M15x & 6970M / 6990M - What you need to know - upgrading, problems, solutions

I've padded mine just to be safe. I'll go back to benching in a week or so and report if I still have shut downs.

 

I have the same idea with you. But the clevo vbios not only help, but also display wrong image. So it is the last chance for me to use it. The seller asked me to response him tomorrow, and I really very busy these days. So if it still shuts down, I want to return it and use 5850m instead.

 

Seems you got a dud. Unlucky dude. Seems I will still be the lone wolf

 

The experiment was interesting, that's enough.
I'll exchange my 5850m and return the 6970m tomorrow.
Someday I may buy a normal 6970m

 

I'm tempted to get a Clevo x7200 and Crossfire two ES 6970m's

 

Have at it. Before someone else tries it.

 

good idea！I support you

 

Umm how much was that card? Kinda tempted to get one and test in an r3.

 

From it is from the Chinese version of eBay called taobao.com the link is posted a few pages back. I'm in the process of making an account now but it keeps asking for a Chinese mobile number of which I do not have one.

 

thanks bud, looks like a pita to sign up. really want to get my hand on one of these to test in the r3.

 

About $430, would be great to see in a M18x

 

wow the price is not bad at all, dang it just cleared out my paypal account to fix my car. gonna be a week or 2 then. any US sellers of this magical card.

come one widezu loan me that card bro, hahahaha

 

Actually, when the time comes and I need to do my dissertation next year, I may discipline myself by removing this beast from my computer to stop myself from gaming and benching. I may be able to loan it for a while if someone wants (provided I get it back of course). Let the loan/bid wars begin!

 

I did the trick you linked to widezu. I added a long stripe of thermal pad over those small chips on the back of my 6970m. I even applied a slight overclock on my 1v card (720/930) and played Duke nukem for about 2 hours. I didnt get any shutdown yet. Ill post here if it happens (or not) .

 

Things bode well. Lets hope it lasts!

 

I remember a few years back when i had watercooled HDDs on my desktop PC. They had one huge thermal pad over the circuit board of the "3.5 HDD.

Maybe if you cover the whole back of mobile GPU with an thermalpad (except the area where the X bracket is) you would get good cooling. Im gonna order a big sheet of thermal pad and try this.

 

The M17x r3 6970m has a huge piece of thermal pad on its back if I remember correctly...

 

yes the thermal pad covers like 50% of the card on the r3.

 

Good to know. Im gonna cover mine too. As soon as i find thermal pads over here in sweden.

 

After I put a huge piece of thermal pad on its back, no restart any more. But When I monitoring the tep by AIDA64, I found the memory tep is so high, it can over the 100. I am sure the thermal pads attach the heatsink correctly. How about yours?

 

On clevo p170

 

Yeah the MemIO temp is the highest. You should buy some better thermal pads. I replaced mine and managed to keep it under 95C in a hot environment.

 

awesome...mine only has the high tep#2...others are about 80~90

I have removed the original pads and put the better ones(others used it said it is useful on 5850m) but no obvious improvement(maybe the original ones are worse, I didn't try)
your 95C is in the game or furmark?

 

Game. I don't really see the point in furmark if the main reason for upgrading the GPU is to play games. My stability test is to play Crysis 2 as it is the only game that properly stresses the GPU, in real world situations, for me at least.

 

in this case, probably mine is lower than yours

 

Good point glad your card is running well now.

 

I just monitor it, mine is under 90c when playing BC2.
I decide to use it continiously. You are not alone.

 

Interesting, that's good to know. I really didn't think this would help.
The MemIO is not the VRAM temp, there are no diodes on the vram, it's the memory controller, which is on the die as well. If the difference between core and die is really big, you may have to repaste, perhaps the edge of the die isn't covered properly.

I'm not a big fan of furmark either. As long as your temps are ok during all the applications you use, don't worry.

 

My MemIO temperature is the lowest. It idle at 44C compare to other it like 47C-50C.

