doesn't fix the down-throttling (atleast not for me)

Low intensive game players (games that can 30+fps on 400/300 clocks) dont notice
High intensive game players (games that barely push 10+fps on 400/300) have been swapping 12.6 12.7 12.5 all trying to get better performance, but it seems like its not going to be fixed by software/drivers...ever. So if you're seeing 90% gpu in BF3 100% of the time, tell me how you did it. If you playing farmville 100% of the time, I don't need your help.

 

The highlighted part is the 7970M video card. You will also need the 3PVGK support plate. (If it is actually available for order, the 8DG8P part number is the same video card along with the 3PVGK support plate.) The video cards are in short supply right now.

 

Wouldn't you just get the kit that includes the support plate, or is there more to the kit and is it more money? i dunno i have the one I posted above for order and its still processing. they said it was the wrong one, but it says the Wimbledon. the support rep said something about cancelling it because it wasn't vga or something of that sort?

I'm reading this from an old post about a week ago
"Ok how about this quot dell outlet new in box
Mod Number Mod Description
V6NP6
Base Assembly
N971H
AlienFX Color, Mars Red
TG4MT
64BIT Operating System
05TRG
Alienware M17x R4
99V3X
Processor: Intel Core 3rd Generation i7-3610QM Processor (2.3GHz up to 3.3GHz,6MB Cache,w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)
FPXXF
500 GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200 RPM) (2nd Drive)
3RJH8
2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 7970M

That is the one I ordered as well ^^ But they are telling me it'll never be in stock again and get the other one that's 500 dollars, and telling me it's the wrong card and to cancel it.