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

Apoc, please use the edit button so you don't have to triple post.

 

Will do

 

try uninstalling and reinstalling the program, if that doesnt work i would use a different amd driver

 

I uninstallled and reinstalled drivers, went from 12.1 back to 11.2 with no luck. Just finished removing the 940 and went back to the 740 processor.
No shut downs atm, but running a lilltle hot while gaming gpu temps hitting 96c. using Cooler Master Notepal U2 to keep temps around 80c+ while gaming atm.

 

I just bought an i7 920xm and was wondering if y'all could point me to a good link for the 6970M. Is there much difference performance wise between the 6970 and 6990?

 

The 6990m is 10-15% better... but the thing to remember is that we seem to be power limited here, so that kind of evens the field between them. Unless the 6990m is only $50 more, I would just go for the 6970m.

 

An update in the never-ending journey. I found a setting that doesn't throttle at all, regardless of CPU load. Running at 665/900 0.95v causes no slowdowns or throttling of any kind, even with Prime running 8 threads in the background. I'm not sure why yet.

That being said, be sure to test your chip to make sure it's stable at that setting before you try it. It's a good idea to find the fully stable max for any voltage setting you're going to use.

 

I crashed at 18x still. Should I test 18x with 665/900 .95? Or test on Turbo with those clocks?

Don't know if throttling is related to shutdowns though.

 

Hey can anyone recommend me some decent thermal pads to use for my 6990m. I was thinking 1.0mm thick fujipoly pads. Is 1.5mm a better fit?

Thanks

 

I used 0.5mm and doubled up when I needed to

 

Test 665 0.95v first to make sure it's stable. Use a 10min OCCT run with error checking and lock the CPU to the lowest multiplier possible to remove it from being an issue. Be sure to stay there and monitor your temps. If it passes, then I would try it.

 

How do you determine if you need to double up?

 

Apply the pads then check heatsink contact.

 

Oh ok. Also, I ran OCCT error checking and 8 shaders with Throttlestop setting CPU multiplier to 9, which is the lowest. Since it ran all the way through, I should kick my CPU back up to 18x and run with the new clock settings and make sure it works with BF3 before flashing, or should I just flash and test?

What do you use to check heatsink contact with the pads?

 

Just use ATT for the first bit until you're sure it doesn't shutdown. The less flashes the better. I would also keep GPU-Z monitoring in the tray to make sure it's holding the settings.

 

Arg I can't hit the 40-50C idling range for my GPU, this is so frustrating..constantly idling at ~60 (59-65)..

I tried 665/900 and so far it seems to work with 18x (in BF3), but my temps are hitting mid-80s, does that sound right? Will keep testing to see if I hit anymore shutdowns.

 

So I just upgraded from the nvidia 240m to the 6970 and my idle temps for the gpu are at 38 to 40 degrees Celsius but what strikes me odd is that the alienware m15x EC Temp 0 is stuck at 90 degrees Celsius, uh any ideas?

 

I've been looking around forums and apparently that's just a glitch. Mine says that too and from what I've learned it's nothing to worry about.

 

alrighty, also has anyone noticed the sloppy thermal paste jobs that dell does? i re pasted my cpu and idle temps went from averaging about 60 to 40

 

It's done on a mass scale, OEM paste usually sucks. They do 20 machines in the time we take to do one.

 

alright i'm sorry if this has be discussed already, i'm new to this, but my screen resolution is stuck in 1024x768 and when i try to maximize the resolution my screen goes black and i am forced to shut off the computer. can anyone help me out with this?

 

Which catalyst are you running?

 

i used the auto detect catalyst downloader and i believe it downloaded 12.1
did i mess up by getting the wrong version?

 

Sometimes installing from the auto doesn't work correctly. I would uninstall and use this instead.

 

Johnny, do you know of any possible reasons why my idle temps are in the 60s? I'm pretty sure it's not my pasting; would not enough thermal pads be a problem? I'm also in LA but I don't think the ambient temps should affect my computer by 10C...

 

Did you paste once to check contact, then do the final job? Might be that the pads are too think, or something else random.

 

Too thick or thin? Think just happens to combine them both haha..I'm using one layer of 0.5mm at the moment. How do you check contact; apply the paste and put the heatsink on then remove it or something else? I have done that before and it looks pretty good I feel. I asked ninefingers how he padded so I may just redo everything and upload some pictures as I go along.

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk

 

This is the way. You can only know if you're making good contact if you check.

 

So good contact means I can see the rectangular shape from the thermal paste on the heatsink? Just to clarify.

