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

Take it easy, I can wait, but it would be interesting to know

Yes, I guess I should be able to revive it, or send you a programmed chip. I guess you have a similar serial memory flash chip on it, something like a PM25LV010, so it should work. You can take a peek at your card when you have the chance and check it.

I was thinking about something similar, but I don't think it's gonna work with my 6970m...

 

Is this relevant for a 5870 swap?

 

What do you exactly mean?

 

Hey guys I would love to have a radeon 6970m in my m15x but I wonder if it would be better off to save my money(i'm 13 and unemployed... obviously) I just spent 1200 on the m15x spending $500 on upgrading might be a bit much... plus I just bought a Razer mamba... One last thing to say I saw that Widezu69 put a radeon 6990m in the m15x. If putting one of those in isn't much harder than a 6970 I would consider it! Thanks!

 

His card is a 6970m engeering sample and not a true 6990m, so it's still not confirmed that it will work. We're all hoping though!

 

I only have $100 at the moment so I have plenty of time to wait. I am sure i can make enough by the end of the year... I hope you guys will have it figured out by then.

Do you think you will see a double of frames when upgrading from a 5730m to a 6970m? I am still wondering if its worth it.

 

You will see probably triple! The 5730 is not a very powerful card. The 5870/5850 is almost twice as fast as the 5730 and the 6970m is almost twice as fast as those. You won't see quadruple but definitely more than double.

 

Triple frame rates! Yes i will finally be able to play wow on ultra! A couple sites said Crysis WH ran 35fps . I'll start saving my money right away.

Do you think i should spend $300 on a 920xm on ebay? I don't think the difference would be that massive, but i am open to suggestions.

 

6990m and 920xm will bring your PSU to its limits... Not sure whether it'll work without issues.

 

So probably just stick with the 740qm? It seems pretty fast to me.

btw where would you buy a 6990m anyways?

 

Check out the first post of this thread, this should give you an idea where you can get cards.

 

I don't believe Mxm had anything on 6990m's but ill check.

 

No, they don't have any, at least not yet. They may get some, no idea... but you can't get a 6990m anywhere at the moment, not even Dell is selling them. You'll have to wait a couple of weeks until they'll be available from Dell, on ebay or from Clevo resellers...
Whether MXM-upgrade will get some... no idea, but you can ask.

 

I might just buy a radeon 6970m and not take the risk of the 6990m, as nobody has done much research on it, and we are not 100% sure the m15x can handle it without problems.

 

My card is as close to a 6990m as a 6970m can be, in gaming there are no issues, benching is a hit and miss. All in all, there is a good chance that one will work but the 6970m is definitely no slouch I assure you

 

Anyone can help, i installed the modded driver from 1st post but the max resolution i can set is 1600x900. The official driver from amd 11.6 not work.
I used the card from upgradeyourlaptop on ebay, i think its clevo version.
Which driver for this card to get full HD resolution?
THanks

 

You do have a FullHD screen don't you? Also have you flashed the M17x R3 vbios? That may help with some driver issues.

 

Make sure you only have one display active. Right click on the desktop, click on screen resolution, then make sure you have "Display: 1. Mobile PC Display" and "Multiple Displays: Show desktop only on 1".

 

Thanks problem solved.

 

So I flashed my card to 6990m speeds, albeit with the current M17x R3 vbios. I have yet to do some benching to give people an idea as to what a real 6990m would be able to do. I also turned my 920XM down to stock clocks and stock TDP and got rid of HWInfo64 as I never needed it in the first place and traytools (which I used to get rid of throttling) and everything runs decent. Crysis 2 DX11 Ultra with high res textures stays at almost 30 and more than 40fps indoors. Zero throttling. Man this card is a beast.
@svl7 are there options in the unlocked bios to control the thermal limits for the fans?

 

Good news!! Still waiting to hear about overvolting, hahaha

There are "active trip point" and "high fan trip point" options, though I haven't tried them so far... I need to use HWiNFO anyway with my card, so I doubt I'll see whether it works or not.

 

After real 6990m appeared, there will be some people prefer to upgrade their M17x-R3 with a 6990m instead of 6970m. We can buy a dell 6970m from them more easily and cheaper. It's the time to do it!

 

just got mine installed a little bit a go and played a half an hour of crysis2 with dx11 and all the other settings all "ultrad" out. it played flawlessly. big upgrade from the 240m

 

Congratulations. The improvement from a 240m must be astounding. Corralled a lot of power in that M15x over the last little bit. Have fun.

 

Thanks. The biggest thing I noticed off the bat was the colors and explosions, the colors were much more vibrant and of course the explosions are a lot better. The temps are ok 50* at idle and it hit 85* at max which I'm not too happy about but that's still not bad considering they theoretically can go up to 104*

 

grats logan
but u selling it now?

was about to say 85 is fine, but if you want lower and are at stock (680/900) you could try undervolting a little. i have mine at 1v and the temps went way down.

 

ATI Mobility Radeon? HD 6970m GPU MXM 3.0 Type B | eBay


I see that as a great deal... Was going to wait it out for the 6990 whenever it gets to the public..... and you guys test it to see if it works, but I like the price of this. 100+ saved from MXM-upgrade.

