Leaderboard

Buying BF3 and only playing the campaign is like hiring a hooker and having a conversation with her.

Best of luck to you Tony and Dragon, errr Long It's too coincidental that a BIOS flash would brick your notebook as you were one of my first testers in the MSI and we did a lot of flashing back then and nothing serious ever happened. Sent from my Sensation

Hello all, first post! I'm John from Washington. This seemed as good a place as any to introduce myself; thanks to Xonar for making the thread. I've lurked NBR for awhile but this seems to be more my type of environment. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm headed over to the 420 thread.

ADMIN EDIT 12/15/15: The original referenced zip pack is now restored. Did some tests with the VBIOS of the AMD 7970m, here's what I've got so far: - Overvolting: So far no success, when I increase the 3d voltage the card simply stays at the 2d profile. Fixed that Be aware that overvolting should only be done by experienced users and can seriously harm your GPU, shorten the life of its components and lead to unsuspected effects and / or system instability. I take no responsibility for any possible damages. Overvolting has been tested by me and @widezu69 (thanks!). It works, but can lead to instability, you need to find your limit. The M15x doesn't handle it well. I noticed similar behaviour as with my overvolted 6970m, drops in clocks, instability etc. At 1.15V even immediate crash at GPU load. The M17x R3 seems to handle it a bit better, there's probably more headroom in the voltage supply circuits which are providing the voltage for the GPU. I was able to run some vantage tests at 1Ghz with a 0.05V overvolt, my previous core clock limit was at about 950Mhz... so it definitely works. Different systems will behave in different ways, only way to find it out is to test it. Don't do it if you lack overclock experience. - Undervolting: Only did some quick tests, but it seems to work. The driver crashed all the time at clocks which normally worked fine. And at more sane clocks the card worked as expected. - Update: Yes, works very well - Core / memory clocks: Works fine so far, I only tested the 3d settings, but I assume it also works for the other clock profiles. In the GPU-Z screenshot you can see the changed clocks: A package with a selection of modified VBIOS files can be found here: AMD 7970M vbios pack There's quite a bit of work behind this, so just in case you want to buy me a beer... Here's a list of what the package contains. The names are pretty self-explanatory. "uv" for undervolt, "ov" for overvolt, clocks are "core-memory" Keep in mind that you need to rename the files before flashing due to the 8 character file name limit in DOS. Modified clocks: Dell7970m-900-1250.ROM Dell7970m-925-1300.ROM Dell7970m-940-1350.ROM Dell7970m-940-1400.ROM Dell7970m-950-1350.ROM Dell7970m-950-1400.ROM Undervolted: Dell7970m-uv-0950v.ROM Dell7970m-uv-0975v.ROM Dell7970m-uv-1000v.ROM Overvolted: Dell7970m-ov-1125v.ROM Dell7970m-ov-1150v.ROM Overvolted & modified clocks: Dell7970m-900-1300-ov1075v.ROM Dell7970m-900-1300-ov1100v.ROM Dell7970m-950-1400-ov1100v.ROM All files are based on the OEM Dell 7970m VBIOS. Instructions: For flashing refer to this guide: There's a list with the checksums of all files included in the VBIOS package, I highly recommend to check the integrity of the file before flashing it. This can easily be done with ATIflash, if you don't know how please check the guide linked above. And as always, flash on your own risk, you are responsible for your system and the changes you make on it. Feel free to ask questions, feedback is welcome as well!

Did anyone know that hd 7970m works on Asus G73jh ? 3dmark vantage: Here 3dmark 11 : here im sorry if I have posted in wrong section , I posted because M15x supports whatever g73 supports.

Special thanks: To Eurocom for providing a discounted price to Tech|Inferno. REVIEW IS OUT: nVidia GTX 680M Performance Review | Tech|Inferno We've managed to snag a 680M from Eurocom and will be testing it in an AW M18x-R1 with 2920xm. The video card will hopefully be here this coming week or two. Eventually we'll purchase another for a full SLi review but for now, we'll be doing a 580M SLi vs 680M (single) comparison. Since the Kepler GPU has a huge gaming advantage over the 580M chip, it should be a pretty interesting match-up and something to think about for M18x-R1 users that are looking to upgrade. So what we need from you, the community is feedback on which games and applications you'd like to see tested (sorry svl7, no furmark ). Here is sample of my current games 1. BF3 2. Crysis 2 3. Mafia II 4. Mass Effect 2/3 5. Skyrim 6. Max Payne 3 7. LA Noire 8. Saints Row 3 9. Just Cause 2 10. COD: MW3 11. Darkness II 12. Serious Sam 3 13. Batman Arkham Asylum & City Application list 1. 3DMark Vantage 2. 3DMark 11 3. Sony Vegas GPU render test 4. Unigine Heaven DX11 Not all the games listed above will be tested due to time constraints. Please pick your favorite app/game and reply to this thread. Thanks. Alright poll is closed, the winners are: 1. BF3 2. Skyrim 3. Crysis 2 4. Batman Arkham City 5. Metro2033 (not in the poll but will be tested). In addition I'll be testing the obligatory synthetics such as Vantage + 3DMark 11. If I have time I'll do a cuda render test but that's not important right now. Oh and a few teaser pics for you guys below.

