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[Guide] M15x with AMD 6970m / 6990m - everything you need to know


svl7

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Hi,

I am new to the forum. I was looking for some advice for my upcoming upgrade of my M15x.

I am running a GTX 460m at the moment and I will upgrade my system with a AMD 6990m.

It's a GPU I bought on Ebay. The seller told me, that it was originally running in his M17x.

Does anyone know any problems with the fan after upgrading to this card?

My M15x runs all day long. Would this be a problem when I build the 6990m GPU into my M15x?

Thanks for your help.

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Hi, welcome to T|I!

If the card comes from an M17x R3, the fans will work flawlessly in your system. All Dell 69xxm cards have native fan control when put in the M15x, only the Clevo cards have the fans at full speed all the time.

Still, there is also HWiNFO which allows you to set up an automatic fan control for your M15x, so even if you bought a Clevo card you can have automatic fan control.

I had the 6990m running for a very long time in my system, no issues at all, but you need to make sure that the heatsink makes proper contact with the GPU die, some people had to slightly modify the heatsink in order to get good results, and also slightly grinding down the backplate, else there's not enough pressure.

Make sure you get the proper backplate when buying from eBay.

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Just a quick question, I might be buying this card:

a>

Which is a Clevo one, I read in the OP that the mounting holes etc need to be there, does this card look correct for my m15x?

thanks

looks good. Are you able to get a picture taken from the side?

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Installed the 6990m in my M15x and everything is running smoothly up to now. I already ran the unigine heaven bench and it doubled my former score archieved using the GTX 460m.

Great!

All I want to know is if there is a possibility to ready out the GPU temperature. I'd like to check how high it climbs.

Thank you so far!

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Installed the 6990m in my M15x and everything is running smoothly up to now. I already ran the unigine heaven bench and it doubled my former score archieved using the GTX 460m.

Great!

All I want to know is if there is a possibility to ready out the GPU temperature. I'd like to check how high it climbs.

Thank you so far!

You could try HWiNFO :) it is free and should give you all the sensors of your gpu and system. Disable any sensors you have no need of. www.hwinfo.com

HWiNFO help and discussion forum hosted here at Tech Inferno.

Paranoid Galaxy S3 on Tapatalk 2

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You could try HWiNFO :) it is free and should give you all the sensors of your gpu and system. Disable any sensors you have no need of. www.hwinfo.com

HWiNFO help and discussion forum hosted here at Tech Inferno.

Paranoid Galaxy S3 on Tapatalk 2

Thank you for your link. I downloaded the hwinfo file and started it.

During daily work the temperatures do no climb over 52° C.

I played Battlefield 3 for one hour on Detail Level High. After this I checked hwinfo and looked up the temperatures of the gpu.

I attached the picture to this post.

I think everything is running smoothly. Just the temperature shown at GPUTS1(MemIO) climbed up to 92°C. Is this ok?

In case this this temp is too high, what can I do in order to decrease it?

Thank you for your help.

post-6661-14494993836005_thumb.jpg

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Temps are okay, but you could improve them a bit I guess e.g. by slightly modifying the heatpipes as explained somewhere in this thread or the first post. MemIO is just another diode on the die, just as the shaders, it might get a bit hotter than the shader, but if you're heatsink is mounted properly and the thermal paste well applied it shouldn't make a huge difference.

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After repasting the GPU and grinding down the baseplate as described I checked temps again.

I used Unigine heaven benchmark as last time.

After 20 minutes the shown temps surprised me a bit, because temps climbed up even more.

post-6661-14494993841472_thumb.jpg

Is this OK or do I need to reopen the M15x again and do something else? I am quite sure, that I did not miss any space in the GPU DIE and the heatsink sits tight on the DIE.

I used arctic cooler silver 5 paste.

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Well, how did you apply the paste? The best method and only one which I can recommend for chips without heatspreaders is to apply a small dot of paste in the middle of the die, and then mounting the heatsink, this will spread it evenly across the die are. Don't spread it by hand. Use only a little paste, maybe as much as two grains of rice, that's enough.

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Thanks for your idea. I repasted the GPU again and temps are a bit lower now like the formerly taken temps.

I pasted it the way you mentioned. I am aware that too much paste can isolate the gpu from the copper plate. So I did not paste too much on the gpu.

Is there a way I can control the fans to run a bit faster when the GPU temp climbs up?

Do you have an idea where on the GPU exactly the MemIO is located? I cannot find any layout of the 6990m.

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You can use HWiNFO to let the fans run a bit faster than the stock max speed, helps a bit. Just set up an automatic profile and you don't have to worry about manual control.