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk

 

alright, well i'm having a problem, windows and the catalyst cc are detecting a multiple monitors. one being the built in one and the other being a crt duplicate, anyone have any ideas?

 

You should see the whole outline, and with very little actual paste in the middle. If you look at the pictures for the shim, you can see the difference in contact.

 

Does one need thermal adhesive to attach such a shim Johnny?

Find my 6990M shoots to 86C after just 5 mins in furmark which is waaay too hot for me! This with fans at full, intake vent mesh removed and undervolt at stock clocks

I don't have throttling issues at all but these temps are too much right?

edit: I have been looking at fan replacements and found this: Our GPU fan model in AVC BATA0715R5H which pushes up to 7.8cfm. The AVC BATA1015R5H however pushes up to 11.2 cfm. The specs otherwise are the same so it will would be 100% compatible. The only snag is that the fan housing is different (made for M17x) I am hoping I can disasemble the entire fan module and give it the fan chassis of the lesser model we have. Here are links to compare.
http://pchub.com/uph/laptop/88-70875-19879/AVC-BATA1015R5H-Cooling-Fan-.html
http://www.pchub.com/uph/laptop/88-60321-15514/AVC-BATA0715R5H-Cooling-Fan-.html
What do people think? With such a fan our cooling would never need an upgrade again! If successful then process could be repeated with cpu fan...

 

You don't need adhesive, just paste on either side. Also, 86c is normal for furmark or other similar programs, it'll never get that high in game.

I like the fan mod idea, the only thing I would check is how much extra draw it uses. We're power limited, not temp limited, so it might not be worth the trade off.

 

Best would be to solder the shim to the heatsink.

The R2 fan draws the same amount of power, but it's bigger as far as I know, so it won't work.

 

Do you guys prefer to spread paste on the GPU or just place a dot and let the heatsink pressure spread it out? So far I have spread out my paste but dont know if the other method may be more effective.

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Yeah svl I thought as much. From the pictures I couldn't see if the fan itself is physically bigger or not. Still would be fun to mess around with. Mounting would be a pain though.

 

Leave a bit in the middle, but drag the tube along a little, so that you leave a bit of an oval. The core is a rectangle, so that works better for coverage. Spreading it yourself can lead to air pockets. Watch here.

 

I did not know that; thanks for the tip! I'll try that when i get around to opening up my laptop again. According to the movie comments, the whole die doesn't have to be covered? That's 2 things I learned today haha

 

I disagree with that, the whole die should be covered. I think part of those comments come from the fact that the force in that test is not equal to the force applied by a fully tightened heatsink.

 

Sounds good, I'll definitely keep that in mind. I'm curious though, it seems like this method will cause paste to overflow off the sides if I'm not mistaken..? Also, I would use the same line-method of applying the shim to the heatsink right?

 

These are my temps during gaming on Skyrim. The memIO temp is the only one that concerns me. Is 87C too high?

 

well if your running @ 100% load i would say thats about right but with your voltage mod i would have thought that your temps would be lower. Im running my 3d clocks at 1.02v and my max temp on bf3 @100% load is 85-88c

 

That's because 0.975v is really 1.0v, the cards only adjust in 0.05v increments at the hardware level. Just like 1.02v is actually 1.05v.

 

Man, 665/900 0.95V just crashed for me for the first time..

Still haven't done the repaste yet, doesn't seem like it would make a difference though based on the power draw conclusion.

 

Sorry if this has been asked before. But would either of these two cards work on the pre-dell m15x?

 

If the card passed error checking, then that sucks; it's probably reseting to 1.1v. I'm hoping either RBE or ATT fix the issue for us, I posted on both boards. They're busy dudes tho, so we'll see.

They won't, sorry.

 

Interesting find on my temperatures; I actually do idle at 47-50ish with my current pasting if I am using my computer in a different place. My computer, when in my dorm, sits on my desk which is under my loft bed and under some more shelves, so I have a feeling that it's creating some sort of insulating area that brings up my temperatures I guess that's one less thing to be worried about.



The fan rpm is bothering me here though; the 4000rpm for GPU1 is what I'm using to manually control it (which is strange since my fan used to be auto-controlled -Dell card), but when I look at fan rpm under the 6970m, it's at 2rpm...anyone know why?

 

Seems normal kumquatwrath my 6990M runs at 5-33rpm under that section of hwinfo.

 

I wonder if anyone is brave enough to try the modded m15x BIOS and see if the trip point settings have any affect on throttling/crashes.

 

I'm on the modded BIOS ever since it got released, I also played with the trip point settings, but can't really remember the results. I think it only affects the CPU.