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

Quick question, do 6970's fan normally speeds up faster compared to 5850? Around 70 degrees, my 5850 would kick in some fan speed, but when 6970 goes up to 70 degrees, the fan speeds up much faster and louder.

 

Sounds reasonable enough. Since its a lot more powerfull and therefore generates more heat it should need higher fanspeed to keep the same temperature because of the extra airflow it needs to hold the same temp...

 

Looks like my laptop shut itself down while playing the Witcher...

 

Are you using the Catalyst 11.5b Hotfix drivers?

 

No, 11.5a Hotfix from the first page of this topic.

 

Try the latest hotfix, they have improved it for Witcher 2 and some other games.

 

BTW, is my temp good?

55 degrees on standby

goes up to over 80 degrees during gameplay

 

Hmm, depends on your ambient temperatures. But you have to expect temps over 80°C especially during the summer.

 

Ok, so I redid heat paste, now my standby gpu temp is 48-51°C

 

Good, should be fine unless you run into serious heat issues while gaming.

 

Nevermind, I noticed that redoing the thermal paste didn't help the temperature one bit. I believe this card generally runs hot.

Is there any vbios for this card that may improve the action?

 

Yes, the card runs hot, but it's powerful

I tried to overvolt the card, but haven't tried to undervolt it yet, I will try this as soon as the 6970m is back in my system and let you know whether it works. That's probably the only way to get it run a bit cooler.

 

Really looking into this upgrade but kinda worried bout the heating issues. As it stands, the 5870 in my M15x runs 80c during heavy gaming. What more this monster? Maybe a good paste job?

 

kaizenmx... does the heat influence your performance whatsoever?

 

While I was playing The Witcher (not Witcher 2), it forced my computer to shut down once. But that's about it.

 

You shouldn't run into heat issues. The system runs hot with this card, but when you lift the system a bit in the back to improve the airflow it helps a lot, and also a good paste job is essential.
However, if your ambient temps are 35-40°C you are likely to run into issues from time to time I guess.

 

After chat with Dell sale agent:
"V9XKH = RM 2072
Warranty = 90 days"
Wow, it costs around 690 USD for this card

A real problem for me. Haha
Just gave up this upgrade option and stick with my GTX 460M T.T

 

Here it's only $420.

 

Yeah, but no warranty and expensive shipping, but it's probably the cheapest option available. MXM-upgrade gives you warranty but costs a bit more, you could also ask Aikimox, he's selling the cards as well, but I'm not sure what he's asking for them.

 

Kinda be stuffed if mine gave out wouldn't I? To be honest, eurocom on ebay are genuinely nice sellers and will replace cards if you can prove it wasn't your fault.

 

I got my eurocom card now and tried to flash it with the Dell bios but got this. Does anybody know what the problem is?

should i try to -f force flash it?

 

Yes, like I described it in the second post of this thread. atiflash always gives you this error when changing the SSID. Nvidiaflash only gives a warning...

 

Ok, so this card i bought from ebay had a big problem. As you can see in the pictures i could not put the X bracket on this card since the screw thingys are soldered onto the card itself and uses small screws. So im running it completely loose in my system right now until i can get my hands on an soldering iron.

I couldnt get video or sound working via DP/Hdmi. but after i flashed the Dell bios it works as before. Also manual fan controlling is needed.

I get very bad temps right now because of the bad heatsink seating . But i will try to get this fixed as soon as possible.

The powerplay doesnt seem to be working. It stays on GPU clock 250mhz and Mem clock 900mhz. Does anybody know why GPU clock is so low and why powerplay wont work?

 

Oh wow that's extremely weird. Maybe you could ask them to replace it with one without soldered X screws? Worth a shot, they replaced one of my cards which had a minor fault. Plus yours is fully working I'm sure they won't mine.

 

Probably would cost me alot with all the shipping . Plus i got a toll fee of $95

 

Ahh, damn, you're right... I haven't noticed this when I saw the pictures on ebay. Pretty stupid yeah, they're using smaller screws, I noticed this when I put the 470m in my system... I had to use a different back plate.

I really have to advise you against running the card like this in your system. With a solder iron and a desoldering pump you can fix this, or even better ask them whether they have a version with a regular backplate... it's a stupid solution anyway imo, the back plate is there to spread the pressure around the pcb board, this implementation is pretty crazy imo.

About the clock speed, check whether you have two displays activated (an external one, even though you haven't connected anything to the system... that's an issue with some drivers, I don't know the exact cause but you can fix it).

 

How stupid of me, i thought i checked if i had multiple displays activated. That fixed the problem for me. Now i have working powerplay and the right clocks.

I guess ill get an soldering iron and a pump, shouldnt be hard to fix that.

