M390X in the M15x watch this space!

Hi guys (and the occasional girl). I just pulled the trigger on a M390X for 250 dollars including customs and shipping. Should get to me by mid July. Watch this space...

Final card to test on this machine. Looking forward to it. Some specs as follows:

• It is a refurb/2nd hard card
• It is probably actually a firepro W7170
• It is a Dell card
• 4GB of vram (nothing on the back which is better for M15x cooling)
• This card is basically an underclocked better binned M295X (2048 shaders, 1250mhz memory, 723mhz core (M295X is 850 MHz)

I will see if this thing firstly works. Then look at flashing to a functional M390X vbios if such a thing exists in case I have issues using recent drivers/overclocking.

 

Can't see why it wouldn't work. I was thinking of trying one in my M17X R2, but I decided to buy a P870DM-G instead. I know for sure that the guys on the HP Elitebook 8740W thread got one working in there, and that is of a similar age.

 

Yes my good friend of many years Triturbo is very certain the card supports LVDS which makes it the final viable card for the M15x (970M aside). IMHO the 880M, 980M and M295X were all too hot to run well.

 

I look forward to hearing if it works. That machine deserves one last hurrah before you stop working on it - those old Alienwares are built like tanks. The main thing that holds them back is the CPU though, unfortunately, which is the main reason I decided to buy a P870 rather than fully repair my R2. Still plan on sorting it out one day though.

 

I won't stop using it for quite some time. Modern machines break easily while the M15x is a capable multimedia machine for a few years yet. Yes the CPU does hold it back although ironically at the time of its release the CPU was really overpowered. It is a shame we cannot upgrade to a sandy bridge as these were decently better. 10-15% IPC improvements and clock for clock improvements plus the fact that it is possible to run a sandy XM at 1 ghz faster heavy OC vs heavy OC.

I lost my faith in Nvidia so although 970M is the better card technically I firmly believe that in time the M390X will be the best card for the older LVDS machines. The reason being AMD don't give up on their old cards so quickly and thus engineer their drivers to get every ounce of performance out even years later. The challenge though will be to convert my card to a M390X. Let's see if that is feasible or needed.

Regarding the R2 I like it. You have the ability to overvolt the XM chip from the system bios which is neat while you could put a single powerful card in and use the open slot for additional cooling for the CPU/GPU. That would be a pretty cool mod...

 

It does sound very interesting with AMD on board. Hope it will work out for you

 

If it's a firepro W7170M, why convert it to a M390X? Don't they have the exact same specs?

 

More on the drivers/overclocking front. I wont try to flash it to 390x vbios unless I face issues.

 

Sounds good, definitely give the firepro drivers a try first and see. I know on nVidia cards the Quadro performance driver includes the same performance as the geforce drivers for gaming.

 

Will do

 

I am going to keep an close eye on this and do hope that the results are good especially the thermals without any ridiculous throttling.

 

Me too! It doesn't help that temperatures are reaching 30C here in Switzerland. However I do my best.

Using stock cooling is a must for me. I have already played around with modifying the cooling in the past. That stays in the past where it belongs.

 

Wish it only got that hot where I live instead of pushing 40+ with humidity to make it that much worse, as some say air that you can wear. The worst that I have had was 47 to 50!

 

Wow no it isnt that bad! But no air con either so our inside thermals are probably similiar

 

I don't have AC due to the cost and I probably wont get around to pulling apart and cleaning the central air unit so I got it worse lol.

 

Well I have the thermal grizzly compound and today the card should arrive in the post. I will install this on Saturday (unless it arrives busted...). Stay tuned.

Edit: it has arrived. Looks to be physically in good shape. Fingers crossed all goes well on Saturday

 

I had some time this morning to install the card however the backplate screw mounts are flush with the card while the core sits quite high. Unfortunately the backplate from the 5850M cannot be used.

The result is too much pressure over the die. The machine posts with no warnings and loads windows but the screen displays no picture at all.

