Sherlocked

Just wanted to update: I ordered my card from MXMUpgrade and installed it last night; it was actually a really easy install and the card's been performing well so far! MXM was great and gave me thermal paste as specified on their website and sent me the screws for the 7970 that I requested as well (not sure if they were included by default, so I asked for them just to be sure). Shipping from Belgium only took 5 business days. The only problem I ran into (not sure if this is specific to those upgrading from the 260m) was the W shaped locking washers that held the screws from the heatsink to the GTX260. I ended up using two metal nail files to carefully pry them off, but it took my friend and I about five minutes just for those four little annoying washers. Having a proper tool to remove them would have made it much easier, so if anyone here is thinking about upgrading from the 260M, make sure you're ready to deal with that before you start taking your computer apart. Other than that and the aforementioned filing of the screw holes, it really was plug and play. I'm on AMD 13.4 as recommended by Genetics earlier in the thread. Using HWinfo for fan control, and even with everything on ultra I'm sitting at around 70C (not overclocking the card). Worth every penny, it really is a world of difference from the 260M.

Ok, sounds great thank you very much! I'll update when I replace the card in about two weeks, I'll see if I can come up with any tips that haven't been posted already.

Hello all! I'm new to the Tech Inferno forums, but I've been lurking on this thread for quite some time now. I'm running the stock W7, 820QM, 6GB DDR3 with the GTX 260M and an SSD and I'm using the A09 bios. I'm definitely going to grab the 7970m from mxmupgrade in the very near future (love how they linked to this thread for a guide), I just had a couple quick questions before doing so. It was mentioned previously in here that the mxm cards come with the backplate for the 7970m, so all I will need to do is grind down the backplate and possibly ask for screws, right? Stupid question, but will sandpaper do it? Do I need to flash the vbios of this card, or is using hwinfo enough? I don't necessarily use the display port, so that's a non-issue for me. Also, I wanted to say thank you to svl7 and everyone else who has answered questions in this thread! As a noob upgrader, it really eases my mind to have this knowledge beforehand. I printed the thread out in my office so I'm all set when I take my computer apart. >