 

If you never done something like this it may be better to let someone with experience doing this, or at least practice a bit in advance to get some desoldering skills. ESD-protection will come in handy when handling the card in such a way.
Make sure you don't accidentaly touch the little components next to the screw things with the solder iron

If you go to university/college you may have access to all the needed stuff in a lab. Also some places have public workshops with all the necessary tools, there you'll find skilled people which can help you as well in case you need some advice. Just my 0.02.


Edit: You can also drill out the screw things if you're careful enough, would be a relatively easy solution and should work. Just make sure you don't break the PCB.

 

Yeah i thought about the drilling but nah that is risky. I dont have much experience in soldering but this is easy. I just need to heat up the screw socket until the solder melts and suck it up. And an soldering iron plus a solder pump only costs about $20

 

The respin in HWinfo is always at 100ms, i cant seem to change that value. What is the max RPM of these fans btw?

My laptop runs too quiet even when i reach 90 degrees, makes me not trust HWinfo´s fan control :S

 

Do you use the latest version? Max RPM is about 4500 and 4700, one fan usually runs a bit faster. Just set it to 5000 to have the max fan speed.

 

Im using 3.80 version. What about the respin time. Its on 100ms and i cant change it to 11000ms like suggested?

 

Just configure the automatic fan control and you'll be fine, I actually never thought about the respin value again since the automatic control got implemented, I'll check it when I'm back at my machine, but as far as I know you don't need to change it, the automatic control checks the fan speed periodically and you can't change this value afaik.

 

I have mine at 100ms. Not need to change it really for automatic fan control.

 

Hi guys,

I received my Eurocom 6970m and attempted to fit it today. I've ran into an issue, on this card there is no x plate, but the holes for the x plate are filled in with mountings. Unfortunately these mounting have a different screw size, and look to be soldered onto the board. If you look at the first picture I posted, you can see what I mean. What is strange though is in the second picture (bearing in mind both these pictures were supplied by the same Eurocom salesman) those mounting holes look to be blank.
In any case now I don't really have much other option than to try and get hold of some smaller screws.. which I don't really know where I will get them from as they are very very small.

 

Yikes, that doesn't sound promising. Could you upload a pic? Maybe we can figure this out.

 

Hey JohnnyFlash,

Check out my post on page 29. First pic. Should be able to see what I mean.

Cheers


Mike

 

Hrm, I see your problem. There's got to be a way to remove those, maybe they snap apart.

 

Yeah, on the underside of the card it doesn't look soldered. Just unsure how it will come apart. I'll put some pictures up when I next am over at my parents (my card is there with the computer). Thanks for your suggestions.

Regards,


Mike

 

Yeah, MrValle let us know about this problem yesterday, I'll write a warning in the first post.

You'll either have to return the card or make a little mod. Using a soldering iron and a desoldering pump you'll be able to remove them.
The other possibility to is to drill out the soldered on parts, but you need to be careful.
Don't try it with force, you could kill the PCB, it's a multi layer PCB and a little crack can already kill the card.

 

Just wondering, should I download the 6970 driver from dell under m17x r3?

 

No, they don't perform very well. When I used them my clocks always changed from 3d clocks to 2d clocks and back when idling.. the 11.5 drivers from AMD perform best.

 

Ok, i let a professional solder desolder those "mountings" and he only got one of em off. There is soldering iron on both sides and in between. So im now trying to drill the remaining three off but my drill doesnt do any good at all, that also is a no go. Money spent down the drain. Do not order from this seller.

Im all out of ideas now. The metal in those screw mountings seems to be from another planet .

 

ah crap,
i got the same one

bleh not sure what to do now.

 

Hmm, ok... Yeah, the solder is probably spread through the whole hole, that's not easy to desolder, but I thought it should be possible with a desoldering pump, or at least grinding off the edges off the metal things, then heating up the solder and then pulling them out with pliers or so (would need two people)

Also with a drill stand (something like this)and a proper metall drill it should work, I drilled a lot of very hard metal and it always worked somehow. But of course it's difficult since the PCB is fragile.

Hmm, the other option of course is getting screws that fit, but in this case make sure you don't fix the heatsink to much, or you might crack the die (but fortunately this risk should be a bit minimized by the frame around the die)

 

sigh, well my dad has a drill similar to that.
i'm sure i can find some proper drill bit and a decent vice grip to hold the card.

 

Yeah, I'm sure it's possible, but since it seems hard to desolder the screw holes I guess it would be the easiest to simply look for fitting screws.

 

Updated the first post with some information and warning about the Clevo 6970m, thanks for the pics MrValle!!

 

I think there is no need to drill or put the X back plate to new card(6970m) since the purpose of X plate is to hold the card and tight with heatsink. 6970m has onboard soldered screw hole. Just screw heatsink into card (don't bother without X back plate it doesn't make sense) and there you go..

 

^^ I think your missing the point. I'm sure the users here would happily do that but the screw holes that the Clevo cards use are much smaller than the ones from the Dell heatsink so just screwing it it won't work.