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

sorry guyz, i didn't notice.. svl7 is right! clevo 6970m screw holes are much smaller than the screw holes of X bracket of old card(5850). the best thing to do is desoldered or find smaller screw that fit with clevo card. For better clarification read first post of svl7. all things you need to know is right there!!

 

i'm not sure about desoldering, when i get my card i'm going to try the drill method once i get mine. Judging by how hard it was to drill for MrValle, I suspect it may be stainless steel buttons or some type of alloy and if so, that's not normal solder and would require more heat.

we have a table drill in the garage along with a vice and the proper drill bits.

i'm just not sure if i need to use methylated spirits as a lubricant and cooler as per the norm.... this is not kitchen sink equipment we're talking about, it's a video card.... i don't want to break it

on top of that, having to worry about esd.

 

Yeah, unfortunately finding screws that small isn't easy and removing the solder is pretty risky. I'm an engineer so I thought about drilling and tapping the holes to size, but its still risky business. I've contacted the seller asking if he can supply the screws. I'll let you guys know when I hear from him.

 

Thinking of getting this thermal pad for 6970. Will it be alright?

Fujipoly Premium System Builder Thermal Pad - 1/4 Sheet - 150 x 100 x 0.5 - Thermal Conductivity 6.0 W/mK - FrozenCPU.com

 

Yep, that's good stuff.

 

I didnt drill the card. So i started soldering a bit more with higher degrees since this card had endured so so much abuse already i was thinking " F-it, lets just get those sockets off". So i heated them and had my GF stick a mini screwdriver under the screw mountings and try to bend them carefully while i heated them from the other side. And they started to loosen up. It seems there was some soldering iron between that kept them in place.

The weird thing is that the first one had something that looked like a washer to keep it in place, that was why i jumped to the conclusion that they all had one and gave up on the soldering. So for all of you who got/get this card. You can solder them off but it was hard.

Now for the miracle, the card works perfectly! And is properly seated in my computer. But what temps should i be looking at? Im running MSI Kombustor in burn mode (not xtreme burn) right now and im running 89 degress on MemIO right now. Probably get it higher but i dont want to.

 

Yeah the MemIO runs pretty warm. I'm not in the perfect conditions here in Bangkok at the moment but my MemIO kisses the 90s and sometimes goes over. It will run hot that's a given but my die never goes above 85C which is bearable I guess.

Getting some newer pads will help too. The MemIO and Shader reading are always highest. To a good sesh of Crysis 2 and then check.

 

Ok, i played Entropia Universe on max settings (CryEngine). And it didnt run over 65 degrees. That is insanely good.. How come MSI Kombustor gets the card that hot?

I will install Crysis 2 and check temps today. Ill tell you what temps i get.

 

Yeah some games are like that. Running Bulletstorm or Brotherhood won't get the GPU temp up but Crysis 2 will. Kombustor is designed to stress the system on a very static but graphical level pegging the card at a single constant load which will undoubtedly raise temps quicker.

 

Once the sockets are removed, how are you attaching the heatsink?

 

I use the "X bracket" from my 5850m that sits behind the card.

How do i know if my GPU is throttling? Or is that fixed by dells bios?

The card seems to run at 300 clock and 900mem when just surfing the web. Revving up the fans to high speed. Is this normal? I believe i had 150/100 or so when surfing the web with my 5850m card.

Edit: It must have been an embedded youtube player window that was in one of my browser tabs that made the card run on 3d clocks, right?

 

Normal idle/2D clocks are 100/150, just like the 5850M. Be sure that PowerPlay is enabled in CCC. 300/900 is used when PowerPlay is disabled. It appears that you also get 300/900 when running on battery.

 

300? I get 400/900. 100/150 in idle, 250/900 on multi screen and 400/900 on low 3D. Then again my card is different...

 

Same as widezu69^^^

 

As soon as there is an streaming video in my browser window it jumps to 300/900 from 150/100 and fans rev up (temps also jump to 58 degrees from idle 45-50 degrees, kind of irritating. How do you guys config your custom auto in HWinfo if i may ask?
i have:
0 - 2000 rpm
40 - 3000 rpm
50 - 4000 rpm
60 - 4500 rpm
70 - 5000 rpm
80 - 5000 rpm

In crysis 2 an hour gameplay i got to 85degrees, and i played one mission in Deus Ex Human revolution and only got about 75 degrees. Should be fine temps.

I dont have any overdrive available in my CCC.

 

Temps seem to be good. You don't need overdrive, use Trixx if you want to overclock.

 

I just contacted Dell through online chat. I spoke to Upgrade Sales and told the person on the phone I wanted to buy a part for my Alienware laptop and that the part number was: V9XKH. She quoted me a price of 569.99.