MemIO is somewhere at the edge of the die, it's the memory input/output, quite busy part of the chip ;)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey guys, got a question about a clevo 6990m that I found in a classified. It appears to be a green card and it comes with a backplate/heatsink assembly. Im thinking of reusing its backplate but maybe find some screws for it. Though what worries me is if the card was the one described in the first post that has the screw hole soldered onto the board. I tried to find pics for some visual comparison but not successful. Thanks for the help,

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I have a i7-820 and 6970m. When I play certain games like battlefield 3, the laptop shuts down after a few mins. I have checked the temperature and they are around 75-80 when the game is running. Is the shut down due to too much power draw? Would I be able to fix this problem by getting a 240w power supply charger?

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It's most likely because parts of the gpu overheat. I played BF3 for hours with that card and it worked perfectly fine, even though the temps were higher. Make sure the die is completely covered and the heatsink makes proper contact.

A slight undervolt on the GPU might help as well.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@Kaili sorry to say that 240w power supply doesn't help as I had it with 6970m and still shuts down while playing BF3.

Is it really overheating issue though? ran furmark for more than 15 minutes and the temp stays at 75 (1920x1080 fullscreen) but bf3 shuts down in less than 15 minutes with 69C shown on GPU-Z before shutdown. I just cleaned out my laptop too, both CPU and GPU with pads and paste.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Hello, everyone.

I've just recently upgraded my M15x to 6970M and i have 2 problems that really keep bugging me.

The most important is heat:

idle temps are 56°C

load temps are (100°C+ furmark after some time the PC shutdowns, and wont start until it cools off) (around 94°C with single 3DMarkVantage run)

The second problem is that in Stealth mode it's almost all the time in 400/900 profile, but when it is out of stealth it downclocks to 100/150 like supposed.

So actually in Stealth it runs over 61°C almost constantly.

What i've done

-flashed to 1V Vbios

-installed latest AMD Drivers (12.10)

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Hi, welcome to T|I!

First of all... don't use furmark. Just don't. It's good for one thing only - killing cards.

That being said, your temps seem still a bit high when looking at your vantage temps, you should be at about 85°C. What I recommend is repasting and making sure that your heatsink is really making proper contact with the whole die. Maybe modify the heatpipes a bit if they're making contact with some of the components on the board, or using a copper shim.

Also in case you use a Dell 6900m series backplate, you need to modify it a bit in order to get enough pressure on the die.

About the stealth mode... no idea.

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Ok, furmark gone :D, I did use the Dell 6970M backplate, but i've grinded it down to the proper size.

But i did forget to modify the heatpipe xD

Done it now and the heatsink makes proper contact now.

These are the temps it reaches during single 3DMarkVantage run.

post-8776-14494994104047_thumb.png

Also does the i3 330M bottleneck the GPU? because sometimes i see in games the GPU running at max 30% load.

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Ok, i finally figured out the problem with stealth mode:

When Rainmeter is turned on and displaying it won't let the GPU downclock to 100/150 in stealth mode.

When Rainmeter is off the GPU imediately downclocks to 100/150, and stays there unless i start Raineter again, or the GPU reaches certain load.

It doesn't make any difference when in normal mode. (i can have Rainmeter on all the time and the GPU clocks change as supposed to)

Sucks i'll have to turn it off when i need the laptop to be quieter and less power hungry :S

Hope this helps to others having similar issues.

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Looks much better now. The i3 might really bottleneck your GPU, not sure about the best way to test this though. GPU at 30% in a game can certainly be an indicator.

Regarding stealth mode... I would simply recommend not using it an instead have the "balanced" power plan set. This will work perfectly fine and saves you more power than stealth mode at 400MHz, and when you're on battery the system is downclocked anyways.

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I'm getting a 940xm soon anyway, a guy here sells them for 225€ :P just waiting till i have enough money for it =)

Also worth mentioning that when i lift it a bit on the back side, 3DMarkVantage only reaches 75°C.

When you mentioned in first post that load temps should be within 70-80°C did you mean that with the laptop lifted?

I know, but sometimes it automatically changes speeds to those in stealth and i have to use stealth to get them to normal.

(i think it's related to my power jack being loose) replacement already on it's way.

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Yeah, I meant with the laptop lifted, I always do this. For me it's more comfortable to work an temps go down by 5-10°C.

Stealth mode can indeed be a bit buggy. It's also easy to activate accidentally by touching the button. If I remember correctly stealth mode doesn't work if you don't install the Command Center. Problem is that you loose control over the fancy keyboard lights etc., though the last used light settings should stay.

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