 

This up for a while now, remember that you'll have to pay the shipping costs as well.
If you go for this offer, you'll have to contact the seller and make sure you get either the screws for the heatsink as well (M15x screws won't work) or you'll have to ask him to send you a card on which you can mount a backplate.
The card shown in the picture on ebay has the backplate soldered on.
More information about this issue can be found in the first page of this thread.

 

No not selling it i got two and the one in the pic is for sale the other one is for me.

 

Yeah, went back and read it.


NVM now. MXM-upgrade has already said they would do all the heavy lifting.

**Sigh** back to twiddling thumbs.

 

I have a dell in very good condition for sale if you want it. just click on my sig. it comes with what you would need to put it in a 15

 

Already looked at it when I first posted.


Considering the one svl7 recommended 5 pages back or so, the one that's an engineering sample from taobao, the MXM-upgrade one, and yours.

 

By the way guys... bench your 6970m systems!! There are still a lot of places available in the list... would be great to see some competition!!!

@logan801: I'd buy it immediately if I hadn't already a 6970m, tbh I'm really tempted.

Edit: Oh yeah, the taobao card is very tempting as well.... moooaaarrr shaaaaaders!

 

hahaha, that my mind set on the card as well.


But I am really digging that price Logan has up.... You stay away you!

 

im not really a benching sort, i just go for stability my desktop is oc to the roof with water on the mb and cpu and 24/7 stable at 4.2ghz with the temps never going above 72c. Whad bench do you want me to run?

 

@logan801: Check out the benchmark thread, vantage would be great, or 3dM11. 3dM06 can be fun as well when you have an xm processor.

Once you start benching it can become really addicting, especially with a 920xm.
Do whatever you like and post your results in the benchmark thread, almost nobody has done some benching lately, would be cool to see how far people can push their 6970m.

 

ok im dl vantage now ill bench it when i get off work, what oc tool should i use for gpu/cpu usually i only buy nvidia so dont know what to use with ati.

 

TriXX for the GPU and Throttlesop for the CPU (I guess you know about Throttlestop since you have a 920xm)

 

off topic heres my 570 oc and non oc

 

ok really have to go to work now lol

 

Hello guys, i just got a Dell HD6970 installed to my M15x. Currently using M18x HD6970 drivers. According to GPU-Z, idle temps are ~70 degrees C.

Playing games on low settings works fine, unfortunately it lags alot when details are turned on high. My guess would be, power restrictions.

Also, the system shuts itself down at around 120 degrees C. Looking forward to discussing a workaround for this issue
Thanks in advance

 

70C is much too hot for idling!!! Lag is probably because of your temps.
Repaste the system immediately, make sure you properly clean the heatsink and the die, then repply the thermal paste, check out Inaps repaste guide (can be found in his sig) if you need assistance.

This is very important, don't play any games until you got your temps down. Idle temps should be 45-50C, depending on ambient temperatures.

 

GPU shutdown / high idle and maximum temps

Edit: Done repasting, no change. seems i have pasted correctly the first time.
these are my findings;

Click on thumbnails to enlarge.

----------------------


Compared to




From the first 2 photos, you may see a difference in gap
(marked in yellow) in between the GPU die and the heatsink.
The ones marked in red shows the bending difference of the heatsink's screw-holder
----------------------



Compared to



And from these 2 photos, we can see that the GPU's bracket's thread is
sticking out at a different height.
It is near impossible to remove the HD6970's bracket,
(the one im using is non-dell bracket, source unknown)
therefore there's no way I could use my 260m's X plate.


I was led to believe that the high temps are caused by
the non contacting heatsink. Personally i think a copper mod should do the trick.


<Edit> Found solution.

It is either a copper mod or change of the original 4 screw on the Heatsink's screw-holder.
I've chosen to change the screws.

Now reapplying the thermal paste and reassembly, idle at 43 degrees C.
Maxxed at 72 degrees C, witcher 2 ultra

**WARNING**
The GPU bracket I'm using is not a OEM Dell 6970 bracket,
and the origin of it is unknown.

I realized this after seeing logan801's photo:



Therefore, the screw mod is not recommended for users using
the M15x's original bracket. Unless you have a bracket height problem
(as seen here)

 

Ok, see the problem, glad you got it working!! Great job! What screws did you use? Did you have some laying around that worked?
Excellent temps, really amazing!!

Just be careful that you don't accidentally crack the die when using different screws.

+rep for pointing out the possible issues with the Dell backplate and the pictures!

 

Just as reference, here is my card at stock 6990m speeds so people can gauge at what kind of performance one of those can get.

 

I had screws lying around from some Acer leftovers
Fortunately for me the screw threads were identical.

There's less bending in the heatsink's X plate when using the replacement screws,
which makes it fit in just nice and not too hard on the die.

Here's a shot of the 2 screws side by side

 

Wow, my card goes up to 90 degrees while playing Witcher 2 on ultra...

But then again, my room is hot as boiling hell.

 

Does anyone find it weird how my card idle temp is around 52-53, and whenever I play a game like The Witcher 2, it shoots up to 90-91? Even when I don'y play the game in my room (which is hot as hell with room temp + laptop heat).

I've done my fair share of re-pasting, undervolting this card, but this is too much.

 

You're sure that is making proper contact with the heatsink? (See razor16190 post above). What's the manufacturer of your card?

 

Maybe I have to change my screws now.
My card go up to 92* when playing SC II.