I want to buy this card so bad, but just can't afford it right now. I hope to be able to buy it soon.

What is the price from the re-sellers?

 

If you end up getting it from AW ask how it works out with warranty

 

In the first post I see in some games with max settings, the power consumption is around 100-140W. How can a 150W PSU handle it?

 

Those numbers are still under 150w. That being said, some of us bought the 230w adapter. It doesn't let you push any further, but it does run much cooler.

 

There has been some talk about the 150W psu being able to draw up towards 180W, so you should be pretty safe. Even people with extreme cpu's havnt had any major issues afaik

 

I have both (XM CPU and problems) although I think my GPU draws even more power

 

Sry.. My bad..

 

It's alright but I'm pretty sure the majority of people with 6970m's won't run into problems even with an XM CPU. I'm just the exception

 

Have you gotten around to testing the undervolt ability yet?

 

Not yet. I'm in Bangkok at the moment so temps are a bit too toasty for GPU testing, plus, I'm a flashing noob. I'll get on it after my holiday. Now for some Thai "entertainment"

 

Go see a "pingpong show"

 

Hmm im also qurious if there is any room for a downvolt of the 6970m. Hopefully lowering the temp with about 4-5 degrees

 

I'll check it as soon as the 6970m is back in my system. Overvolting didn't work when I tried it.

 

There's a thread in the Clevo forums about it. Generally it usually works, because you're still staying inside the programmed stock voltages.

Bigger than heat, lower the vcore scales power usage greater than the decrease itself. So if you lower it 5%, you can get something like 7-8% reduction in draw.

 

just completed the drilling method on my shiny new 6970m from ugradeyourlaptop (ebay)

looking good, just installing drivers now.

took a few photos and can post up later, right now i just wanna try out this new card

looking great so far.

 

Im interested in what kind of temps you get with the card if you could post them here?

 

hey, playing rift and furmark i got it to 85C
however at running furmark i noticed my gpu throttling down to 400mhz (core)

i then undervolted to 1v and put my 920xm back to stock multi's
now it doesn't throttle (afaik) and max temp was 80C, that's after a few hrs playing.

 

That's awsome, how about seeing how far OC'ing it would go with that voltage.

 

If it's passing error checking, you should see if it'll go lower.

 

Did you undervolt the 6970m card? And did you run furmark in xtreme burn mode?

 

Did you undervolt it by flashing? Because that what I did but when I play game it still show as 1.1 volt.

 

After you do that, U should click the "default" button in the overclock page of ccc(if u unlocked it) then you can have the flashing GPU volt.

 

But how come i dont have AMD Overdrive in my CCC ? Im running the 1.5 hotfix drivers

 

dttran8 has the only 6970m with overdrive enabled. Perhaps we could try out your vbios?

 

Can anybody give me their 6970m vBios with 1v ? Does the card run stable with 1v? Also is there any room at all for OC with the undervolt?

 

I can mod you a vbios, do you want the Dell or the Sapphire? You can also send me your original vbios and I'll mod this.

Edit: Or you can check out Nibitor and mod it yourself

Edit of the edit: RBE of course, stupid me.

 

Nibitor? You mean RBE right?

 

Yeah i want the dell bios. Ill attach my bios in this post. All i want is to have it undervolted.

Edit: i cant upload .rar files :/

 

Has anybody tried to undervolt it using ATITrayTools?

 

Hahaha, you're right, I'm totally on the Nvidia trip atm, lol.


@MrValle: I can mod you the Dell vbios after I ate dinner, I still have the original around somewhere.

 

hey dttran8 could you post your vbios? See if we can get overdrive working on this thing.

 

yup furmark in xtreme burn, left for 10 min with a max of 80C
the game "rift" (mmorpg) at ultra for a few hrs never hit past 75C

flashing
confirmed by sapphire trixx showing me the voltage at 1.000
(plus the cooler temps speak for themselves... and it stopped the throttling)

i used the dell bios uploaded by svl7 in an earlier post.
View attachment dell1v.zip
here it is if you want to try it
refer to svl7's first two posts for information how to flash. (and force flash a different vendor id)

 

So how do I use the vbios?

Also, does anyone know how much temperature difference does thermal pad gives?

 

Ok, nothing left to do Thanks xeroxide.

@kaizenmx: Take a look at my second post in this thread.
There you can find all necessary commands, you only need to use the correct filename (in case you don't change it it's dell1v.bin).

Make a backup before flashing in case you haven't done this already (see second post). In case you already use the Dell vbios you don't need to force flash (-f) but it doesn't make a difference if you use -f anyway.