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

From what i hear the m15x is limited at +/-180W and the original supply delivers the same 180Watts, draw more power will fry the mainboard.

 

Draw more and the motherboard says "no".

 

I am planning to get a hd 6990m and I was wondering the step where you install the ATI drivers. The guide was posted few months ago and there are several new ATI drivers, what I want to know is do I still follow and install the driver listed in the beginning of this original post or should I install the lastest driver provided by ATI?

 

There is no reason why the latest drivers shouldn't work straight away.

You can always download the older drivers if you need to if the new ones don't work once you've installed the card.

I think the most important thing is to clean out your drivers completely before installing your new card.

 

Thank you @ninefingers. Another question, sorry I am really new to all these stuffs. The vbios issue is in regard of having the audio transferring through a hdmi cable? Is it a necessity for me to do it since I am using a dvi cable currently for my external monitor and not a hdmi cable? Another thing, the procedure of putting a 6990m is exactly the same as 6970m? Or is there an additional step? Thank you for your response and I love how the community is willing to help each other out

 

I was lurking around some other forums and saw something about disabling hyper threading and making Need for Speed work (before crashes) http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/626121-disable-hyperthreading-alienware-m17xr3.html and possibly making it work for BF3. Does this sound like a possibility, and if so how would you go about doing it?

 

cant really answer your first question but the process for installin a 6990m is the same as installing a 6970m

 

Including installing the A09 bios? or A08 is good enough?

 

OK so it's been a while since I have posted anything, but I am confused because when I play skyrim my clocks are 300/900 I haven't done any under-clocking. This is obviously effecting my performance (I float in 20-30fps). Anyone know why?

No it's not stealth mode.

 

What's your CPU?

 

I have i7 740qm. why could this effect my performance?.. I usually play at much higher frames. So don't think it has to do with the CPU lacking the processing power. I have a feeling it could be driver related as it didn't do this when I first played skyrim, I used to play at 40-50fps.

 

so you have updated your drivers recently? if so than just revert to the old drivers. and how are your temps it could be your gpu thermal throttling, can you try to force the stock 3d clock thru sapphire trixx?

 

In trixx it says my clocks are stock... but looking through HWinfo it says my clocks are 300/900. My temps are fine. Think I'll restart and then try new drivers.

OK once again after restarting I was happy cause I was playing at 55fps then I traveled to whiterun and my fps goes BAM 10fps. I look at my clocks, they seem to be at 300/400. looks like it under-clocks for no reason. Looks like I'll be updating drivers. Also it isnt temps they stay in the low 60s.

 

After upgrading your drivers make sure you're set to single display, not dual monitor.

 

After about 3 weeks with my 6970m i think my ICDiamond paste has finally settled and also i OC'ed to 750/1000 super stable while playing SWTOR with a few dips in FPS otherwise it never goes below 30FPS on max settings(with throttlestop- dunno if it helps the throttling anymore) temps never get past 85C. (no shutdowns either)
Also i forgot to note that with my install of the 6970m, i also repasted my CPU with ICDiamond and changed the old thermal pads with 1.0mm phobya thermal pads. My CPU temps never get past 58C while on SWTOR, would it be CPU temp that causes the mobo to struggle for power? just a thought

 

Well, I pulled the trigger on 6970m. Has anyone thought of trying this? I wanted one for the CPU anyways, so I ordered a set.

 

Yeah actually tried it on my 6990m works pretty well for me

 

Did you use thermal adhesive to stick the shim to the heatsink, or did you go HS > TIM > SHIM > TIM > GPU?

 

Yea this, i'll check the thickness later as i dont remember with one i used, but i believe it was the thinner one but I will edit the post later

Edit im using the thicker one

 

Sigh, repasted both CPU and GPU while taking extra care, added more pads and still crashing during BF3. I feel like I wasted $350...

GPU idles at ~60, but when I ran BF3 didn't go past 80. Though I'd rather it do that than crash..

 

Are monitoring all 3 temps? The MemIO can be the one to get ridiculously high, even when the core is low.

 

I'll record temps and stuff tomorrow and upload some pictures, gotta sleep cause classes tomorrow though. What does MemIO do, or is it just another temperature - but for what?

 

Use the newest GPU-Z, set all three senors and make sure to tick "run in background". There are 3 sensors: Core, Shader, and MemIO. MemIO is the memory controller, and I think you're going to be surprised.

 

Like johnny said run gpuz and also save log and run in the background, than after the crash you should have a file saved with the progress during the game session. Your idle temps are way hi my temps average 45c during game they may reach as high as 83c, those are the highest recorded temps

 

I couldn't find those specific sensors; I only have GPU Temps 1,2,3. And yeah I know my idle temps are high, but no idea why though..anyways here's a GPU-Z, does anything seem strange or is it not enough information o.o

 

Wow, wasn't expecting it to be so close across the board. I don't know then, we'll have to see if I have the same issue. I've got an Alienware card coming, and I bought the correct backplate from Eurocom.

 

yeah your idle temps are high but your temps under load look good, did it crash during this run? have you resolved the heat pipes issue?

i idle @ 40c while on the web it might hit 47c

 

Yeah I am still crashing even with those numbers. I did do the heatsink mod as well and applied the thermal pad to the backside of the GPU as well.