 

Isnt that too hot?
I start to freak out at the high 80's low 90's. I think 103c will affect the lifespan of the card to be honest.

 

Agree, this definitely needs repasting.

 

furmark stresses the gpu far beyond what a game will ever do. however some games do stress the video hardware enough to come close (if only for short periods of action).

Furmark test is great because if you can run stable in Furmark, you will not need to worry about temps in a game. it may be over kill for some, but if you're looking for stability you can't look much further than Furmark for a burn in test.

and yes the above does need to be repasted and seated.
if running at stock clocks, undervolting to 1v may help as well, but improvement can be made by reseating the heatsink with new paste.

 

I just replace the card. Afterwards, It cannot run furmark at 680/900 stably(it can do it before), it is always at 400/900 because of the overload PSU(when it was above 150W, the clock got down)
What's more, in the game the card works at 680/900 normally, but the GPU load is not the 100% in some games(BC2,SC2), range from 50%~90%, while in dirt3 it isn't. Is it caused by not drawing enough power?

 

Idling clocks are now 100/150? Can you post a GPU-Z log?

 

Because it can't work well in the games I like, I finally decide to return this card, and try to find a original DELL 6970m or a cheap Clevo one. The ES draws so much power that the 920xm cannot work normally in some GPU&CPU combined games.

 

what is the difference between HWinfo32 and 64 version?

 

HWiNFO64 is the 64 bit version of HWiNFO. That's about it.

 

I have started getting a problem with my 6970m. When i put computer into suspend mode. And resume it sometime later i get no picture. I have to turn computer off and remove power cord and battery drain to get back picture. Sometimes this happens when i turn off the computer while using hdmi and later turn it on and i get no picture on either external screen or internal.

I have tried to swap screens with Fn+F6 but wont work. Its no big deal really but maybe its a vBios thingy. Is there any updated vBios for 6970m that i can use for my M15x?

 

damn temps... only thing that's keeping me from getting one... what's the best card-vbios combo this far temps- and powerwise?

 

I got a quote from Dell for 427.49 + shipping for one of these is that decent?

 

US Dollars? Incredibly good price imo.

 

Dollars small business price....whats this noise about a 560m though I would wait if I thought it would work? #teamgreen

 

The 560m will most probably work, but it's only an overclocked version of the 460m... probably slightly higher binned. The 6970m is still much better.

 

Roger that..
Just would hate to pull the trigger and find out later the other card rocks.

 

The other card won't rock as much as the 6970m. I got my old 460m GTX with 192 processors, same as the 560m clocked to 560m speeds at 775/1250 and got a 3DMark Vantage GPU score of around 9k. The 6970m on stock and score 12k give or take.

 

Appreciate the feedback.

 

Got the same problem with my Crossfire 4870m's. I rarely put the laptop into suspend mode, so it doesn't bug me too much. I started getting it right after I modded my vbios's for custom clocks and voltages. My guess it's something to do with the vbios and not the card itself.

 

Is this one working well on m15x: http://forum.notebookreview.com/computer-components/584965-fs-6970m-brand-new-free-heatsink.html

Just need control the fan speed?

 

Just bit the bullet and ordered..comes with another part number with no description: 375-6061 Thank you, Dell Outlet. A bracket maybe? I never specified what I was ordering it for just asked for the part.

 

I have applied thermal pads on the chips on the back side of the card as widezu suggested but I still get shutdowns when running 3dmark Vantage. It doesn't happen with gaming even if I overclock the card. If I undervolt my card to 1V and run on stock I still get the shutdowns It's not a big deal cause it only happens with this specific benchmark.

I also tried flashing with the clevo vbios that svl7 shared on a previous post but it didnt make any difference in terms of fan control unfortunately.

The performance of the card is amazing, if you have money enough go for the upgrade! Pity that the m15x bios does not recognize this card unless it comes from dell and we have to rely on hwinfo for the fan control. Hopefully one day somebody with the necessary expertise will mod the bios and add support for all 6970m non dell cards.