mw86

970m seem to work no problem to my knowlege on M18xR2. I suggest one last thing to try. If your comfortable doing this. Take apart the system, remove the 7970m and put the pc back together. Then just try to start it. In theory it should run off the IGP no problem and as well not have the strange issue that you can't enter the bios. Hope to hear what happens buddy.

980m will work using UEFI installation of Windows. It is a good idea if in budget. I would ask a M18x R2 user just for some extra infos. I only had the M18xr1 and currently Alien 18 (r3). I hope you get a nice build setup buddy you are absolutely welcome only wish I had suceeded in helping you

okay am thinking of what could be the issue. I read that flashing 7970m with 8970m would cause bad issues that may not allow flash back. I hope there is actually a way to fix this. I don't know if anyone else here can lend their expertise as well. I had read that in the same thread I linked above. Trying to think how I got it fixed from years ago. Mine might of been an older revision 7970m. I read there was a certain 7970m revision that was unlfashable as well, but if that was the one you have it doesn't seem the initial flash to 8970m would of worked if so. Ill keep looking for info. I hope we can get your card going again.

although it would be a lot of reading, I suggest reading every post here http://forum.techinferno.com/showthread.php?p=21386 from start of thread to end to look for a solution. I had a card do this once. It wasnt easy but solution was flashing vbios back. we just have to see what is not working on this flash. you might have to use commands to force the flash, itay not recognize the card as 7970m in the flash. Did the flash say it actually flashed the card or both cards? I started going through that thread for you but ran out of time now before work.

just am home from work and can reply, did you flash the vbios succefully with stock and the issue is still persisting? the dos commands went through to flash the vbios? did you flash both cards seperately with seperate dos commands one at a time if you have crossfire setup ie dual cards? did you uninstall the driver 8970m and rescan for new hardware? Gpuz reports 8970m? Where did this card come from and this is a M18x R1 for sure? I had 7970m in my M18x R1 but they never came with them, they were added in replacing the older generations cards. Is this a Dell 7970m? sorry i see you clean installed and it stills shows 8970m. Is this perhaps not M18x R2 which came with 7970m? I guess the biggest thing is did it show it flashed the vbios for the card or both cards correctly? Or are you still waiting to flash vbios? Did you succesfully boot to the usb drive by removing the hard drive like I mentioned?

yes

great if am slow to reply its my net..

read your post thinking and on way to work. try remove hard drive and see if you can then boot off the usb drive to flash it. since the OS would not be detected should automatically look for an alternate boot drive. Make sure the usb was made as a win 98 bootable dos partition with the amd required files.

yeah I mean if they happen to let you thats just awesome the guy I called at office depot seemed to know about it already here.

They seem to be saying to me, Microcenter whom I called that the card itself is not even being sold anymore and the webpage link is not valid for anything. As in even if you walk into a Microcenter right now they don't have any cards anywhere. This makes sense the card was a 4gb version of EVGA SC 980 and the only one listed if you go to Microcenter.com then go through the menus for video cards is the same card with different vram or something as it had GDDR5 in the name unlike the one in the link and a different SKU. that one is not on sale or any at that size of a discount. They should pull the page i was saying to them and gave them a hard time it was up if they dont sell it anymore etc but I could see it was pointless then.

Found the end of the rabbit hole... called Office Depot said was discrepency in their ad that they dont have the card. I called Microcenter and they actually dont. What happened is that is an archive webpage of when they did sell that card. If you go to Microcenter.com and look for the card for example under EVGA there were 25 cards it is not available. The model is gone replaced with one that says GDDr5 in the name beside that se exact name by EVGA but the SKU number is different. So whomever got one was lucky as they actually duped the price matcher lol... Oh well nothing lost nothing gained

Best buy person on the phone says their store dont price match to Microcenter and I asked what stores they do accept said Amazon staples walmart BJ Wholesale. He said is listed on their webpage so am going to check if Microcenter is not listed. Indeed not one of the online competitiors they list for accepted price match and local store to Best Buy policy means 25miles radius or less from their store and Microcenter is not local to me lol.

hmmmmmmm deal still on their webpage right now maybe I should call up Best Buy see what they say before heading anywhere

Hope it gets sorted and I provided a link to the one you need Pixma21 in my post above

I might be making a BBB complaint not in hopes that the deal will be upheld but so they know customers out there are not happy they are duping customers on their price match un-guarantee

this is the one here yeah http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/132831/dell-hd7970m-2048-120629.html as long as you are sure it is a 7970m installed

I would flash the stock vbios first see what happens then try for modded... svl7's would let you enter the bios just as the stock would on a normal running system. To figure out the issue stock vbios is better choice then can use modded when all is running like it should again...

I must agree and I am with you. I have my reciept and all of the original sale. If this is some how proven this has been a deception there needs to be something done.

this definitely a conspiracy now. both of us went to staples. this is not right. their policy covers this sort of pricematch. wonder what we can do if anything?

Staples corporation called and canceled all this on me and is refunding money. I was on phone with managers and others and got no where. The whole order was in and they claim they dont have stock and competitor dont either but thats false microcenter still has it and the deal. Watch out Staples may lie to you even sell you stuff like this and then take away the deal... it was supposed to be shipped to my address.

I apologize for late reply, I was reply asap before but was at work on mobile with only Edge network (2g) so I couldn't get a reply to post. If you tried stock bios, and usb bios recovery indeed the bios must be fine and all that seems the matter is that vbios. I would most certainly recommend getting the dell stock vbios for that 7970m and reflashing your cards. fingers crossed is very likely the cause as the vbios does indeed effect a lot of the way the bios and gpu interact so could be why the bios graphics and text to open it dont show up since your cards got accidentally flashed from 7970 to 8970m. Sorry for misdirecting you before but I do agree this seems to be the issue you are facing currently. Woth the right vbios in it should boot right, i think is why I rembered having this issue as i had 7970m and had flashed various vbios at different points. cheers and goodluck, i hope you get it buddy.

I had an issue like this once. It can be solved with a flash. try stock a05 bios first. dell.com > support > search by model >Laptop > M18x R1 > find bios driver download there if that doesnt work follow the blind usb bios recovery as you dont need a boot menu or bios working to get the button combo to flash the bios off the usb drivem it should fix it i had an issue like that few year ago. even though you see the screen the usb blimd bios recovery would fix it.

yes please flash stock A05 now and please let me know how it goes. if it worka go into bios reset bios defaults to start off.

what does the text say at boot. Does it respond to F12 i think that is for showing boot menu. It may need to restore bios with the usb method outlined as a backup earlier. [MENTION=119]Mr. Fox[/MENTION] any advice for the Pixma21's system if you can assist?

that is exactly what I did and what happened lol these guys were kind of excited and more interested what I was building they thought it was cool it was going in a Z97 4790k w/ddr3 2800mhz system @Khenglish it worked for me at Staples 20+ miles from me. showed them the ad i printed of the webpage linked in the op and they were willing to proceed with getting me a comparable card for a matched price. Staples price match guarantee says for stores that have a brick and mortor store and Microcenter does and they honor online ads by those venders as well is why I chose staples to try first. cheers and thanks again BadBadBad