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk

 

Mexic00ls: With the shims, did you measure a temp difference or did you install the shims when you installed the hd6990m?
Seems odd to me if Dell really left a space between the heatsink and the die surface - can anyone confirm/deny this?
I am now in the process of upgrading my M15x, originally it was:
Core i7 720QM, 3Gb 1333 RAM, 320Gb HDD, gtx-260m, 1080p, wifi 5300 3x3, DVDRW.
Now it still has the same CPU (going to be a 840QM or 940XM not sure yet), but RAM up to 8Gb, SSD OCZ Agility 3.
My hd-6970m is in the mail from MXM-Upgrade (great guys).
Also probably sticking in a usb 3 express card as well as a Killer-N Wifi.

Whats the heatsink mod KumquatWrath? Link?

 

You guys should join the NBR Folding@home team! Your systems would do great! Come over and join the effort! We're shooting to make the top 500 teams but need all the help we can rally together!

 

Need help with my m15x upgraded video card from 5850 to 6970 ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6970M (BLACKCOMB XT) GDDR5 2Gb MXM 3.0 Type B. Now when i boot up laptop screen stays black everything else works fine. flashed my bio from A08 to A09 still no luck with screen problem any idea's what might be the problem?

 

Apoc2k8:
Well first of all how do you know everything else works fine?
But the first thing I would look at is how well the card is seated in the MXM3 slot as that's where the video output would go from the card into the mobo before it goes to the monitor/screen.
Do you get anything on the screen at all? Alienhead? Bios? If not it would be something relating most likely to the physical installation of the card. Removing and reseating it might do the trick in this case.

Another possibility is that some of the cables going to the monitor have gotten unplugged partially when you swapped cards, so I would check that too, in the Service Manual you can find the locations for the cabling to the screen.

If you DO get bios/alienhead but it goes black later it would seem like a driver related issue, but I guess from your post this is not the case.

 

I get no alienhead or bios. I connected my desk top monitor everything seems alright, Then i went to performance informations tools did a quick test and my video perfomance went from 7.3 to 7.6 but notice my processor score went from 7.1 to 4.4 and ram went from 7.1 to 6.7 not good

 

Apoc2k8,

Ok, well if your external monitor works with it I think it's most likely the internal cables from the motherboard to the screen.
No clue about the processor and ram scores, they should not be affected by the graphics card upgrade, but it might be something else. I would ignore that issue until you get image on the screen and then take it from there.

I would definitely suggest to check the seating of the card into the mxm slot too just in case, but most likely it's the above mentioned cables.
Does the backlight turn on of the laptop screen? You should see some light if it does. If not it's definitely screen cabling you should check first.

With the desktop monitor if you go to the monitor setup does it see both the laptop screen and the desktop monitor or only the desktop monitor?

 

As for the shim i measured about 3-5c lower temps overall. It might only be me but i kept the 6990m backplate, so the shim helps me. The heatpipe mod is used since the pipes sit on a mosfet(i think thats wat its called), there is more info on this in page 1

 

just finished checking cables and video card everything seems ok but still no video on boot up. Cant find monitor setup.

 

What do you guys think would be a very safe/stable OC for the 6970M? I tried 800 and 1000 and got BF3 shutdowns, just wondering if OCing would even improve performance, and what a possible combo could be?

 

Are you getting shutdowns at stock?

 

No shutdowns what-so-ever at stock, just wanted to see if I could squeeze some more FPS out of this beast.

 

Work on the voltage.

 

i used saphire trixx to OC my 6970 from stock 680/900 to 750/1000 and so far no shutdowns with SWTOR and never goes beyond 82.

 

What do you mean work on the voltage? Sorry I'm a noob when it comes to OCing GPUs.

 

Apoc2k8,
At this point I would suggest trying with your 5850 again to check that that still works, sounds to me like you might have a bad card, or some other issue.

If you get video with the 5850 either your 6970 is bad, or it has wrong vbios or something like this...

If you get the same situation with the 5850 ie no video, then it has to do with something other than the card itself, so something has probably gotten loose inside the laptop, but if you checked and pulled out and reseated all the cables I would not know what...

 

You can probably undervolt your card a little and still overclock it, that would reduce power consumption and heat. Here's a thread for info.

The way I usually do it, is to dump the vbios with GPU-z, then edit all the settings to the 2D lowest settings with the Radeon BIOS Editor (RBE). From there I use a tool like to Trixx or AMD Clock Tool to see how far each voltage can be pushed stable. That's only my way though, and there's always a small risk when you flash your card.

 

OK for some reason after installing my 6990m my system sounds like a leaf-blower. I leave it on at night so I can charge my mamba and g930 headset and it keeps my awake at night. Anyone know why it's so loud? The card idles at 60C and the cpu is around 50C. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Edit: so I have been wondering why my gpu scores have been low... I think I know why, my idle clocks are 300/900 which probably means It thinks I am using an external display. I have been looking where I can change this but I can't find anything.

Is it in catalyst?

Now when I go to trixx and go into overclocking then press reset my clocks go from 300/900 to 400/900 then to 100/150. My computer is quiet again and my fps on crysis looks better then it seems to hit all wall and go from 30-45fps to 5-15fps.... seriously whats going on...

 

Use the newest GPU-z to monitor your clocks, it's the most reliable. I would check the heatsink contact with the card.

 

Yay,
Now I have received my hd-6970m so I shall soon be joining your club .
Still need to bios flash the box as I noticed I am still on A06 according to tools.

Does anyone know the lowest bios to support the AMD/ATI cards on M15x?

 

So, I'm new here, I got my hands on a 6970 but it's the Clevo version.
Any help on how to get the screw holes out? Just wondering if anyone has done this yet. Thanks in advance!

 

flash your bios to A09

 

So I was able to find the X bracket and the matching screws for the card. I was reading that all I need are the matching screws but I'm curious if having the X bracket is preferred.