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

What GPu scores do you guys get in Vantage? I'm hovering around 11.6k, no OC.

 

vantage? one sec ima do some testing

 

65 deg! wow that is good, what game is that in? Congrats

 

i'm getting a weird error... oh well i'm gonna do some gaming

 

under load it doesnt seem to get much higher than 52ish but i've seen 65 when playing crysis on ultra.

 

what's your CPU spidert ? is it i7 920 ?

 

Hey, I think I'm having issues with my M15x in regards to heavy loads while gaming in Skyrim and BF3. My FPS constantly fluctuates on a day to day basis, as well as many times while I play games and come back to them later. For example, I can't even run Skyrim maxed out at 768 and achieve a straight 45+ FPS, as I will always dive to 25-30 in some places, where others state they can maintain a straight 55+ running throughout Whiterun and Riften. The same goes in BF3, as I cannot run the game maxed on 768, and although I am not sure, I have a feeling I should be able to, or with almost maxed settings. I ran future mark and it seems that my 6970M is performing well, as it met the approximated score, but my CPU was 4000 below what it "should" be. I read the closed thread regarding the low vantage score, and I couldn't figure out what was not allowing him to reach a higher score and get more performance out of the beast 940XM. Is my 940XM thermal throttling? I desperately need help, as I've had this problem for quite sometime, and I just want my laptop to perform as well as it should be. Oh, and if it helps, I use a 240W M17 AC Adapter and 8GB of 1333 RAM. Thanks in advance.

And by the way, nothing is over clocked at the moment. I OCed my GPU temporarily, just bumped core to 700, and then reset it, and have never touched the CPU.

 

You need to turn on logging in Throttlestop and see if it's throttling.

 

I have i7 720qm

 

spidert can you do us a favour and ran skyrim for about 30 minutes ? that game is a killer for the combo with i7 720 and 6900 series. so far no one succeeded without shutdowns while playing yet, hopefully you're the first.

 

Hi guys!
Now with the i7 920, only skyrim shut down two times. All other games (metro 2033, crysis, HOMM 6, Deus ex) run perfect for hours.
In skyrim, shutdown usually occurs when alt-tabing or when fast travelling. I've downloaded the software"whocrashed" to learn more about these f*****g shutdowns

 

ah, so 920 helps right ? thanks flo, that's what we need.

for alt-tab, what i did was just to press windows button instead of alt-tab to go to desktop. seems to prevent the crashes.

now i just have to save up for one. oh +rep when able by the way for the update

 

I OC'd my card to 820/1100 and so far (let's hope it stays this way) it seems to be working for me, at least for BF3. I've only run the game for about 30-40 min but it's a lot better than my previous 10-20, or even 5

 

My 6990m is getting up to 80 degrees max... Is this bad?

 

No, my 6990m gets even hotter.

 

I start to get some stuttering even at 70fps like weird freezing then back to normal. Know what that is?

 

Hi there,

First off all best wishes and a good new year (little late i know).
I love this thread and i bought my self a 6970m now i'm waiting to be deliverd.
This is the first update for start the next thing will be a 920xm and somewhere i saw 16 gb of mem should work as well. currently i have a m15x with 5730m and I5 540.....not a game laptop at all so i was glad when i found this thread. I would like to thank you guys all and svl7 you rule.

Just a dutch guy
Mike

 

nothing bad about the dutch

 

once we where the most feared seaman of the world, now where just the smallest country with the biggest ego......smile

 

all of this adds up when your in heaven haha

 

we owned new york go figure.......every great nation has its downfall i guess.

sorry back to thread again.

 

yes go figure 9.11 would never had happened

"lets go back to the thread real fast

 

i get 86c max on BF3 after hours of playing at 100% load

 

Are you playing in 3D ?

 

toshiba 42" 3D(passive) 240mhz (2d-3d conversion), yes sometimes, now that it doesnt make me dizzy as much.....

 

is that the only thing No serious I never can play BF3 in 3D is there a reason?

 

lol... i dont know

 

My 6990m is playing at 60 degrees C on skyrim and I tried playing for 2 hours and it never got higher then 70. I guess my laptop cooler really helps! Maybe its because I have my fan on 100% speed... well anyways I'm happy

 

^^ did you survive?

 

How did the install go and did you just follow the same steps in this thread in the first post?

Congrats I'm jealous!

 

Yep thats all I did!

 

100% fan speed o.o isn't the auto set to 30%? That would get really loud right?

 

Sadly I just encountered my first shutdown, it occurred while playing metro 2033 on very high settings. I was probably playing at 80C to 90C. I don't know what the temps where, but I'm going to try again and see.

yes 100% fan speed sounds like a quiet vaccume!

Did another test and it shutdown after about 5 minutes. I'm getting kind of worried.

Just checked my log.... looks like the temps got to 98C WOW thats bad.