I will shop tomorrow for longer screws with washers so that I can tighten the heatsink but not so much that the card goes into limp mode.

At least this is my theory. Hopefully iam correct. Any ideas other perspectives welcome.

 

Well it looks like I have failed. Reinstalled the card this afternoon making sure there in no possibility of too much pressure over die. No post. All I get is flashing scroll and caps which is indicative of gpu fault.

What is strange is that it posted this morning albeit with black screen...

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I had a wx7100 (same profile as m390x) running in the m18x r2 . I'm not sure what bracket I have/had that I replaced the stock flush xbracket that came with wx7100. I have to research and find out for you.

 

So post but without display bummer, thank you for doing this and it means a lot that you are doing this. You can boot some cards without cooling at all should it down clock on its own as I found out onetime the hard way with a Precision m6600. The card survived however there was a gap between the gpu and the cooler.

Test the card in another machine just to make sure the card is ok.

 

I read on these forums that someone had flashed the m390x vbios to this GPU but it did not allow for overclocking.

Its likely that a vBIOS mod is needed to get those features.

 

First install yes. Now not even post. I will at some point take it out. Dont have a 2nd machine to test it. Also there wasnt gap over core but rather vram and possibly vrms. Still that should not cause no post for a short test.

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I have a big problem. I took the W7170M out and carefully reistalled the 5850M. It worked but the laptop would shut off about 30 secs after switching. Didnt matter if I entered bios and waited or whether I started loading windows.

I then opened up the cpu and cleaned off the liquid compound I was using and replaced with thermal compound.

Now the machine switches on (lights, fans) but no screen and not even POST. There are not even any post fault flashing codes on the led strip. Just nada. All I can do is just switch it off again.

I have tried reseating cmos, power drains, start with battery only, start without battery, starting with only 1 stick of ram (tested in both slots with both modules).

I dont know what else to do. Usually a hardware fault is depicted by flashing leds on the led strip but these do not light up and the machine does not boot windows.

Really strange.....most likely is the cpu or mobo. I have a spare mobo so I guess I had better get to work....

The question is do I try the W7170M again with the other mobo or not....

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Did you try reinserting the display cable? Had that issue on my M17X R2 once when it wasn't in properly.

 

Sad to hear that you got all of these issues. You said that your CPU is on its way out though. Do you have a spare one?

 

Yup I already tried that too. I will tear this down tomorrow night and replace the mobo. This will identify whether the cpu is the culprit or not. Just a PITA to do. No spare cpu lying about either sadly.

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That's a shame, the board in my M17X is on its way out too (the main reason i replaced it). I suppose they just get more fragile as they age. Hopefully you can get the GPU working with the new one.

 

Sad thing is the board is my old one and it has seen at least 5 years of use

Regarding W7170M I dont think it will work. The mobo only started acting up today when I put the 5850M back in. Issues with W7170M were on 1st install: booting with black screen (no post error codes and could see disk light flashing so it was loading windows) and on 2nd install post error code pointing to gpu stopping post. It is weird though that even that was not consistant as if the mobo was perhaps to blame. If I can get the machine back on its legs I will venture to install it a final time

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So time for an update. Had time to tear down and replace mobo. My findings are that the mobo did indeed die as the machine works again....however once I reinstall drivers for the 5850 and restart after windows loads I get black screen. So it means I have also partially fried the 5850 (only runs well in 2D mode)

For s**ts and giggles I tried the W7170M a final time. I get as expected flashing leds signifying no post because of GPU.

So all in all this has been a big failure. Killed a mobo and 2 gpu's for nought ....

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I'm sorry to hear it, turned out to be a very expensive project. I have a 5850M I can send you for cheap if need be, or if you want something a little stronger, a 680M

 

680m 2gb or 4gb? Send us a PM with an offer also I don't think w7170m is dead. Would you like it to play around with?