During the 3dmark11 run, temps were hovering around 70-72°C, this was with the 1.037v vbios. Though I think there is a glitch - I've never been able to reproduce this score which basically has a high Graphics score and a very low Physics score for a 3820QM. The next benches shows the normal Physics 9000 but Graphics score lower 7900 - P score is 7850. Will try to game for a long period whenever I got some spare time and keep you updated!

We should find a server one of these days and get a bunch of T|I guys for a small team DM match. We used to do that and it was a lot of fun. Check out this thread: http://forum.techinferno.com/pc-gaming/1398-t%7Ci-battlefield-3-64-player-server-2.html

I already tried to explain this a couple of times in the last few pages... Seems people don't completely get the idea of a checksum... All you need to do is compare the noted checksum with the file you want to flash, just to make sure your file didn't get corrupted while downloading. The checksum of your current vbios doesn't matter. Read through the last couple of pages and you'll even find the proper command for this. Or read the first post and you'll see it as well....

Just watch the tech like a hawk and make sure they know what they are doing.

X230 is out, so it's probably a better choice. That said, I use X200T and don't plan on replacing it any time soon (the proper dock station is simply a killer accessory). HP Elitebooks are also good, but in the US they seem a bit more expensive than X230. I suppose Elitebook 2570p is comparable to X230 but it has far inferior screen. Then there's also a new Thinkpad X1 Carbon and ASUS Zenbook that svl7 bought (its an ultrabook with an amazing screen). I like thinkpads since they can take ocassional roughness.

So a little update on my situation. Since the call on Saturday, I waited for the box and it came today. But reading around a bit it seems sending to depot is not a good idea. So I made another call to get a technician instead. The rep kept telling me it is a bad idea to send in a technician in case like this since they have to replace very delicate parts (cables, mainboards,CPU, and GPU) and home environment is not ideal. But I insist on that since I paid for the service and I need my laptop by the end of the week, so he gave in. He told me he would cancel my current depot order and would call me back tomorrow to set up a technician. So that's that, hopefully I can get everything sorted out by the end of the week. Still, any advice is always welcome guys.

Good luck!! I'm still waiting on a reply from them (guess they still need to verify my warranty). Been over a week since I originally fried the machine.

If you are a clumsy fellow like me, you will find the HP Elitebook series an interesting option. Sure they cost much more than notebooks with similar specs, but the reliability is outstanding. I dropped my 6930p a few times from about 1.5m while it was only protected by a cheap sleeve which didn't survive the first drop intact. The result was a 5mm long not very deep scratch, hardly visible. I also accidently tested the waterproofness of the keyboard with some softdrink. HP describes the design as business rugged and if the white house trusts these machines, I think we can do the same. But as I already mentioned, they aren't cheap, but the hardware is easily accessible for upgrading. If you have two left hands and can get an Elitebook in some kind of student promotion or second hand it is definitely a good investment.

Thanks! It's definitely what I'm looking for in a forum. I hadn't realized that much of the hard work that people take for granted comes from members here. I know I use some of your work, svl7! Very appreciated.

Well the tech guy came out this AM and replaced the mobo and graphics card.I bricked my mobo Saturday while flashing to the A05 Bios.The computer shut down before completing the flash then I got lights and 1 beep. I've heard of several R4 owners having the same problem when updating the bios.Any way the manager I spoke with on Sat. was really very nice and offered to send me a replacement after I refused to send it in to the Dreaded Depot. I didn't want to wait 3-4 weeks so he said he'd send out a mobo and graphics card with the agreement that if anything else breaks on this machine he's sending me a replacement.

its like smoking only the stuff that get you high without all the plant material. comes in a wax and oil form. real awesome if you wanna get high real fast! also can get you crazy ass stoned if not careful. hahahahaha here is a video, will take pics later. here is what the wax looks like