 

pretty high, you might want to check your paste and maybe repaste?

 

I think I did a pretty dang good job on the pasting. I just installed it yesterday. Also I'm using the old thermal pads. It also looked like what was getting hot was the shaders. I'm going to order some fujipads to cover up the rest of the card, but for now i'll just downclock the card a bit.

 

honestly, at first it sounded to good to be true. hope everything works out for you.

 

Have any advice? What do you do to prevent all this heat? metro 2033 is the only game that ever shuts down all of these games work.

skyim
crysis
black ops
bfb2
fallout 3

It's weird that metro would cause this much heat. I know the game really pushes the card, but I would expect to overheat on a game like crysis.

 

Ok guy my temps in crysis never get above 82. My temps in metro 2033 got to 98 then my system shut down. I am going to do some testing on skyrim in the morning. Thanks for your help

 

only thing that comes to mind is that crysis is not loading your gpu to 100%, compared to metro which does, there for creating more heat, either lower your setting or try more methods to control the cooling

Edit: here is what i did, http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ading-problems-solutions-152.html#post8148325

 

so shutdowns just can't be avoided huh, sigh....

 

Thanks I think I can get this worked out. has anyone ever thought of modding the heatsink... or even the fans?

 

Ok so skyrim runs anywhere from 40C to 70C thats with a slight downclocked core and a slightly overclocked memory

 

There is a part of the heatpipes that makes contact with some gpu componets. So basically you push the pipe out abit and put a pads in between it and you be good. Unless your talking about another type of mod

 

How many fujipads should I order? I was thinking of ordering two and then pretty much covering the entire card, top and bottom. I just really want my card to be stable for games like metro last night when it comes out.

Ok so metro 2033 on high enstead of very high seems to prevent shutdowns. My temps never for above 75C besides my shaders which got to 85C. Anyone know why the shaders are so hot? Also I have an overclock of 800/975

Black ops doesn't get above 60C but the shaders get to 67C. I have a feeling those shaders aren't getting cooled corectly

 

Yeah, repaste...

 

So far I've ordered the ATI 6990m and I'm waiting on it. I also ordered thermal pads, arctic remover, and the arctic mx4 thermal paste. I've read over documentation and I already did a full strip down of my computer earlier today to familiarize myself with it and clean it out before my order arrives. Since this is my first time doing this I just want to clarify some things...

Few more questions,

1) I've ordered thermal pads 1mm, but I see in this picture

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m15x/alienware-m15x/atta...5870padsv2.jpg

Of a 5870 that most of them are .5mm? Can I still use the 1mm or do I have to order another pad of .5mm? Also is there a picture related for a 6990m card of where to put the fresh thermal pads?

2) With the thermal paste is the best method to do the grain of "rice" I saw that mentioned in a video on Newegg seemed to make sense to me?

3) I currently have a nvidia 240M right now guessing that the x bracket is going to be slightly different than the one for the 6990m that I ordered from table21(don't believe it's coming with an xbracket), any tips when doing it this way?

4) With the 11.5 modified drivers, do I use those first then can I upgrade my drivers to a more recent version or do I leave the 11.5 drivers? Or I guess since my card is a Dell one, I get the m17x R3 drivers instead?

5) Anything else I need to know?

 

i would advise against any overclocking for now your shaders will always be your highest temp on the gpu, for me the range is always anywhere from 3c to 10c higher than the other gpu temps. for me it never goes above 86c (only goes above while benching)

1) they should be fine especially if they are squishy like the fujipoly. check post #1743 for a link of what i did with the pads

2)rice or pea method works fine, mx4 good choice

3)you can use your 240 backplate, there is enough info on this on page 1

4)you can use the current 11.12 drivers(im using them now) no need to install the 11.5 modded

5)just be patient and dont expect the first try to be perfect, be careful handling the new card. monitor the temps and the behavior of the card post installation and report back if you need any help, and good luck

 

I really don't think repasting the card will make any difference. I used arctic silver 5, I used the pea method, and I'm sure I did it fine. I think I just need to get thermal pads, because right now i'm using the old ones.

 

if i only upgrade the 6970m (a dell one) and a 920xm and the cooling is ok there would be no problem in high temps, voltage downclocking. i mean it will work normally? the reasson i ask i dont wanna overclock just keep it pretty much standard i am not a clocking type it need to be stable and working.
Thanks in advance for the answhere.

Mike

 

Well, speaking for myself I do mess up the pasting once in a while, even though I've already done tons of paste jobs... It's easy to have an edge of the die not covered properly, or using slightly too few paste.
Also too much paste can bring up temps.

If you lift the heatsink you'll see whether it was because of the pasting or not.
What I recommend to do as well is checking whether the heatsink fits properly, everywhere... enough pressure, not heatpipes making contact with coils etc...